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Theodor W. Adorno
Edited by Nicholas Joll
About this topic
| Summary | Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) was a first-generation member of the Frankfurt School For Social Research. As was the case with his fellow 'Critical Theorists' Horkheimer and Marcuse et al, his work was interdisciplinary and considerably Marxist. His task, as he saw it, was to use philosophy, sociology and other tools to understand the evils of the past and present, thereby helping to prepare the possibility – he thought one could do little more than that – of a better future. Adorno’s largest philosophical debts are to Kant, Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche. Adorno drew upon those thinkers, and others including Freud and Walter Benjamin, in creating a distinctive approach to metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and political philosophy. |
| Key works | Adorno’s magnum opus, Negative Dialectics (first published 1966), is as much a critique of metaphysics, epistemology and of systematic philosophy in general as it is a contribution to those endeavours. Somewhat similar – and working via an account of Husserl’s phenomenology – is the earlier Metacritique of Epistemology (first published in 1956). The posthumously published Aesthetic Theory is also very important; given the centrality of aesthetics to Adorno’s philosophy, it is not ‘just’ a work on aesthetics. There are other important works. Dialectic of Enlightenment (co-written with Max Horkheimer; first published in 1947) presents a case that the Enlightenment has disastrously misfired. Minima Moralia (1951) is a careful and quintessentially Adornian aphoristic text, covering many subjects but especially social, political and ethical ones. Hegel: Three Studies (1963) is something of a preparation for Negative Dialectics. Among the recently translated lecture courses, Problems of Moral Philosophy is perhaps the most enlightening. |
| Introductions | Theodor Adorno: Key Concepts, edited by D. Cook, might be the most accessible introduction to this difficult thinker. Other introductions include works by B. O’Connor, G. Rose, S. Jarvis, and chapters 5 and 7 of D. Held. Adorno’s lectures (such as the aforementioned Problems of Moral Philosophy) are also useful as introductions. |
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- Jürgen Habermas (1,903)
- Max Horkheimer (124)
- Walter Benjamin (599)
- Critical Theory, Misc (359)
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- Governing through conflict: On Adorno's critique of postwar sociology.Yasmin Afshar - forthcoming - Constellations.
- Governing through conflict: On Adorno's critique of postwar sociology.Yasmin Afshar - forthcoming - Wiley: Constellations.
- The" Clatter of Triplicity". Adorno's Reception of Hegel.Daniel Althof - forthcoming - Hegel-Studien.Remove from this listExport citation
Bookmark - Notes on Adorno's 'Resignation'.Aaron Bell - forthcoming - Telos: Critical Theory of the Contemporary:NA.Introduction to and critical examination of Theodor Adorno's essay "Resignation." Deals with the theory/praxis debate, Adorno's confrontation with the radical student movements in the 1960's, and the charge that Adorno was either politically conservative or an ineffective pessimist.
- Ben Watson, Frank Zappa: The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play.W. Bonefeld - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Critique et métacritique.R. P. Stanislas Breton - forthcoming - Les Etudes Philosophiques.
- Freedom and dialectics: On the critical theory of Moishe Postone and Theodor Adorno.Anke Devyver - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.This article examines the relation between the critical theory of Moishe Postone and the philosophy of Theodor Adorno. While the former is clearly influenced by the latter, these influences mostly stay implicit. When explicit, he does not so easily put his own thought in line with Adorno’s and is highly critical of him. I will investigate the ways in which ideas from Adorno made their way into Postone’s work, but also where the latter diverts from them. As will be shown, (...)
- Christoph Menke, The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida.A. Fisher - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- “A False Classless Society”: Adorno’s social theory revisited.Naveh Frumer - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. Adorno’s social theory is enjoying renewed attention, as is the debate to what extent is it Marxist. A central issue remains Adorno’s concept of social totality: capitalism as a fully integrated society in which every difference is levelled. One problem this raises is why is he still committed to the Marxist concept of class. And second, how to understand his critique of the idea of proletarian class-consciousness, which seems to leave his critical theory (...)
