518 Notes to pp. 137–142
20 Ibid., p. 334.
21 Ibid., p. 335.
22 Ibid.
23 Ibid., p. 340.
24 Ibid., p. 342.
25 M. Horkheimer, ‘The Present Situation of Social Philosophy’, in Between
Philosophy and Social Science, p. 9.
26 M. Horkheimer, Preface to the first year’s issues of the Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung, GS, vol. 3, p. 30ff.
27 He did make the attempt to clarify his thoughts on this subject in the ten
‘Theses on the Language of the Philosopher’. He dedicated the typescript
to Gretel Karplus. In the ninth thesis, which contains a summation of the
preceding argument, he asserts that philosophical criticism should take
the form of linguistic criticism. Such linguistic criticism is to make use of a
configurative language mindful of ‘the aesthetic dignity of words’. Adorno
inferred this truth criterion from the ‘convergence of art and knowledge’,
a phenomenon with two aspects. On the one hand, true propositions
can only be expressed in linguistic form; on the other, the element of
expression, and art in general, ‘conveys knowledge’. The language of art
‘is only aesthetically consistent if it is “true”, that is to say, if its statements
correspond to the objective stage reached by history.’ In the light of this
truth criterion, Adorno rejected the claim that philosophical language
should aspire to comprehensibility, i.e., communication. Instead, follow-
ing the downfall of metaphysics and the disintegration of language, the
philosopher has the opportunity to make use of ‘the ruins of language’,
and to reassemble its fragments into a novel configuration. This language
will then ‘disclose the historical stage reached by truth in faithful
agreement with the objects referred to and with a faithful application
of words’ (Adorno, ‘Thesen über die Sprache des Philosophen’, GS,
vol. 1, p. 368ff.).
28 W. Strzelewicz, ‘Diskurse im Institut für Sozialforschung um 1930’, p. 164.
29 Kracauer to Adorno, 7 June 1931, Kracauer’s Literary Estate, Deutsches
Literaturarchiv, Marbach.
30 Ibid.
31 Peter von Haselberg, ‘Wiesengrund-Adorno’, p. 9.
32 Adorno, ‘The Curious Realist’, Notes to Literature, vol. 2, p. 60.
33 Peter von Haselberg, ‘Wiesengrund-Adorno’, p. 10.
34 See Adorno, ‘Aufzeichnungen zur Ästhetik-Vorlesung von 1931/32’, Frank-
furter Adorno Blätter I, 1992, p. 35ff.
35 Ibid., p. 38.
36 Ibid., p. 77.
37 Ibid., p. 83.
38 Ibid., p. 87.
39 Peter von Haselberg, ‘Wiesengrund-Adorno’, p. 11.
40 Kurt Mautz, Der Urfreund, p. 43f. Kurt Mautz later became a literary
scholar and a novelist. Before his death in November 2000, I was able to
have a number of telephone conversations with him in which we talked
about his memories of Adorno, during his early period as a Privatdozent,
and then again since the 1950s. After Mautz’s death, his son Rolf gave me
permission to look through his papers, which included the records of those