Semi-formation (Halbbildung) is the social determination of formation in the contemporary capitalist society. In Adorno's views, society, in its reproduction process, is to be apprehended as reificated, as a socially inverted mediation. Theory has to go beyond the subjective moment of reification, and unravel the objective determinations of subjectivity. Showing the subject behind reification does not suffice since it is also socially determined in accordance with the existing society, as a subject that subjects itself and does not experience the contradictions of the effective production of society, ideologically concealed in the social order imposed by the culture industry. Education is not idealistically aimed at emancipation, but dialectically based on the critique of real semi-formation, and oriented by possibilities that are present, although not effective, in the experience of the contradictions of the effective social production.
Adorno; Formation (Bildung); Culture industry; Materialistic dialectics; Fetichism