Book Description

Customer Reviews (2)

as readable as it is honest and exciting
If you have heard that Adorno is difficult reading, this work, along with Critical Models, will correct your understanding of his approach to scholarship.It is very lively and pellucid.

*Sister Mary Margaret* Explains It All For You,
this book is all for *you*.

As part of a massive release of translations of material from postwar Europe, Stanford University has done the reading public a great service by making available translations of extremely genial 60s seminars given by the notoriously difficult Theodor Adorno; and frankly, this is the only recently printed book on moral philosophy I would encourage an interested layman to read.Adorno's "crypticisms" derived from a keen understanding of the "problems of living" facing postwar Europe, but here we have a theodicy of sorts for Adorno's legendary radio confrontation with anthropologist Arnold Gehlen presented as an extremely measured consideration of Kantian moral philosophy (Adorno studied under the neo-Kantian Hans Cornelius in the 20s, and problems deriving from Kant form the basis of a kinship between the work of the second Frankfurt school and Michel Foucault).

The exposition is extremely clear, right down to a "frankly uncritical" analysis of Adorno's relationship to the seminar participants, as is Adorno's extreme orientation towards moralism rather than ethical questions posed as observations on "conditions of possibility" for life -- Adorno's famous comment to Gehlen consisted in the claim that the residents of a technological society deserved genuine problems to work through rather than cultural pessimism amidst plenty, and here he gives every indication that he was indeed serious about this.This would be a fine book to study in an upper-level class on moral philosophy, as those looking for "conceptual analysis" are charged with the task of assembling adequate "constellations" of material (from whence confrontations between greats can emerge).Finally, Adorno is one of the few "committed intellectuals" of past eras whose work is still fully accessible in its political cast, and this book really serves as a rebuke of sorts to Benjamin's "Fate and Character", a confrontation worth scrutinizing in detail.There is *every* justification for this book. ... Read more

Book Description
In 1947 Theodor Adorno, one of the seminal European philosophers of the postwar years, announced his return after exile in the United States to a devastated Europe by writing Philosophy of New Music. Intensely polemical from its first publication, every aspect of this work was met with extreme reactions, from stark dismissal to outrage. Even Schoenberg reviled it. Despite the controversy, Philosophy of New Music became highly regarded and widely read among musicians, scholars, and social philosophers. Marking a major turning point in his musicological philosophy, Adorno located a critique of musical reproduction as internal to composition itself, rather than as a matter of the reproduction of musical performance. Consisting of two distinct essays, “Schoenberg and Progress” and “Stravinsky and Reaction,” this work poses the musical extremes in which Adorno perceived the struggle for the cultural future of Europe: between human emancipation and barbarism, between the compositional techniques and achievements of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. In this completely new translation—presented along with an extensive introduction by distinguished translator Robert Hullot-Kentor—Philosophy of New Music emerges as an indispensable key to the whole of Adorno's illustrious and influential oeuvre. Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was the leading figure of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. He authored more than twenty volumes, including Negative Dialectics (1982), Philosophy of Modern Music (1980), Kierkegaard (Minnesota, 1989), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1975) with Max Horkheimer, and Aesthetic Theory (Minnesota, 1997).Robert Hullot-Kentor has taught at Harvard and Stanford universities and written widely on Adorno. He has translated various works of Adorno, including Aesthetic Theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Awesome, thanks!
The book was exactly as the seller described it. And it took only a couple of days to get to me from the time that I purchased it. Thank you!

Adorno at his absolute finest
Perhaps the only things more polemical than Adorno's critique of Schoenberg and Stravinsky are the reactions that followed. Unfortunately, many people still assume that they understand Adorno's views and arguments concerning these two composers. The reductionist tendency to simplify Adorno's view to "Schoenberg good, Stravinsky bad" shows just who has and who hasn't actually read this book. It is never so simple. Adorno is frequently critical of Schoenberg in very perceptive ways. Of course there's no mistaking who Adorno favors, but to consider this book as a good-vs-evil study is far too limiting. Not only is this a great study of the then current state of musical thought, it is also an interesting overview of twelve tone music, how it works, what it seeks to do, and why it's important.

The format of the book is especially nice. Adorno's favored paratactical prose style can be incredibly difficult when multi-page paragraphs begin to accumulate. For the most part in Philosophy of New Music, each new paragraph is marked by a heading. This keeps the ideas organized and focused. Adorno's paragraphs seem to function as a spinning out of an idea in a very fluid manner and the length of his sections are just the right length to allow the reader to comfortably follow him without getting bogged down. His theses is developed piece by piece, but clearly dividing up the ideas helps the reader see the logical progression. Having read other Adorno writings, I found this to be unusually clear and concise. I wonder how much more useful Aesthetic Theory would be if he had used this structure.

The remarkable clarity is probably due, to a large extent, to Robert Hullot-Kentor's translation. I've read many other translators with varying degrees of success (Ashton's attempt at Negative Dialectics being one of the worst), but Hullot-Kentor is by far the best. Adorno's writing is riddled with allusions and references that are frequently vague or obscure. Hullot-Kentor does a great service to readers by including additional references and background information. His detailed understanding of Adorno's complicated thought is evident in every sentence. Reading Adorno has, to me at least, never been so straightforward.

In addition to the translation, Hullot-Kentor provides an excellent foreword providing both a context and an overview of what is inside. His description of the translation process is, as always, interesting. Hullot-Kentor has found a way to provide very readable English translations while maintaining Adorno's linguistic artistry.

It's Adorno, less than 5 stars would be Sacrilege
Bought this yesterday with my father's day gift certificate. Went here to see what others had thought of it and was surprised to see no review posted yet! What gives? Are you guys sleeping on the job?

The translators preface by Robert Hullot-Kentor who also did Aesthetic Theory is vintage translator expressing the torments of trying to merge two different worlds. I enjoyed it and know just what he means. Quine is right about that. But it is harsh! RH-K is a believer in Adorno and what Adorno says in the text. Does one have to empathize with a text to translate it well just as a musician must be in the mood of the music to express that mood? I wonder. Maybe so.

Adorno gave these guys grief. I am sure it applies to our music as well. I read this not simply thinking of the "new music" but the continuing type and wonder if we can associate the trite with the sensuous and the good with the abstract? But then what makes the good so good? Reading on.... ... Read more

Book Description
A leading figure in the Frankfurt School of philosophers from the 1930s through the time of his death in 1969, Adorno was the author of influential philosophical and sociological works on issues ranging from aesthetics, music history, and mass culture to politics, modern technology, and the Western philosophical tradition.Prismatic Thought is a brilliant tour of Adorno's work, with special emphasis on his aesthetic writings. Peter Uwe Hohendahl opens with a pair of chapters that considers Adorno's years of exile in the United States during the Second World War and his return in the early 1950s to a West Germany harrowed by its recent Nazi past and responsibility for the Holocaust. He then examines Adorno's writings on literature, language, poetry, philosophy, and mass culture in relation to modern history. Throughout the book, Hohendahl argues that Adorno's work "ultimately resists the desire for systematic order, the search for a grand design that gives meaning to all the individual texts."Prismatic Thought is distinguished by Hohendahl's sensitivity to the historical and intellectual conditions of Adorno's time and by his mastery of the myriad Adorno studies of the past twenty-five years. Equally important is his description of Adorno's relevance to our own age. In the course of situating Adorno in his own era, Hohendahl introduces us to an Adorno who is also our contemporary.Peter Uwe Hohendahl is Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German and Comparative Literature at Cornell University. His books include Building a National Literature: The Case of Germany, 1830-1870 and The Institution of Criticism. He is editor of A History of German Literary Criticism, 1730-1980 (Nebraska 1988). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Adorno returns Beethoven,as if the ink never dried
Of all the composers Adorno has thought about intensely, writing essays which merged into book lengths on Mahler,Berg, or Wagner, as well as countless articles and essays on music, Beethoven seems to be a highspecial preserve within his body of work. This is a work of fragments, andnotes,incomplete thoughts collected into notebooks throughout Adorno's lifewhich never was able to solidify under one leaf,or merge into a completedwork. But if you've read his brilliant and overwhelming intellectualdiscourses in his "Philosophy of Modern Music" or "NegativeDialectics" or lastly, his posthumous "Aesthetic Theory"this is more a threshold unto perhaps Adorno's working methods, unformedthoughts and frequent postponments of thoughts, concepts and directions tobe takened up later,perhaps for the reader to fulfill. Beethoven was theconsummate artist, one committed to the musical subject,the continuation oftime, a composer who sought to break rules as well as follow them. And infollowing them there is a liberation for what this allows,sometimes newforms,a breakage of the tonal scheme or creating a piano sound almostprovincial yet innovative,as the "Waldstein Sonata". Adornofrequently draws on Beethoven the craftman, the manipulator and purveyor ofmaterials, on tonality,motives,variations, and form in a state of becoming,and makes us aware once again, that the process of music is a time-boundone, one of an incessant durational frame. Beethoven dealt with first andforemost with reprisals, with materials, themes and harmonic schemes wehave heard and will hear again. He dealt with something which is already inthe world, and his music simply deals with the inevitability of thosemoments and their fate redemption or demise. Late Beethoven as well welearn was not a state of increased polyphonic complexity, "MissaSolemnis" was a retrogressive act,not one of innovation as his"Piano Sonatas" frequently were. Adorno reminds us of thedimensions of Beethoven's art we seem to forget,as the simplified moments,the economy of means reduced to pure power as the "NinthSymphony"or reduction of subjectivity as the late"Sonatas" proclaims. The Late Music "Spatstil" was amusic of reduction of harmonic schemes beginning too soon as the late"Quartets" the "C# minor". The editor here RolfTiedemann long an Adorno executor trys to make the fragmentariness of thisincomplete work cohere with copious notes placed at the end, eveninterjecting excerpts from completed essays and entire works, as"Aesthetic Theory". Although useful I found this distracting andnot all that absorbing.It seems we've never understood Beethoven or thatthe dimensions of his creativity have been layered,Adornoreturns him backto a composer status, a contemporary or visitor of the postmodern field asif the ink never dried. ... Read more

