An Analysis On Frankfurt School's Concept Of "Instrumental Rationality"

The previous study of Chinese researchers on instrumental rationality seldomsurpasses its Western context, which is most different from that of China. This paperwill focus on its meaning in the Chinese Context. It is well known that Chinesesociety has always lacked the instrumental rationality tradition. Because of this, theinstrumental rationality has its positive significance in contemporary China, and wehave to ground the instrumental rational analysis on the basis of both sides, that is,the positive side and the native one, to the issue. Taking into account the difficulty ofrational reconstruction, this paper which focuses on instrumental rationality at homeand abroad, will examine rationality from every side and try to make a comparativesummary. Even so, of course, it still remains a major challenge.Guided by this logic consistent with the history, and according to the coincidencebetween theory and practice of the principles of Marxist philosophy, the paperwillexplore the issue from the rational development and the concept of instrumentalrationality, its content, features etc., and try to form a comprehensive expositionon its theoretical and practical significance, analyze the development of technologyissues, It aims at the exploration of the causes of the technology alienation and thepossibility to overcome it, and ultimately points to the enlightenment role it will playin the Chinese Modernization, while being alert on the negative role it might take.Of course, the instrumental rationality has its own internal logic, and externalinevitability in its formation and development. It arises from the practice of differentpeoples in different times, and thus leads to different interpretations and narrations.It also includes ontology, epistemology and theory of value or significance of themethodology. In this article I would like to focus mainly on epistemology and theoryof value. It should also be noted that, some scholars make a distinction between the"technical reason" and the "instrumental reason", while in this paper, I accept themajority view, as with Marcuse, who puts instrumental rationality to direct technicalreason, and the value rationality with a human rationality as the same. Apart from the preamble, this paper is divided into four parts: the preamble of theissues raised that, in the Chinese context, "instrumental rationality" is a vagueconcept that needs clarification; the first part, the origin of Frankfurt School'sconcept of instrumental rationality; the second, the meaning of the concept in theFrankfurt School context, and its criticism on modern industrial society; the third,Marcuse and Habermas instrumental rationality concept; and the last Part, theCriticism on modern Chinese society.