The Crisis of Neo-Kantianism and the Rise of Critical Theory: The Young Adorno, Kracauer, and the Influence of Emil Lask

Abstract The article examines the influence of Emil Lask’s neo-Kantianism on the philosophy of the young Adorno. We will demonstrate how Lask’s critique of the subject and the judgement in his later works played a fundamental role in the definition of the concept of ‘ratio’ by Kracauer, Adorno’s friend and mentor since his secondary school. On the basis of Kracauer’s The Detective Novel (1922–1925) and of his criticism of the ratio , taken as a model of idealistic thought closely linked to the capitalist rationalization of society, we will explore the content of the lecture The Actuality of Philosophy (1931), with which Adorno imposed himself in the philosophical debate of the time through his proposal of materialistic dialectic. We will attempt to illustrate how the latter, which owes its emergence to Adorno’s reworking of Kracauer’s legacy, is at the same time characterized by the social-historical valorization of Lask’s neo-Kantianism.