Negative Dialectics

Part of a series on the
Frankfurt School
Major works
Reason and Revolution The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Eclipse of Reason Dialectic of Enlightenment Minima Moralia Eros and Civilization One-Dimensional Man Negative Dialectics The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere The Theory of Communicative Action
Notable theorists
Max Horkheimer · Theodor Adorno Herbert Marcuse · Walter Benjamin Erich Fromm · Friedrich Pollock Leo Löwenthal · Jürgen Habermas
Important concepts
Critical Theory · Dialectic · Praxis Psychoanalysis · Antipositivism Popular culture · Culture industry Advanced capitalism · Privatism Non-Identity · Communicative Rationality Legitimation Crisis
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Negative Dialectics is a 1966 book by Theodor W. Adorno (first translated into English in 1973) and is considered to be his magnum opus. In the book, Adorno challenges the metaphysics of Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, while simultaneously building his ideas towards emancipation from the capitalist order. A notoriously difficult work, in particular for English readers who have had at their disposal a translation known for its inaccuracies. This issue has been ameliorated by Dennis Redmond, who has posted online a translation of the text (see below). Additionally, noted translator Robert Hullot-Kentor (who re-translated Adorno's Aesthetic Theory) is at work on a new version, to be published by the University of Minnesota Press.^[1]

Further reading

• Dennis Redmond's updated translation of Negative Dialectics, with commentary.
• Buck-Morss, Susan. Origin of Negative Dialectics. Free Press, 1979.
• Jameson, Fredric. Late Marxism: Adorno or the Persistence of the Dialectic. Verso, 2007.

References

1. ^ Prof. Robert Hullot-Kentor's website