- Adorno, Theodor.Dustin Garlitz - forthcoming - In Klaus Bruhn Jensen & Robert T. Craig (eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Wiley-Blackwell.The article focuses on the scholarly career of German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist Theodor W. Adorno. Examined are his leading publications, his notable teachers and collaborators, and his time in exile in the United States, among other places. Special emphasis is placed on his negative dialectics, including how this perspective formed a method of communication in itself. Adorno's contributions to the Frankfurt School, and to 20th-century Continental philosophy, sociology, and musicology, are also covered.
- Adorno's Aesthetic Model of Social Critique.Andrew Huddleston - forthcoming - In Peter E. Gordon, Espen Hammer & Maxim Pensky (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Adorno.
- Adorno, Marx, and abstract domination.Eli B. Lichtenstein - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.This article reconstructs and defends Theodor Adorno’s social theory by motivating the central role of abstract domination within it. Whereas critics such as Axel Honneth have charged Adorno with adhering to a reductive model of personal domination, I argue that the latter rather understands domination as a structural and de-individualized feature of capitalist society. If Adorno’s social theory is to be explanatory, however, it must account for the source of the abstractions that dominate modern individuals and, in particular, that of (...)
- Theodor W. Adorno. Aesthetic Theory.S. Martin - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- JM Bernstein, Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics.A. Morgan - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- The Flesh of Negation: Adorno and Merleau-Ponty contra Heidegger.Daniel Neofetou - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.Theodor Adorno’s 1960–1961 lecture course Ontology and Dialectics, recently translated into English, provides the most systematic articulation of his critique of Martin Heidegger. When Adorno deliv...
- The Flesh of Negation: Adorno and Merleau-Ponty contra Heidegger.Daniel Neofetou - forthcoming - Sage Publications Ltd: Philosophy and Social Criticism.Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. Theodor Adorno’s 1960–1961 lecture course Ontology and Dialectics, recently translated into English, provides the most systematic articulation of his critique of Martin Heidegger. When Adorno delivered three of the lectures at the Collège de France, Maurice Merleau-Ponty was reportedly scandalised as he was at that time developing his own ontology, informed by Heidegger. However, this article problematises the assumption that Adorno’s negative dialectic and Merleau-Ponty’s late ontology are incompatible. First, Adorno’s criticism of Heidegger’s (...)
- The Flesh of Negation: Adorno and Merleau-Ponty contra Heidegger.Daniel Neofetou - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.Theodor Adorno’s 1960–1961 lecture course Ontology and Dialectics, recently translated into English, provides the most systematic articulation of his critique of Martin Heidegger. When Adorno deliv...
- Theodor W. Adorno, Hegel: Three Studies.P. Osborne - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- ‘To conceal domination in production’: Horkheimer and Adorno’s critical functionalist theory of race.Andrew J. Pierce - forthcoming - Sage Publications Ltd: Philosophy and Social Criticism.Philosophy & Social Criticism, Ahead of Print. This article revisits the Frankfurt School’s reflections on race, anti-Semitism and fascism, focusing especially on the theory of race implicit in Dialectic of Enlightenment. It argues that this theory has the potential to be developed into a critical functionalist theory of race that avoids both class and race reductionism, offering a thoroughly intersectional competitor to currently dominant philosophies of race. The key to such a theory is the view that racialization plays a functional (...)
- ‘To conceal domination in production’: Horkheimer and Adorno’s critical functionalist theory of race.Andrew J. Pierce - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.This article revisits the Frankfurt School’s reflections on race, anti-Semitism and fascism, focusing especially on the theory of race implicit in Dialectic of Enlightenment. It argues that this th...
- ‘To conceal domination in production’: Horkheimer and Adorno’s critical functionalist theory of race.Andrew J. Pierce - forthcoming - Philosophy and Social Criticism.This article revisits the Frankfurt School’s reflections on race, anti-Semitism and fascism, focusing especially on the theory of race implicit in Dialectic of Enlightenment. It argues that this th...
