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For the Italian family, see Adorno (Family). The Adorno family was an illustrious patrician family in Genoa, Italy, of the Ghibelline party several of whom were Doges of
Western Philosophy
20th century philosophy
Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. Western philosophy is a term that refers to philosophical thinking in the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies See also [[Analytic philosophy]] and [[Continental philosophy]] The 20th century brought with it upheavals that produced a series of conflicting developments within Philosophy Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of Year 1965 ( MCMLXV) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar of the 1965 Gregorian calendar. Heidelberg is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. As of 2006 over 140000 people live within the city's area
Name
Theodor W. Adorno
Birth September 11, 1903 (Frankfurt, Germany)
Death August 6, 1969 (Visp, Switzerland)
School/tradition critical theory
Main interests social theory, psychoanalysis, musicology, cultural studies
Notable ideas Culture industry, Authoritarian Personality, negative dialectics, non-conformist conformist
Influenced by Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Husserl
Influenced Jürgen Habermas, Edward W. Said, Jean Baudrillard, Pierre Bourdieu, John Zerzan, Michael Jackson

Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno (September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969) was a German sociologist, philosopher, musicologist, and composer. Events 9 - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Visp ( French Viège) is the capital of the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation In the Humanities and Social sciences, critical theory is the examination and critique of Society and Literature, drawing from knowledge across Social theory is an essential tool used by scholars in the analysis of society through the use of theoretical frameworks social structures and phenomena are analyzed and placed in context Psychoanalysis is a body of ideas developed by Austrian physician Sigmund Freud and his followers which is devoted to the study of human psychological functioning and behavior Musicology ( Greek: μουσική = "music" and λόγος = "word" or "reason" is the scholarly study of Music Cultural studies is an academic discipline which combines Political economy, Communication, Sociology, Social theory, Literary theory Culture industry is a term coined by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969 and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973 who argued that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized This article describes the psychological trait of authoritarianism Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (ˈsœːɐn ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌɡ̊ɒˀ in Danish Anglicized as;) Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15 1844 August 25 1900 ( was a nineteenth-century German philosopher and classical philologist Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (maks 'veːbɐ (21 April 1864 &ndash 14 June 1920 was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered Sigmund Freud (ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt born Sigismund Shlomo Freud (May 6 1856 &ndash September 23 1939 was an Austrian Psychiatrist who founded Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of Edward Wadie Saïd MRSL ( إدوارد وديع سعيد,; 1 November 1935 &ndash 25 September Jean Baudrillard ( July 29, 1929   – March 6, 2007) (ʒɑ̃ bo Pierre Bourdieu ( August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French Sociologist and writer known for his John Zerzan (born 1943) is an American anarchist and primitivist Philosopher and author Michael D Jackson (born 1940 is a Post-modern New Zealand anthropologist who has taught in the anthropology departments at the University of Copenhagen Events 9 - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Sociology (from Latin: socius "companion" and the suffix -ology "the study of" from Greek λόγος lógos "knowledge" Philosophy is the study of general problems concerning matters such as existence knowledge truth beauty justice validity mind and language Musicology ( Greek: μουσική = "music" and λόγος = "word" or "reason" is the scholarly study of Music A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance He was a member of the Frankfurt School along with Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Jürgen Habermas, and others. The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy. Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Herbert Marcuse ( July 19, 1898 &ndash July 29, 1979) was a German philosopher and sociologist, and a member of Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of He was also the Music Director of the Radio Project. The Radio Project was a Social research project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to look into the effects of mass media on society

Already as a young music critic and amateur sociologist, Theodor W. A music critic is someone who reviews Music (including printed music performances and recorded music and publishes writing on them in books or journals (or on the internet Adorno was primarily a philosophical thinker. The label social philosopher emphasizes the socially critical aspect of his philosophical thinking, which from 1945 onwards took an intellectually prominent position in the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy. The Frankfurt School is a school of neo-Marxist Critical theory, Social research, and Philosophy.

