Habermas’s early work directly extended Adorno’s critical theory motifs.

Evidence

Not long after he became an associate at the Institute, Habermas, in close collaboration with Adorno, wrote a long introduction to the report on the first part of the Institute research project on University and Society', which had started in 1952. A shortened version of the introduction was published in Merkur under the title The Chronic Sufferings of University Reform’. There seemed to be a chance that a representative of the younger generation would, on the one hand, be able to carry certain Adornoesque motifs forward, and on the other hand be able to set them in a new philosophical context. Adorno’s influence was evident above all in the way Habermas synchronized scientific and academic developments with social developments, in his use of concepts drawn from the theory of capitalism and not merely from the theory of alienation, and the way in which he contrasted the utopian ideal that arises within historical contexts with the reality that contradicts it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2323

Categorization

• XREF: Documents the concrete Adorno-to-Habermas continuity that Habermas’s later ‘discourse ethics’ career sometimes obscures. — connects to: Habermas joined the Institute in 1956 as Adorno’s assistant — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2289; Habermas’s theory of communicative action replaced Adorno’s philosophy of the subject. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2746

Broader Connections

• Habermas’s theory of communicative action replaced Adorno’s philosophy of the subject. #expands (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2746