370 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
for an understanding of what students began to identify as the ‘Frank-
furt School’, then at least a necessary one. For whole generations of
Frankfurt sociology students, the Soziologische Exkurse came to be
the first point of access to the way of thinking that incorporated the
‘spirit of the house’. The Exkurse were distinguished from the few other
sociological textbooks available then by their philosophical grounding,
their interdisciplinary perspective and the critical thrust of the indi-
vidual contributions. A typical example can be found at the end of the
article on ‘Sociology’: ‘But only in the spirit of criticism can science be
more than the mere duplication of reality by thought, while explaining
reality always means breaking the spell of duplication. Such criticism,
however,... means confronting the object with its own concept. Data
yield only to the gaze that examines them from the standpoint of a
genuine interest, the standpoint of a free society.’^16 Did Adorno have an
insight into the plight of growing numbers of students at the time who
wished to study social theory but who regarded statistics and the study
of methodology as a necessary evil?
Frankfurt, 12 November 1955
I dreamt I had to take the diploma examination in sociology. My
performance in empirical social research was very poor. I was
asked how many columns there are in a punched card. I put down
twenty at random. That was quite wrong of course. The position
with regard to concepts was even worse. I was presented with a
series of terms in English and I was supposed to give their precise
meaning in empirical sociology. One was ‘supportive’. I boldly
translated this as ‘stützend’, helpful. But in statistics it turned out
to be the exact opposite, something completely negative. Out
of pity for my ignorance, the examiner now decided to test my
knowledge of cultural history.... Here he was impressed by my
profound knowledge and I was told I had passed.^17There can be no doubt that social research with Hollerith tabulating
machines did not come easily to a philosopher and music critic like
Adorno. Nevertheless, he developed an impressive productivity in this
area. As institute director, he did not indeed undertake any field studies
himself, nor did he become involved in the evaluation of data. How-
ever, there were regular meetings of the different research projects in
which he intervened and proved able to impress the other participants,
both by his innovative suggestions on points of methodology and by
his interpretative imagination.^18 ‘Adorno’s relation to empirical social
research was highly ambitious.’ This was Ludwig von Friedeburg’s
judgement on the collaborative work done during the 1950s. ‘Adorno’s
requirements were determined not just by his theoretical ambitions
but also by his quite extraordinary ability to detect the general in the
particular.’^19 Adorno was in strong demand in the institute soon after