Contents

Biography

The early Frankfurt years

Theodor (or "Teddie") was born in Frankfurt as an only child to the wine merchant Oscar Alexander Wiesengrund (1870–1941, of Jewish descent, converted to Protestantism) and the Catholic singer Maria Barbara, born Calvelli-Adorno. Wine is an Alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of Grape juice Year 1870 ( MDCCCLXX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. PLEASE TAKE NOTE************ Protestantism refers to the forms of Christian faith and practice that originated in the 16th century Protestant Reformation. It was the second half of this name that he adopted as his surname upon becoming a naturalized American citizen in the 1930s ("Wiesengrund" was abbreviated to "W"). A surname is a name added to a Given name and is part of a Personal name. His musically talented aunt Agathe also lived with the family. The young Adorno passionately engaged the piano; he especially liked four-handed playing because, he later wrote, the need for coordination increased his skill and appreciation. The piano is a Musical instrument played by means of a keyboard that produces sound by striking steel strings with Felt covered hammers [1] His childhood joy was increased by the family's annual summer sojourn in Amorbach. Amorbach is a town in the district of Miltenberg, County Unterfranken, Bavaria, Germany He attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium where he proved to be a highly gifted student: at the exceptionally early age of 17 he graduated from the Gymnasium at the top of his class. A gymnasium (pronounced with ɡ- in several languages is a type of school providing Secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar In his free time he took private lessons in composition with Bernhard Sekles and read Kant's Critique of Pure Reason together with his friend Siegfried Kracauer — 14 years his elder — on Saturday afternoons. Bernhard Sekles ( 20 June 1872 &ndash 15 December 1934) was a German Composer and music teacher born in Frankfurt Immanuel Kant (ɪmanuəl kant 22 April 1724 12 February 1804 was an 18th-century German Philosopher from the Prussian city of Königsberg The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one Siegfried Kracauer ( February 8, 1889, Frankfurt am Main &ndash November 26, 1966, New York) was a German Later he would proclaim that he owed more to these readings than to any of his academic teachers. At the University of Frankfurt (today's Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität) he studied philosophy, musicology, psychology and sociology. Psychology (from Greek grc ψῡχή psȳkhē, "breath life soul" and grc -λογία -logia) is an Academic and There he wrote his first academic work, a review of Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire. Schoenberg (beautiful mountain is the surname of several persons Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire ("three times seven poems from Albert Giraud's 'Pierrot lunaire'" commonly known as Pierrot Lunaire He completed his studies swiftly: by the end of 1924 he graduated with a dissertation on Edmund Husserl. Year 1924 ( MCMXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. A dissertation (also called thesis or disquisition) is a document that presents the author's Research and findings and is submitted in support of candidature Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (ˈhʊsɛrl April 8 1859 – April 26 1938) was a philosopher, known as the father of (Jacques Derrida, whose criticism of the use of the notions of "immediacy" and "self-presence" in Western metaphysics may owe a debt to Adorno, also wrote his first thesis on Husserl. ) Before his graduation, Adorno had already met with his most important intellectual collaborators, Max Horkheimer and Walter Benjamin. Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist

Vienna intermezzo

During his student years in Frankfurt Adorno had written a number of music critiques. He believed composition and music criticism would be his future profession. With this goal envisioned, he used his relationship to Alban Berg, who had made a name for himself with the opera Wozzeck, to pursue studies in Vienna beginning in January, 1925. Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9 1885 &ndash December 24 1935 was an Austrian Composer. Opera is an art form in which Singers and Musicians perform a Dramatic work (called an opera which combines a text (called a Libretto Wozzeck is the first Opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. Vienna ( in Wien; see also other names) is the Capital of Austria, and is also one of the nine States of Austria. Year 1925 ( MCMXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. He also formed contacts with other greats of the Viennese School, namely to Anton Webern and Arnold Schoenberg. The Second Viennese School is the term generally used in English -speaking countries to denote the group of Composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Anton Webern (December 3 1883 &ndash September 15 1945 was an Austrian Composer Arnold Schoenberg ( pronounced ˈʃøːnbɛrk (13 September 1874 &ndash 13 July 1951 was an Austrian and later American Composer, associated with His own musical compositions are shaped by the style of Berg and Schoenberg. Schoenberg’s revolutionary atonality particularly inspired the 22-year-old to pen philosophical observations on the new music, though they were not well received by its proponents. Atonality in its broadest sense describes Music that lacks a tonal center, or key. The New Musicology is a term applied to a wide body of Musicology with increased focus upon the cultural study, analysis and criticism of music with influences from The disappointment over this caused him to cut back on his music critiques to enable his career as academic teacher and social researcher to flourish. Social research refers to Research conducted by Social scientists (primarily within Sociology and Social psychology) but also within other disciplines He did however remain editor-in-chief of the avant-garde magazine Anbruch. Avant-garde (avɑ̃gaʁd in French) means "advance guard" or "vanguard His musicological writing already displayed his philosophical ambitions. Other lasting influences from Adorno's time in Vienna included Karl Kraus, whose lectures he attended with Alban Berg, and Georg Lukács whose Theory of the Novel had already enthused him while attending Gymnasium and whose History and Class Consciousness he had reviewed a year previously. For the theologian see Karl Christian Friedrich Krause. Karl Kraus ( April 28, 1874 - June 12, 1936) György Lukács (pronounced in IPA dyɶrdyə ˈlukɑtʃ) ( April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Georg Lukács' History and Class Consciousness (1920 Class Consciousness, as described by Georg Lukács 's famous History and Class Consciousness

The intermediate Frankfurt years

After returning from Vienna, Adorno experienced another setback. After his dissertation supervisor Hans Cornelius and Cornelius' assistant Max Horkheimer had voiced their concerns about Adorno's professorial thesis - a comprehensive philosophical-psychological treatise - he withdrew it in early 1928. Johannes Wilhelm Cornelius (September 27 1863 &ndash August 23 1947 was a German neo-Kantian Philosopher. Year 1928 ( MCMXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Adorno took three more years before he received the venia legendi, after submitting the manuscript Kierkegaard: Construction of the aesthetic (Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Ästhetischen) to his new supervisor, Paul Tillich. Habilitation is the highest academic qualification a person can achieve by their own pursuit in certain European and Asian countries Paul Johannes Tillich ( August 20, 1886 &ndash October 22, 1965) was a German - American theologian and Christian The topic of Adorno's inaugural lecture was the Current Importance of Philosophy, a theme he considered programmatic throughout his life. In it, he questioned the concept of totality for the first time, anticipating his famous formula — directed against Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel — the whole is the untrue (from Minima Moralia). Minima Moralia Reflexionen aus dem beschädigten Leben (Minima Moralia Reflections From Damaged Life is a seminal text in Critical Theory. However, Adorno's credential was revoked by the Nazis, along with those of all professors of non-Aryan descent, in 1933. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German Aryan is an English word derived from the Sanskrit " Ārya " meaning "noble" or "honorable" Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

Among Adorno's first courses was a seminar on Benjamin's treatise The Origin of German Tragic Drama. His 1932 essay "On the Social Situation of Music" ("Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik") was Adorno's contribution to the first issue of Horkheimer's Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaft ("journal for sociology"); it wasn't until 1938 that he joined the Institute for Social Research. Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1938 ( MCMXXXVIII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Institute for Social Research ( German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as Sociology

Commuter between Berlin and Oxford (1934-1937)

Beginning in the late 1920s during stays in Berlin, Adorno established close relations with Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch; Adorno had become acquainted with Bloch's first major work, Geist der Utopie, in 1921. The 1920s is sometimes referred to as the " Jazz Age " or the " Roaring Twenties " when speaking about the United States and Canada Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Ernst Simon Bloch (ɛʁnst ˈziːmɔn blɔx July 8, 1885 &ndash August 4, 1977) was a German Marxist philosopher Year 1921 ( MCMXXI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1921 calendar of the Gregorian calendar Moreover, the German capital, Berlin, was also home of chemist Margarethe ('Gretel') Karplus (1902-1993), whom Adorno would marry in London in 1937. Chemistry (from Egyptian kēme (chem meaning "earth") is the Science concerned with the composition structure and properties Year 1902 ( MCMII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year starting Year 1993 ( MCMXCIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar) Year 1937 ( MCMXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In 1934, fleeing from the Nazi regime, he emigrated to England, with hopes of obtaining a professorship at Oxford. Year 1934 ( MCMXXXIV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full 1934 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Nazism, which was a short name for National Socialism (Nationalsozialismus refers primarily to the Ideology and practices of the National Socialist German England is a Country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population whilst its mainland Oxford is currently bidding for the 2010 Wikimania Conference Oxford () is a city, and the County town of Oxfordshire, Though Adorno was not appointed professor at Oxford, he undertook an in depth study of Husserl's philosophy as a postgraduate at Merton College. See also Postgraduate Training in Education Postgraduate education (synonymous in North America with graduate education, and sometimes described See also Wardens of Merton College Oxford. Merton College is also the name of a college in the London Borough of Merton. Adorno spent the summer holidays with his fiancée in Germany every year. In 1936, the Zeitschrift featured one of Adorno's most controversial texts, "On Jazz" ("Über Jazz"). Year 1936 ( MCMXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. It should be noted that "jazz" was frequently used to refer to all popular music at the time of Adorno's writing. Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States This article was less an engagement with this style of music than a first polemic against the blooming entertainment and culture industry. Culture industry is a term coined by Theodor Adorno (1903-1969 and Max Horkheimer (1895-1973 who argued that popular culture is akin to a factory producing standardized Adorno believed the culture industry was a system by which society was controlled though a top-down creation of standardized culture that intensified the commodification of artistic expression. Extensive correspondence with Horkheimer, who was then living in exile in the United States, led to an offer of employment in America. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the

Émigré in the USA (1938-1949)

After visiting New York for the first time in 1937 he decided to resettle there. The City of New York In Brussels he bade his parents, who followed in 1939, farewell, and said goodbye to Benjamin in Sanremo. Brussels (Bruxelles pronounced; Brussel pronounced) officially the Brussels Capital-Region, is Year 1939 ( MCMXXXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Sanremo is a city with about 57000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Benjamin opted to remain in Europe, thus limiting their very rigorous future communication to letters. Shortly after Adorno's arrival in New York, Horkheimer's Institute for Social Research, which was then resettled at Columbia University, accepted him as an official member. The Institute for Social Research ( German: Institut für Sozialforschung) is a research organization covering topics such as Sociology Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. He also served as musical consult on the 'Radio Project' (also known as Lazarsfeld/Stanton Analysis Programme) directed by the Austrian sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld at Princeton University. The Radio Project was a Social research project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to look into the effects of mass media on society Austria (Österreich ( officially the Republic of Austria (Republik Österreich Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901–1976 was one of the major figures in 20th-century American Sociology. Princeton University is a private Coeducational research university located in Princeton, New Jersey. Very soon, however, his attention shifted to direct collaboration with Horkheimer. They moved to Los Angeles together, where he taught for the following seven years and served as the co-director of a research unit at the University of California. The University of California Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Westwood Los Angeles, California, United Their collective work found its first major expression in the first edition of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment (Dialektik der Aufklärung) in 1947. Dialectic of Enlightenment (German Dialektik der Aufklärung) is the core text of Critical Theory explaining the socio-psychological status Year 1947 ( MCMXLVII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Faced with the unfolding events of the Holocaust, the work begins with the words:

'In the most general sense of progressive thought, the Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. The Holocaust (from the Greek el ''ὁλόκαυστον'' (el-Latn holókauston holos, "completely" and kaustos, "burnt" also known as Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant. '[2]

In this book, which was virtually ignored until republished in 1969, Adorno and Horkheimer posit a dynamic within civilization that tends towards self-destruction. They argue that the concept of reason was transformed into an irrational force by the Enlightenment. Reason involves the ability to think understand and draw Conclusions in an Abstract way as in Human thinking The Age of Enlightenment or The Enlightenment is a term used to describe a phase in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century As a consequence, reason came to dominate not only nature, but also humanity itself. It is this rationalization of humanity that was identified as the primary cause of Fascism and other totalitarian regimes. Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Consequently, Adorno did not consider rationalism a path towards human emancipation. Freedom, or the idea of being free is a broad concept that For that, he looked toward the arts. Art refers to a diverse range of Human activities creations and expressions that are appealing to the Senses or Emotions of a human individual

