Interpretation & Domination: Adorno & the Habermas-Lyotard Debate

This article explores Theodor Adorno's philosophical method and argues that it furthers resistance to domination. The author compares Adorno's position with those of Jürgen Habermas and Jean-François Lyotard and finds that it includes important elements that these later thinkers have abandoned. Habermas moves away from Adorno's insistence on the limits of interpretation and the importance of the particular toward total systems, while Lyotard's attempt to do justice to "the event" leaves him without the purchase for critical theory that Adorno pursued.