Notes to pp. 204–206 53376 Adorno and Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, vol. 1, p. 41.
77 Adorno, Against Epistemology: A Metacritique – Studies in Husserl and
the Phenomenological Antinomies, p. 6 [translation amended].
78 Adorno’s criticism of the philosophy of origins, namely that ‘the reduction
of one thing to the other is not possible without giving rise to a paradox’,
also contains the germ of a critique of essentialism. For, according to
Bonacker, ‘the idea of a dialectics that sets out with an intrinsic analysis
and advances by a process of negation... aims at dissolving entities that
seem to be clearly delimited and immediately given’ (Thorsten Bonacker,
Die normative Kraft der Kontingenz: Nichtessentialistische Gesellschaftskritik
nach Weber und Adorno, p. 145ff.).
79 Adorno, Against Epistemology, p. 20 [translation altered].
80 Ibid., p. 23. Bonacker points out that Adorno links rationalism with
idealism and empiricism with ontology and realism. Thorsten Bonacker,
Die normative Kraft der Kontingenz, p. 142.
81 Adorno, Against Epistemology, p. 25.
82 Ibid., p. 26.
83 Ibid., p. 24. On the concept of ‘dialectics without dialectics’, see Alexander
García Duttmann, Das Gedächtnis des Denkens: Versuch über Heidegger
und Adorno, p. 90f.
84 Adorno, Against Epistemology, p. 27.
85 Ibid., p. 123.
86 Ibid., p. 36f.
87 Adorno, ‘Zur Philosophie Husserls’, GS, vol. 20.1, p. 62.
88 Adorno, Against Epistemology, p. 234 [translation altered].
89 Adorno and Horkheimer, Briefwechsel, vol. 1, p. 101.
90 Horkheimer’s book had appeared in Switzerland under the pseudonym
Heinrich Regius. It contained notes from the last years of the Weimar
Republic. In 1934 Adorno wrote to Löwenthal, ‘I have now read this
book a number of times with close attention, and have been greatly
impressed by it....I find myself identifying almost completely with it, so
much so that I would be hard put to put my finger on points of difference.
What was especially new and important to me is what I would describe
as his interpretation of the problem of personal contingency as opposed to
the thesis of radical justice, and in general his critique of static anthropo-
logy in every respect. One ought perhaps at some point to speak generally
about our relation to enlightenment.’ Adorno to Löwenthal, 6 July 1934.
See Löwenthal, Mitmachen wollte ich nie, p. 253f.
91 Horkheimer’s title, ‘Dämmerung’ (‘Twilight’), conveys this sense of
pessimism rather better, perhaps, than ‘Dawn and Decline’, the actual
title of the English translation [trans.].
92 ‘The capitalist system in its present phase is organized exploitation on a
world-wide scale. Its preservation creates boundless suffering.... Things
are so complicated that English textile workers profit from the hunger of
the Indian pariah and the drudgery of Chinese coolies, and that work in
Bacon’s and Galilei’s science serves the interests of today’s armaments
industry.... Every thought, every show of sympathy, every relationship,
every minor or major act against the ruling class involves the risk of
personal disadvantage. Every thought, every show of sympathy, every
relationship and every act on its behalf, i.e., on behalf of the world-wide