Philosophers Born in the Twentieth Century

7/27/2019 Philosophers Born in the Twentieth Century

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PHILOSOPHERS BORN IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURYWIKIPEDIA

JULHO 2007


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Nicola Abbagnano

Nicola Abbagnano.Nicola Abbagnano (15 July 1901 September 9, 1990) was an Italian existential philosopher . Nicola Abbagnano was born inSalerno[1].

He studied in Naples and taught at Turin. In 1972 he moved toMilan, where hecollaborated toIndro Montanelli's Il Giornale. For a short while, he was assessor for culture in thecomuneof Milan. From 1952, together with Norberto Bobbio, he was co-director of Rivista di filosofia.

Abbagnano's philosophy was defined by himself "positive existentialism". His "philosophyof possible" condemned other existentialists for either denying human possibility or exaggerating it. In his later work he tended to adopt a more naturalistic and stientificapproach to philosophy.

Selected bibliography Le sorgenti irrazionali del pensiero(1923) La fisica nuova. Fondamenti di una nuova teoria della scienza(1934) Introduzione all'esistenzialismo(1942)

History of Philosophy(3 volumes, 1946-1950) L'esistenzialismo positivo("The Positive Existentialism", 1948) Possibilit e libert("Possibility and Liberty", 1956)Storia della filosofia(1966) Dizionario di filosofia(1987)

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H. B. ActonHarry Burrows Acton (1908 1974) was a British academic in the field of political

philosophy, known for books defending themoralityof capitalism, and attackingMarxism-Leninism. He in particular produced arguments on the incoherence of Marxism,which hedescribed as a 'farrago' (in philosophical terms). His book The Illusion of the Epoch, inwhich this appears, is a standard point of reference. Other interests were theMarquis de Condorcet, Hegel, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer , F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet andSidney Webb.

He had teaching positions at theLondon School of Economics, Bedford College,theUniversity of Edinburghwhere he was Professor of Moral Philosophy, and theUniversity of Chicago. He was editor of Philosophy, the journal of theRoyal Institute of Philosophy,of which he was for a time Director. He was president of theAristotelian Societyfrom

1952 to 1953.

WorksThe Illusion of the Epoch:Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed (1955)The Philosophy of Language in Revolutionary France (1959) Dawes Hicks Lectureof the British AcademyWhat Marx Really Said (1967)Philosophy of Punishment (1969) editor Kant's moral philosophy (1970)The Morals of Markets: an Ethical Exploration (1971) essays edited by DavidGordon and Jeremy Shearmur The Right to Work and the Right to Strike (1972)The ethics of capitalism (The Company and its Responsibilities) (1972)The idea of a spiritual power: 1973 Auguste Comte memorial trust lecture (1974)

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Mortimer Adler

Mortimer Adler around 1963

Mortimer Jerome Adler (December 28, 1902 June 28, 2001) was an American Aristotelian philosopher and author. He was born in New York City, the son of animmigrant jewelry salesman. He dropped out of school at 14 years of age and went to work as a secretary and copy boy at the New York Sun, hoping to become a journalist. After ayear, he took night classes atColumbia Universityto improve his writing. It was there thathe became interested, after reading the autobiography of the great English philosopher John Stuart Mill, in the great philosophers and thinkers of Western civilization. Adler was drivento continue his reading after learning that Mill had readPlatowhen he was only five years

old, while he had not read him at all. A book by Plato was lent to him by a neighbor andAdler became hooked. He then decided to study philosophy at Columbia, where hereceived a scholarship. But he was so focused on philosophy that he failed to complete therequisite physical education course to earn his bachelor's degree.

Adler became an instructor at Columbia in the 1920s. He continued to participate in theHonors program (today theCore Curriculum) which had been started byJohn Erskine. This program focused on the reading of the great Classics. His tenure at the university includedstudy with such eminent thinkers as Erskine andJohn Dewey, the famous American pragmatist philosopher. This kind of environment inspired his early interest in reading andthe study of the "Great Books" of Western Civilization. He also promoted the idea that

philosophy should be integrated with science, literature, and religion.

