Adorno’s inaugural lecture pleased none of his Frankfurt mentors

Evidence

Adorno’s inaugural lecture seemed to be a step in Horkheimer’s direction, but it remained in fact essentially a theological-materialist programme in the spirit of Benjamin and Kracauer. No one liked the lectureneither Horkheimer, nor Mannheim, nor Wertheimer, and even Kracauer wrote to him from Berlin that it had been tactically inept to present himself as a materialist dialectician in a lecture describing his programme, instead of taking up some minor, genuinely dialectical inquiry or other and breaking off at the point at which the dialectical-materialist consequences forced themselves through, thus penetrating the professors’ minds instead of antagonizing them. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 384

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the early Adorno-Horkheimer tension over presentation strategy, relevant to how the Institute’s public philosophy developed. — connects to: Adorno’s inaugural lecture met universal criticism including from his allies — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 384; Adorno’s inaugural lecture met universal rejection from his Frankfurt circle
• SHARE: The tactical advice from Kracauer — demonstrate dialectics through a minor inquiry rather than announce a programme — would interest anyone studying how to publish philosophy strategically.