Available in English for the first time, this is a collection of Adorno's essays on such writers as Mann, Bloch, Holderlin, Kare Kraust, Sigfried Kracauer, Goethe, Benjamin and Stefan George. Also included are Adorno's reflections on a variety of subjects: literary titles, the physical qualities of books, political commitment in literature, the light-hearted and the serious in art, and the use of foreign words in writing, to name a few.

This is a comprehensive collection of readings from the work of Theodor Adorno, one of the most influential German thinkers of the twentieth century. What took place in Auschwitz revokes what Adorno termed the -Western legacy of positivity, - the innermost substance of traditional philosophy. The prime task of philosophy then remains to reflect on its own failure, its own complicity in such events. Yet in linking the question of philosophy to historical occurrence, Adorno seems not to have abandoned his paradoxical, life-long hope that philosophy might not be entirely closed to the idea of...

This is a comprehensive collection of readings from the work of Theodor Adorno, one of the most influential German thinkers of the twentieth century. What took place in Auschwitz revokes what Adorno termed the "Western legacy of positivity," the innermost substance of traditional philosophy. The prime task of philosophy then remains to reflect on its own failure, its own complicity in such events. Yet in linking the question of philosophy to historical occurrence, Adorno seems not to have abandoned his paradoxical, life-long hope that philosophy might not be entirely closed to the idea of...

This volume makes available in English for the first time Adorno's lectures on metaphysics. It provides a unique introduction not only to metaphysics but also to Adorno's own intellectual standpoint, as developed in his major work Negative Dialectics. Metaphysics for Adorno is defined by a central tension between concepts and immediate facts. Adorno traces this dualism back to Aristotle, whom he sees as the founder of metaphysics. In Aristotle it appears as an unresolved tension between form and matter. This basic split, in Adorno's interpretation, runs right through the history of...

Kant is a pivotal thinker in Adorno's intellectual world. Although he wrote monographs on Hegel, Husserl, and Kierkegaard, the closest Adorno came to an extended discussion of Kant are two lecture courses, one concentrating on the "Critique of Pure Reason" and the other on the "Critique of Practical Reason." This new volume by Adorno comprises his lectures on the former.
Adorno attempts to make Kant's thought comprehensible to students by focusing on what he regards as problematic aspects of Kant's philosophy. Adorno examines Kant's dualism and what he calls the Kantian "block": the...

This volume makes available in English for the first time Adorno's lectures on metaphysics. It provides a unique introduction not only to metaphysics but also to Adorno's own intellectual standpoint, as developed in his major work Negative Dialectics. Metaphysics for Adorno is defined by a central tension between concepts and immediate facts. Adorno traces this dualism back to Aristotle, whom he sees as the founder of metaphysics. In Aristotle it appears as an unresolved tension between form and matter. This basic split, in Adorno's interpretation, runs right through the history of...

Despite all of humanity's failures, futile efforts and wrong turnings in the past, Adorno did not let himself be persuaded that we are doomed to suffer a bleak future for ever. One of the factors that prevented him from identifying a definitive plan for the future course of history was his feelings of solidarity with the victims and losers. As for the future, the course of events was to remain open-ended; instead of finality, he remained committed to a Holderlin-like openness. This trace of the messianic has what he called the colour of the concrete as opposed to mere abstract possibility....

This is a study of Ludwig Beethoven's music. Throughout his life, Theodor Adorno wrote extensive notes, essay fragments and aides-memoires on the subject of Beethoven's music.

Das musikphilosophische und musikkritische Werk Adornos wird durch das Erscheinen des Bandes 18 seiner Gesammelten Schriften zugänglich. Der Entstehungszeit nach reichen sie von der Jugend Adornos - die frühesten datieren auf 1922 zurück, als er 19 Jahre alt war - bis unmittelbar vor seinen Tod 1969. So unterschiedlich die Arbeiten sich unter dem Aspekt der literarischen Form darbieten: Aphorismen stehen neben Kritiken und en; Rundfunkvorträge neben Analysen einzelner Kompositionen; Lexikonartikel neben Abhandlungen monographischen Charakters - so eindringlich dokumentieren sie zugleich...