Adorno recontextualized Kant’s isolated-individual freedom through Nazi camp experience

Evidence

The central thread in Adorno’s argument was a critique of Kant, the great philosopher of freedom. Adorno put the concepts of freedom and lack of freedom, which had become fixated on individuals seen in isolation, back in their social and historical context. He maintained an awareness of the experiences of his own time, foremost among them the impression left by the deepest debasement yet suffered, the most annihilative experience of the powerlessness of the individual, the Nazi concentration camps. In this way he arrived at conclusions which were unconventional not only in the field of philosophy in the Federal Republic, but also in the general climate of thought being expressed in Germany, and which displayed a kind of humane realism. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2560

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s broader critique of Kantian ethics and the German philosophical tradition, contextualizing freedom claims historically. — connects to: Adorno’s belief in self-determination left freedom something to be given, not seized — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2490