Adorno saw philosophy as unable to grasp totality yet kept it over social theory

Evidence

As in his inaugural lecture of 1931 on `The Actuality of Philosophy’, however, Adorno also emphasized in Negative Dialectics that philosophy could no longer hope to grasp the totality. But if philosophy, in its inability to grasp the totality, had no advantage over social theorywhat reason was there for engaging in left-Hegelian philosophy instead of unsystematic social theory? — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2532

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on his 1931 inaugural lecture distinction between philosophy’s ‘actuality’ and its incapacity for totality. — connects to: Adorno held that post-idealist social theory degrades philosophy’s concepts into obscurantist tools. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1928; Adorno’s theory aimed to grasp the whole to recover what it suppressed — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2389; Adorno treated philosophy as an independent instrument of discovery rather than applied science — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2508 (+2 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2532