Book Description
Although he wrote monographs on Hegel, Husserl, and Kierkegaard, the closest Adorno came to an extended discussion of Kant are two lecture courses, one concentrating on the Critique of Pure Reason and the other on the Critique of Practical Reason. This new volume by Adorno comprises his lectures on the former. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Get a thorough understanding the easy way
Taking an interest in philosophy in an attempt to characterize the elements of cognition that drive an entire society in directions that it would never contemplate going, if only the always already unthunk could control events as thoroughly as groups maintain strict limits on the options they are willing to consider, I'm having trouble identifying an element of irony that could make my review of KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON by Theodor W. Adorno suitable for the comic times in which we live.First of all, the book is not about politics, however much Adorno wishes to characterize Kant's philosophy as seeking a form of enlightenment that served the interest of "bourgeois resignation," (p. 6) in opposition to the authority of other absolutes while expressing "the enthusiasm of the youthful bourgeoisie which has not yet started its never-ending complaints that reason cannot solve anything, but which still feels confident of its ability to achieve things by virtue of the power of its own reason" (p. 54).At the top of this heap of ideas is autonomy, a situation in which "the judge and the accused are one and the same; that the authority that is free and independent simultaneously represents the law.This is the founding conception of his entire universe."(pp. 54-55).

Then the tradition of bourgeois rationalism forms a contrast with "the irrationality of the whole, that is to say, the blindness of the forces at work, and with that the inability of the individual to determine his own life in accordance with reason, remains intact."(p. 64).Because Kant desires to rid metaphysical thinking of mythologies that have typically been adopted as absolutes, this form of certainty as the ultimate foundation for cognition is blocked."In this sense Kantian philosophy is one that enshrines the validity of the non-identical in the most emphatic way possible.It is a mode of thought that is not satisfied by reducing everything that exists to itself."(p. 66).Comedy might be more emphatic with some *Excuse*me* regarding offensive pretensions, but this book, with lectures delivered from 12 May 1959 to 30 July 1959, translated from the German by Rodney Livingstone, with Editor's Notes (pp. 238-281) by Rolf Tiedemann, provides a philosophical context for evaluating how well Kant's book, THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON can be understood in our own times.

