not allowed to move into the world of the thing in itself – God, Freedom and
Immortality. For Kant, God as well as Freedom and Immortality had been
postulates, without which a truly human life was not possible. The finite man
could not deem, decide, or adjudicate on the qualities, properties or attrib-
utes of God. For Horkheimer, the same judgment was valid for the truth.
Thus, the critical theorists could speak about the truth only negatively in
terms of a negative metaphysics and a negative theology.
The Fall of Man
For Horkheimer it was nevertheless thinkable that through intuition a posi-
tive piece of the truth could be experienced. An example for such intuition
was what Schopenhauer had said about the myth of the Fall of man (Schopen-
hauer 1989; Horkheimer 1985a; Horkheimer 1988a:491). According to Hork-
heimer, Adorno had inversed the religious story and insight of the Fall into
the secular statement: all in the world stands under a curse, or better still,under
a universal spell(Adorno 1997a:239; Horkheimer 1988a:491). Adorno said about
the fall of man, that whatever the individual or the group undertakes against
the social totality, which is antagonistic and therefore untrue, and of which
they are a part, will be infected by its evil, and that no less so than who does
nothing against it, or simply conforms to it (Adorno 1997a:241).
Meaning of Life
In July 1969, Horkheimer stated self-critically in Flims, Switzerland, that the
longing for the Other had probably no other meaning than the worry about
and trouble with the deeds of Jupiter in the Roman Religion of Utility or with
the wrath of Jehovah in the Jewish Religion of Sublimity: that is, the theod-
icy problem (Horkheimer 1988a:527–528; Horkheimer 1985a). For Horkheimer,
the trend in globalizing late capitalist society was unequivocal: the trend
toward alternative Future I – the totally administered society characterized
by instrumental and functional rationality. Already in the present industrial
society everything became more and more subordinated under the instru-
mental or functional reason. It showed itself, that through rationaladminis-
tration the productive forces were sufficient to provide all human beings on
this earth with the means of consumption, which corresponded to each pre-
sent level of civilization. According to Horkheimer, the removal of the old
religious authorities and of the sexual taboos opened up the way for alter-
112 • Rudolf J. Siebert