Breaking out of immanence: a comparative philosophical analysis of Søren Kierkegaard’s influence on Theodor W. Adorno

This thesis traces Søren Kierkegaard’s influence on the philosophical, critical resistance of Theodor W. Adorno’s critical theory. Beginning with Adorno’s earliest intellectual development and engagement with Kierkegaard, Chapters One to Three provide an interpretation of Adorno’s early critique of Kierkegaard (Construction). Chapter Three concludes by arguing that there is more evidence of Adorno’s affinity with Kierkegaard in this early period than has previously been suggested. Chapter Four provides one example of this argument in detail, showing that Construction already contains substantive evidence of Adorno’s view that Kierkegaard anticipates his own critique of Hegelian identity theory and negative dialectic; crucially, this critique is not just an abstract debate, but one which pertains to Adorno’s overall analysis of society. Accordingly, Chapter Five addresses Adorno’s concrete, critical analysis of the society which gives rise to the need for negative dialectic. Specifically, it does so by comparing Kierkegaard and Adorno’s conceptions of despair and unfreedom, whilst simultaneously tracing their shared sense of the decline of subjectivity. Chapters Six and Seven, which concern Kierkegaard’s influence on Adorno’s praxis of resistance, argue that it was specifically the late Kierkegaard who was most significant for Adorno. To this end, Chapter Six argues the case for the distinctiveness of the late Kierkegaard in Adorno’s interpretation, underlining that the former’s awareness of the need for intervention, alongside his refusal to prescribe a programme of action and engage in collective forms of protest, made him particularly relevant to the challenges of powerlessness in late-capitalist modernity. Chapter Seven concludes the thesis by suggesting that, for Adorno, the late Kierkegaard represented an early model for his own distinctive praxis of resistance. Like Adorno, the late Kierkegaard’s resistance is negative, involving the task of awakening others to the intolerable character of their society by cultivating certain cognitive and non-cognitive responses through one’s comportment.