Martin Heidegger vs Theodor Adorno
Heidegger and Adorno are the two most influential German philosophers of the mid-twentieth century, and Adorno's Jargon of Authenticity is one of the most sustained polemics in modern philosophy. The relation between existentialism and critical theory is largely the relation between these two thinkers.
At a glance
| Martin Heidegger | Theodor Adorno | |
|---|---|---|
| Dates | 1889 – 1976 | 1903 – 1969 |
| Nationality | German | German |
| Era | Contemporary | Contemporary |
| Movements | Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Existentialism | Critical Theory, Continental Philosophy, Marxism |
| Profile | Martin Heidegger → | Theodor Adorno → |
Where they agree
Both held that modern instrumental reason has produced a catastrophe in twentieth-century Europe, both worked in the long shadow of Hegel and Marx, and both took the philosophical analysis of language and culture as inseparable from political-philosophical inquiry.
Where they disagree
Heidegger located the catastrophe in the forgetting of being, with the technological framing of the world as the late stage of a metaphysical history that began with Plato. Adorno located the catastrophe in the dialectic of enlightenment: the same instrumental reason that liberated humanity from myth has produced the administered society, mass culture, and the conditions for fascism. Heidegger's response is to await a saving turn in the history of being; Adorno's is to maintain the negative force of critique against any consoling or affirmative philosophical alternative. Adorno also held that Heidegger's vocabulary of authenticity is itself an ideology — the jargon of his title.
Representative quotes
Martin Heidegger
-
“Language is the house of Being.”
Die Sprache ist das Haus des Seins. -
“Man is not the lord of beings. Man is the shepherd of Being.”
Letter on Humanism (1947) -
“The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.”
Das Bedenklichste in unserer bedenklichen Zeit ist, dass wir noch nicht denken.
Theodor Adorno
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“Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.”
Es gibt kein richtiges Leben im falschen. -
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
Nach Auschwitz ein Gedicht zu schreiben, ist barbarisch -
“Both are torn halves of an integral freedom, to which however they do not add up.”
On high culture and popular culture, in a letter to Walter Benjamin (18 March 1936)
Continue reading
- Full profile: Martin Heidegger
- Full profile: Theodor Adorno
- Shared movements: Continental Philosophy
- Browse all philosopher comparisons