Like a “Cat Burglar”: Adorno Reading Heidegger

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on Adorno's idea of philosophy on the basis of the Vorlesungen that he devotes to Heidegger between 1960 and 1961 on Ontologie und Dialektik. In doing so, we intend to clarify Adorno's peculiar link with phenomenology - especially with that of Husserl and Heidegger - in order to be able to determine the influence it has on his discussion of the possibility of philosophy, which requires a justification of both its necessity and its claims to validity. To this end, we will first articulate the reading perspective adopted by Adorno as a key to the interpretation of the lessons. We then offer a conceptual reconstruction of the philosophical presuppositions of his idea of philosophy to which he implicitly refers and without which it is difficult to understand his critical argumentation with respect to phenomenology.