The Constellation: A Reappraisal of Walter Benjamin's Influence on Theodor W. Adorno

ABSTRACT In the 1920s and 1930s, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno both sought to develop a notion of Darstellung —of philosophical presentation or representation—that could provide an alternative to the classically idealist tendency to subsume objects under abstract concepts. Benjamin's influence on Adorno is therefore often narrativized through the latter's early work, in which Adorno appears as Benjamin's “disciple” in the 1930s before later developing an independent philosophical voice. I seek to complicate this narrative through an investigation of the term “constellation,” which appears prominently in Benjamin's work before being repurposed by Adorno. The constellation first surfaces in the “Epistemo‐Critical Foreword” to Origin of the German Trauerspiel , where it combines with a host of other key terms to depict Benjamin's early notion of Darstellung . In “The Actuality of Philosophy,” Adorno reconfigures the constellation to outline his own conception of interpretive philosophy. While this might initially appear to support the narrative of discipleship, it is argued that Adorno's reconception becomes distinct once the constellation is isolated from the structure of terms laid out by Benjamin. In particular, Adorno places greater emphasis on the interpretive subject, reflecting early reservations about what he would later characterize as Benjamin's “anti‐subjectivism.” At the same time, Benjamin's resistance to Hegelian mediation reflects a concern to preserve the primacy of the object against idealist conceptual domination. Adorno's enduring use of the constellation thus reflects the dialectic of differentiation and appropriation through which he attempts to synthesize Benjamin's object‐focused methodology with his own emphasis on subjective mediation and Hegelian dialectics.