THE ORIGINS OF ADORNO's PSYCHO-SOCIAL DIALECTIC: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND NEO-KANTIANISM IN THE YOUNG ADORNO

Abstract

This essay examines one of the least-studied works in the philosophical corpus of Theodor Adorno, The Concept of the Unconscious in the Transcendental Theory of Mind. A retracted habilitation thesis composed in 1926–7, the text is often regarded as an exposition of the philosophical system of Adorno's teacher, Hans Cornelius, that bears little significance for Adorno's mature works. I argue that Concept of the Unconscious sheds significant light on both the historical origins and the conceptual underpinnings of the relationship between society and the psyche that Adorno would theorize over the course of his intellectual career. In this early text, Adorno articulated a dual critique of dominant neo-Kantian and vitalist understandings of the unconscious, turning to Freud for a more adequate account of the unconscious as a product of intertwining psychological and social processes. Adorno developed this dialectical understanding of the psycho-social relationship in numerous postwar writings on psychoanalysis.