Adorno’s final philosophy denied the achievability of salvation while keeping its standpoint

Evidence

At the end of his effort, in the last aphorism of the book, Adorno showed how far he had come from a belief in the possible realization of the hope for final reconciliation. The terms he chose to use were now self-consciously theological. Philosophy can once again become responsible, he suggested, through the “effort to regard all things as the way they would represent themselves from the standpoint of salvation [Erlosung]. Knowledge has no other light than that which shines from salvation on the world; all others exhaust themselves in post facto construction and remain a part of technology.” 108 Where Adorno drew back, however, was from suggesting that salvation or redemption might be actually achieved. In other words, he denied the possibility of realizing the absolute without at the same time negating the reality of the finite and contingent. Thought, he paradoxically asserted, must comprehend this impossibility for the sake of what was in fact possible: “Against the challenge which emanates from this realization, the question of the reality or unreality of salvation itself is almost immaterial.” 109 Shortly before his death, Benjamin had written that “our image of happiness is indissolubly bound up with the image of redemption. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 836

Categorization

• DEFINE: Captures the theological turn in Adorno’s late thought — redemption as a standpoint of critique rather than a goal to be realized.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that knowledge gets its light only from redemption yet redemption is unrealizable — a genuinely dense thesis about critique’s self-grounding.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno and Horkheimer kept Benjamin’s corrupted-speech premise while stripping its theology. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 789; Adorno broke with Benjamin by denying even a weak messianic power to history — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 837; Adorno’s thought begins from philosophy surviving its own death in an interregnum. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1208 (+3 more)