ONTOLOGY AS A NEW GERMAN IDEOLOGY: ADORNO AND THE CRITIQUE OF ONTOLOGICAL NEED

Abstract

The article offers an interpretation of the Adornian notion of ontologi­cal need, focal point of the first chapter of Negative Dialectics, part 1. It argues that this conception is central to understanding not only Adorno's criticism of Heidegger's fundamental ontology, but also, more generally, his notion of imma­nent criticism. In order to prove this centrality, the paper reconstructs how the notion of need is dealt with by Kant, Hegel, as well as by the young Marx, and how such comprehension would influence Adorno's thinking. Then, it examines how the notion of need is updated by Adorno himself from the time diagnosis of late capitalism he establishes, and the consequences of this reconfiguration for the formulation of his own negative dialectics.