International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

 No.1, 2017

 

Education as social critique: on Theodor Adorno’s philosophy of education

(Abstract)

 

Krassimir Stojanov

 

Educational topics, as well as the very concept of education, assume a central place in the work of Theodor W. Adorno. He uses the two different German words for education, namely Bildung and Erziehung. That allows him to handle two quite different aspects of education as internalization of culture, or of “objective spirit” on the one hand, and as social interaction on the other. The author re-constructs Adorno’s dialectical conception of Bildung as critical reflection upon the so-called Halbbildung  (“half-education”). Then the author focuses on Adorno’s proposals on how this ability of critical reflection can be deliberatively cultivated, that is, on his theory of Erziehung. Finally, the author tries to recapitulate the merits and the deficits of Adorno’s conception from the standpoint of a contemporary critical educational theory.