Adorno never abandoned the ideal of critical empirical research despite rejecting established methods

Evidence

Adorno’s critique referred to the established research system, but not to the project of producing a critical, empirical form of social research. His critique made it easier for him to concentrate on philosophical theory, but enabled him to insist to the last on the need for field research to be carried out in critical sociology, although he was not able to define with any exactness what this might involve. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2120

Categorization

• QUESTION: What exactly would Adorno’s ‘critical empirical social research’ have looked like if he could not define it? An unexplored tension worth chasing.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno valued science’s importance but rejected its cognitive methods entirely — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2283; Adorno insisted theory must precede empirical research, even if research is never reached. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 994; Adorno believed his jazz essay already satisfied empirical methods — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1013 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Methodological experience softened Adorno’s early hostility to American empirical techniques #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 671