Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr) [Paperback]

Theodor W. Adorno (Author), Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0826401325 | ISBN-13: 978-0826401328 | Publication Date: January 1, 1981

The major work and Adorno's culminating achievement. Negative Dialectics is a critique of the philosophies of Kant, Hegel, and Heidegger, and a visionary elaboration of the author's own vision of dialectics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`Here the programmatic aim of Adorno's earlier writings has come to fruition.' - TLS --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation)

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Product Details

• Paperback: 440 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (January 1, 1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826401325
• ISBN-13: 978-0826401328
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #211,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wait for new translation, June 16, 2002

By 

Dennis Spaag (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr) (Paperback)

Famously bad translation of the central piece of Adorno's philosophy. I recommend getting Aesthetic Theory now and waiting for the next translator's attempt.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read it at your own peril, July 17, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr) (Paperback)

Negative Dialectic is very thought-provoking and difficult text in itself, but it is worth of the effort. If you are interested in Adorno, it is a must-have. Yet the English translation is unbearably inadequate, you may make better sense of it, if you consult with the original German text. The companion piece to Negative Dialectics is Adorno's Prism. Get Prism first, and wait for a better translation of ND.

36 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars unfashionable sense, April 1, 2000

By 

Micah Johnson (Berea, Kentucky USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Negative Dialectics (Negative Dialectics Ppr) (Paperback)

Michel Foucault once stated that it was a great tragedy that the Frankfurt School and the French post-structuralists were unaware of each other's work. He felt that the two schools of thought could have gained much from dialogue, and this text illustrates his point in its relatedness to postmodern discourses on the limits of knowledge and the ends of positivistic philosophy.

Adorno addresses the relationship between the concept and the nonconceptualities, which is nothing more that the relationship between discourse and the Other in post-structuralist phraseology. The text is extraordinarily difficult - not always a problem explainable via the difficulties of the ideas involved - and I often find myself spending an hour reading and re-reading a page or two before being able to come to terms with the content. Personally, I enjoy such difficult reading, however, and find it an avenue for developing critical reasoning skills at the sime time as I re-investigate the problems addressed in the difficult prose.

I highly recommend this text for anyone interested in pessemistic, carefully thought-out discourses on the limits placed on understanding by the "pigeon-holeing" of conceptualization, anyone who enjoys cracking hard nuts via time, sweat, and frustration, and anyone looking for a difficult text to read superficially and criticize emptily as being an example of the poverty of post WWII continental philosophy. In a sense, it is a book for all . . .