Theodor W. Adorno

Adorno's early philosophical writings have not yet been thoroughly analysed in their entirety. This book aims to close this gap with a philosophical and sociological analysis. The correspondence with Benjamin and Kracauer is an indispensable approach, as it is here in particular that Adorno's early struggle with concepts and theoretical constellations becomes clear, which he could and wanted to communicate in this form only in private correspondence. The early writings thus do not reveal a precocious philosophical genius, but rather Adorno's complicated dialogue with Kierkegaard, Husserl and Heidegger, in which the seeds of critical theory were able to unfold: they are the prolegomenon to his later work.