Adorno and Existence

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction: A Philosophical Physiognomy -- Chapter 1. Starting Out with Kierkegaard -- An Unlikely Cathexis -- The Kierkegaard Reception in Germany -- Adorn's Kierkegaard Book -- Reading Kierkegaard against the Grain -- Aesthetics and Interiority -- Wahl's Études kierkegaardiennes -- Kierkegaard on Love -- Chapter 2. Ontology and Phenomenology -- Reading Philosophy in the 1930s -- Philosophy and Actuality -- Heidegger's Crypto-Idealism -- Historicizing Nature -- Anticipations of the Hegel Studies -- Lukács and Benjamin

Introduction: A philosophical physiognomy -- Starting out with Kierkegaard: An unlikely cathexis -- The Kierkegaard reception in Germany -- Adorno's Kierkegaard-book -- Reading Kierkegaard against the grain -- Aesthetics and interiority -- Wahl's Études kierkegaardiennes -- Kierkegaard on love -- Ontology and phenomenology: Reading philosophy in the 1930s -- Philosophy and actuality -- Historicizing nature -- Anticipations of the Hegel-studies -- Lukács and Benjamin -- The metacritique of phenomenology -- Failure and non-identity -- Husserl's progress, Heidegger's regression -- Toward negative dialectics -- The jargon of authenticity: Existentialism's aura -- Satire and secularization -- The Wurlitzer organ of the spirit -- The miserable consolation of self-identity -- Grace and dignity -- Endgame as "negative ontology" -- On Hölderlin and parataxis -- Negative dialectics: Adorno's "Fat child" -- Rage against nature -- Toward a primacy of the object -- Pseudo-concreteness -- Aura and mimesis -- French existentialism -- Kierkegaard's nominalism -- Heidegger's critique of reification -- Ontology as wish-fulfillment -- Into the looking glass -- Disenchanting the concept -- Kierkegaard's return: Salvaging metaphysics -- Materialism -- The family scandal -- Odradek as damaged life -- The mirror image -- Hope against hope -- Aesthetics and interiority -- Conclusion: Adorno's inverse theology