BiographyOriginally wanting to become a journalist, Adler took writing classes at night where hediscovered the works of men he would come to call heroes:Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas,John Locke, John Stuart Milland others. He went on to study philosophy atColumbia

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University. Though he failed to pass the required swimming test for a bachelor's degree (amatter that was rectified when Columbia gave him an honorary degree in 1983), he stayedat the university and eventually received a teaching position and a doctorate in psychology.[1]

In 1930Robert Hutchins,the newly appointed president of theUniversity of Chicago,

whom Adler had befriended some years earlier, arranged for him to be hired byChicagos law schoolas a professor of the philosophy of law, after the philosophers at Chicagoresisted Adler's appointment to the philosophy faculty.[2][3] Adler was the first "non-lawyer"to join the law school faculty.[4]Adler and Hutchins went on to found theGreat Books of the Western Worldprogram andthe Great Books Foundation.Adler founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in 1952. He also served on the Board of Editors of Encyclopdia Britannicasince its inception in1949, and succeededRobert Hutchinsas its chairman from1974. As the director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition of Britannicafrom1965,he was instrumental in the major reorganization of knowledge embodied in that edition.[5]He introduced thePaideia Proposalwhich resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, agrade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works(as judged for each grade). WithMax Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.

Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of his works (such as How to Read a Book ) became popular bestsellers. He was also an advocate of economicdemocracy and wrote an influential preface to Louis Kelso'sThe Capitalist Manifesto.Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from hisColumbia undergraduate days. In his own words:

Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have nointerest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can readany book I writeand they do.

Adler took a long time in his own life to make up his mind abouttheologicalissues. Heconsidered himself a paganwhen he wrote How to Think About God in 1980. In Volume 51 of the Mars Hill Audio "Journal" (2001), Ken Myers includes his1980 interview withAdler, conducted after How to Think About God was published. Myers reminisces, "Duringthat interview, I asked him why he had never embraced theChristianfaith himself. Heexplained that while he had been profoundly influenced by a number of Christian thinkersduring his life, ...there were moralnot intellectualobstacles to his conversion. He didn'texplain any further."

Myers goes on to point out that Adler finally "surrendered to theHound of Heaven" and"made a confession of faith and was baptized" only a few years after that interview.Offering insight into Adler's conversion, Meyer quotes Adler from a subsequent1990 article inChristianitymagazine: "My chief reason for choosing Christianity was becausethe mysteries were incomprehensible. What's the point of revelation if we could figure itout ourselves? If it were wholly comprehensible, then it would just be another philosophy."

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In 2000, Adler became aRoman Catholic.He can be considered a Catholic philosopher dueto his lifelong participation in the Neo-Thomistmovement, despite not being a Catholic for most of this time.

In his 1980 interview, Myers playfully asked Adler which single book he would want to

take on a desert island. Adler responded with eleven:Thucydides' The History of the Peloponnesian War [1]5 or 6 of Plato's DialoguesAristotle's Ethics & Politics Augustine of Hippo's Confessions Plutarch's Lives Dante's Divine Comedy some plays of Shakespeare Montaigne's Essays Gulliver's Travels Locke's Second Treatise of Government [2] Tolstoy's War and Peace

In the summer of 1981Adler conducted a seminar at theAspen Institutein Colorado basedon his book Six Great Ideas. It was filmed byPBSfor a popular television series hosted byBill Moyersthe following year.

Adler was a controversial figure in some circles who saw his focus on the classics aseurocentric and dogmatic, and he was never afraid to speak his mind. Adler was also aworld federalist.

Quotations"The philosopher ought never to try to avoid the duty of making up his mind.""We ought to desire only that which is good for us.""Not to engage in the pursuit of ideas is to live like ants instead of like men.""[I]f local civil government is necessary for local civil peace, then world civilgovernment is necessary for world peace." - Philosopher at Large, 1977 "Every person is called to the same common vocation, that of being a good citizenand a thoughtful human being.""There is no truth, only evidence."

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Works

Mortimer Adler around 1992 Dialectic(1927)The Nature of Judicial Proof: An Inquiry into the Logical, Legal, and Empirical Aspects of the Law of Evidence(1931, with Jerome Michael) Diagrammatics(1932, with Maude Phelps Hutchins)Crime, Law and Social Science(1933, with Jerome Michael) Art and Prudence: A Study in Practical Philosophy(1937)What Man Has Made of Man: A Study of the Consequences of Platonism and Positivism in Psychology(1937)

