Olena Tytar, ScD in Philosophy
V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine
Natalya Fradkinа, PhD in Philosophy
National Technical University «Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute», Ukraine
Viktoriia Alimova
V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine
How to cite: Tytar, O., Fradkinа, N. & Alimova, V. (2023). The Frankfurt School As A Constructive Criticism Of The Enlightenment (To The 100th Anniversary Of The Frankfurt School) [Frankfurtska shkola yak konstruktyvna krytyka Prosvitnytstva (do 100-richchia Frankfurtskoi Shkoly]. European Philosophical and Historical Discourse, 9, 1, 27-34. https://doi.org/10.46340/ephd.2023.9.1.3
Abstract
The activity of the Frankfurt School was a unique phenomenon in the development of philosophical-anthropological and socio-philosophical thought in the 20th-21st centuries. Criticism of mass society, enslaving mechanisms of production and consumption, exposure of all forms of violence against people become the leading slogans of this school. The Enlightenment and its narratives are criticized by philosophers of the school from the point of view of the changeability of historical consciousness itself and social priorities. The main purpose of the study is to consider the activities of the Frankfurt School in a historical and philosophical perspective, a number of features and characteristic traits of its expert criticism of the Enlightenment, as well as to identify the constructive elements of this criticism, which are important and relevant for today. The philosophical work of M. Horkheimer, T. Adorno, E. Fromm, Y. Habermas, school as a certain worldview integrity is considered. Y. Habermas, a modern representative of the Frankfurt School, talks about the teleological orientation of the socio-cultural process and history on human education. This is reflected in the principle of “formation” of humanity (Bildung), where the progress of civilization is connected with the moral development of the individual, and therefore with the improvement of education. For Habermas, this is possible primarily through a continuous collective “learning process” (Lernprozess) through overcoming social challenges and cultivating the best moral qualities. In this way, the process of enlightenment is returned by the consistent rationalization of the world in a subjective-instrumental sense: from the procedure of formal automatism of the mind, carried out by it exclusively in the field of its action, to self-awareness and critical thinking. In conclusion, we prove the thesis that it is not the Enlightenment in itself that leads to negative consequences (one-sided development of society, totalitarianism, the decline of human interests), but the extent to which the Enlightenment society (a society where the main principles and signs of the Enlightenment are embodied) enables a person to realize his best qualities. This is the basis of the constructive criticism of the Enlightenment carried out by the Frankfurt School, which insists on the realization of the psychological and cultural qualities of the person himself in society, as well as his personal responsibility for such realization.
Keywords: Frankfurt School, social philosophy, philosophical anthropology, Enlightenment, expert knowledge, critical thinking, modern rationality.
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