Title: Two sorts of philosophical therapy Ordinary language philosophy, social criticism and the Frankfurt school
Domain: philosophy

Question: Why is it said that the first generation of the Frankfurt School has practised a sort of a sort of ‘linguistic turn’ and ‘non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy？

Background: 1.In Fabian Freyenhagen 2023 study, he argues that there is a sort of ‘linguistic turn’ in First-Generation Frankfurt School, and here comes the affinities between the FGFS, and later Wittgenstein. But Fabian Freyenhagen does not consider the third major theorist associated with First-Generation Frankfurt School: Herbert Marcuse. 2.Tom Whyman argues that it is Herbert Marcuse’s attack on the analytic tradition in fact points the way forward – to seeing how both the analysis of ‘ordinary language’, and the associated ideal of ‘philosophical therapy’, can in fact be directed towards the emancipatory purpose insisted on by the Frankfurt School. Marcuse’s models of ‘good’ ordinary language philosophy and philosophical therapy can be used to illuminate what Adorno was doing in Minima Moralia. The overall effect is both to deepen, and to reinforce, what Freyenhagen claims about the FGFS ‘linguistic turn’.

Definitions: 1.linguistic turn:a major shift in philosophy and the humanities during the 20th century, in which language became the central focus of analysis for understanding human thought, knowledge, and social life.Originated with philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, and Ferdinand de Saussure.2.ordinary language philosophy:A school of thought in 20th-century analytic philosophy that holds that many traditional philosophical problems arise from misunderstandings of the ordinary use of language, and that close attention to how words are used in everyday contexts can clarify or eliminate these problems.Developed primarily by Ludwig Wittgenstein (later work), J.L. Austin, and Gilbert Ryle.3.quietistic philosophical therapy:A form of philosophical approach that aims not to produce new theories or systems, but to dissolve philosophical problems by clarifying the misuse of language and concepts—ultimately leading to a cessation of philosophical inquiry rather than its continuation.Rooted in Wittgenstein’s later work.4.non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy:A form of philosophical practice that, while still seeing philosophy as therapeutic—focused on clarifying conceptual or linguistic confusion—does not aim to bring philosophical inquiry to an end, but rather sees it as a continuous, critical, and active process.Inspired by Wittgenstein’s therapeutic methods, but diverges from quietism by rejecting the idea that philosophy should end in silence or rest.

Methodology: 1.Elaborating on, and reinforcing, Freyenhagen’s claim that there is a fundamental affinity between FGFS and later Wittgenstein, and the FGFS through can be read through Wittgenstein. | 2.Attributing to the First-Generation Frankfurt School a method analogous to that of the later Wittgenstein, as well as the likes of Ryle and Austin, to claim the linguistic turn of FGFS. | 3.Reviewing the major theorist associated with FGFS, Marcuse’s criticisms of Wittgenstein and other analytic philosophers, and lauding of Kraus, to claim that the first generation of the Frankfurt School has practised a sort ofnon-quietistic’ philosophical therapy.