The English translation of CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON by Norman Kemp Smith (1928) has been used to match the quotes by Adorno, but after mentioning the KANT-LEXICON (ed. Rudolf Eisler) in Lecture Six, notes 7, 8 and 11 for that lecture distinguish which sentences in some quotations "are Eisler's summary of Kant's position."(p. 248).The translation by Norman Kemp Smith has been identified by Raymond B. Blakney in AN IMMANUEL KANT READER (1960) as being literal, which "reproduces the original, as exactly as possible, idiom and all, in the vocabulary of the receiving language."Adorno's lectures are much easier to read than the J. M. D. Meiklejohn translation of THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON at the beginning of Great Books volume 39, Kant.The sections numbered 1 through 23 of the First Division of Transcendental Logic were the easiest to locate for comparison with comments in the lecture.Philosophy is a field that benefits from having many points of view, but Kant is rarely clear when he attempts to use terminology which combine them all in the same sentence.Adorno attempts to explain what Kant was trying to say, "the central concept that his critique of reason is based on, the concept of the transcendental" (p. 16).Other translations might seem to miss the point, or perhaps Meiklkejohn merely paraphrased all of section 16 into this single paragraph:

*The manifold content given in a sensuous intuition comes necessarily under the original synthetical unity of apperception, because thereby alone is the unity of intuition possible (Section 13).But that act of the understanding, by which the manifold content of given representations (whether intuitions or conceptions) is brought under one apperception, is the logical function of judgements (Section 15).All the manifold, therefore, in so far as it is given in one empirical intuition, is determined in relation to one of the logical functions of judgement, by means of which it is brought into union in one consciousness.Now the categories are nothing else than these functions of judgement, so far as the manifold in a given intuition is determined in relation to them (Section 9).Consequently, the manifold in a given intuition is necessarily subject to the categories of understanding.*(GREAT BOOKS, 39, KANT, p. 52).

Maybe that is just missing a Note that was added to the second edition in 1787, from which Adorno stated that Kant "maintains in one of the decisive passages of the book that it (namely the synthetic unity of apperception) is the highest point to which he has `attached' his entire philosophy."(p. 16).The 2001 note on the 1787 note states:

"Adorno has in mind here the Note to Section 16 of the Transcendental Deduction in which Kant states:`The synthetic unity of apperception is therefore the highest point to which we must ascribe [heften = attach. Trans.] all employment of the understanding, even the whole of logic, and conformably therewith, transcendental philosophy.'CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON, p. 154, B 134."(n. 6, p. 242).

Reading Kant is not likely to be a pleasure until the reader has some reason to think that we know what it means, but the comic view of all this might be far more advanced than what most readers will find in these lectures.One joke in this book is originally by Nietzsche, with "the pun on the American expression `backwoodsman' when he described Kant as an `otherworldsman' [Hinterweltler]."(p. 109).Another note says Nietzsche might have been thinking of someone else and THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA in The Portable Nietzsche has a less specific, "On the Afterwordly."TPN, p. 142).Adorno ought to get credit for besting Nietzsche's joke.

Readable analysis of Kant
This is a readable series of lectures on Kant by a man who was a genuine anti-philosopher.

As in many texts of the Frankfurt School, the Marxism is recreational. As Rolf Wiggershaus' history of the Frankfurt School indicates, Adorno and especially Horkheimer were always careful to sideline Marxist analysis.References to the "material basis" of apprehension of space and time, and of Kant's system considered historically, seem to be muted.

A key to understanding Adorno on Kant is an understanding of the negative concept of reification.

It is hard to foreground a negative concept, rigourously cancelling out invalid pictures of the world...including the image that arises from the very phrase, picture of the world, which is itself reified and not a little sad, in that the subject becomes a lonely visitor to an otherwise deserted sort of cinema on a senior citizen's discount.

The unconscious habit of reification is a feature of the "educated" elite of a postmodern late capitalism, in that in recent years and since Adorno's death in 1970, this class has shifted from reproducing itself by labor to commodifying, packaging and peddling reified forms of its labor.As opportunities for the so-called "chattering class" to work in media and government have declined in Western societies, increasingly the educated elite must marketize its production.

Of course, this process destroys new opportunities since the dominant form of any one intellectual commodity, while not identical to similar "products", has a tendency through extra-market means to eliminate competition.These extra-market means range from network externalities in the computer business to personal brutality (up to and including force and fraud) on the part of some entrepreneurs.

