Adorno and Horkheimer rejected immediacy and Hegel’s identity of subject and object.

Evidence

Kierkegaard had also understood it in a specifically philosophical way. In Either/Or, he had defined the aes thetic sphere as “that through which man immediately is what he is; the ethical is that through which he becomes what he becomes.” 108 But as Adorno noted in his first of many criticisms of Kierkegaard, “the ethical subsequently withdrew behind his teaching of paradoxreligion. In view of the ‘leap’ of faith, the aesthetic was deprecatingly transformed from a stage in the dialectical process, namely that of the nondecisive, into simple creature-like (kreaturliche) immediacy.” 109 To Adorno, immediacy, that is, the search for primary truths, was anathema. Like Horkheimer’s, his thought was always rooted in a kind of cosmic irony, a refusal to rest somewhere and say finally, Here is where truth lies. Both men rejected Hegel’s basic premise of the identity of subject and object. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 258

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes the core Anti-foundational stance — cosmic irony, refusal of primary truths — that defines Critical Theory’s epistemology.
• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapter on Horkheimer’s critique of Bergson’s duree (mentioned in the text itself) and to the general rejection of immediacy philosophy across the tradition. — connects to: Adorno rejected both positivism and abstract individualism while insisting on nonidentity. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 268; Adorno and Horkheimer criticized Husserl’s phenomenology for denying mediation — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 263; Adorno rejected any identity of theory and practice — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 341 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno rejected both positivism and abstract individualism while insisting on nonidentity. #expands (0.82) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 268
• Adorno rejected any identity of theory and practice #expands (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 341
• Adorno and Horkheimer criticized Husserl’s phenomenology for denying mediation #expands (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 263
• Adorno faulted Hegel for treating the bourgeois individual as an irreducible reality #complicates (0.72) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 834