Adorno’s negative dialectics and its debt to Nietzsche

Could Nietzsche be the originator of Adorno’s negative dialectics

Bibliographic Data

ID11342146
AuthorsNektarios Kastrinakis (0000-0002-5570-9047, University of York, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume51
Issue9
Pages1436-1468
Publication date2025-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhilosophy & Social Criticism (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0191-4537 • E-ISSN: 1461-734X
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/01914537241265116
OpenAlexW4400868260
LanguageEN
References cited24

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