- Needs, Creativity, and Care: Adorno and the Future of Work.Craig Reeves & Matthew Sinnicks - forthcoming - Organization.This paper attempts to show how Adorno’s thought can illuminate our reflections on the future of work. It does so by situating Adorno’s conception of genuine activity in relation to his negativist critical epistemology and his subtle account of the distinction between true and false needs. What emerges is an understanding of work that can guide our aspirations for the future of work, and one we illustrate via discussions of creative work and care work. These are types of work which (...)
- On How to Make Adorno Scream: John Holloway's Concept of Revolution against Class and Identity'.Marcel Stoetzler - forthcoming - Historical Materialism.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Brian O'Connor. Adorno's Negative Dialectic: Philosophy and the Possibility of a Critical Rationality. MIT Press 2004.Margherita Tonon - forthcoming - Yearbook of the Irish Philosophical Society.
- Theodor W. Adorno, Beethoven: The Philosophy of Muxic.B. Watson - forthcoming - Radical Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Theodor W. Adorno.L. Zuidevaart - forthcoming - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Psychanalyse et sociologie.Theodor W. Adorno, Marion Maurin & Aurélia Peyrical - 2023 - Archives de Philosophie 86 (1):123-138.
- Wiping away the tears of Esau : Adorno's reconciliation with nature.Agata Bielik-Robson - 2023 - In Jakub Kowalewski (ed.), The Environmental Apocalypse: Interdisciplinary Reflections on the Climate Crisis.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- The Linguistic Turn in the Early Frankfurt School: Horkheimer and Adorno.Fabian Freyenhagen - 2023 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 61 (1):127-148.Abstractabstract:Was there a linguistic turn in Frankfurt School Critical Theory before Habermas's communications-theoretic one? Might later Wittgenstein and the early Frankfurt School have adopted similar pictures of language? I propose that both questions should be answered affirmatively, focusing on Horkheimer's Eclipse of Reason. I argue that, thanks to the picture of language that Horkheimer and Adorno share with (later) Wittgenstein, we can reconstruct their theory in a way that renders it more defensible. Insofar as the human life form and language (...)
- For a negative hermeneutics: adorno, gadamer and critical consciousness.Vangelis Giannakakis - 2023 - Philosophy and Social Criticism.The present social-historical moment is marked by a sharp divide, a harrowing ‘communication breakdown’ between subject and object, between humanity and nature, between humanity and itself. This state of affairs pleads for the (re-)elaboration of a consciousness that resonates critically with the social, political and cultural realities of its time. This paper studies the lessons that can be drawn in this regard from the intersection between, on the one hand, Theodor W. Adorno’s ‘philosophical interpretation’ and his idea of an historically (...)
- Resenha de: Aspectos do Novo Radicalismo de Direita (T. W. Adorno).Everton Marcos Grison & Benito Eduardo Maeso - 2023 - Dois Pontos 19 (1).Resenha de: Aspectos do Novo Radicalismo de Direita (T. W. Adorno)ADORNO, Theodor W. Aspectos do Novo Radicalismo de Direita. Tradução e apresentação de Felipe Catalani. São Paulo: Unesp, 2020. (Coleção Adorno).
- Brothers in arms: Adorno and Foucault on resistance.Giovanni Maria Mascaretti - 2023 - Philosophy and Social Criticism:1-26.This article offers a comparative exploration of the practices of resistance Theodor Adorno and Michel Foucault champion against the structures of modern power their enquiries have the merit to illuminate and contest. After a preliminary examination of their views about the relationship between theory and praxis, I shall pursue two goals: first, I shall illustrate the limitations of Adorno’s negativist portrait of an ethics of resistance and contrast it with Foucault’s more promising notion of resistance as strategic counter-conduct, which in (...)
- The Critique of Social Reason in the Popper-Adorno Debate.Iaan Reynolds - 2023 - History of the Human Sciences:1-23.This paper examines the differences and affinities between Karl Popper’s critical rationalism and Theodor Adorno’s critical theory through renewed attention to the original documents of their 1961 debate. While commentaries often describe the Popper-Adorno encounter as a theoretical disappointment, I reveal a confrontation between conceptually opposed programs of social research. Though both theorists are committed to critique as a political and epistemological struggle for human freedom, their conceptions of this struggle are starkly different. In the original seminar papers, we find (...)
