Two New Interpretations of Adorno: Pippin and Honneth

Abstract

The recent works of Robert B. Pippin and Axel Honneth offer two distinct revisions on the thought and legacy of Theodor W. Adorno for contemporary political philosophy. Their reinterpretations mark an important shift for the tradition of critical theory as it moves from what Honneth has labeled the “negativist form of social critique” – which flowed from a particular reading of Adorno’s work, most notably in French post-structuralism – towards new horizons1. In this review essay, I contend that Pippin and Honneth offer compatible, yet distinct, views on Adorno and offer an alternative trajectory for the future developments of critical theory. On the one hand, Pippin, through the work of Adorno, offers a cogent defense of realizing the ideal of bourgeois freedom for achieving the self-conscious, active, self-determining subject2. On the other, Honneth has reinterpreted Adorno’s thought as a means to ground critical theory’s type of normative social theorizing and its concern with human emancipation in existing social reality.