Answer: 1.Freyenhagen on the 'Linguistic Turn' in Horkheimer and Adorno | Freyenhagen makes his claims regarding a 'linguistic turn' in FGFS in the context of the 'Classic Objection' to FGFS theory: Habermas's suggestion, that what Adorno and his generation were doing was 'self-undermining' because, 'by engaging in a (purportedly) totalizing critique of modern reason, it makes itself impossible. | For Freyenhagen, The Eclipse of Reason by Horkheimer refers to the eclipse of non-instrumental, 'objective' reason, which is supposed to be somehow a property of the world, by its 'subjective' double. The realm of 'objective reason' would be Horkheimer's term for things like facts about the human species – what determines, ultimately, what it would be for us to live well (or badly). Objection reason–or at any rate, certain of its claims – has been forgotten, and this has allowed the subjective reason of individual thinking subjects to run rampant – with increasingly disastrous results. Here is where the 'linguistic turn' comes in. | Freyenhagen opts to read Horkheimer's remarks about language and objective reason through the prism of the later Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein bears strong affinities with the Aristotelian Adorno and the FGFS linguistic turn. For Freyenhagen, the idea is that by reading Eclipse of Reason through Wittgenstein, we can arrive at a position whereby 'as inseparable from the human life form, language contains traces of "the structure of the reality" of this life form, and thus, of (at least part of) objective reason'.This is how the FGFS intend to accomplish their critique of (subjective) reason: by mining language, as a specifically human practice, for the fragments of objective, human rationality inevitably sedimented in it. | 2.Marcuse contra analytic philosophy | The general thrust of Marcuse's critique is that analytic philosophy is 'positive', where thought proper ought to be 'negative'. Marcuse believes that philosophy ought to be able to engage in the emancipatory critique of society and culture as it presently exists. Analytic philosophy, by contrast, seeks to purge thought of any of the resources that we need in order for this critique to take place. | According to Marcuse, analytic philosophy works against the real ends of philosophical thought in two related ways. The first is that it insists on sticking to the analysis of 'ordinary language'. This obsession with 'ordinary discourse' is 'the token of a false concreteness', and it mutilates life as lived rather than confining philosophical inquiry to the stuff of 'real life'. The second is its commitment to 'philosophy as therapy'which tends to a certain quietism that is distinctively Wittgensteinian. As Marcuse has it, by focussing their efforts on exorcising philosophical thought as such, analytic philosophy ends up 'creat[ing] more illusory problems than it has destroyed'. All 'therapeutic philosophy' amounts to, in the end, is a repression. | 3.In Marcuse's account, 'good' forms of ordinary language philosophy, and 'good' forms of philosophy as therapy | Marcuse implicitly distinguishes between "good" and "bad" forms of ordinary language philosophy, as well as between "good" and "bad" forms of philosophy understood as therapy. Marcuse indicates that he believes that language has some sort of rationality other than the public, surface-level one 'hidden' inside it. By analysing language, then, we can figure out some deep truth about the world in which it has been uttered, or written. The 'good' sort of ordinary language philosophy consists in the attempt to do just this. | For Marcuse, the patron saint of the 'good' sort of ordinary language philosophy is Karl Kraus, and what is important is that Kraus shows 'how an "internal" examination of speech and writing, of punctuation, even of typographical errors can reveal a whole moral or political system'. | What Kraus teaches us is that we can only properly understand 'ordinary' discourse, 'ordinary' life if we assume something like an 'extra-linguistic' perspective. Ordinary language philosophy therefore must reside in the realm of the political, of the moral – or at the very least the aesthetic. | Conclusion:'The real universe of ordinary language', Marcuse proclaims, 'is the struggle for existence'. The 'good' sort of ordinary language philosophy is able to show up, to cast judgement on. | 4. Philosophical therapy from the standpoint of redemption | Marcuse's identification of a way in which philosophy as therapy might be made to serve the interests of emancipatory critique: we ought to 'clarify' concepts by showing how their subjective meaning, how they appear from the perspective of 'subjective reason', fails to match up with how things 'objectively' are. | For Marcuse, such 'emancipatory' clarification 'may well fulfil a therapeutic function, and if philosophy would become therapeutic, it would really come into its own'. | Conclusion 1: Marcuse's criticisms of Wittgenstein's version of 'philosophical therapy', are really just directed at his choice of patient. The 'good' sort of philosophical therapy in fact aims at essentially the same thing as the 'bad' version did: it seeks to get reality in view. | The'philosophical therapy' that Adorno is pursuing in Minima Moralia is not only aimed at the clarification of what is 'really' there. Rather, it aims at just what Marcuse tells us the true therapist should: to clarify what is really there, in order to be able to grasp how it might otherwise be. | Conclusion 2: Adorno, and other FGFS thinkers, were, at least at times, engaged in the therapeutic analysis of 'ordinary' language and experience, clarifying the true meaning and significance of our everyday experience of the world in light of some 'objective reason' that is itself linguistic in nature, grounded in some notion of the human species analogous to that which Wittgenstein names with the idea of the human 'form of life'.

Checklist: 1.Does the answer involve Fabian Freyenhagen’s interpretation of Horkheimer’s views through the lens of Wittgenstein? | 2.Does the answer include Fabian Freyenhagen’s view that the first generation of the Frankfurt School should be understood as part of the linguistic turn? | 3.Does the answer include Herbert Marcuse’s critique of analytic philosophy? | 4.Does the answer include Herbert Marcuse’s view on the ‘good’ forms of ordinary language philosophy and ‘good’ forms of philosophy understood as therapy? | 5.Does the answer include the comments of Karl Kraus by Benjamin, Adorno, and Marcuse? | 6.Does the answer include Marcuse’s view on how “philosophy as therapy” can be made to serve the interests of emancipatory critique? | 7.Does the answer include the view that the first generation of the Frankfurt School have practised a form of ‘non-quietistic’ philosophical therapy?