Christian Ferencz-Flatz – Zur Funktion des Vortheoretischen bei Adorno Der Erfahrungsbegriff der Kritischen Theorie und die Phí¤nomenologie (Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie, 2019)

Pre-theoretical experience and the lifeworld are traditionally seen as a key reference for phenomenology. In the present paper I intend to point out their relevance for critical theory as well. To this extent, I start off with a brief overview of phenomenological approaches to pre-theoretical experience and their relationship to empirical research. In sketching out some of the overlaps between phenomenology and early critical theory in this regard, I then specifically focus on Adorno’s reflections concerning the role of an extended concept of experience in both his sociological and his philosophical work. Outlining Adorno’s methodological appropriation of “unregimented experience” in the guise of what he terms “physiognomic interpretation” – a procedure intended as a corrective to both rigorous empirical research and philosophical aprioric reasoning – I try to show wherein Adorno’s own approach to the pre-theoretical diverges from phenomenology. Finally, I conclude with some reflections concerning the different functions experience acquires in traditional phenomenology and critical theory.

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1515/dzph-2019-0069