Date of Award

Spring 4-22-2026

Document Type

Honors Project

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Classics, Philosophy, and Religion

Department Chair or Program Director

Michael Reno

First Advisor

Jason Matzke

Major or Concentration

Philosophy (Pre-Law Concentration)

Abstract

This thesis examines the historical transformation of autonomous faculties from the Enlightenment to the present, arguing that the material and technological conditions necessary for autonomous judgment have been progressively eroded through capitalism. Beginning with Kant’s account of enlightenment as the emergence from a self‑incurred minority, this paper shows that autonomy has always depended on social and economic structures that determine who can exercise independent reasoning. Through Marx and Lukács, the analysis traces how commodity production, alienation, and reification reorganize subjectivity and render social relations increasingly opaque. Adorno’s account of recognition, self‑preservation, and the culture industry further illustrates how individuals are categorized and managed through systems that reward conformity. Under platform capitalism, algorithmic mediation and data extraction intensify these pressures. It is argued that artificial intelligence represents the culmination of this trajectory, extending reification into cognition itself and raising the question of whether autonomy can be sustained under contemporary technological conditions.

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