Adorno and Heidegger: The Authenticity Debate

Güneş I.

BIJOB BEYTULHIKME INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, vol.14, no.3, pp.677-704, 2024 (ESCI)

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 14 Issue: 3
  • Publication Date: 2024
  • Doi Number: 10.29228/beytulhikme.76079
  • Journal Name: BIJOB BEYTULHIKME INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
  • Journal Indexes: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Central & Eastern European Academic Source (CEEAS), Index Islamicus, Philosopher's Index
  • Page Numbers: pp.677-704
  • Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

In his book The Jargon of Authenticity, Theodor Adorno severely criticizes Martin Heidegger’s analysis of Dasein from a Marxist-Hegelian perspective in his seminal work Being and Time. This article discusses Adorno's criticisms of Heidegger’s philosophy and examines the Heideggerian responses to them. The article gathers Adorno’s main criticisms as the critique: (I) of language; (II) that the jargon legitimizes bourgeois values and pacifies the individual; (III) that Heidegger’s ontological analysis presents the experiences and states shaped by capitalism as existential concepts, ignoring their ideological background and origins; (IV) that Heidegger’s philosophy glorifies death. Adorno’s criticisms may encourage us to think of Heidegger’s philosophy and critical theory together. The article argues that such possibility lies in Heidegger’s notion that Dasein is being-in-the-world, and authenticity may incite a genuine grasp of and a critical response to Dasein's socio-political situation.