The Philosophy and Science of Man: A Collection of Texts as a Foundation for Ethics and Politics(1940) How to Read a Book: The Art of Getting a Liberal Education (1940), 1966 editionsubtitled A Guide to Reading the Great Books, 1972 revised edition with CharlesVan Doren,The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading : ISBN 0-671-21209-5 A Dialectic of Morals: Towards the Foundations of Political Philosophy(1941) How to Think About War and Peace(1944)The Revolution in Education(1944, withMilton Mayer )The Capitalist Manifesto(1958, withLouis O. Kelso) ISBN 0-8371-8210-7 The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Conceptions of Freedom(1958)

The New Capitalists: A Proposal to Free Economic Growth from the Slavery of Savings(1961, with Louis O. Kelso)The Idea of Freedom: A Dialectical Examination of the Controversies about Freedom(1961)Great Ideas from the Great Books(1961)The Conditions of Philosophy: Its Checkered Past, Its Present Disorder, and Its Future Promise(1965)The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes(1967)

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The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense(1970)The Common Sense of Politics(1971)The American Testament (1975, with William Gorman)Some Questions About Language: A Theory of Human Discourse and Its Objects(1976)

Philosopher at Large: An Intellectual Autobiography(1977) Reforming Education: The Schooling of a People and Their Education Beyond Schooling (1977, edited by Geraldine Van Doren) Aristotle for Everybody: Difficult Thought Made Easy(1978)ISBN 0-684-83823-0 How to Think About God: A Guide for the 20th-Century Pagan(1980)ISBN 0-02-016022-4 Six Great Ideas: Truth-Goodness-Beauty-Liberty-Equality-Justice(1981)ISBN 0-02-072020-3 The Angels and Us(1982)The Paideia Proposal: An Educational Manifesto(1982) How to Speak / How to Listen(1983)ISBN 0-02-500570-7 Paideia Problems and Possibilities: A Consideration of Questions Raised by The Paideia Proposal (1983) A Vision of the Future: Twelve Ideas for a Better Life and a Better Society(1984)ISBN 0-02-500280-5 The Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus(1984, with Members of thePaideia Group)Ten Philosophical Mistakes(1985)ISBN 0-02-500330-5 A Guidebook to Learning: For a Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom(1986)We Hold These Truths: Understanding the Ideas and Ideals of the Constitution(1987) Reforming Education: The Opening of the American Mind (1988, edited byGeraldine Van Doren) Intellect: Mind Over Matter (1990)Truth in Religion: The Plurality of Religions and the Unity of Truth(1990)ISBN 0-02-064140-0 Haves Without Have-Nots: Essays for the 21st Century on Democracy and Socialism(1991)ISBN 0-02-500561-8 Desires, Right & Wrong: The Ethics of Enough(1991) A Second Look in the Rearview Mirror: Further Autobiographical Reflections of a Philosopher At Large(1992)The Great Ideas: A Lexicon of Western Thought (1992) Natural Theology, Chance, and God (The Great Ideas Today, 1992)The Four Dimensions of Philosophy: Metaphysical-Moral-Objective-Categorical (1993) Art, the Arts, and the Great Ideas(1994) Adler's Philosophical Dictionary: 125 Key Terms for the Philosopher's Lexicon(1995)

Edited works

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The New Technology: Servant or Master (in work, with Phillip W. Goetz)Scholasticism and Politics(1940)Great Books of the Western World (1952, 52 volumes), 2nd edition 1990, 60volumes A Syntopicon: An Index to The Great Ideas(1952, 2 volumes), 2nd edition 1990

The Great Ideas Today(1961-1977, 17 volumes), with Robert Hutchins, 1978-1999, 20 volumesGateway to the Great Books(1963, 10 volumes), with Robert HutchinsThe Annals of America(1968, 21 volumes) Propdia: Outline of Knowledge and Guide to The New Encyclopdia Britannica15th Edition(1974, 30 volumes)Great Treasury of Western Thought (1977, with Charles Van Doren)

References1. ^ "Remarkable Columbians" Columbia U. website on Adler 2. ^ Charles Van Doren,"Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001)",Columbia Forumonline, November 2002 3. ^ Peter Temes, "Death of a Great Reader and Philosopher", Chicago Sun-Times, 3 July 2001 4. ^ Centennial Facts of the Day, U Chicago Law School website 5. ^ Mortimer J. Adler, A Guidebook to Learning: For the Lifelong Pursuit of Wisdom.

