Summary of Theodor W. Adorno & E. F. N. Jephcott's Minima Moralia

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 Adorno’s use of literary, musical, philosophical, and idiomatic allusions is an integral part of the book’s formal structure and style. All actual quotations have been newly translated from the original, and footnoted to standard native editions.

#2 The teaching of the good life is related to a region that has been regarded as the true field of philosophy since the conversion of method: the teaching of life. However, life has been reduced and degraded to a mere appearance. The change in the relations of production depends on what takes place in the sphere of consumption.

#3 In opposition to the subject being simply for itself, dialectical theory cannot accept aphorisms as such. In the most lenient instance, they could be tolerated as conversation. But the time for that is past. The subject is vanishing, and aphorisms must consider the evanescent itself as essential.

#4 Social analysis can learn a lot from individual experience, while the large historical categories are no longer above suspicion of fraud. In the period of his decay, the individual’s experience of himself and what he encounters contributes to knowledge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669377993

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Insights on Theodor W. Adorno & E. F. N. Jephcott's Minima Moralia

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Adorno’s use of literary, musical, philosophical, and idiomatic allusions is an integral part of the book’s formal structure and style. All actual quotations have been newly translated from the original, and footnoted to standard native editions.

#2

The teaching of the good life is related to a region that has been regarded as the true field of philosophy since the conversion of method: the teaching of life. However, life has been reduced and degraded to a mere appearance. The change in the relations of production depends on what takes place in the sphere of consumption.

#3

In opposition to the subject being simply for itself, dialectical theory cannot accept aphorisms as such. In the most lenient instance, they could be tolerated as conversation. But the time for that is past. The subject is vanishing, and aphorisms must consider the evanescent itself as essential.

#4

Social analysis can learn a lot from individual experience, while the large historical categories are no longer above suspicion of fraud. In the period of his decay, the individual’s experience of himself and what he encounters contributes to knowledge.

#5

The division of labor is a means of abolishing mind where it is not exercised ex officio. It performs this task all the more reliably since anyone who repudiates the division of labor, by taking pleasure in his work, makes himself vulnerable by its standards.

#6

The relationship between parents and their children is beginning to undergo a sad, shadowy transformation. We are beginning to realize that our parents were simply unable to care for us as well as we care for them, given their economic impotence.

#7

The sphere of circulation has begun to resemble the profession-based society that preceded it. As the professions of the middle-man disappear, so do the private lives of countless people.

#8

The man who is not malign does not live serenely but with a peculiarly chaste hardness and intolerance. He who is not guilty does not live serenely, but with a particular hardness and intolerance.

#9

The little pleasures and expressions of life that seemed exempt from the responsibility of thought not only have an element of