| Abstrakt: |
This article examines Theodor W. Adorno's critique of Oswald Spengler's major work The Decline of the West, aiming to situate Adorno's articles on Spengler in the broader context of his oeuvre. It specifically highlights the connection between those texts and the Dialectic of Enlightenment and argues that Adorno's critique of Spengler mainly targets the latter's relativism or, to be more precise, his rejection of the idea of normative truth that eventually leads him to blatantly renounce the normative ideals of Enlightenment philosophy. In fact, Adorno's essays on Spengler strongly suggest that the Dialectic of Enlightenment should not be read as a total critique of the concept of reason, for it is precisely its bond to the notions of reason and normative truth that distinguishes not only the thought of Adorno, but that of the early Frankfurt School in general from the critique of liberalism articulated by the intellectuals of the German radical right during the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
