Criticism of the Universal as Reasonable in Philosophy Frankfurt School

Abstract

The article examines the issue of criticism of universality in culture, which in the philosophy of the Frankfurt School is understood as the totality of society and thinking, identity, fixed by the concept and subordinating the “heterogeneous”. The author draws attention to the fact that the criticism of the “universal” by M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno develops into negation in relation to reason as a unifying and instrumental thinking, which, ac-cording to philosophers, is an activity, on the one hand, associated with the affirmation of the uniform, with the other, focused on self-preservation. The article, from the perspective of the problem of the relationship between the “unique” and the “universal”, reveals the ambivalence of the Frankfurtists’ position, and concludes that their criticism, which is acquiring an absolute character, has a destructive and pessimistic potential. The methodo-logical basis of the study was a complex of general logical and cognitive approaches and procedures, includ-ing methods of philosophical reflection, analysis and synthesis, systemic, formal-logical and dialectical, the method of matching the historical and logical and the externalist approach. The research’s scientific novelty lies in addressing the issue of the relationship between the “unique” and the “universal” within the context of XX century spiritual culture, while its relevance is underscored by the social and cultural significance of reinterpret-ing the controversy between “social totality” and the “individual subject” in modern philosophical discourse, in-fluencing self-awareness and the prospects for modern societal development.