“Philosophy, which once seemed outmoded, remains alive because the moment of its realization was missed. The summary judgement that it had merely interpreted the world is itself crippled by resignation before reality, and becomes a defeatism of reason after the transformation of the world failed. It guarantees no place from which theory as such could be concretely convicted of the anachronism, which then as now it is suspected of. Perhaps the interpretation which promised the transition did not suffice. The moment on which the critique of theory depended is not to be prolonged theoretically. Praxis, delayed for the foreseeable future, is no longer the court of appeals against self-satisfied speculation, but for the most part the pretext under which executives strangulate that critical thought as idle which a transforming praxis most needs. After philosophy broke with the promise that it would be one with reality or at least struck just before the hour of its production, it has been compelled to ruthlessly criticize itself.”

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About Theodor W. Adorno

German philosopher, cultural theorist, and music critic

Theodor W. Adorno was a German philosopher, cultural theorist, and music critic. A leading figure in the Frankfurt School of critical theory, he was a major voice in postwar European thought and a sharp critic of fascism and mass culture. His work is closely associated with the effort to read modern society through the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, and G. W. F. Hegel. He wrote influential books including Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia, and Negative Dialectics, and his arguments against what he called the culture industry helped shape the European New Left.

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Books by Theodor W. Adorno

Minima moralia; reflections from damaged life

1984

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Aesthetic Theory (International Library of Phenomenology and Moral Sciences)

2007

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Jargon de l'authenticité

2006

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Eingriffe

2006

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Aesthetics

2017

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