The Origin of Negative Dialectics: Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, and the Frankfurt Institute

by Susan Buck-Morss

In her important introductory chapter, Susan Buck-Morss rightly stresses the significance of Critical Theory for young West German intellectuals after World War II. In contrast to the American situation, spaces in which questions of Marxism could once again be discussed were opening in the vicinity of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Buck-Morss convincingly sketches this learning process that ended in antagonism when Horkheimer and Adorno proved unwilling to participate in the political practice of the extra-parliamentary opposition. Leftist students turned away from Critical Theory, treating it like the proverbial dead dog after 1970, thereby allowing it to be taken up by young conservatives who concerned themselves only with the aesthetic character of Adorno’s and Benjamin’s writings.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, History, Sociology

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Susan Buck-Morss is an American philosopher and intellectual historian. She is currently Professor of Political Science at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Reviews

[Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly unbelievable how thorough this volume is

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crucial, keen, and a stellar program for brow-furrowing exercises.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very smart, very helpful, beautifully written, full of fascinating material.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just started. I don't think anything quite yet. I do like her description of what Adorno/Benjamin picked up from Lukacs' dialectical method while rejecting the Proletariat as the univeral subject of history.

Having finished this, it is perhaps one of the best books I have read on Adorno and Benjamin. Buck Morss clearly and concisely describes and incredibly difficult set of theoretical arguments in a way that makes these two difficult thinkers approachable.

[Gabriel Barreiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mezclando los registros del ensayo teórico y la biografía intelectual, el libro logra ser un gran punto de entrada a los pensamientos tanto de Adorno como de Benjamin. Se propone dar un panorama general y unificado de los casi 50 años de actividad intelectual de Adorno. Para ello, Buck-Morss lee en el corpus adorniano una recurrencia motívica, una rotación en torno a un centro móvil, que es resultado de una continua reflexión sobre las dos grandes pasiones intelectuales de Adorno: Schönberg y Benjamin. A través de sus acercamientos y distancias vemos adquirir en este pensamiento la fisionomía cuya forma final se observa en Dialéctica Negativa, de 1966. No obstante, para cuando llegamos a esa fecha, la autora se exime de explicar la temática de dicho libro. No hace falta. La genealogía que traza hasta ese momento culmina por sí misma en la cristalización del concepto de la dialéctica negativa. El libro realiza lo que su título promete: traza el origen de Dialéctica Negativa, sin explicarlo. Se trata de una estrategia que realiza una verdadera invitación a la lectura, en cuanto que la autora se retira en el punto exacto en el que comienza el deseo de leer a Adorno.

[Adam84]

Výstižný, pečlivý a hlavně přístupný popis komplikovaných filozofických argumentů Theodora Adorna ve vztahu s Waltrem Benjaminem.

Čtenář, který se jako já i chtěl více dozvědět o založení či fungování frankfurtské školy, může být trochu zklamán, na tohle se autorka nezaměřila. Ale pro toho kdo má touhu číst a studovat samotného Adorna, bude velice užitečné ne-li nezbytné, mít tuto knihu po ruce.

[Walter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it the nerdiest thing ever that I really could not put this down as soon as I picked it up? I think this is my favorite ever work of intellectual history. Genuinely synthesized so many things for me over the course of a semester-long class on the Frankfurt School

[Knecht René · Rating 5 out of 5]

is quite dense and demands slow reading. The footnotes enriches the text, the sources are important to read through.

I came to this work by studying Walter Benjamin and sooner or later you arrive at Adorno.

Adorno can only truly be understood through Benjamin as I see it now: they influenced each other, but the mystical background that is secularized by Adorno needs to be understood first.

After wrestling through chapter 2 (Lukacs, Reification ==> boring, tedious) , the real insight for me came at chapter 3-4-5, where the gold is.

Yet throughout the book I repeatedly found myself returning to Benjamin as the key that unlocked Adorno. That is in the (Messianic, liberating the past) Dialectic Images that is secularized by Adorno into Negative Dialectics. The Messianic (liberating the surpressed past) is the key and returning common ground that links them together in their complex thoughts that goes in all directions.

Adorno can only truly be understood through Benjamin.

Buck-Morss demonstrates that Adorno's negative dialectics emerged from a secularization and transformation of Benjamin's philosophy of historical truth

[Marcel del Valle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al principio me atasqué, pero en cuanto vas hilando el pensamiento de Adorno lo explica con mucha profundidad y fluidez

[Leonardo]

La investigación de Susan Buck-Morss en su libro Origen de la dialéctica negativa, obró como un punto de inflexión en la interpretación de la problemática relación entre Adorno y Benjamin.

Discutido en Clase de Arte, Estética y Política.

[Levi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazingly lucid and interesting explanatory work. All other books on Adorno have been laborious and lacked the clarity of understanding that Susan Buck-Morss brings to bear on her subject.

[Sebastián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy amena la lectura y una buena introducción a los problemas dialécticos de la Escuela de Frankfurt y su articulación ideológica a lo largo de los años.