After 1945 he ceased to work as a composer. Year 1945 ( MCMXLV) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar By taking this step he conformed to his own famous maxim: 'To still write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric'[3]. "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany He later retracted this statement, saying that: 'Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have to scream. . . hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz. ' He was consulted at length by Thomas Mann on the musicological details of the latter's novel Doktor Faustus. Paul Thomas Mann ( June A novel (from Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle for "new" "news" or "short story Doctor Faustus (in German, Doktor Faustus) is a German novel written in the United States by Thomas Mann, begun in 1943 Apart from that, he worked on his 'philosophy of the new music' (Philosophie der neuen Musik) in the 1940s, and on Hanns Eisler's Composing for the films. The 1940s decade ran from 1940 to 1949 Events and trends The 1940s was a period between the radical 1930s and the conservative 1950s which also leads the period to be Hanns Eisler ( July 6, 1898 &ndash September 6, 1962) was a German and Austrian Composer. He also contributed 'qualitative interpretations' to the Studies in Prejudice performed by multiple research institutes in the US that uncovered the authoritarian character of test persons through indirect questions. Qualitative research is a field of inquiry that crosscuts disciplines and subject matters. Authoritarianism describes a Form of government characterized by an emphasis on the Authority of the State in a republic or union

Late Frankfurt years (1949-1969)

After the war, Adorno, who had been homesick, did not hesitate long before returning to Germany. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Due to Horkheimer's influence he was given a professorship in Frankfurt in 1949/1950, allowing him to continue his academic career after a prolonged hiatus. Year 1949 ( MCMXLIX) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1950 ( MCML) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. This culminated in a position as double Ordinarius (of philosophy and of sociology). In the Institute, which was affiliated with the university, Adorno's leadership status became ever more and more apparent, while Horkheimer, who was eight years older, gradually stepped back, leaving his younger friend the sole directorship in 1958/1959. Year 1958 ( MCMLVIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The year 1959 ( MCMLIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. His collection of aphorisms, Minima Moralia, led to greater prominence in post-war Germany when it was released by the newly founded publishing house of Peter Suhrkamp. Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of Literature or Information &ndash the activity of making information available for public view It purported a 'sad science' under the impression of Fascism, Stalinism and Culture Industry, which seemingly offered no alternative: "Wrong life cannot be lived rightly" (Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen). Fascism is a totalitarian nationalist and corporatist ideology Stalinism is the political regime named after Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929–1953 [4] The work raised Adorno to the level of a foundational intellectual figure in the West German republic, after a last attempt to get him involved in research in the USA failed in 1953. West Germany ( Inf German: Westdeutschland or West-Deutschland) was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany ( Year 1953 ( MCMLIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.

Here is a list of his multifaceted accomplishments:

Adorno Monument in Frankfurt (desk, chair, lamp, carpet and other utilities like the metronome of his working room).
Adorno Monument in Frankfurt (desk, chair, lamp, carpet and other utilities like the metronome of his working room).

Final years (1967-1969)

In 1966 extraparliamentary opposition (APO) formed against the grand coalition of Germany's two major parties CDU/CSU and SPD, directed primarily against the planned Notstandgesetze (emergency laws). Year 1966 ( MCMLXVI) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. The Außerparlamentarische Opposition ( German for Extraparliamentary Opposition, commonly known as the APO) was a political Protest A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a Cabinet of a parliamentary Government in which several parties cooperate The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands) is the largest Political party in Germany. The German Emergency Acts were passed on 30 May 1968 at the time of the First Grand Coalition between the Social Democratic Party of Germany Adorno was an outspoken critic of these policies, which he displayed by his participation in an event organized by the action committee Demokratie im Notstand ("Democracy in a State of Emergency"). When the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot by a police officer at a demonstration against a visit by the Shah of Iran, the left-wing APO became increasingly radicalized, and the universities became a place of unrest. Benno Ohnesorg (/ˈbɛnoː ˈoːʰnəzɔɐk/ October 15, 1940 – June 2, 1967) was a German university student who was shot A demonstration is an historically and geographically common form of Nonviolent action by groups of people Shah is an Iranian term for a Monarch (leader that has been adopted in many other languages For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. To a considerable extent it was students of Adorno who interpreted a theory of revolt, thus executing a 'praxis' from 'Critical Theory'. It is said that Adorno asked for the help of police to remove the students that had occupied the Frankfurt Institute in fear of vandalism. Therefore Adorno in particular became a target of student action. He sharply criticised the anti-intellectual trend in the 60's Left, which he called "actionism,"["Resignation", The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture] defined as the belief that actions such as protests and strikes could change the political structure by themselves without being supported by solid theory and an organized program or party. Anti-intellectualism describes a sentiment of hostility towards or mistrust of Intellectuals and Intellectual pursuits On the other side of the spectrum, the right accused him of providing the intellectual basis for leftist violence. In Politics, right-wing, the political right, and the Right are positions that uphold traditional values and/or authorities Violence is the exertion of force so as to injure or abuse The word is used broadly to describe the destructive action of natural phenomena like Storms and Earthquakes In 1969 the disturbances in his lecture hall, most famously as female students occupied his speaker's podium bare-breasted, increased to an extent that Adorno discontinued his lecture series. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In a letter to Samuel Beckett, he wrote: "The feeling of suddenly being attacked as a reactionary at least has a surprising note. Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989 was an Irish Writer, Dramatist and poet "

