Університети і лідерство (Jun 2024)
Max Horkheimer. Academic Studies at University
Abstract
Max Horkheimer, a prominent German social thinker and one of the founders of critical social theory, delivered his speech "Academic Study at the University" to future students of Goethe University Frankfurt at the graduation ceremony on 12 May 1952. In his capacity as rector of the university, Horkheimer addressed the graduates of Frankfurt's grammar schools in a speech in which he clearly defined both the educational task of his university and the actions that the newly arrived students were expected to take. Both as the rector of a German university and as a German social philosopher, which is not indifferent to the social and political problems of his homeland, a significant part of which fell under the ideological and political power of Eastern totalitarianism, while the other has not yet completely shaken off the totalitarian and ideological legacy of the past, in his speech, Horkheimer outlined his understanding of the university as an enlightening factor in the elimination of that ideological burden on the minds of West Germans, continuing to use the concept of das Studium as an ideologically defining philosophical and educational concept in his works. The philosopher did not betray his fundamental ideological position to carry out a fundamental neo-Marxist critique of the culture of the then consumer society as a producer of the ideology of industrial mass society, which, in turn, is a factor in gaining political power over social life by the bearers of totalitarian ideology. In his opinion, university education, the social significance of which is represented by the concept of das Studium, should perform enlightenment actions that have the character of a double social dialectic. This will take the form of an anti-ideological separation of the socio-cultural space of university education from the ideological environment of the industrial masses, which inherently forms an individual as an object of authority influence. Being fundamentally separated from such social existence, the West German university, which has a tradition of academic freedom from the outside world, provides students with knowledge that primarily nurtures the individual spirit of each of its representatives, shaping him/her as an active subject of theoretical and, consequently, social cognition. After such an enlightened formation of a young person as a conscious, responsible and indifferent citizen to human misfortune, university education enables his/her meaningful participation in building a humanistic world and in building barriers to prevent the recurrence of ideologically determined human suffering.
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