Back to Adorno

In: Telos, Heft 81, S. 5-29

Abstract

Examined is how the US reception of Theodor W. Adorno's work, particularly The Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Continuum Press, 1978), has been misrepresented by poor translations, which have resulted in the wide acceptance of Jurgen Habermas's interpretation of Adorno's writings on reason, aesthetics, & the Enlightenment. Habermas's reading of Adorno's critical theory as a neo-Kantian version of communication theory is discussed, & non-Kantian reading of Adorno's project is presented. The considerable intellectual distance separating the first generation of critical theorists from its contemporary heirs is also examined. W. Howard