Against Epistemology: A Metacritique

One of Theodor Adorno's most important works, Against Epistemology inspired Habermas and Marcuse and continues to influence other eminent thinkers in philosophy and the social sciences today. Against Epistemology is in essence a long essay against Western metaphysics or, as Adorno put it, "the lordship of the subject." Adorno's thought was a nexus of analytic philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism, and components of all three are found in this book. It takes as its starting point Husserl's phenomenological method and Adorno's critique of Husserl's belief that phenomenology constitutes a genuine scientific method. Moving forward--since "Husserl's philosophy is the occasion and not the point of this book"--Adorno demonstrates why the Frankfurt School rejected the methods of the natural sciences as a model for the development of the social sciences. These considerations lead directly to the book's primary argument: Adorno's refutation of the claim of Western philosophy since the time of Aristotle to hold the key to truths that are beyond doubt and that transcend presuppositions through the unaided instrumentality of human reason. Adorno takes as his epigraph a fragment from Epicharmus: "A mortal must think mortal and not immortal thoughts." Adorno wrote this work in Oxford during the first years of his exile, between 1934 and 1937. He assembled and edited the manuscript in Frankfurt for its first publication in 1956.

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