440 Part IV: Thinking the Unconditional
as a pinnacle with unmistakable contours.’^162 The Munich philosopher
Dieter Henrich was cautiously critical, pointing out that ‘what could be
called theory here is not developed from within itself and the critique of
particular theorems, like the entire book, is aimed at a critique of real-
ity.’ Adorno may well have read this with approval, and the same may
be said of the comment that ‘the author writes lucidly’.^163
The majority of reviews were not really in a position to do justice to
the actual content of the book, even less than usual, in fact. This was
even the case where reviewers delivered a positive judgement. In order
to avoid having to comment on the philosophical substance of the book,
many writers concentrated on criticizing the author’s use of language.
Ludwig Marcuse was particularly scathing in a review that appeared
in Die Zeit in October 1967 with the title ‘The Beautiful Tongue’, a
reference to a poem about Adorno by Günter Grass. Marcuse, who had
known Adorno personally in exile in California, was one of many who
objected to his use of language, something with which Adorno was
increasingly confronted during this period. According to Marcuse, he
wrote a jargon that aimed ‘to drive the harmlessness out of harmless
souls’.^164 A little later Adorno referred to this polemic as ‘a tit-for-tat
response, moreover one from which I have been left out... .The so-
called jargon. ..I am reproached with, if its distinguishing feature is
that it is not easily understood, then that comes from the fact that
I have been striving to express myself very precisely in order to escape
from the general sloppiness of communication.’^165
In order to provide an adequate forum for a truly substantive dis-
cussion of Negative Dialectics, Adorno offered two regular philosophy
seminars in the summer semester 1967 and the winter semester 1967–8
so as to create an opportunity for the book to be examined in detail.
The high level of the seminar was guaranteed by the fact that it was
attended not only by Horkheimer on occasion, but also by a whole
series of assistants and colleagues of Adorno’s from both philosophy
and sociology. These included Werner Becker, Herbert Schnädelbach,
Arend Kulenkampff and Karl-Heinz Haag. Among the students, of
whom there were very many, despite the need to register officially, were
Americans such as Angela Davis and Irving Wohlfahrt, as well as a
number of people who were later to make their mark in university
teaching as the younger representatives of critical theory.
The seminars dealt with the book chapter by chapter and involved
proper seminar papers that were followed by discussion. Adorno took
the discussions very seriously. The controversies generated by the
seminars focused on the historicity of dialectical logic and the principles
of reason and criticism, as well as the question of internal inconsisten-
cies and contradictions in Adorno’s own philosophy. One objection
arising from the political climate of the day was that all consciously
critical thought must adopt the standpoint of the socially oppressed.
Adorno responded to this with the very characteristic comment that his