The Tragedy of Instrumental Reason: From the «Tyranny of It» to the Project of «Humanizing» Technology

The article is devoted to the analysis of one of the key problems of our time - the tragedy of instrumental reason, expressed in the fact that rationality, originally designed to liberate humankind, has turned into the power of its enslavement. The dominance of the logic of efficiency and calculation leads to a reduction in the qualitative diversity of the world and the displacement of questions about meanings and values. The research uses the method of critical and theoretical analysis of the concepts of the Frankfurt School (Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas), the phenomenological approach of Martin Buber's approach to the dialogical relations “I am You” and “I am It”, as well as a comparative analysis comparing Buber's ideas with the project “common cause” by Nikolai Fyodorov. As a result, the essence of instrumental reason is revealed as logic, which turns the mind into an instrument of programmed control. From the standpoint of the philosophy of dialogue, it is shown that the tragedy of technorationality lies in the total displacement of the “I-You” attitude by the “I-It” attitude, leading to metaphysical alienation. Comparative analysis revealed two alternative ways to overcome the crisis: Buber‘s existential-phenomenological project of “humanizing technology“ and Fyodorov ‘s cosmological-historical project of “Common Cause”, which refocuses technology from an instrument of domination into an instrument of salvation and restoration of kinship. It is concluded that overcoming the tragedy of instrumental reason does not lie in rejecting reason and technology, but in their ethical reinterpretation through subordination to the logic of communication, responsibility and service – whether conceived as dialogical encounter, communicative action, or a “common cause” of universal resurrection.