As an exile in America during the War, Theodor Adorno grew acquainted with the fundamentals of empirical social research, something which would shape the work he undertook in the early 1950s as co-director of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research. Yet he also became increasingly aware of the fetishism of method in sociology, and saw the serious limitations of theoretical work based solely on empirical findings.

In this lecture course given in 1964, Adorno develops a critique of both sociology and philosophy, emphasizing that theoretical work requires a specific mediation between the two disciplines. Adorno advocates a philosophical approach to social theory that challenges the drive towards uniformity and a lack of ambiguity, highlighting instead the fruitfulness of experience, in all its messy complexity, for critical social analysis. At the same time, he shows how philosophy must also realise that it requires sociology if it is to avoid falling for the old idealistic illusion that the totality of real conditions can be grasped through thought alone.

Masterfully bringing together philosophical and empirical approaches to an understanding of society, these lectures from one of the most important social thinkers of the 20th century will be of great interest to students and scholars in philosophy, sociology and the social sciences generally.

Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), a prominent member of the Frankfurt School, was one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century in the areas of social theory, philosophy and aesthetics.

Editors ForewordLECTURE 1Philosophy and sociology as scientific disciplines  Reflection and theory  Tasks of the lecture  Provisional conception of a theory of society  The crisis of theoretical thought; positivism  Webers relationship to theory  Webers concept of understanding  Webers concept of rationality  Bureaucracy and domination  Dialectics; theoretical aspects of atheoretical thinkingLECTURE 2Facts and theory  Concretion and overcoming of the factual  Critique of the classificatory logic of positivism  The relationship between natural sciences and social sciences, nature and society  The anti-theoretical character of sociology  Hypothesis formulation and insight  The necessity of reflection; Darmstadt community studies  Theory formation presupposes a consideration of discontinuity; The status of facts within the complexion of society as a wholeLECTURE 3Ibsens Hedda Gabler; Registering facts and productive imagination  The concept of tendency  Capitalist calculus  The exchange relationship  Tendency and prophecy; The new as the core of theory  The non-identical in theory  Theory and dynamics of society Tendency and totality  Social reality and theoryLECTURE 4Tendency and trend  Dependence of theory on its object; Distrust towards theory formation  Theory as a unified system of society; Liberalism, Marxism, German Idealism  System as tendency  Modifications of market society as results of class struggles  Monopolizing tendency of capital; State interventionism as a crisis outlet  Integration of the proletariatLECTURE 5Announcement of a lecture by Lucien Goldmann on Marxism and contemporary society  Problems of theory formation; Work Climate study  The system-immanence of the proletariat  Class consciousness and integration  Ideology and experience: The phenomenon of personalization  Insight into society in theoretical thought  System-immanent consciousness  Politics as an aspect of ideology  The meaning of changes in reality and consciousness; concretismLECTURE 6The difficulty of theory formation  Concretism as an expression of powerlessness; Levelled middle-class society  Exchange value as a source of pleasure  The meaning of concretism for labour organizations  The transformation of Marxian theory into state religion  Abstractism  Accusation of the bourgeoisification of the proletariat  Everyday class struggleLECTURE 7Everyday class struggle  The politics of small steps  The dual character of the workers realism; The consequences of mechanization  The dominance of conditions  Wage satisfaction  Subjectivism in sociological research  Communication research; The semblance of freedom in the exchange principle  Subjective experiences of the semblance of levelling  Supply and demand of labourLECTURE 8The thin crust of integrated society  Nuanced thinking  The shift of social pressure  Changes in nominalism and epistemology  Improvements within the work process  Loss of unambiguity; Social theory between dogmatic ossification and naïve faith in facts  Semblance of integration and increasing socialization  Disintegration; Rationalization and the reality principle  The function of the system; Antagonism of power and powerlessness: Disintegration through growing integration  Integration and powerlessness  False identity of the general and the particularLECTURE 9The relationship between economy and power  The negative unity of society in general unfreedom  The culture industry and analysis of ideologies  Positivism as a manifestation of ideology  The concept of the human being and the jargon of authenticity; ideology critique and language critique  The mythologization of antagonisms in socialist countries  The dialectic and rupture of theory and experience  Loss of experience  Theory as system and non-system; The irrationality and rationality of society; Webers theory of scienceLECTURE 10Contradictory object and contradiction-free theory; Rationality and irrationality  Changes in the concept of reason  The whole, in its rationality, is irrational  Dialectical theory  Critique of undialectical thought  Critique of unified sociology and the fetishization of science  The historical change in the function of science; Openness as a key concept  Functional change in the concept of science: Leibniz, Fichte, Hegel, Kant  The equation of science with truth  The danger of intuitionism; The relationship between method and matter  Announcement of the next topic: Critique of Parsonss methodologyLECTURE 11Critique of the ideal of the scientific method  Descartes; The postulation of method and the structure of the matter  Parsonss unified conceptual system  The relationship between psychology and sociology: Karen Horney, Erich Fromm  Freud: Sociology as applied psychology; The concept of role  Critique of the psychological reduction of social processes: Marx, Durkheim  Subject and socialization in Webers understanding sociology  The antagonistic relationship between the individual and society  The necessity of a critical reflection on methodLECTURE 12Fetishization of methodology instead of insight into the matter  Method I; Spontaneity of thought  Formal and transcendental logic in Kant; The character of reason  Method II; Dialectical philosophy and self-determination  Didactics; The complexity of capitalism and the Marxian method  Marxs toying with dialectics  The disastrous consequence of the primacy of method  Two meanings of the concept of methodLECTURE 13The dispute between positivist and critical thinking  Scientific fetishism and the acquisition of naïveté  Perfectionism of method and irrelevance of results  Weber: Material and spirit collecting  Instrumentalization of reason  The defamation of spirit  Self-examination of thought in the material  Causes of scientific fetishism  Ego weakness as a subjective reason for scientific fetishism  On the fear of freedom; The employee mentality  Theory and systemLECTURE 14The ideal of system in rationalism: Reduction of the many to the one  Critique of systems that proceed from the subject: Hegel, Erdmann; Spinoza and Leibniz  The empiricist critique of rationalism  System frenzy and the disintegrated cosmos  The problem of the concept of system in Kants idealism  Nietzsche and Kierkegaard; Rejection of system  On dogmatic attitudes  Systems regress to modes of representation  Systematic thinking and the administered world; Equation of theory and system in Parsons  Focus on the essenceLECTURE 15Inspiration and spontaneity  The reified consciousness  Kant: The worldly and scholastic concepts of philosophy; Unregulated experience  Empiricism as a corrective  The relationship between knowledge and democracy; Experimental situations  Realism and power relations; Objectivity and subjectivityLECTURE 16Elements of a theory of society  Transcendental reflection  The classes and the production process  The irrationality of the whole and particular rationality in the administered world Ð The armament apparatus  Class character and unfreedom  Pluralism as a phenomenon of concealment  Changes in the sphere of competition and consumption  The intertwinement of rationality and irrationality in the processes of concentration and disintegrationLECTURE 17Rationality and irrationality  Power relations and control over production; Bureaucracy and domination; Sociological concept formation  Personalized epiphenomena and fascism  The independence of bureaucracy in Russia  Armament and overall social structure  The position of ideology today: De-ideologization; The consumer world  The consciousness industry: The change in ideology and its contemporary production  The technological veil  Language critique and reified consciousness  CritiqueEditors NotesIndex