This book offers an interpretation of the work of Theodor Adorno. In contrast to the conventional view that Adorno's is in essence a critical philosophy, Yvonne Sherratt traces systematically a utopian thesis that pervades all the major aspects of Adorno's thought. She places Adorno's work in the context of German Idealist and later Marxist and Freudian traditions, and then analyses his key works to show how the aesthetic, epistemological, psychological, historical and sociological thought interconnect to form a utopian image. The (...) book will be eagerly sought out by students and specialists in philosophy, social and political theory, intellectual history, literary theory and cultural studies. (shrink)

Hitler had a dream to rule the world, not only with the gun but also with his mind. He saw himself as a "philosopher-leader" and astonishingly gained the support of many intellectuals of his time. In this compelling book, Yvonne Sherratt explores Hitler's relationship with philosophers and uncovers cruelty, ambition, violence, and betrayal where least expected—at the heart of Germany's ivory tower. Sherratt investigates international archives, discovering evidence back to the 1920s of Hitler's vulgarization of noble thinkers of the past, (...) including Kant, Nietzsche, and Darwin. She reveals how philosophers of the 1930s eagerly collaborated to lend the Nazi regime a cloak of respectability: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and a host of others. And while these eminent men sanctioned slaughter, Semitic thinkers like Walter Benjamin and opponents like Kurt Huber were hunted down or murdered. Many others, such as Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, were forced to flee as refugees. The book portrays their fates, to be dispersed across the world as the historic edifice of Jewish-German culture was destroyed by Hitler. Sherratt not only confronts the past; she also tracks down chilling evidence of continuing Nazi sympathy in Western Universities today. (shrink)

_A gripping account of the philosophers who supported Hitler's rise to power and those whose lives were wrecked by his regime_ Hitler had a dream to rule the world, not only with the gun but also with his mind. He saw himself as a "philosopher-leader" and astonishingly gained the support of many intellectuals of his time. In this compelling book, Yvonne Sherratt explores Hitler's relationship with philosophers and uncovers cruelty, ambition, violence, and betrayal where least expected—at the heart of Germany's (...) ivory tower. Sherratt investigates international archives, discovering evidence back to the 1920s of Hitler's vulgarization of noble thinkers of the past, including Kant, Nietzsche, and Darwin. She reveals how philosophers of the 1930s eagerly collaborated to lend the Nazi regime a cloak of respectability: Martin Heidegger, Carl Schmitt, and a host of others. And while these eminent men sanctioned slaughter, Semitic thinkers like Walter Benjamin and opponents like Kurt Huber were hunted down or murdered. Many others, such as Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, were forced to flee as refugees. The book portrays their fates, to be dispersed across the world as the historic edifice of Jewish-German culture was destroyed by Hitler. Sherratt not only confronts the past; she also tracks down chilling evidence of continuing Nazi sympathy in Western Universities today. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she also contextualizes contemporary developments (...) within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

Philosophers within the discipline of the history of philosophy have long since demonstrated a preoccupation with the history of aesthetic ideas. However, not all aesthetic concepts in 19th- and 20th-century thought have been given an adequate analysis. One concept which, while attracting interest in literary theory debates, has rarely been mentioned in history of philosophy debates, is that of aura . The reason for the marginal role of aura in present debates is due no doubt to the difficult and sometimes (...) utterly obscure nature of Adorno's texts, which often veils their underlying philosophical content. Aura concept is important because it represents a still rather neglected strand of Adorno's Aesthetische Theorie , which has often been regarded as solely an avocation of the aesthetics of the ‘New’. This article offers an original and in-depth analysis of this key concept showing how significant it is to Adorno's overall project. Key Words: Theodor Adorno • aesthetics • aura • Walter Benjamin • distance • gaze • proximity • receptivity. (shrink)

Continental Philosophy of Social Science demonstrates the unique and autonomous nature of the continental approach to social science and contrasts it with the Anglo-American tradition. Yvonne Sherratt argues for the importance of an historical understanding of the Continental tradition in order to appreciate its individual, humanist character. Examining the key traditions of hermeneutic, genealogy, and critical theory, and the texts of major thinkers such as Gadamer, Ricoeur, Derrida, Nietzsche, Foucault, the Early Frankfurt School and Habermas, she also contextualizes contemporary developments (...) within strands of thought stemming back to Ancient Greece and Rome. Sherratt shows how these modes of thinking developed through medieval Christian thought into the Enlightenment and Romantic eras, before becoming mainstays of twentieth-century disciplines. Continental Philosophy of Social Science will serve as the essential textbook for courses in philosophy or social sciences. (shrink)

The importance of the concept of subjectivity has been underestimated in the work of Theodor Adorno. In order to address this lacuna we make an interpretation of Adorno’s text Dialectic of Enlightenment, in the form of an ‘idealized’ narrative of enlightenment’s historical decline into its ‘self-conceived’ opposite, namely myth. Within this narrative we unravel the Freudian assumptions underlying Adorno’s work. We depict the form of subjectivity that Adorno regards as inextricably connected to enlightenment reason. We then analyse his argument for (...) the inevitable regression of this kind of subjectivity, and the resultant collapse of reason and enlightenment themselves. In so doing we demonstrate that, in Adorno’s view, the enlightenment concept of subjectivity is seriously flawed and entails an inevitable regression which, in the end, encompasses the very ‘death of the Subject’. (shrink)

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various features such as (...) 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity. Key Words: Adorno • . aesthetic • . aura • . Benjamin • . indeterminacy • . modernity. (shrink)