Adorno closed his essays by alternating contradictory surveys of salvation’s prospects

Evidence

Adorno’s essays always closed by surveying the prospects for salvation. Sometimes he saw the relation of immanence collapsing as a result of its own totalization and the complete destruction of its own basis in the non-identical which would result from such a totalization. Sometimes he saw it as failing through the impossibility of meeting its own demand for totality. What function was being assigned to thought in surveys of this sort? Were they not self-contradictory? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 335

Categorization

• SHARE: A niche characterization of Adorno’s essay form — for someone who reads him closely and would relish the two-option collapse structure.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno’s final philosophy denied the achievability of salvation while keeping its standpoint — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 836; Adorno’s Negative Dialectics closes with metaphysical meditations on death and hope. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 638; Adorno’s essayistic free thought was a utopia that avoided empirical engagement — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2287 (+7 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno’s final philosophy denied the achievability of salvation while keeping its standpoint — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 836; Adorno’s Negative Dialectics closes with metaphysical meditations on death and hope. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 638; Adorno’s essayistic free thought was a utopia that avoided empirical engagement — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2287 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno’s final philosophy denied the achievability of salvation while keeping its standpoint #expands (0.92) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 836
• For Adorno, solving a riddle destroys rather than reveals its meaning #complicates (0.76) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 197
• Adorno’s essayistic free thought was a utopia that avoided empirical engagement #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2287