MYTHICAL FATE, FACTUAL MENTALITY, AND POLITICAL DELUSION: REPETITION AS A KEY FEATURE OF THE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHTENMENT

This article explores the problems addressed in Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno's references to repetition in Dialectic of Enlightenment. Repetition is presented as a particular notion of "immanence of thought" aiming to elucidate a denial of the possibility of social emancipation, inscribed in the conception of mythical fate and in late enlightenment's factual mentality and political delusion. By analyzing the reception of two pivotal sources for the discussion on repetition, Nietzsche and Freud, our aim is to show, both in the points of alignment to their ideas and in the depiction of their limits, how the critical theorists sought to respond to such tendency, which they identified in individual's cognition and psychic life.