One biographer on Adorno, Stefan-Müller Doohm, contends that he was convinced the attacks by the students were directed against his theories as well as his person and that he feared that the current political situation might lead to totalitarianism. Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe Political systems where a State regulates nearly every aspect of public and private He left with his wife on a vacation to Switzerland. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation Despite warnings by his doctor, he attempted to ascend a 3,000 meter high mountain, resulting in heart palpitations. A mountain is a Landform that extends above the surrounding Terrain in a limited area with a peak A palpitation (medical term ectopic heart beat) is an abnormal awareness of the beating of the Heart, whether it is too slow too fast irregular The same day, he and his wife drove to the nearby town Visp, where he suffered heart palpitations once again. Visp ( French Viège) is the capital of the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. He was brought to the town's clinic. In the morning of the following day, August 6, he died of a heart attack. Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Myocardial infarction ( MI or AMI for acute myocardial infarction) also known as a heart attack, occurs when the blood supply

Theory

Adorno was chiefly influenced by Max Weber's critique of disenchantment, Georg Lukacs's Hegelian interpretation of Marxism, as well as Walter Benjamin's philosophy of history, although the influence of the former has until recently been underestimated. Maximilian Carl Emil Weber (maks 'veːbɐ (21 April 1864 &ndash 14 June 1920 was a German political economist and sociologist who was considered Disenchantment ( Entzauberung) in Social sciences refers to the Devaluation of Mysticism. György Lukács (pronounced in IPA dyɶrdyə ˈlukɑtʃ) ( April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin ( July 15, 1892 &ndash September 27, 1940) was a German - Jewish Marxist Adorno, along with the other major Frankfurt School theorists Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, argued that advanced capitalism had managed to contain or liquidate the forces that would bring about its collapse and that the revolutionary moment, when it would have been possible to transform it into socialism, had passed. Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical Herbert Marcuse ( July 19, 1898 &ndash July 29, 1979) was a German philosopher and sociologist, and a member of As he put it at the beginning of his Negative Dialectics (1966), philosophy is still necessary because the time to realise it was missed. Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno ( September 11, 1903 &ndash August 6, 1969) was a German -born international sociologist Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched through its attack on the objective basis of revolutionary consciousness and through liquidation of the individualism that had been the basis of critical consciousness.

Whilst Adorno's work focuses on art, literature and music as key areas of sensuous, indirect critique of the established culture and modes of thought, there is also a strand of distinctly political utopianism evident in his reflections especially on history. The argument, which is complex and dialectic, dominates his Aesthetic Theory, Philosophy of New Music and many other works.

Adorno saw the culture industry as an arena in which critical tendencies or potentialities were eliminated. He argued that the culture industry, which produced and circulated cultural commodities through the mass media, manipulated the population. Popular culture was identified as a reason why people become passive; the easy pleasures available through consumption of popular culture made people docile and content, no matter how terrible their economic circumstances. The differences among cultural goods make them appear different, but they are in fact just variations on the same theme. Adorno conceptualised this phenomenon as pseudo-individualization and the always-the-same. He saw this mass-produced culture as a danger to the more difficult high arts. Culture industries cultivate false needs; that is, needs created and satisfied by capitalism. True needs, in contrast, are freedom, creativity, and genuine happiness. But the subtle dialectician was also able to say that the problem with capitalism was that it blurred the line between false and true needs altogether.

The work of Adorno and Horkheimer heavily influenced intellectual discourse on popular culture and scholarly popular culture studies. Popular culture (or pop culture) is the Culture — patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance — Popular culture studies is the Academic discipline studying popular culture At the time Adorno began writing, there was a tremendous unease among many intellectuals as to the results of mass culture and mass production on the character of individuals within a nation. By exploring the mechanisms for the creation of mass culture, Adorno presented a framework which gave specific terms to what had been a more general concern.

At the time this was considered important because of the role which the state took in cultural production; Adorno's analysis allowed for a critique of mass culture from the left which balanced the critique of popular culture from the right. From both perspectives — left and right — the nature of cultural production was felt to be at the root of social and moral problems resulting from the consumption of culture. However, while the critique from the right emphasized moral degeneracy ascribed to sexual and racial influences within popular culture, Adorno located the problem not with the content, but with the objective realities of the production of mass culture and its effects, e. g. as a form of reverse psychology. Reverse psychology is a persuasion technique that involves the false advocacy of a belief or behavior contrary to the belief or behavior that is actually being advocated

Many aspects of Adorno's work are relevant today and have been developed in many strands of contemporary critical theory, media theory, and sociology. Thinkers influenced by Adorno believe that today's society has evolved in a direction foreseen by him, especially in regard to the past (Auschwitz), morals or the Culture Industry. A society is a Population of Humans characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals that share a distinctive Culture and Institutions "Auschwitz" redirects here For the town see Oświęcim Auschwitz-Birkenau () was the largest of Nazi Germany Morality (from the Latin la moralitas "manner character proper behavior" has three principal meanings The latter has become a particularly productive, yet highly contested term in cultural studies. Cultural studies is an academic discipline which combines Political economy, Communication, Sociology, Social theory, Literary theory Many of Adorno's reflections on aesthetics and music have only just begun to be debated, as a collection of essays on the subject, many of which had not previously been translated into English, has only recently been collected and published as Essays on Music.

