Critical social theory of the Frankfurt school: between Marxism and psychoanalysis

  • Irina N. Sidorenko Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

Abstract

The article analyses the socio-critical theories of the Frankfurt school. The author of this article concludes that Marxism and psychoanalysis represent the main components of the criticism of T. L. W. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, and H. Marcuse. The author of this article revealed the main epistemological reference point of the Frankfurt school’s critical social theory. It is represented by the spectrum of research in the field of Marxist anthropology, combined with psychoanalytic theory and the concept of ideology, which, describing the general social tendency to escapism caused by instrumental and practical attitudes of knowledge, legitimises the escalation of social repression and forms the authoritarian nature of personality. The article reveals the methodological potential of the projects of synthesis of Marxism and psychoanalysis, carried out by representatives of the Frankfurt school, both in explaining the evolution of social destruction and the formation of the authoritarian type of personality, and in developing programs of social change.

Author Biography

Irina N. Sidorenko, Belarusian State University, 4 Niezaliežnasci Avenue, Minsk 220030, Belarus

doctor of science (philosophy), docent; professor at the department of philosophy of culture, faculty of philosophy and social sciences

References

  1. Marcuse H. Eros i tsivilizatsiya. Odnomernyi chelovek: issledovanie ideologii razvitogo industrial’nogo obshchestva [Eros and civilisation. One-dimensional man: a study of the ideology of the developed industrial society]. Yudin AA, translator. Moscow: AST; 2003. 526 p. Russian.
  2. Freud S. Po tu storonu printsipa naslazhdeniya. Ya i Ono. Neudovletvorennost’ kul’turoi [On the other side of the pleasure principle. I and It. Cultural dissatisfaction]. Saint Petersburg: Aleteiya; 1998. 251 p. Russian.
  3. Freud S Psikhoanaliz. Religiya. Kul’tura [Psychoanalysis. Religion. Culture]. Moscow: Renessans; 1992. 289 p. Russian.
  4. Freud S. Bolezn’ kul’tury [The disease of culture]. Anvaer AN, translator. Moscow: AST; 2014. [The disease of culture]; p. 234–345. Russian.
  5. Horkheimer M, Adorno TLV. Dialektika Prosveshcheniya. Filosofskie fragmenty [Dialectics of the Enlightenment. Philosophical fragments]. Kuznetsov M, translator. Moscow: Medium; 1997. 312 p. Russian.
  6. Mikhailov IA. Max Horkheimer. Formation of the Frankfurt school of social research. Part 2: 1940–1973 [Internet]. Moscow: Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences; 2010 [cited 2022 September 20]. Available from: https://gtmarket.ru/laboratory/basis/5521/5528. Russian.
  7. Gaida AV. «Neomarksistskaya» filosofiya istorii: kriticheskii analiz [«Neo-Marxist» philosophy of history: critical analysis]. Krasnoyarsk: Krasnoyarskii gosudarstvennyi universitet; 1986. 200 p. Russian.
  8. Adorno TLV. Negativnaya dialektika [Negative dialectics]. Petrenko EL, translator. Moscow: AST; 2014. 511 p. Russian.
  9. Sidorenko IN. Frankfurt school of social violence as a destruction. In: Gaisenok VA, Berkov VF, Golechenko GYa, Koshelev VS, Poznyakov VV, Vodop’yanov PA, editors. Nauchnye trudy Respublikanskogo instituta vysshei shkoly. Filosofsko-gumanitarnye nauki. Vypusk 16 [Scientific works of the Republican Institute for Higher Education. Philosophical and humanitarian sciences. Release 16]. Minsk: Republican Institute for Higher Education; 2017. p. 316–323. Russian.
  10. Mart’yanov VS. Metayazyk politicheskoi nauki [Metalanguage of political science]. Yekaterinburg: Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences; 2003. 238 p. Russian.
  11. Marcuse H. Odnomernyi chelovek [One-dimensional man]. Yudin AA, translator. Moscow: AST; 2003. 331 p. Russian.
  12. Sidorenko IN. The concept of social violence by H. Marcuse. Proceeedings of BSTU. Issue 6, History, Philosophy. 2017;1:130–134. Russian.
Published
2023-05-22
Keywords: critical social theory, Frankfurt school, Marxism, neo-Marxism, psychoanalysis, cultural industry, authoritarian personality type, one-dimensional man, destruction, mass society
How to Cite
Sidorenko, I. N. (2023). Critical social theory of the Frankfurt school: between Marxism and psychoanalysis. Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology, 2, 15-22. Retrieved from https://journals.bsu.by/index.php/philosophy/article/view/5393
Issue
No 2 (2023): Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology
Section
History of Philosophy

Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of the Belarusian State University. Philosophy and Psychology

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

The authors who are published in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The authors retain copyright on the work and provide the journal with the right of first publication of the work on condition of license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
  2. The authors retain the right to enter into certain contractual agreements relating to the non-exclusive distribution of the published version of the work (e.g. post it on the institutional repository, publication in the book), with the reference to its original publication in this journal.
  3. The authors have the right to post their work on the Internet (e.g. on the institutional store or personal website) prior to and during the review process, conducted by the journal, as this may lead to a productive discussion and a large number of references to this work. (See The Effect of Open Access.)