Everyday Consciousness of Praxis and its critiqueelements of Critical Theory in A. Sánchez Vázquez

by Stefan Gandler

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the critique of everyday consciousness of praxis, that has been undertaken by Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (1915 Algeciras, Spain – 2011 Mexico City). The Spanish-Mexican philosopher confronts everyday consciousness of praxis conceptually with emancipatory praxis, detecting with that method two problems of the first: on the one hand, its concrete determination, namely, its immanent pessimism, which fails to grasp the human being in all its importance as a subject of history; and on the other hand, its general conception, which he has determined to be atheoretical and which, in the absence of a reflexive moment, may not nurture an emancipatory praxis. His critique of everyday consciousness of praxis is finally based on three of its concrete determinations: its inherently ‘ingenuous realism’, its ‘objectivism’, and its ‘utilitarianism’.