Crisis, end, or eclipse of reason? Max Horkheimer's Critical Theory contributions to an epistemology of eugenics

Abstract

This article investigates the epistemological foundations of Francis Galton's eugenics based on Max Horkheimer's Critical Theory. Grounded on a bibliographical research, we analyze the texts in which the English polymath structured the rationality of his science-religion, contrasting them with the theoretical-critical diagnosis of the crisis of reason. We conclude that Horkheimer’s argument denouncing the enlightened roots of eugenics, despite not having been explored in historiography, remains fundamental to the understanding of the eugenic scientific rationality, which we denominated eugenic reason.