Negativity of Historical Knowledge: Whims of Relativeness

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 4:15 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Under-represented Perspectives in Philosophy of Education (Table 7)

Abstract

This study explores the negativity of historical knowledge by configuring relativeness in human existence. I specify relativeness in human nature and in the temporal-spatial continua that characterizes a socio-historical context. Engaging two dichotomies—the subject-object and the universal-particular—articulated by Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Frankfurt School scholars and founders of Critical Theory, the study investigates how these dichotomies operate and why reconciliation remains unattainable. Negativity within such dichotomical relativeness is then reconsidered in terms of the preponderate of the object over the subject and the notion of ratio in mimesis. By exposing the internal inconsistencies of knowledge and the limits of reconciliation, the study advances a relative account of the negativity of historical knowledge, oriented toward unity unto the good.

Author

• AnNa Choi, Educator