University of Kassel
In his PhD research, Niklas Lämmel explores the relationship between Theodor W. Adorno’s analysis of antisemitism and his reflections on epistemological questions. Situated at the intersection of philosophy, the history of ideas and antisemitism studies the dissertation examines works such as “Elements of Anti-Semitism” and “Negative Dialectics”. The research aims to demonstrate that Adorno’s approach to the phenomenon of Jew-hatred is firmly grounded in his philosophical beliefs. At the same time, Adorno’s late, abstract considerations of concepts such as “identity thinking” and the “nonidentical” can be understood as an implicit reflection on the cognitive structure of antisemitism. Against this background, it also becomes clear that his idea of the “utopia of cognition” is not merely a result of abstract philosophical thought. Rather, it also stems from a normative impulse: Adorno describes the outline of an epistemology that is already in its fundamental structure directed against the logic of antisemitism.