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.