MacMillan Publishing Company, New York, 1986. p.88

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Theodor W. AdornoWestern Philosophy

20th century philosophy

Name: Theodor W. AdornoBirth: September 11,1903(Frankfurt, Germany)Death: August 6,1969(Visp,Switzerland)School/tradition: critical theory

Main interests: social theory, psychoanalysis, musicology, culturalstudies

Notable ideas: The Culture Industry, the Authoritarian Personality, thenegativedialectic,non-conformist conformist

Influences: Kant, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber ,Freud,Husserl

Influenced: Jrgen Habermas, Jean Baudrillard,Pierre Bourdieu,John Zerzan

Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund Adorno(September 11, 1903 August 6, 1969) was aGerman sociologist, philosopher , pianist, musicologist,andcomposer . He was a member of the Frankfurt Schoolalong withMax Horkheimer , Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse,Jrgen Habermas, and others. He was also the Music Director of theRadio Project.

Already as a youngmusic critic and amateur sociologist, Theodor W. Adorno was primarily a philosophical thinker. The label social philosopher emphasizes the sociallycritical aspect of his philosophical thinking, which from1945 onwards took anintellectually prominent position in thecritical theoryof theFrankfurt School.

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BiographyThe early Frankfurt years

Theodor (or "Teddie") was born inFrankfurtas an only child to thewinemerchant Oscar Alexander Wiesengrund (1870 1941, of Jewishdescent, converted toProtestantism) andthe Catholicsinger Maria Barbara, born Calvelli-Adorno. It was the second half of thisname that he adopted as hissurnameupon becoming a naturalized American citizen in the1930s ("Wiesengrund" was abbreviated to "W"). His musically talented aunt Agathe alsolived with the family. The young Adorno passionately engaged the piano; he especiallyliked four-handed playing because, he later wrote,[citation needed ] the need for coordinationincreased his skill and appreciation. His childhood joy was increased by the family's annualsummer sojourn inAmorbach. He attended the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasiumwhere he proved to be a highly gifted student: at the exceptionally early age of 17 he graduated fromthe Gymnasiumat the top of his class. In his free time he took private lessons in

composition withBernhard Seklesand readKant's Critique of Pure Reason together withhis friendSiegfried Kracauer 14 years his elder on Saturday afternoons. Later hewould 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 Universitt ) he studied philosophy, musicology, psychologyand sociology. There he wrote his first academicwork, a review of Schoenberg'sPierrot Lunaire. He completed his studies swiftly: by theend of 1924he graduated with adissertationon Edmund Husserl. (Jacques Derrida, whosecriticism of the use of the notions of "immediacy" and "self-presence" in Westernmetaphysics may owe a debt to Adorno, also wrote his first thesis on Husserl.) Before hisgraduation, Adorno had already met with his most important intellectual collaborators,Max Horkheimer andWalter Benjamin.

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 goalenvisioned, he used his relationship toAlban Berg, who had made a name for himself withthe opera Wozzeck , to pursue studies inViennabeginning in January,1925.He also formedcontacts with other greats of theViennese School, namely toAnton Webernand Arnold Schoenberg. His own musical compositions are shaped by the style of Berg andSchoenberg. Schoenbergs revolutionaryatonality particularly inspired the 22-year-old to pen philosophical observations on thenew music, though they were not well received by its proponents. The disappointment over this caused him to cut back on his music critiques toenable his career as academic teacher andsocial researcher to flourish. He did however remain editor-in-chief of theavant-gardemagazine Anbruch. His musicological writingalready displayed his philosophical ambitions. Other lasting influences from Adorno's timein Vienna includedKarl Kraus, whose lectures he attended with Alban Berg, andGeorg LukcswhoseTheory of the Novel had already enthused him while attendingGymnasiumand whoseHistory and Class Consciousnesshe had reviewed a year previously.

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The intermediate Frankfurt years

After returning from Vienna, Adorno experienced another setback. After his dissertationsupervisor Hans Corneliusand Cornelius' assistant Max Horkheimer voiced their concernsabout Adorno's professorial thesis - a comprehensive philosophical-psychological treatise -

he withdrew it in early1928.Adorno took three more years before he received thevenia legendi, after submitting the manuscript Kierkegaard: Construction of the aesthetic( Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des sthetischen) to his new supervisor,Paul Tillich. The topicof Adorno's inaugural lecture was theCurrent Importance of Philosophy, a theme heconsidered programmatic throughout his life. In it, he questioned the concept of totalityfor the first time, anticipating his famous formula directed againstGeorg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel the whole is the untrue (from Minima Moralia). However, Adorno's credentialwas revoked by the Nazis,along with those of all professors of non-Aryandescent, in1933.

