Adorno equated the Kantian intelligible character with a fleeting impulse-driven moral consciousness

Evidence

If one dared to accord its true substance to the Kantian X of the intelligible character, the substance that will stand up against the total indeterminacy of the aporetical concept, it would probably be the historically most advanced, pointlike, flaring, swiftly extinguished consciousness inhabited by the impulse to do right. … It is the concrete, intermittent anticipation of the possibility, neither alien to mankind nor identical with it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2566

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Adorno’s startling reading of Kant’s ‘intelligible character’ (the X) as a momentary, flaring moral impulse.
• XREF: Connects to the ‘impulse before the ego’ and ‘somatic impulse’ concepts from Negative Dialectics discussed in 2568. — connects to: Adorno could not ground how the archaic impulse might grow into genuine individuality — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2568

Broader Connections

• Adorno could not ground how the archaic impulse might grow into genuine individuality #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2568