Adorno rejected both Hegelian absolute spirit and Lukácsian proletarian totality grasp.

Evidence

Entirely following Benjamin, Adorno’s lecture begins with a ‘bold denial’ which simultaneously implies a renunciation of Lukács: ‘Whoever chooses philosophy as a profession today must first reject the illusion that earlier philosophical enterprises began with: that the power of thought is sufficient to grasp the totality of the real. No justifying reason could rediscover itself in a reality whose order and form suppresses every claim to reason; only polemically does reason present itself to the knower as total reality, while only in traces and ruins is it prepared to hope that it will ever come across correct and just reality’. Against both Hegel’s assumption of an absolute spirit, and Lukács’s assumptionof aproletariatcapableashistory’ssubject-objectof graspingtotality given the right conditions, Adorno maintains that what must be grasped 29 ‘The Actuality of Philosophy’ is also a response to Marx’sThe Poverty of Philosophy, ‘which included the first systematic account of historical materialism; in the second part, especially, it comprised a critique of philosophy as practised by the Hegelian school, which Marx confronted with the sense of history which Hegel himself had possessed. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 183

Categorization

• XREF: This is central to the historiographical debate: Adorno’s break from Lukács on totality becomes the pivot for the later ‘negative dialectics’ refusal of closure. Connects to the reader’s framing of Adorno vs. the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ reading. — connects to: Benjamin rejected the autonomy of intellectuals, siding with the proletariat over Geist. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 1514; Adorno rejected Hegel’s rationality thesis as a capitulation to unreason — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 185; Adorno rejected prima philosophia while defending a strict concept of real theory — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1200 (+2 more)
• BMF: The idea of reason surviving only ‘in traces and ruins’ and resigned to hoping for a ‘correct and just reality’ evokes a specific resonance — but checking the given library, no strong cross-domain match to any listed book beyond thematic similarity.

Broader Connections

• Adorno rejected prima philosophia while defending a strict concept of real theory #corroborates (0.82) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1200
• Adorno rejected any identity of theory and practice #expands (0.78) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 341
• Adorno and Horkheimer rejected total identity with nature as regressive stasis #expands (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 803