Among Adorno's first courses was a seminar on Benjamin's treatiseThe Origin of GermanTragic Drama. His1932essay "On the Social Situation of Music" (" Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik ") was Adorno's contribution to the first issue of Horkheimer's Zeitschrift fr Sozialwissenschaft ("journal for sociology"); it wasn't until1938 that he joined theInstitute for Social Research.

Commuter between Berlin and Oxford (1934-1937)

Beginning in the late1920sduring stays inBerlin, Adorno established close relations withWalter Benjaminand Ernst Bloch; Adorno had become acquainted with Bloch's first major work,Geist der Utopie, in 1921. Moreover, the German capital, Berlin, was also home of chemistMargarethe ('Gretel') Karplus (1902-1993), whom Adorno would marry in Londonin 1937. In 1934, fleeing from the Nazi regime, he emigrated toEngland, with hopes of obtaining a professorship atOxford. Though Adorno was not appointed professor atOxford, he undertook an in depth study of Husserl's philosophy as a postgraduateat MertonCollege. Adorno spent the summer holidays with his fiance in Germany every year. In1936, the Zeitschrift featured one of Adorno's most controversial texts, "On Jazz" ("ber Jazz"). It should be noted that " jazz" was frequently used to refer to all popular music at thetime of Adorno's writing. This article was less an engagement with this style of music thana first polemic against the blooming entertainment andculture industry. Adorno believedthe culture industry was a system by which society was controlled though a top-downcreation of standardized culture that intensified the commodification of artistic expression.Extensive correspondence with Horkheimer, who was then living in exile in theUnited

States, led to an offer of employment in America.

migr in the USA (1938-1949)

After visiting New York for the first time in 1937 he decided to resettle there. InBrussels he bade his parents, who followed in1939, farewell, and said goodbye to Benjamin inSanremo. Benjamin opted to remain inEurope, thus limiting their very rigorous futurecommunication to letters. Shortly after Adorno's arrival in New York, Horkheimer's

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Institute for Social Research, which was then resettled atColumbia University, acceptedhim as an official member. He also served as musical consult on the 'Radio Project'(alsoknown as Lazarsfeld/Stanton Analysis Programme) directed by theAustriansociologistPaul Lazarsfeldat Princeton University. Very soon, however, his attention shifted to directcollaboration 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 theUniversity of California. Their collective work found its first major expression in the first edition of their book Dialectic of Enlightenment ( Dialektik der Aufklrung ) in 1947. Faced with theunfolding events of the Holocaust, the work begins with the words:

Enlightenment, understood in the widest sense as the advance of thought, hasalways aimed at liberating human beings from fear and installing them as masters.Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity. (2002translation, 1)Seit je hat Aufklrung im umfassendsten Sinn fortschreitenden Denkens das Ziel verfolgt, von den Menschen die Furcht zu nehmen und sie als Herren einzusetzen.

Aber die vollends aufgeklrte Erde strahlt im Zeichen triumphalen Unheils.(1947German edition)

In this influential book, Adorno and Horkheimer outline civilization's tendency towardsself-destruction. They argue that the concept of reasonwas transformed into an irrationalforce bythe Enlightenment. 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. Consequently, Adorno did notconsider rationalism a path towards humanemancipation. For that, he looked toward thearts.

After 1945he ceased to work as a composer. By taking this step he conformed to his ownfamous maxim: "writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric" ( Nach Auschwitz noch einGedicht zu schreiben ist barbarisch). (Adorno was, however, to retract this statement later,saying that "Perennial suffering has as much right to expression as the tortured have toscream... hence it may have been wrong to say that no poem could be written after Auschwitz.") He was entrusted with the honorable task to adviseThomas Mannon themusicological details of hisnovel Doktor Faustus. Apart from that he worked on his'philosophy of the new music' (Philosophie der neuen Musik) in the1940s, and onHanns Eisler 's Composing for the films. He also contributed 'qualitative interpretations'to theStudies inAnti-Semitic Prejudiceperformed by multiple research institutes in the US thatuncovered theauthoritariancharacter of test persons through indirect questions.

