Notes to pp. 70–71 503Jewish benefactors’ (Ludwig von Friedeburg, ‘Frankfurt – die Stadt und
ihre Soziologie’, p. 157). The history of Frankfurt University has been
recorded in two comprehensive studies: Paul Kluke, Die Stiftungsuniversität
Frankfurt am Main (1972); and Notker Hammerstein, Die Johann Wolfgang
Goethe-Universität (1989).
3 Hammerstein, p. 37.
4 Jürgen Habermas, ‘Soziologie in der Weimarer Republik’, p. 187.
5 See Karl Korn, Lange Lehrzeit: Ein deutsches Leben, p. 112ff.; Andreas
Hansert, Bürgerkultur und Kulturpolitik in Frankfurt am Main, p. 107ff.;
Wolfgang Schivelbusch, Intellektuellendämmerung.
6 In view of the muted resonance of Cornelius’s writings, it is all the more
remarkable that Lenin should have ‘done him the honour’ of referring to
him in his anti-positivist tract of 1909, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism,
where he describes him as an ‘agnostic semi-solipsist’ as well as a ‘flea
crusher’ (see H. Scheible, Theodor W. Adorno, p. 22ff.). In reaction to this,
Max Horkheimer, whom Cornelius had supervised for his doctoral dis-
sertation, wrote a review of Lenin’s book, which, although never published,
expressly defends the positivists against speculative, metaphysical tenden-
cies. On Cornelius’s sixtieth birthday, Horkheimer penned an appreciation
that appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung in 1923 (Horkheimer, ‘Hans
Cornelius’, GS, vol. 2, p. 149ff.). See also Michael Korthals, ‘Die kritische
Gesellschaftstheorie des frühen Horkheimer’, p. 317; Hans-Joachim Dahms,
Positivismusstreit, p. 27f.
7 The fact that Adorno really did profit from the discussion of this version
of transcendental idealism can be seen from the increasing frequency with
which in later years, as an ever more popular professor of philosophy, he
would refer to Cornelius’s interpretations of Kant in the seminars and
lecture courses in which he dealt with this topic. This applies, for example,
to the lectures on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason that he gave in the
summer term of 1959. In his discussion of the distinction between synthetic
and analytic propositions, he follows the arguments Cornelius had set out
in his own Commentary on the Critique of Pure Reason in 1926. He singles
out an example that Cornelius himself particularly liked with which to
illustrate the idea of synthetic a priori judgements. According to Cornelius,
‘“Orange comes between red and yellow on the colour scale.” As long as
you are familiar with red and yellow, this statement has an absolutely
compelling truth; it remains valid for all future experience. This means that
it is a synthetic a priori judgement according to this definition of the term.
However, it unquestionably arises from experience and not from pure
thought.’ And in a subsequent lecture, too, when discussing the concepts
of the self, causality and the thing, Adorno refers repeatedly to Cornelius.
See Adorno, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, p. 28. See also ibid., pp. 240–
1, n. 2; 244–5, n. 8; 253, n. 15; 254, n. 1.
The same can be said of his lectures on the problems of moral philosophy
which he gave in the summer term of 1963. In these lectures he discusses
Kant’s doctrine of the antinomies, and once again quotes freely from
Cornelius’s Commentary. See Adorno, Problems of Moral Philosophy,
pp. 29 and 188, n. 10.
8 Hans Cornelius, ‘Leben und Lehre’, in Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in
Selbstdarstellungen, Leipzig, 1923. This volume, edited by Raymund Schmidt,