- The Sociologist of Knowledge in the Positivism Dispute.Iaan Reynolds - 2023 - Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory 24 (1):133-155.This paper studies the conflict between critical rationalism and critical theory in Karl Popper and Theodor Adorno’s 1961 debate by analyzing their shared rejection of Karl Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge. Despite the divergences in their respective projects of critical social research, Popper and Adorno agree that Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge is uncritical. By investigating their respective assessments of this research program I reveal a deeper similarity between critical rationalism and critical theory. Though both agree on the importance of critique, they (...)
- The Dissonance of Modernity: On Baudelaire and Adorno.Joseph Acquisto - 2022 - British Journal of Aesthetics 62 (1):101-114.This essay considers 'modern' poetry and music as interrelated signifying practices in the works of Charles Baudelaire and Theodor Adorno through a focus on their approach to understanding dissonance. For Baudelaire, dissonance depends on consonance in order to be perceived at all, a fact which allows us to read the modern not just in terms of a break with the past but also as dependent on it. This essay demonstrates the mutually constitutive nature of consonance and dissonance by placing Baudelaire (...)
- Politics Unblocked: Arendt and Adorno on the Possibility of Action in an Administered World.Tobias Albrecht - 2022 - In Maria Robaszkiewicz & Tobias Matzner (eds.), Hannah Arendt: Challenges of Plurality. Springer Verlag. pp. 139-156.In this paper, I draw attention to the potential that Arendt’s plurality centered notion of politics has for critical theory; especially for the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno, but also beyond. I argue that Arendt’s understanding of politics is the closest approximation to a political theory in line with Adorno’s thinking. Illuminating this proximity allows for a more combined reading than usually asserted and can thereby inform current discourses of and about critical theory.
- Adorno, aesthetics, dissonance: on dialectics in modernity.William S. Allen - 2022 - New York: Bloomsbury Academic.An analysis of the development and range of Adorno's aesthetics, incorporating the influence of other thinkers and musicians.
- Comentário a “Dialéctica de la experiencia en Merleau-Ponty y Adorno”: Breve comentário a favor de Husserl.Abah Andrade - 2022 - Trans/Form/Ação 45 (3):125-128.
- O colapso do cognitivo no social: Kant à luz de Benjamin, Adorno e Horkheimer.Henrique Azevedo - 2022 - Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 78 (1-2):555-578.This article intends to identify how the cognitive procedure of Kant’s critical philosophy is related to the enlightened principle of expanding the world. My hypothesis is that the task of the critical philosophy on knowing “how is it possible the synthetic a priori judgements?” takes to the enlargement of the faculty of judgment and the possession of objects by the intellect. Notions such as Copernican Revolution, Experience, and Space-Time are forms which cannot be seen as bare principles for knowing objects (...)
- Art and Aesthetics After Adorno.J. M. Bernstein, Claudia Brodsky, Anthony J. Cascardi, Thierry de Duve, Aleš Erjavec, Robert Kaufman & Fred Rush (eds.) - 2022 - Fordham University Press.Theodor Adorno's Aesthetic Theory offers one of the most powerful and comprehensive critiques of art and of the discipline of aesthetics ever written. The work offers a deeply critical engagement with the history and philosophy of aesthetics and with the traditions of European art through the middle of the 20th century. It is coupled with ambitious claims about what aesthetic theory ought to be. But the cultural horizon of Adorno's Aesthetic Theory was the world of high modernism, and much has (...)
- Immediacy and the mediations of music: critical approaches after Theodor W. Adorno.Gianmario Borio (ed.) - 2022 - New York: Routledge.Adorno believed that a circular relationship was established between immediacy and mediation. Should we now say that this model with its clear Hegelian influence is outdated? Or does it need some theoretical integration? This volume addresses these questions by covering the performance of music, its technological reproduction and its modes of communication - in particular, pedagogy and dissemination through the media. The book's four parts each deal with different aspects of the mediation process. The contributing authors outline the problematic moments (...)