Late Frankfurt years (1949-1969)

After thewar , Adorno, who had been homesick, did not hesitate long before returning toGermany. Due to Horkheimer's influence he was given a professorship in Frankfurt in1949/1950, allowing him to continue his academic career after a prolonged hiatus. Thisculminated in a position as doubleOrdinarius (of philosophy and of sociology). In the

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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 in1958/1959. His collection of aphorisms, Minima Moralia, led to greater prominence in post-war Germany when it wasreleased by the newly founded publishing houseof Peter Suhrkamp. It purported a 'sad

science' under the impression of Fascism, Stalinismand Culture Industry, which seeminglyoffered no alternative: "Wrong life cannot be lived rightly."[1] ( Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen) The work raised Adorno to the level of a foundational intellectual figurein the West Germanrepublic, after a last attempt to get him involved in research in theUSA failed in1953.

Here is a list of his multifaceted accomplishments:

In 1952he participated in a groupexperiment, revealing residual National Socialist attitudes among the recentlydemocratizedGermans (commented on critically byPeter R. Hofsttter ).

From 1954 onwards, he taught musicology in the summer academies inKranichstein. Numerousradio debates(among others withErnst Bloch, Elias Canettiand Arnold Gehlen) Numerous lectures in Berlin and around Europe (Paris, Vienna, Italy, at the'documenta' in Kasselin 1959, inCzechoslovakiain 1968)Release of Walter Benjamin's letters and writingsIn 1961 he initiated the positivismdebate ( Positivismusstreit ) at a meeting of theGerman Sociological Association inTbingen.1963-1967, he was Chairman of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fr Soziologie.

In his capacity, he headed1964the 15th sociology conference, Max Weber

and Sociology Todayand in 1968 he headed the 16th sociology conference, Late Capitalism or Industrial Society.

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

Final years (1967-1969)

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In 1966 extraparliamentary opposition (APO) formed against the grandcoalition of Germany's two major partiesCDU/CSU and SPD, directed primarily against the planned Notstandgesetze(emergency laws). Adorno was an outspoken critic of these policies, whichhe displayed by his participation in an event organized by the action committee Demokratieim Notstand ("Democracy in a State of Emergency"). When the studentBenno Ohnesorg

was shot by a police officer at ademonstrationagainst a visit by theShahof Iran, the left-wingAPO became increasingly radicalized, and the universities became a place of unrest.To a considerable extent it was students of Adorno who interpreted a theory of revolt, thusexecuting a 'praxis' from 'Critical Theory'. It is said that Adorno asked for the help of policeto 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 theanti-intellectualtrend in the 60's Left, which he called "actionism," (strongly in need of citation here) 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. On the other side of the spectrum, therightaccused him of providing theintellectual basis for leftistviolence. In 1969 the disturbances in his lecture hall, mostfamously as female students occupied his speaker's podium bare-breasted, increased to anextent that Adorno discontinued his lecture series. In a letter toSamuel Beckett, he wrote:"The feeling of suddenly being attacked as a reactionary at least has a surprising note."

One biographer on Adorno,Stefan-Mller Doohm, contends that he was convinced theattacks by the students were directed against his theories as well as his person and that hefeared that the current political situation might lead tototalitarianism. He left with his wifeon a vacation toSwitzerland. Despite warnings by his doctor, he attempted to ascend a3,000 meter highmountain, resulting inheart palpitations. The same day, he and his wifedrove to the nearby townVisp, where he suffered heart palpitations once again. He was brought to the town's clinic. In the morning of the following day,August 6, he died of aheart attack .

TheoryAdorno was to a great extent influenced byWalter Benjamin's application of Karl Marx'sthought. Adorno, along with other major Frankfurt School theorists such as Horkheimer and Marcuse, argued that advanced capitalism was able to contain or liquidate the forcesthat would bring about its collapse and that the revolutionary moment, when it would have been possible to transform it into socialism, had passed. Adorno argued that capitalism had become more entrenched through its attack on the objective basis of revolutionaryconsciousness and through liquidation of the individualism that had been the basis of critical consciousness.

Adorno's work focuses on art, literature and music as key areas of sensuous, indirectcritique of the established culture and modes of thought. The argument, which is complexand dialectic, dominates his Aesthetic Theory, Philosophy of New Musicand many other works.

