opplysningens dialektikk

by Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Lars Petter Storm Torjussen (translator)

Har menneskehetens frigjøringsprosess ført til dens fangenskap? Adorno og Horkheimer argumenterer for at det vestlige opplysningsprosjektet med nødvendighet slår om i irrasjonalitet. I stedet for at menneskeheten frir seg fra naturens undertrykkelse, synker den hen i en ny form for barbari. Med eksempler fra homeriske epos og Hollywoods filmer til nazistenes konsentrasjonsleire og moderne reklameindustri finner forfatterne forbindelser mellom mytologi, fascisme og vår tids massekultur. Opplysningens dialektikk er en historiefilosofisk klassiker og regnes av mange som den kritiske teoris bibel. Den ble utgitt for første gang i 1947.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory

319 pages, Paperback

First published September 11, 2002

About the author

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.

Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.

Reviews

[TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Possibly his best lecture series—which is saying a lot—and possibly the most severe broadside on Heidegger. Now, that's not (of course) to say that Adorno simply 'refuted' the latter—for at least since Hegel we're too grown up for that—but oh how much he's been problematized further, and in unfamiliar ways.

Adorno reveals many weak spots, unsatisfyingly lacking in philosophical richness, that go far beyond the by-now obvious political pressure points. Yet what Adorno does uniquely well is to show in exquisite detail precisely how much the political vulnerabilities of fundamental ontology—to put it generously—are decisively mediated with its more 'pure-philosophical' (e.g., epistemological) ones.

The fact itself of this mediation is obviously not surprising, but how convincingly Adorno unfolds his best arguments to develop it does impress. I expect that in a critique of Heidegger by a lesser thinker (i.e., in most extant critiques), the 'political' and 'epistemological' lines of attack would tend to be interwoven far less seamlessly, and would hence be much more abstract. Proceeding (relative to the standard set here) too often as if parallel vectors, rather than intertwining and combining their strength, they will strike their target much less effectively.

Adorno's usual trustworthiness and meticulousness are also on display in how he is not infrequently willing to give ground and even agree with Heidegger in certain respects. He repeatedly insists that he and his student audience 'not make [the critique] too easy for ourselves' and even calls Heidegger 'an extraordinarily acute thinker' (16). And he understands that Heideggerian thought has a particular enthralling charm for late modern young people, yet while urging self-reflective caution, he does not deny the serious historical truth content in the 'ontological need', in many of us, which fuels that thinking's seductiveness.

[Volbet · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliant critique of Heideggerian phenomenology, ontology and epistemology. While Adorno does a great job at tearing into modern ontology, he does little to establish dialectics as a viable alternative. For that we have to read Negative Dialectics.