A Companion to Adorno

A definitive contribution to scholarship on Adorno, bringing together the foremost experts in the field

As one of the leading continental philosophers of the last century, and one of the pioneering members of the Frankfurt School, Theodor W. Adorno is the author of numerous influential—and at times quite radical—works on diverse topics in aesthetics, social theory, moral philosophy, and the history of modern philosophy, all of which concern the contradictions of modern society and its relation to human suffering and the human condition. Having authored substantial contributions to critical theory which contain searching critiques of the ‘culture industry’ and the ‘identity thinking’ of modern Western society, Adorno helped establish an interdisciplinary but philosophically rigorous study of culture and provided some of the most startling and revolutionary critiques of Western society to date. 

The Blackwell Companion to Adorno is the largest collection of essays by Adorno specialists ever gathered in a single volume. Part of the acclaimed Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series, this important contribution to the field explores Adorno’s lasting impact on many sub-fields of philosophy. Seven sections, encompassing a diverse range of topics and perspectives, explore Adorno’s intellectual foundations, his critiques of culture, his views on ethics and politics, and his analyses of history and domination.

• Provides new research and fresh perspectives on Adorno’s views and writings
• Offers an authoritative, single-volume resource for Adorno scholarship
• Addresses renewed interest in Adorno’s significance to contemporary questions in philosophy
• Presents over 40 essays written by international-recognized experts in the field

A singular advancement in Adorno scholarship, the Companion to Adorno is an indispensable resource for Adorno specialists and anyone working in modern European philosophy, contemporary cultural criticism, social theory, German history, and aesthetics.

Peter E. Gordon is the Amabel B. James Professor of History, Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Philosophy at Harvard University.

Espen Hammer is Professor of Philosophy at the College of Liberal Arts of Temple University. He has held professorships at the University of Oslo and the University of Essex.

Max Pensky is Professor of Philosophy and co-Director of the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Notes on Contributors ix

Editors’ Introduction xv

About the Editors xix

Part I Intellectual Foundations 1

1 Adorno: A Biographical Sketch 3
Peter E. Gordon

2 Adorno’s Inaugural Lecture: The Actuality of Philosophy in the Age of Mass Production 21
Roger Foster

3 Reading Kierkegaard 35
Marcia Morgan

4 Guilt and Mourning: Adorno’s Debt to and Critique of Benjamin 51
Alexander Stern

5 Adorno and the Second Viennese School 67
Sherry D. Lee

Part II Cultural Analysis 85

6 The Culture Industry 87
Fred Rush

7 Adorno and Horkheimer on Anti-Semitism 103
Fabian Freyenhagen

8 Adorno and Jazz 123
Andrew Bowie

9 Adorno’s Democratic Modernism in America: Leaders and Educators as Political Artists 139
Shannon Mariotti

10 Inhuman Methods for an Inhumane World: Adorno’s Empirical Social Research, 1938–1950 153
Charles Clavey

Part III History and Domination 173

11 Adorno and Blumenberg: Nonconceptuality and the Bilderverbot 175
Martin Jay

12 Philosophy of History 193
Iain Macdonald

13 The Anthropology in Dialectic of Enlightenment 207
Pierre-François Noppen

14 Adorno’s Reception of Weber and Lukács 221
Michael J. Thompson

15 Adorno’s Aesthetic Model of Social Critique 237
Andrew Huddleston

16 The Critique of the Enlightenment 251
Martin Shuster

Part IV Social Theory and Empirical Inquiry 271

17 “Nothing is True Except the Exaggerations:” The Legacy of the Authoritarian Personality 273
David Jenemann

18 Exposing Antagonisms: Adorno on the Possibilities of Sociology 287
Matthias Benzer and Juljan Krause

19 Adorno and Marx 303
Peter Osborne

20 Adorno’s Three Contributions to a Theory of Mass Psychology and Why They Matter 321
Eli Zaretsky

21 Adorno and Postwar German Society 335
Jakob Norberg

Part V Aesthetics 349

22 Aesthetic Autonomy 351
Owen Hulatt

23 Adorno and Literary Criticism 365
Henry W. Pickford

24 Adorno as a Modernist Writer 383
Richard Eldridge

25 Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory 397
Eva Geulen

26 Aesthetic Theory as Social Theory 413
Peter Uwe Hohendahl

27 Adorno, Music, and the Ineffable 427
Michael Gallope

28 Adorno and Opera 443
Richard Leppert

Part VI Negative Dialectics 457

29 What is Negative Dialectics?: Adorno’s Reevaluation of Hegel 459
Terry Pinkard

30 Adorno’s Critique of Heidegger 473
Espen Hammer

31 Concept and Object: Adorno’s Critique of Kant 487
J. M. Bernstein

32 Critique and Disappointment: Negative Dialectics as Late Philosophy 503
Max Pensky

33 Negative Dialectics and Philosophical Truth 519
Brian O’Connor

34 Adorno and Scholem: The Heretical Redemption of Metaphysics 531
Asaf Angermann

35 Adorno’s Concept of Metaphysical Experience 549
Peter E. Gordon

Part VII Ethics and Politics 565

36 After Auschwitz 567
Christian Skirke

37 Forever Resistant? Adorno and Radical Transformation of Society 583
Maeve Cooke

38 Adorno’s Materialist Ethic of Love 601
Kathy J. Kiloh

39 Adorno’s Metaphysics of Moral Solidarity in the Moment of its Fall 615
James Gordon Finlayson

Index 631

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