Adorno and Kant

Adorno’s philosophy is deeply influenced by Kant. While Adorno criticises Kant’s philosophy throughout his writings, he is sympathetic to Kant’s “rescuing urge”, his attempt to salvage the achievements of traditional metaphysics under post-critical conditions. Adorno’s criticism of Kant is that he has reified the basic concepts of his philosophy and therefore cannot account for their historical context and their meaning in social and political struggles. This is true of concepts such as autonomy, the will and the “cardinal propositions of metaphysics”, freedom, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God. Adorno argues that Kant’s philosophy, understood as a principled defence of human autonomy and dignity, codifies the self-understanding of an ascendent bourgeois class. However, the horrors of the twentieth century and especially the Holocaust force us to reconsider the achievements of the Enlightenment project, to acknowledge the limits of Kant’s abstract normative concepts and find new grounds for social hope.