Nonetheless it is our responsibility to realize that here Adorno is trying to express a truth that is not (as it is pictured by incompetent, which is to say modal, professors of philosophy) at all captured by a reified IMAGE of the mind, a wall straight out of Pyramus and Thisbe (in Adorno's book, the "block"), and the Kantian things in themselves.

For Adorno, subjectivity and objectivity do not represent independent categories (this seems to be a theme of his late work.)Descartes, starting with an extreme subjectivity, felt compelled to logically derive an objective world.This while securing objectivity as far as Descartes, and perhaps his Mom, were concerned, made it in terms of an ontological pecking-order logically derived from the cogito.But the entire edifice's very danger of collapse becomes to the artisan philosopher a source of continued unease.

Adorno instead proposes a negative critique.What if subjectivity and objectivity are neither irreducible the one to the other?

It seems that for Ted, subjectivity's objective content and its synthetic apriori features are a necessary feature of subjectivity, and the continuous apprehension of an objective reality by a mininum of one subject mean that the two categories are both necessary, do not presuppose each other and form an organic unity.

Moreover, another necessary feature of subjectivity is its shareablility as opposed to dreams and other fugue states. Western philosophy has been starting with Descartes has been overly concerned with nondefault states as a sort of clever dodge and one reflects on the fondness of philosophy graduate students, during the collapse of American analytic philosophy during the 1970s, for the bottle.Recent philosophy, perhaps due to muscular feminism, has restored the default state of healthy consciousness to center stage without too much back-talk from surviving members of the analytic tribe, who are too hung-over to come up with any more clever counter-examples.

Furthermore, if we deny that we are talking about an empirical I as studied by cognitive neuroscience, dreams and fugue states automatically become of less interest.For the most part, the phenomenological world consists of me when NOT in any form of fugue state, and my fellow citizens NOT in any form of fugue state.And even if we bracket out considerations of existence the world contains history in the form of multiple generations of people passing through different stages of life.

A difference between discourse about the "I', the ego, the subject, in English-American analytic philosophy, and the way it is discussed in Kant and the philosophers after him including Adorno, is that the "I" of the latter has a normative content.An older era would say a certain amount of healthy-mindedness is found in this "I" as a necessary feature for this is the only way we can generalize this "I" so that statements about it can apply to ALL "I's."

A common feature of fugue states, from the brown study to the full-bore alcoholic toot, is the destruction, first of intersubjectivity and then subjectivity.I am well aware that it would be pernicious to merely assume healthy-mindedness and this entire area is in need of further research.

We can find transcendental arguments in the strangest places as in the case of discourse ethics, and the need for citizens (to be citizens) to be assured of minimal political and economic rights.

For example, a feature of American debates on health insurance happens to be neglect of its transcendental character.If we presuppose a political and independent sphere consisting of Lockean subjects with strong rights and responsibilities, then the physical liquidation (even though gradual, and no-one's responsibility) of these subjects because, transcendentally, our concern.

This is to arrive (I believe) at Husserl's strong protest against the accusation that Husserl was an empirical psychologist when Husserl described shared ideas.

A Continental tradition of which Adorno and Husserl are a part declares that there are, over and above the empirical contents of our minds, intersubjective concepts including ethical and artistic concepts.Husserl was not a psychologist maudit, nor was Kant a cognitive neuroscientist, because in Husserl's case Ideas could not be abstracted from the content and in Kant's case the subject's apprehension of reality was not guaranteed by an empirical nexus.

Kant's world is established by declaring victory; not so much the triumphant cry I am but the greater shout it is.

Metacritique
This work completes Adorno¡¦s metacritique on modern German transcendental idealism for the English speaking world. Taken with Negative Dialectics, The Jargon of Authenticity, The Three Studies on Hegel, and Against Epistemology, this text unlocks the unique tradition of Kant and Hegel and Husserl and Heidegger. Adorno¡¦s reading weaves immanently between positivism, idealism, Neo-Kantianism, phenomenology and ontology to present Kant in a unique manner that is particularly interesting to the postmodern debate. Adorno, who holds to modernity and the notion of reason in Kant (linked to a dynamic use of Hegelian dialectics), brings Kant back into the debate on reason for contemporary understanding. Adorno will show the relation between metaphysics and ideology through metaphysical indifference. An indifference which Kant¡¦s philosophy opposed. ... Read more