Ian Macdonald, “Nearly Dialectical”: Adorno on Heidegger versus Lukács on Hegel

Adorno’s criticisms of Heidegger are notoriously acerbic. However, on some occasions, he seems more lenient, going so far as to say that Heidegger’s reading of Hegel is “nearly dialectical” and an illustration of “the labor of the concept” — at least as compared with Lukács’s reception of Hegel’s thought. This paper examines the terms of these rather odd and back-handed compliments and offers new insight into Adorno’s refusal of the intellectual alternative of “either Heidegger or Lukács.”