Je Adornova negativní dialektika naplněním existencialistického příslibu? Nad knihou 'Adorno and Existence' Petera E. Gordona

In the study presented here, the author disputes the conclusions that the American history professor Peter E. Gordon presented in his book Adorno and Existence, and ponders the book’s role in contemporary Adorno research within the discourse of the Anglo-Saxon world. The general theme of Gordon’s book is Adorno’s lifelong response to the philosophy of Husserl and Heidegger. In his principle argument, Gordon argues that negative dialectics is the realization of a goal that the aforementioned philosophers set themselves but never fulfilled. The task of the first half of the study is to show Gordon’s book in the context of the current response to Adorno’s philosophy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and, in light of the argument mentioned above, to show where Gordon’s work is essential and where it fails. The second half of the study seeks to modify Gordon’s argument. The author asserts that phenomenology and existentialism can only serve towards the formulation of Adorno’s own positions if they are sated with a pre-established method – a method developed on the basis of Walter Benjamin’s theory of knowledge and György Lukács’ Hegelian Marxism.