His work on the culture industry has been criticized by such writers as Christian Bethune, who point out both that Adorno's critique is not based on a thorough knowledge of popular cultural forms, but also that it has an "end of history" tone to it. Taking Adorno's critique of popular music to its logical conclusion, one would have to conclude that Blues or rocknroll, jazz, rap or punk, were also simply one hundred percent commercial inventions for profit, with no contradictions within them.

Adorno, again along with the other principal thinkers of the Frankfurt school, attacked positivism in the social sciences and in philosophy. He was particularly harsh on approaches that claimed to be scientific and quantitative, although the collective Frankfurt School work The Authoritarian Personality that appeared under Adorno's name was the single most influential empirical study in the social sciences in America for decades after its publication in 1950. Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning " Knowledge " or "knowing" is the effort to discover, and increase human understanding The Authoritarian Personality (TAP is an influential 1950 Book by Theodor W

Adorno's work in the years before his death was shaped by the idea of "negative dialectics", set out especially in his book of that title. A key notion in the work of the Frankfurt School since Dialectic of Enlightenment had been the idea of thought becoming an instrument of domination that subsumes all objects under the control of the (dominant) subject, especially through the notion of identity, i. e. of identifying as real in nature and society only that which harmonized or fit with dominant concepts, and regarding as unreal or non-existent everything that did not. Adorno's "negative dialectics" was an attempt to articulate a non-dominating thought that would recognize its limitations and accept the non-identity and reality of that which could not be subsumed under the subject's concepts. Indeed, Adorno sought to ground the critical bite of his sociological work in his critique of identity, which he took to be a reification in thought of the commodity form or exchange relation which always presumes a false identity between different things. The potential to criticise arises from the gap between the concept and the object, which can never go into the former without remainder. This gap, this non-identity in identity, was the secret to a critique of both material life and conceptual reflection.

Adorno and his critics

Critiques of Adorno's theories include other Marxists. See also Marxian economics, Marxism Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are terms which cover work in Philosophy Other critics include Ralf Dahrendorf and Karl Popper, positivist philosophers, neoconservatives, and many students frustrated by Adorno's style. Ralf Gustav Dahrendorf Baron Dahrendorf, KBE (born May 1, 1929) is a German-British Sociologist, Philosopher, Political scientist Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor Many Marxists accuse the Critical Theorists of claiming the intellectual heritage of Karl Marx without feeling the obligation to apply theory for political action. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions

Marxist criticisms

According to Horst Müller's Kritik der kritischen Theorie ("Critique of Critical Theory"), Adorno posits totality as an automatic system. Horst Müller was an East German Luger who competed during the mid 1970s This is consistent with Adorno's idea of society as a self-regulating system, from which one must escape (but from which nobody can escape). For him it was existent, but inhuman, while Müller argues against the existence of such a system. In his argument, he claims that Critical Theory provides no practical solution for societal change. He concludes that Jürgen Habermas, in particular, and the Frankfurt School, in general, misconstrue Marx. Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of

Georg Lukacs, a Marxist philosopher, infamously described Adorno as having taken up residence in the 'Grand Hotel Abyss', in his 1962 preface to The Theory of the Novel. György Lukács (pronounced in IPA dyɶrdyə ˈlukɑtʃ) ( April 13, 1885 – June 4, 1971) was a Hungarian Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Year 1962 ( MCMLXII) was a Common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. This was understood to mean that Lukacs (who at the time supported "socialist realism" and in general the Marxism of the East German regime) associated Adorno with a dated proto-Marxism, that indulged in despair, despite a comfortable bourgeois lifestyle.

Positivist criticisms

Positivist philosophers accuse Adorno of theorizing without submitting his theories to empirical tests, basing their critique on Karl Popper's revision of Logical Positivism in which Popper substituted "falsifiability" as a criterion of scientificity for the original "verifiability" criterion of meaning proposed by A.J. Ayer and other early Logical Positivists. Positivism is the Philosophy that the only authentic knowledge is knowledge that is based on actual sense experience Sir Karl Raimund Popper ( July 28 1902  &ndash September 17 1994) was an Austrian and British Philosopher and a professor Logical positivism (later and more accurately called logical empiricism) is a school of philosophy that combines Empiricism, the idea that observational evidence is Sir Alfred Jules ("Freddie" Ayer ( October 29, 1910 &ndash June 27, 1989) better known as A In particular, interpreters of Karl Popper apply the test of "falsifiability" to Adorno's thought and find that he was elusive when presented with contrary evidence.

Conservative criticism

Drawing on the Positivist critique, conservatives also deride Adorno as a theorist unwilling to submit to experimental verification.

However, a more intricate criticism is offered by the followers of Leo Strauss, who also believe in a hermeneutics of culture, and often echo many of Adorno's criticisms of accessibility and art. Leo Strauss (September 20 1899 &ndash October 18 1973 was a German -born Jewish-American political philosopher who specialized in the study of classical Hermeneutics may be described as the development and study of Theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate" generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic Their critique rests on the anti-capitalist nature of Adorno's orientation, arguing that, while, mass culture may consist of bread and circuses, that these are essential for social function and their removal or reduction in importance as "useful lies", would threaten the continued operation of the market and society, as well as higher philosophical truth. " Bread and circuses " (or Bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is an ancient Roman Metaphor for people

Adorno's responses to his critics

Adorno's defenders reply to his positivist and neoconservative critics by pointing to his extensive numerical and empirical research, notably the "F-scale" in his work on Fascist tendencies in individual personalities in The Authoritarian Personality. And in fact, quantitative research using questionnaires and other tools of the modern sociologist was in full use at Adorno's Institute for Social Research.

