Abstract

The term ‘Liebe’ and its variants occur over 120 times in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s Dialektik der Aufklärung and Adorno’s Minima Moralia. The article will examine the function of the concept of ‘love’ in Adorno’s thought, especially in relation to the positioning of the subject and object of love and its relation to Adorno’s critique of subjectivity. It will furthermore claim that the ideal-typical relationship between lovers serves as a critique of the capitalist ‘Tauschprinzip’ and thus mirrors the relationship between art object and beholder in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory, proceeding from the same dialectical ground as Adorno’s conception of the work of art.