Abstract:

Adorno’s critique of social epistemology based on Marxism is not presented as a complete academic system. It is derived from his analysis of the rational form of modern industrial society in general and culture industry in particular. The cultural industrial production system with mass culture as its commodity content has realized the ideological function of social control and the elimination of cognitive autonomy. It has also realized the idealist epistemology that Kant tried to criticize and limit. In the above picture, Adorno’s critique of culture industry and Kant’s difficulty in transcendental epistemology, that is, the problem of his schema theory, form an intertextual relationship: On the one hand, the social effects of culture industry lead to re-elaborating the social practical implications of Kant’s theory of knowledge; on the other hand, Adorno’s ironic reference to Kant’s schema theory accurately positions the operating mechanism of culture industry to realize social control. In this regard, a social epistemology based on a revised version of Kant’s transcendental knowledge system can obtain a theoretical orientation in the socio-historical totality initiated by the critique of culture industry.

Key words: Schema, Adorno, critique of culture industry, social epistemology