of Enlightenment can only be a matter of giving back to the nonidentical, the suppressed, and the dominated their right to be. Since even language itself is burdened by the curse of the concept that represses the other in the very act of naming it, ⁴⁸ we can evoke the other but we cannot name it. Like the God of the Jewish tradition that must not be named but evoked, the Utopian transcendence of the history of reason cannot be named but only reinvoked in the memory of men.

[. . .]

The most far-reaching consequence of the project called the 'dialectic of the Enlightenment' is the transformation of the very concept of critique itself. The 'dialectic of the Enlightenment' is also meant to be a 'critique' of the Enlightenment. When it is maintained, however, that autonomous reason is only instrumental reason in the service of selfpreservation, then the Kantian project of critique in the sense of 'the self-reflection of reason upon the conditions of its own possibility' is radically altered. As Baumeister and Kulenkampff rightly observe:

Classical rationalist philosophy practiced criticism against the dogmatic assumptions and untrue contents of reason in the form of reflection upon its own pure concept. However, philosophical thought thereby remained blind to the true essence of reason and to the defect deeply hidden in its fundamentals. It follows thereby that critical theory, which remains true to this claim of reason, can no longer assume the form of transcendental reflection and cannot rely upon the available forms of traditional philosophy. Critique is only possible from a standpoint which allows one to question the constituents of the dominant concept of reason, above all, the fixed universal contrast between reason and nature. A critical concept of reason cannot be gained out of the self-preservation of reason, but only from the more deeply seated dimension of its genesis out of nature. ⁴⁹

The self-reflection of reason upon the conditions of its own possibility now means uncovering the genealogy of reason, disclosing the subterranean history of the relationship between reason and selfpreservation, autonomy and the domination of nature. Since, however, genealogy itself is supposed to be critique and not a mere exercise in historical knowledge, the question returns: what is the standpoint of a critical theory that allows it to engage in a genealogical reflection upon reason by using the very same reason whose pathological history it itself wants to uncover? ⁵⁰

The transformation of the critique of political economy into the critique of instrumental reason signals not only a shift in the object of critique, but, more significantly, in the logic of critique. The three aspects described previously as immanent critique, defetishizing critique, and critique as crisis diagnosis are each thrown into question. Immanent

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