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Disclosing Critique

The Contingency of Understanding in Adorno’s Interpretative Social Theory

PHILIPPS-UNIVERSITY OF MARBURG, GERMANY

This article discusses the problem of understanding in Adorno’s critical theory. It is argued that another rationale for the contingency of understanding is provided by Adorno, one that justifies understanding critical theory as disclosing critique. For Adorno, what is responsible for the contingency of understanding is not the local limitation of our knowledge and vocabulary, but the presupposition of understanding itself. In this article, two readings of this contingency of understanding are distinguished: an epistemo-critical one and an ideology-critical one. Finally, the case is made for adopting the epistemo-critical view of the contingency of understanding in preference to the ideology-critical view - not least because it contains a normative impulse which goes beyond contextualism.

Key Words: Adorno • contingency • critical theory • normativity • understanding

European Journal of Social Theory, Vol. 9, No. 3, 369-383 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1368431006065718


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