“In the general tendency toward specialization, philosophy too has established itself as a specialized discipline, one purified of all specific content. In so doing, philosophy has denied its own constitutive concept: the intellectual freedom that does not obey the dictates of specialized knowledge.”

Source: Wozu noch Philosophie? [Why still philosophy?] (1963), p. 6

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Oct. 2, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In the general tendency toward specialization, philosophy too has established itself as a specialized discipline, one p…" by Theodor W. Adorno?
Theodor W. Adorno photo
Theodor W. Adorno 90
German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for … 1903–1969

Related quotes

Theodor W. Adorno photo
Émile Durkheim photo
Ernest Gellner photo

“When knowledge is the slave of social considerations, it defines a special class; when it serves its own ends only, it no longer does so.”

Ernest Gellner (1925–1995) Czech anthropologist, philosopher and sociologist

Plough, Sword and Book (1988)
Context: When knowledge is the slave of social considerations, it defines a special class; when it serves its own ends only, it no longer does so. There is of course a profound logic in this paradox: genuine knowledge is egalitarian in that it allows no privileged source, testers, messengers of Truth. It tolerates no privileged and circumscribed data. The autonomy of knowledge is a leveller.

Rosa Luxemburg photo
Dexter S. Kimball photo
Ben Carson photo

“Knowledge makes people special. Knowledge enriches life itself.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big (1996), p. 207

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo

“Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Nobel lecture (1970)
Context: In recent times it has been fashionable to talk of the levelling of nations, of the disappearance of different races in the melting-pot of contemporary civilization. I do not agree with this opinion, but its discussion remains another question. Here it is merely fitting to say that the disappearance of nations would have impoverished us no less than if all men had become alike, with one personality and one face. Nations are the wealth of mankind, its collective personalities; the very least of them wears its own special colours and bears within itself a special facet of divine intention.

Donald J. Trump photo

Related topics