“What Is the Human Being?”
This chapter talks about Theodor W. Adorno's inaugural address that scrutinized the dominant philosophical trends from scientifically minded positivism of the Vienna Circle and various schools of neo-Kantianism. It examines Adorno's declaration that it is mandatory to reject the illusion that the power of thought is sufficient to grasp the totality of the real. It also details how Adorno challenged the popular opinion that Martin Heidegger's Being and Time marked the beginning of a new concrete philosophy, declaring that Heidegger too aims at ahistorical truth. The chapter discusses Heidegger's rejection of Hegelianism, neo-Kantianism, and Husserlian phenomenology and his turn toward a worldly Dasein. It cites Adorno's concession that the critique of his habilitation study by the representatives of fundamental ontology forced him to articulate better the philosophical theory that had guided his study.