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The Dead End of the Enlightenment

Author(s): Aleksandar Savanović
Subject(s): Metaphysics, Epistemology, Social Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy
Published by: Fakultet političkih nauka Univerziteta u Banjoj Luci
Keywords: Frankfurt Circle; Enlightenment; rationality; freedom; mass culture; theory; rationality; freedom;

Summary/Abstract: In this peaper we tematise the critic of of the project of the Enlightenment as implemented by the critical theory of the Frankfurt Circle. In their attempt to solve an unexpected event of perverting fundamental ideals of Modernism, the Frankfurters placed a special emphasis on the categories of rationality and freedom, then practical manifestations of those ideals such as cultural proliferation in the form of mass culture. All these ideals were betrayed in concrete historical events in XX century. The results of researches undertaken by the Frankfurt Circle show, that such betrayals are not the consequence of random characteristics of the environment, but originate from the very logic of Modernism, whose key ideals, through their inner logic, tend to turn into their contradiction.

  • Issue Year: 1/2011
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 13-44
  • Page Count: 32
  • Language: Serbian