George McCarthy’s “Shadows of the Enlightenment”

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2025 (Volume 63, no. 4):

“Examines the hidden metaphysics and politics of the modern natural and social sciences, focusing on their implications for diagnosing and resolving social and ecological crises and for developing a theory of social justice. Addresses contemporary discussions in American pragmatic thought regarding the nature of knowledge, science, and society. Explores the evolution of modern German epistemology and philosophy of science from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century, as it evolved through idealism, phenomenology, existentialism, and classical social theory. Investigates the nature and foundations of modern natural science, with an emphasis on its history and materialist metaphysics. Discusses the expansion of postmodern theory of social epistemology, phenomenology of consciousness, and the metaphysics of science by connecting Immanuel Kant’s theory of consciousness and experience with the critical social theory of Karl Marx in order to determine the exact extent of the historical and social nature of modern science. Details the evolution of the critique of positivism and its epistemological and methodological relevance for the social sciences. Covers the debates within the Frankfurt school of critical theory, in the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Jürgen Habermas, over the nature of pure science and its role in the rationalization and repression of society by facilitating the efficiency and productivity of capitalist industries.”