148 Part II: A Change of Scene
to their source.^57 This was also the tenor of the letter Benjamin wrote in
July 1931 after reading the text of Adorno’s inaugural lecture. If that
lecture were to be published he would like a reference to his baroque
book to be included, since this is the source of the idea of interpreting
the ‘intentionless character of reality’.^58 Adorno defended himself with
the argument that there were fundamental similarities between Benjamin
and himself that could not simply be ignored. As for his borrowings
from Benjamin, apart from the inaugural lecture, which had not been
published, he had acknowledged his debt in his published writings, such
as his book on Kierkegaard.
In his discussion of Goethe’s novel, Benjamin had dwelt particularly
on its mythical component. Adorno, when writing about Kierkegaard,
had taken over this idea and applied it to what he saw as the mythic
construction of the aesthetic. Both men were interested in the relation
between myth and truth. They agreed that myth and truth were mutu-
ally exclusive. Both are critical of myth, suggesting that it is incompat-
ible with reason. Adorno developed his critique as a critique of the
unbroken myth of the autonomous spirit. This runs parallel to Benjamin,
who claims that truth in works of art is distorted by the presence of
myth. The two also shared the intention of linking their critique with
the concept of illusion or semblance [Schein means both]. For Benjamin,
the illusion of beauty was a ‘cover’ in which the truth appeared ‘cloaked’.
For Adorno, on the other hand, the illusion was simply false because it
failed in principle to grasp historical reality.
There were striking resemblances to Benjamin not just in the
Kierkegaard book, but also in the inaugural lecture. Adorno intended
to dedicate the printed version to him, but the lecture was not published.^59
The distinction Adorno drew between knowledge and truth in the
inaugural lecture is further evidence of a debt to Benjamin. Just as
Benjamin connected the redeeming of truth with messianic redemp-
tion, Adorno assumed that truth is possible only when the knowing
subject has developed his entire ability to experience in historical and
social terms. In both men the truth is a horizon in which reality and
interpretation are mutually interrelated. Of course – and this is where
they diverge – in Benjamin this constellation referred to the intellectual
opposites (of transitoriness and redemption) contained in the phenom-
ena of reality. In contrast, Adorno conceived of the same constella-
tion in more materialist terms because the intentionless elements
of reality were to be gathered together so that they became the inter-
pretable images of the real. He understood interpretation as a con-
structive procedure that would generate concepts that make reality
accessible. For Adorno, philosophical interpretation should not only
unlock the riddles of the real, but it should also restore to the minutest,
most intentionless elements the language of their true socio-historical
nature. He brought philosophical interpretation into the framework
of a materialist epistemology which was concerned with both the