ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how Max Horkheimer uses the main concepts of the dialectical tradition: determinate negation, non-identity thinking and mediation. Traditional theory, for Horkheimer, is shackled in dualism of thought and being, since 'There is always, on the one hand, the conceptually formulated knowledge and, on the other, the facts to be subsumed under it. The young Horkheimer had 'the belief that formulating the negative in the epoch of transition was more meaningful than academic careers', a belief that he hoped would lead to his writing a book on dialectics. Horkheimer's Open Marxism is generally regarded negatively largely because very few analyses have attempted to bring to light the basic concepts of his understanding of dialectics, such as non-identity or determinate negation. The chapter attempts to unearth two concepts that are of the utmost importance in negative dialectics, the notion of cracks in capitalism and the uncertainty that is included in this notion.