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Adorno saw the culture industry as an arena in which critical tendencies or potentialitieswere eliminated. He argued that the culture industry, which produced and circulatedcultural commodities through the mass media, manipulated the population. Popular culturewas identified as a reason why people become passive; the easy pleasures available throughconsumption 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-individualizationand the always-the-same. He saw this mass- produced culture as a danger to the more difficult high arts. Culture industries cultivatefalse needs; that is, needs created and satisfied by capitalism. True needs, in contrast, arefreedom, creativity, and genuine happiness.

The work of Adorno and Horkheimer heavily influenced intellectual discourse on popular cultureand scholarly popular culture studies. At the time Adorno began writing, there was atremendous 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 towhat had been a more general concern.

At the time this was considered important because of the role which the state took incultural production; Adorno's analysis allowed for a critique of mass culture from the leftwhich 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 andmoral problems resulting from the consumption of culture. However, while the critiquefrom 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 objectiverealities of the production of mass culture and its effects, e.g. as a form of reverse psychology.

Many aspects of Adorno's work are relevant today and have been developed in manystrands of contemporary critical theory, media theory, and sociology. Thinkers influenced by Adorno believe that today'ssociety has evolved in a direction foreseen by him,especially in regard to the past (Auschwitz), moralsor the Culture Industry. The latter has become a particularly productive, yet highly contested term incultural studies. Many of Adorno's reflections on aesthetics and music have only just begun to be debated, as acollection of essays on the subject, many of which had not previously been translated intoEnglish, has only recently been collected and published as Essays on Music.

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 onapproaches that claimed to bescientificand quantitative, although the collective FrankfurtSchool work The Authoritarian Personalitythat appeared under Adorno's name was thesingle most influential empirical study in the social sciences in America for decades after its publication in 1950.

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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 Schoolsince 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, especiallythrough 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-existenteverything 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 andreality of that which could not be subsumed under the subject's concepts.

Adorno and his criticsCritiques of Adorno's theories include other Marxists. Other critics includeRalf Dahrendorf andKarl Popper , positivist philosophers, neoconservatives, and many students frustrated byAdorno's style. Many Marxists accuse the Critical Theorists of claiming the intellectual

heritage of Karl Marx without feeling the obligation to apply theory for politicalaction.Marxist criticisms

According toHorst Mller 's Kritik der kritischen Theorie("Critique of Critical Theory"),Adorno posits totality as an automatic system. This is consistent with Adorno's idea of society as a self-regulating system, from which one must escape (but from which nobodycan escape). For him it was existent, but inhuman, while Mller argues against theexistence of such a system. In his argument, he claims that Critical Theory provides no practical solution for societal change. He concludes thatJrgen Habermas, in particular,and the Frankfurt School, in general, misconstrue Marx.

Georg Lukacs, a Marxist philosopher, infamously described Adorno as having taken upresidence in the 'Grand Hotel Abyss', in his1962preface toThe Theory of the Novel . Thiswas understood to mean that Lukacs (who at the time supported "socialist realism" and ingeneral the Marxism of the East German regime) associated Adorno with a dated proto-Marxism, that indulged in despair, despite a comfortable bourgeoislifestyle.

Positivist criticisms

Positivistphilosophers accuse Adorno of theorizing without submitting his theories toempirical tests, basing their critique onKarl Popper's revision of Logical Positivisminwhich Popper substituted "falsifiability" as a criterion of scientificity for the original"verifiability" criterion of meaning proposed byA.J. Ayer and other early LogicalPositivists. In particular, interpreters of Karl Popper apply the test of "falsifiability" toAdorno's thought and find that he was elusive when presented with contrary evidence.

Conservative criticism

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

However, a more intricate criticism is offered by the followers of Leo Strauss, who also believe in ahermeneuticsof culture, and often echo many of Adorno's criticisms of

accessibility and art. Their critique rests on the anti-capitalist nature of Adorno'sorientation, arguing that, while, mass culture may consist of bread and circuses, that theseare essential for social function and their removal or reduction in importance as "usefullies", would threaten the continued operation of the market and society, as well as higher philosophical truth[citation needed ].

Adorno's responses to his critics

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

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

However, as a pioneer of a self-reflexive sociology who prefiguredBourdieu's ability tofactor 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 adialogue 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.

Adorno's sociological methods

Institut and Adorno-Ampel (Adorno-traffic light) at Senckenberganlage in Frankfurtam 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

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dominant classes and social structures (such as our notion of "deviance" which includes both genuinely deviant individual and "hustlers" operating below social norms because theylack the capital to operate above: for an analysis of this phenomenon, cf.Pierre Bourdieu's book The Weight of the World ).

