Adorno’s negative dialectics and its debt to Nietzsche

Could Nietzsche be the originator of Adorno’s negative dialectics

Datos Bibliográficos

ID11342146
AutoresNektarios Kastrinakis (0000-0002-5570-9047, University of York, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen51
Número9
Páginas1436-1468
Fecha de publicación2025-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
EditorialSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01914537241265116
OpenAlexW4400868260
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas24

The dominant view for the relation between Adorno and Nietzsche is that the latter’s influence on the former, in terms of style and content, is primarily to be found in Adorno’s book Minima Moralia. Contrary to the dominant view, this article takes seriously Adorno’s admission that ‘of all the so-called great philosophers I owe [Nietzsche] by far the greatest debt – more even than Hegel’ and investigates the extent of Nietzsche’s influence in the conception of negative dialectics. It is argued that there could be a significant as well as inconspicuous influence that runs through Adorno’s Negative Dialectics to the point where Nietzsche legitimately be proclaimed the originator of Adorno’s negative dialectics. For those who consider negative dialectics to be the paramount achievement of Adorno’s thought, this claim would be equivalent to the claim that Nietzsche’s most significant contribution in Adorno’s thought is to be found in Negative Dialectics rather than in Minima Moralia

Debt · Dialectic · Economics · Epistemology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism