The linguistic turn in critical theory has been routinely justified with the claim that Adorno's philosophy is trapped within the limits of consciousness philosophy. Yet Adorno's own philosophy of language has not yet been fully and systematically examined in its own right. Philip Hogh argues that it was in fact the linguistic turn in critical theory that prevented a thorough analysis of Adorno's philosophy of language. Here he reconstructs Adorno's philosophy of language and presents it as a coherent theory that demands to be understood as an important contribution to contemporary linguistic philosophy. By analysing all the key concepts in Adorno's thought (subjectivity, epistemology, social theory and aesthetics), and comparing them to Robert Brandom's material inferentialism, John McDowell's theory of conceptual experience and Jürgen Habermas' theory of communicative action, this book presents Adorno's theory as an important contribution to contemporary philosophy of language in its own right.

1. Introduction / 2. A Natural History of Language as Second Nature / 3. A Theory of the Name / 4. Outlines of a Theory of Meaning / 5. Communication / Bibliography / Index

Philip Hogh teaches philosophy at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Germany, where he is also a member of the Adorno Research Centre.