Adorno also argued that the authoritarian personality would, of course, use culture and its consumption to exert social control, but that such control is inherently degrading to those who are subjected to it, and instead such personalities would project their own fear of loss of control on to society as a whole.

However, as a pioneer of a self-reflexive sociology who prefigured Bourdieu's ability to factor in the effect of reflection on the societal object, Adorno realized that some criticism (including deliberate disruption of his classes in the 1960s) could never be answered in a dialogue between equals if, as he seems to have believed, what the naive ethnographer or sociologists thinks of a human essence is always changing over time. Pierre Bourdieu ( August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French Sociologist and writer known for his

Adorno's sociological methods

"Institut" and "Adorno-Ampel" (Adorno-traffic light) at "Senckenberganlage" in Frankfurt am Main
"Institut" and "Adorno-Ampel" (Adorno-traffic light) at "Senckenberganlage" in Frankfurt am Main

Because Adorno believed that sociology needs to be self-reflective and self-critical, he believed that the language the sociologist uses, like the language of the ordinary person, is a political construct in large measure that uses, often unreflectingly, concepts installed by dominant classes and social structures (such as our notion of "deviance" which includes both genuinely deviant individual and "hustlers" operating below social norms because they lack the capital to operate above: for an analysis of this phenomenon, cf. Pierre Bourdieu's book The Weight of the World). Pierre Bourdieu ( August 1, 1930 – January 23, 2002) was an acclaimed French Sociologist and writer known for his

Thus Adorno felt that those at the top of the Institute needed to be the source primarily of theories for evaluation and empirical testing, as well as people who would process the "facts" discovered. . . including revising theories that were found to be false. For example, in essays published in Germany on Adorno's return from the USA, and reprinted in the Critical Models essays collection (ISBN 0-231-07635-5), Adorno praised the egalitarianism and openness of US society based on his sojourn in New York and the Los Angeles area between 1935 and 1955. Prior to going to the USA, and as shown in his rather infamous essay "On Jazz", Adorno seems to have thought that the USA was a cultural wasteland in which people's minds and responses were formed by what he, rather nastily, called "the music of slaves".

One example of the clash of intellectual culture and Adorno's methods can be found in Paul Lazarsfeld, the American (and Americanized) sociologist for whom Adorno worked in the middle 1930s after fleeing Hitler. Paul Felix Lazarsfeld (1901–1976 was one of the major figures in 20th-century American Sociology.

As Rolf Wiggershaus recounts in The Frankfurt School, Its History, Theories and Political Significance (MIT 1995):

Lazarsfeld was the director of a project, funded and inspired by David Sarnoff (the head of RCA), to discover both the sort of music that listeners of radio liked and ways to improve their "taste", so that RCA could profitably air more classical music. RCA Corporation, founded as Radio Corporation of America, was an electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986 . . Sarnoff was, it appears, genuinely concerned with the low level of taste in this era of "Especially for You" and other forgotten hits, but needed assurance that RCA could viably air opera on Saturday afternoons. Lazarsfeld, however, had trouble both with the prose style of the work Adorno handed in and what Lazarsfeld thought was Adorno's habit of "jumping to conclusions" without being willing to do the scut work of collecting data.

Adorno, however, rather than being arrogant, seems to have had a depressive personality, and Rolf Wiggershaus tells an anecdote which doesn't fit the image formed of an arrogant pedant: he noted that the typists at the Radio Research Project liked and understood what Adorno was saying about the actual effect of modern media. The Radio Project was a Social research project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation to look into the effects of mass media on society They may have responded to comments similar to that found in Dialectic of Enlightenment, written by Adorno with his close associate Max Horkheimer, that it appeared that movie-goers were less enthralled with the content even of "blockbusters" of the era, films that are now lauded by Hollywood mavens as "art", than by the air-conditioned comfort of the theaters--an observation reflected in movie business at the time by the expression that one found a good place to sell popcorn and built a theatre around it. Dialectic of Enlightenment (German Dialektik der Aufklärung) is the core text of Critical Theory explaining the socio-psychological status Max Horkheimer (February 14 1895 &ndash July 7 1973 was a German Philosopher and Sociologist, and a founder and guiding thinker of Critical

Adorno translated into English

While even German readers can find Adorno's work difficult to understand, an additional problem for English readers is that his German idiom is particularly difficult to translate into English. A similar difficulty of translation is true of Hegel, Heidegger, and a number of other German philosophers and poets. Martin Heidegger ( September 26, 1889 &ndash May 26, 1976) (ˈmaɐ̯tiːn ˈhaɪ̯dɛgɐ was an influential German philosopher As a result, some early translators tended toward over-literalness. In recent years, Edmund Jephcott and Stanford University Press have published new translations of some of Adorno's lectures and books, including Introduction to Sociology, Problems of Moral Philosophy and his transcribed lectures on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and a new translation of the Dialectic of Enlightenment. The Stanford University Press is the Publishing house of Stanford University. The Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is one Dialectic of Enlightenment (German Dialektik der Aufklärung) is the core text of Critical Theory explaining the socio-psychological status Professor Henry Pickford, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, has translated many of Adorno's works such as The meaning of Working Through the Past. A new translation has also appeared of the Philosophy of New Music by Robert Hullot-Kentor, from University of Minnesota Press, and of the correspondence with Alban Berg, Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, and the letters to Adorno's parents, all by Wieland Hoban and published by Polity Press. The University of Minnesota Press is a University press that is part of the University of Minnesota. Wieland Hoban (born 1978 in London) is a British composer, now resident in Germany. These fresh translations are less literal in their rendering of German sentences and words, and are more accessible to English readers.

