Adorno deliberately ranged across genres, from aphorism to technical metacritique, at reputational cost

Evidence

In Minima Moralia, he presented an example of aphoristic, `impure’ philosophy which was unique in the 1950s. By contrast, in 1956 he published the study of Husserl he had begun when he was living in England, Against Epistemology: A MetacritiqueStudies in Husserl and the Phenomenological Antinomies4a work that met the strictest academic standards. With Prisms: Society and the Critique of Culture, published in 1955, he offered the clearest evidence yet of the variety and individuality of his thinkingrisking his reputation among his colleagues in philosophy and sociology, as Georg Simmel had also done in his time. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 535

Categorization

• XREF: Ties Adorno’s tactical risk-taking to Simmel, whose work the reader has already studied for the stranger and social forms. — connects to: Adorno’s dense style is a deliberate intransigence against cheap readability — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 18; Adorno’s resentment-driven aggressiveness was deliberately cultivated as an intellectual asset — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 657; Adorno’s critique of culture is inseparable from its technical particulars across disciplines — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 31 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Illustrates ‘impure philosophy’ as a genre claim set against strict academic metacritique.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Adorno’s dense style is a deliberate intransigence against cheap readability — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 18; Adorno’s resentment-driven aggressiveness was deliberately cultivated as an intellectual asset — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 657; Adorno’s critique of culture is inseparable from its technical particulars across disciplines — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 31 (+3 more)