In a manner similar to Adorno’s concept of “social totality,” Horkheimer
argues that these contradictions between the rational concept of society and
the human experience of suffering, and between the attempt to control one’s
natural environment and the experience of powerlessness, are evidence of
the irrationality of society and the incompleteness of scientific knowledge.
This tension, he continues, demands a dialectical understanding of reason. It
necessitates an appreciation for the ways in which human thought and action
influence the world, but also a recognition of the fallibility of these same
powers, and the fact that the world often acts upon human beings against
their will. The rational intentions of human society cannot reach their full
potential in an irrational society: “reason cannot become transparent to itself
as long as men act as members of an organism which lacks reason” (1995b:208).
In the theories of religion developed by both Stark and Iannaccone, little
attention is given to analyzing present social conditions, or how people
respond to these conditions. Their approach is laden from the outset with
free-market economic presuppositions that are not analyzed or proven. The
Frankfurt School’s critique of positivism challenges a social scientific method
that relies upon such entrenched assumptions. It insists that social theory has
to become more self-reflective about what shapes and informs it, but it also
pushes reflection and analysis still further. For, even if the rational choice the-
orist’s description of existing patterns of social behavior is accurate, Adorno
and Horkheimer challenge the presumption that this description can be con-
sidered a complete grasp of social reality. For them, social theory cannot pre-
sume that observed patterns of behavior are “natural” or illustrative of social
“laws.” They remain suspicious of any approach that appears to turn observed
patterns into confident explanations for behavior.
The debate for Adorno and Horkheimer is not over whether to study reli-
gion scientifically, nor is it over the appropriateness of employing empirical
research, or analyzing patterns of behavior in social scientific method. As
Adorno notes, “social regularities do self-evidently exist.” Social science will
thus seek to uncover such patterns through empirical research. What Adorno
criticizes in positivism and in theories with approaches similar to that of ratio-
nal choice, is that they fail to acknowledge the historicity of these social pat-
terns – that they are produced and are subject to change; “there is, indeed, a
very strong tendency to amputate the historical dimension altogether”
(2000a:147–48). By this, Adorno means to say that a perspective which treats
its object as a static fact, without exploring how it is socially constructed in
From A Beautiful Mindto the Beautiful Soul • 169