Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno are considered today to be the two most significant early theorists in founding critical theory. In their works and correspondence, both thinkers turn to art and the aesthetic as a vital way for understanding modern society and developing philosophical methods. This volume of original essays seeks to understand how they influenced each other and disagreed with each other on fundamental questions about art and the aesthetic. The books deals with a variety of key philosophical questions, such as: -How does art involve distinctive modes of experience? -What...

Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno are considered today to be the two most significant early theorists in founding critical theory. In their works and correspondence, both thinkers turn to art and the aesthetic as a vital way for understanding modern society and developing philosophical methods. This volume of original essays seeks to understand how they influenced each other and disagreed with each other on fundamental questions about art and the aesthetic. The books deals with a variety of key philosophical questions, such as: -How does art involve distinctive modes of experience? -What...

The linguistic turn in critical theory has been routinely justified with the claim that Adorno's philosophy is trapped within the limits of consciousness philosophy. Yet Adorno's own philosophy of language has not yet been fully and systematically examined in its own right. Philip Hogh argues that it was in fact the linguistic turn in critical theory that prevented a thorough analysis of Adorno's philosophy of language. Here he reconstructs Adorno's philosophy of language and presents it as a coherent theory that demands to be understood as an important contribution to contemporary linguistic...

The linguistic turn in critical theory has been routinely justified with the claim that Adorno's philosophy is trapped within the limits of consciousness philosophy. Yet Adorno's own philosophy of language has not yet been fully and systematically examined in its own right. Philip Hogh argues that it was in fact the linguistic turn in critical theory that prevented a thorough analysis of Adorno's philosophy of language. Here he reconstructs Adorno's philosophy of language and presents it as a coherent theory that demands to be understood as an important contribution to contemporary linguistic...

This book offers a radical reappraisal of the intellectual affinities between Theodor W. Adorno and Samuel Beckett, in particular with regard to freedom and its reconceptualization by Adorno.

This book examines the intellectual development of Walter Benjamin from a young Kantian idealist to Marxist materialist. Beginning with an examination of materialism and the often misunderstood standpoint of neo-Kantianism, it roots our understanding of Benjamin in the philosophical currents of his time without reducing him to a representative of one camp or another. Walter Benjamin and the Post-Kantian Tradition engages with Benjamin as a theorist of a historical and philosophical problematic: a problematic that he finds manifested, in different philosophical guises, within empiricism,...

This book offers a new philosophical analysis of readings and studies by Walter Benjamin. Tamara Tagliacozzo uncovers a remarkable continuity in Benjamin's thought: the difference between "early" and "late" Benjamin is not as great as generally believed.