Adorno believed a knowledge of art made the turn to social theory necessary.

Evidence

Both your criticisms and my own reflections seem to me to converge on a single point: whether we should really continue, as we intended, to focus our joint work on art, or whether in God’s name we shouldn’t finally start talking about society itself. While I was writing the piece on music, I, too, increasingly had the impression that it implied a farewell to art theory, for a considerable time at least … and I can already tell you that I not only agree with shifting the emphasis on to questions of society as such, but that precisely a knowledge of art makes such a `transition’ necessary. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1257

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s later Dialectic of Enlightenment and Aesthetic Theory trajectory. — connects to: Adorno located society’s crucial problems within autonomous art as a model of salvation — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 875; Art and theory were partners in Adorno’s thought serving mimesis and reason jointly — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2743

Broader Connections

• Art and theory were partners in Adorno’s thought serving mimesis and reason jointly #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2743