Adorno and Music Theory

See also: Critical Theory, New musicology. In the Humanities and Social sciences, critical theory is the examination and critique of Society and Literature, drawing from knowledge across The New Musicology is a term applied to a wide body of Musicology with increased focus upon the cultural study, analysis and criticism of music with influences from

Adorno's theoretical method is closely related to his understanding of music and Arnold Schoenberg and other contemporary composers' atonal (less so "twelve-tone") techniques (Adorno had studied composition for several years with Alban Berg), which challenged the hierarchical nature of traditional tonality in composition. Arnold Schoenberg ( pronounced ˈʃøːnbɛrk (13 September 1874 &ndash 13 July 1951 was an Austrian and later American Composer, associated with Twelve-tone technique (also dodecaphony, especially in British usage twelve-note composition) is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Alban Maria Johannes Berg (February 9 1885 &ndash December 24 1935 was an Austrian Composer. Tonality is a system of Music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center" or tonic. For even if "the whole is untrue", for Adorno we retain the ability to form partial critical conceptions and submit them to a test as we progress towards a "higher" awareness. This role of a critical consciousness was a common concern in the Second Viennese School prior to the Second World War, and demanded that composers relate to the traditions more as a canon of taboos rather than as a canon of masterpieces that should be imitated. The Second Viennese School is the term generally used in English -speaking countries to denote the group of Composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg For the composer (poet, artist, philosopher) of this era, every work of art or thought was thus likely to be shocking or difficult to understand. Only through its "corrosive unacceptability" to the commercially-defined sensibilities of the middle class could new art hope to challenge dominant cultural assumptions.

Adorno's followers argue that he seems to have managed the very idea that one can abandon tonality while still being able to rank artistic and ethical phenomena on a tentative scale, not because he was a sentimentalist about this ability but because he saw the drive towards totality (whether the Stalinist or Fascist totality of his time, or globalization of the market today) as derivative of the ability to make ethical and artistic judgement, which, following Kant, Adorno thought part of being human. Thus his method (better: anti-method) was to use language and its "big" concepts tentatively and musically, partly to see if they "sound right" and fit the data. For example, his question in The Authoritarian Personality (Adorno, T. W. , Frenkel-Brunswik, E. , Levinson, D. J. & Sanford, R. N. , 1950, ISBN 0-393-31112-0). This and other works written during his sojourn in California was whether American Fundamentalist authoritarianism could be spoken of as having a relationship to Continental Fascism without sounding a false note in terms of the partial totality of a "theory" that American authoritarians MIGHT bring about a different but equally or more pernicious form of Fascism in the US.

Adorno was concerned that a genuine sociology retain a commitment to truth including the willingness to self-apply. Today, his life can be read as a protest against what he would call the "reification" of political polls and spin as well as a culture that in being aggressively "anti" high culture, seems every year to make more and more cultural artifacts of less and less quality that are consumed with some disgust by their "fans", viewed as objects themselves. Reification ( German: Verdinglichung, literally "thing-ification" (from Latin "Res" meaning "thing" or Versachlichung, literally High culture is a term now used in a number of different ways in Academic discourse whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products mainly in the

Select bibliography (by publication in English)

References

  1. ^ See his 1933 essay, "Vierhändig, noch einmal," reprinted in Adorno, Impromptus (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1968), 142-45.
  2. ^ Dialectic of Enlightenment, tr. John Cumming, Verso ed. London 1979 p. 3. = 'Seit je hat Aufklärung im umfassendsten Sinn fortschreitenden Denkens das Ziel verfolgt, von den Menschen die Furcht zu nehmen und sie als Herren einzusetzen. Aber die vollends aufgeklärte Erde strahlt im Zeichen triumphalen Unheils. ' German ed. Querido, Amsterdam,1947 reprinted S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main,1969 p. 1
  3. ^ German:'Nach Auschwitz noch ein Gedicht zu schreiben ist barbarisch')
  4. ^ Quotes: Theodor W. Adorno

External links

Online works by Adorno


Persondata
NAME Adorno, Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION German philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 11, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt, Germany
DATE OF DEATH August 6, 1969
PLACE OF DEATH Visp, Switzerland
Events 9 - The Battle of the Teutoburg Forest ends 506 - The Bishops of Visigothic Gaul Year 1903 ( MCMIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar of the Gregorian calendar or a Common year starting Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany ( ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant is a Country in Central Europe. Events 1538 - Bogotá, Colombia, is founded by Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada. Year 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Visp ( French Viège) is the capital of the district of Visp in the canton of Valais in Switzerland. Switzerland (English pronunciation; Schweiz Swiss German: Schwyz or Schwiiz Suisse Svizzera Svizra officially the Swiss Confederation
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