What is the meaning of ‘negative dialectics’?

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to an analysis of the main theoretical issues explored in Adorno’s Negative Dialectics. In particular, it examines the way in which Adorno rethinks materialism by theorising the “primacy of the object”. It also analyses the Adornian concept of the “non-identical”, which the philosopher uses to describe the fact that thought is never able to fully possess its object, which cannot be reduced to the identifications by which reason seeks to capture and dominate it.