Philosophical exactness is measured by the disappearance of the question

Evidence

A more exact definition of the relationship between philosophy and science, however, would show that philosophy should approach the results of the particular sciences with `an exact form of imagination’, with a kind of imaginativeness which remains strictly within the material science offers it, but which transcends the sciences even in the minutest aspects of its arrangementaspects, admittedly, which necessarily originate in it. If the idea of philosophical interpretation which I have presented is correct, it can be expressed as a demand to take account continually of questions arising from the reality which presents itself by applying a form of imagination to them which rearranges the elements of the question, but does not go beyond the range of those elements. The exactness of this form of imagination can be measured by the disappearance of the question. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 382

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Adorno’s definition of exact imagination — rearranging elements within a question’s own range until the question dissolves — is a paradigm-defining statement of his method that resists quick summary.
• DEFINE: Defines Adorno’s key methodological term ‘exact imagination’ (exakte Phantasie).
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 382
• XREF: connects to: Philosophy survives because the moment to realize it was missed — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2529; Phenomenology rediscovers philosophy by describing lived things rather than questioning reality — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 12

Broader Connections

• Philosophy survives because the moment to realize it was missed #responds-to (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2529
• Phenomenology rediscovers philosophy by describing lived things rather than questioning reality #contradicts (0.75) — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 12