which went beyond the relativization of our knowledge. Therefore, so Hork-
heimer argued, this statement, insofar as it wants to express something, which
goes beyond human knowledge, was a contradiction in itself. In Horkheimer ’s
view, relativization could mean two things: 1. That what Kant meant, when
he said that all our statements are conditioned through our categories and
that therefore they related only to appearances. 2. That what Marx meant,
when he stated that our knowledge depended on the stage of the social devel-
opment. Therefore, for Horkheimer, nothing remained except the faith, that
statements, which were made by men and the validity of which were lim-
ited through historical factors and through their ability to know, must not be
taken and accepted and put up with as ultimate ones. Maybe, so Horkheimer
admitted, this Ultimate, this totally Other, could not be formulated. But in
any case, for Horkheimer this faith had as much and as little weight and con-
clusiveness as its opposite.
The Energy of Longing
According to Horkheimer, the notion of the energy of longing came originally
from Hegel (Hegel 1986a; 1986c; 1986e; 1986k; 1986o; 1986q; Horkheimer
1988a). The notion meant that mere knowledge – in so far as it did not serve
the domination of nature – was useless. In any case, it was not useful for the
knowledge of the truth. Here for Horkheimer belonged the problem of truth
versus evidence. Thus, what, for example, Walter Laqueur had written in his
article Bonn is not Weimar, in March 1967, may all be correct (Horkheimer
1988a:405–406). But in Horkheimer ’s view, Laqueur ’s exposition was noth-
ing else than information, superficial appearances, through which the truth
was not revealed, but rather covered up.
Pragmatism
In January 1968, Horkheimer wrote, following Schopenhauer and Freud, that
the intellect was purpose-conditioned (Schopenhauer 1989; Freud 1992;
Horkheimer 1988a:465). On its highest level, the intellect remained purely
pragmatic: i.e., in the service of the will to life, understood not only in terms
of Schopenhauer or Freud, but also of Buddhism, as Religion of Inwardness
and of Christianity, as Religion of Becoming and Freedom. For Horkheimer,
history was a collection of materials, which one may occasionally be able to
use in order to look up, how human beings have behaved in certain situa-
108 • Rudolf J. Siebert