- Adorno's critique of political economy.Dirk Braunstein - 2022 - Boston: Brill. Edited by Adam Baltner.To this day, there persists a widespread assumption that Adorno's references to Marx - and especially to Marx's critique of political economy - represent a relic from an early and short-lived stage of Adorno's theoretical development. On the basis of relevant and largely unpublished textual sources, this book refutes this thesis while showing that the centre of Adorno's critical theory of society is occupied by a critique not only of political economy, but of economy in general.
- Brian O’Connor. (2022). El legado filosófico de Theodor W. Adorno (Trad. Leandro Sánchez Marín).O'Connor Brian & Sánchez Marín Leandro - 2022 - Revista Filosofía (UIS) 21 (2):293-303.
- PART II. Notation and Performance. 'Jedes Notenzeichen... ein Schlag' : Rethinking Adorno's critique of notation / Andreas Meyer ; Towards a Practice of Musical Performance Creativity / Daniel Leech-Wilkinson ; A 'Radical Mediation' Approach to the Text/Performance Relation in Music. [REVIEW]Alessandro Cecchi - 2022 - In Gianmario Borio (ed.), Immediacy and the Mediations of Music: Critical Approaches After Theodor W. Adorno. Routledge.Remove from this listExport citation Bookmark
- Adorno et l’improvisation du jazz : entre travail et utopie.Frederico Lyra de Carvalho - 2022 - Princípios 29 (60):416-435.Comme toute manifestation ou objet soumis à la critique de la dialectique négative, l’improvisation dans le jazz oscille, selon le point de vue d’Adorno, entre deux extrêmes. D’un côté, elle est tournée vers un mimétisme du mode de travail du monde capitaliste, de l’autre, elle porte une puissance utopique. Le philosophe a identifié la contradiction entre travail et utopie dans le matériau musical, mais il n’est pas allé jusqu’au bout de ses analyses. Dans cet article, nous tenterons de poursuivre l’examen (...)
- On Negativity and Aesthetics: Kluge's Farewell to Adorno.Ricardo Samaniego de la Fuente - 2022 - Artefilosofia 17 (31).For Theodor W. Adorno, the relevance of art lies in its capacity to penetrate, through its formal construction, the semblance of a false reality, thereby participating in the self-transcendence of reason. This article argues that, despite the timeliness of this insight, Adorno’s negativism, his conceptualization of reconciliation, and his formalist understanding of art have made it difficult to see how this account can explain art’s relation to social change. Alexander Kluge’s work, it is then argued, can help transcend such limitations (...)
- Fascism in nowadays Brazil: On the topicality of Adorno’s Education after Auschwitz.Mauricio Rodrigues de Souza - 2022 - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 42 (4):189-201.
- The antinomy of death: Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno on utopia and hope.Hent de Vries - 2022 - Angelaki 27 (1):110-127.This article discusses the remarkable conversation between Ernst Bloch and Theodor W. Adorno regarding the relationship between utopia and death. It unpacks the antinomy of death and analyzes the m...
- Freuds »Massenpsychologie« und ihre Rezeption bei Theodor W. Adorno und Hans Kelsen.Christophe Dejours - 2022 - Psyche 76 (11):992-1006.Der Autor entwickelt einige Überlegungen zu Hintergründen und Bestimmungen von Individual- und Massenpsychologie, wie sie Sigmund Freud in »Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse« gibt, und verfolgt nach, wie diese bei Theodor W. Adorno und Hans Kelsen aufgenommen werden.
- Educação, experiência formativa e pensamento dialético em Theodor W. Adorno.Michel Aires de Souza Dias - 2022 - Trans/Form/Ação 45 (4):159-178.ABSTRACT: In the 18th century, Kant evaluated that his historical period was not a time of enlightenment, but rather minority, because of man’s inability to use his own understanding. Adorno updated this problem, interpreting the minority in our presente in terms of loss of experience. Men are no longer apt to experience, because the technical and economic apparatus prevents the clarification and awareness of reality. From this diagnosis, The aim of this article is to investigate Adorno’s educational thought in its (...)
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