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, inessays published in Germany on Adorno's return from the USA, and reprinted in theCritical Modelsessays collection (ISBN 0-231-07635-5), Adorno praised the egalitarianismand 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 infamousessay "On Jazz", Adorno seems to have thought that the USA was a cultural wasteland inwhich people's minds and responses were formed by what he, rather nastily, called "themusic of slaves".

One example of the clash of intellectual culture and Adorno's methods can be found inPaul Lazarsfeld, the American (and Americanized) sociologist for whom Adorno worked in themiddle 1930s after fleeing Hitler.

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

Lazarsfeld was the director of a project, funded and inspired by David Sarnoff (thehead of RCA), to discover both the sort of music that listeners of radio liked andways to improve their "taste", so that RCA could profitably air more classicalmusic...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 thatRCA could viably air opera on Saturday afternoons. Lazarsfeld, however, hadtrouble both with the prose style of the work Adorno handed in and what Lazarsfeldthought was Adorno's habit of "jumping to conclusions" without being willing to dothe 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 theRadio Research Projectliked and understood whatAdorno was saying about the actual effect of modern media. They may have responded tocomments similar to that found in Dialectic of Enlightenment , written by Adorno with his

close associateMax Horkheimer , that it appeared that movie-goers were less enthralledwith the content even of "blockbusters" of the era, films that are now lauded by Hollywoodmavens as "art", than by the air-conditioned comfort of the theaters--an observationreflected in movie business at the time by the expression that one found a good place to sell popcorn and built a theatre around it.

Adorno translated into English

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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 translateinto English. A similar difficulty of translation is true of Hegel, Heidegger , and a number of other German philosophers and poets. As a result, some early translators tended towardover-literalness. In recent years,Edmund Jephcottand Stanford University Presshave

published new translations of some of Adorno's lectures and books, including Introductionto Sociology, Problems of Moral Philosophyand his transcribed lectures on Kant'sCritique of Pure Reasonand Aristotle's "Metaphysics", and a new translation of the Dialectic of Enlightenment . Professor Henry Pickford, of the University of Colorado at Boulder, hastranslated many of Adorno's works such asThe meaning of Working Through the Past.Anew translation has also appeared of the Philosophy of New Musicby Robert Hullot-Kentor , fromUniversity of Minnesota Press, and of the correspondence with Alban Berg,Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, and the letters to Adorno's parents, all byWieland Hobanand published byPolity Press. These fresh translations are less literal intheir rendering of German sentences and words, and are more accessible to English readers.

Adorno and Music TheoryAdorno's theoretical method is closely related to his understanding of music and ArnoldSchoenberg and other contemporary composer's atonal (less so "twelve-tone") techniques(Adorno had studied composition for several years with Alban Berg), which challenged thehierarchical nature of traditionaltonalityin composition. For even if "the whole is untrue",for Adorno we retain the ability to form partial critical conceptions and submit them to atest as we progress towards a "higher" awareness. This role of a critical consciousness wasa common concern in theSecond Viennese Schoolprior to the Second World War, anddemanded that composers relate to the traditions more as a canon of taboos rather than as acanon of masterpieces that should be imitated. For the composer (poet, artist, philosopher)of this era, every work of art or thought was thus likely to be shocking or difficult tounderstand. Only through its "corrosive unacceptability" to the commercially-definedsensibilities of the middle class could new art hope to challenge dominant culturalassumptions.

Adorno's followers argue that he seems to have managed the very idea that one canabandon totality while still being able to rank artistic and ethical phenomena on a tentativescale, not because he was a sentimentalist about this ability but because he saw the drivetowards totality (whether the Stalinist or Fascist totality of his time, or globalization of themarket 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 seeif they "sound right" and fit the data. For example, his question inThe 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 waswhether American Fundamentalist authoritarianism could be spoken of as having arelationship to Continental Fascism without sounding a false note in terms of the partial

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Odysseus and the Siren Call of Reason: The Frankfurt School Critique of Enlightenmentpublished in Other Voices, n.1 v.1, 1997."Adorno during the 1950s" by Juergen HabermasSartre and the Philosophy of Music to Th. W. Adorno

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Philosophers Born in the Twentieth Century