Il maestro negletto. La formazione accademica del giovane Theodor Wiesengrund-Adorno.

This dissertation is dealing with the far origins of Adorno's Critical Theory and its relations with German academic horizon during the Weimar years. Taking into account both published materials and archival records, the research is focused on the figure of Hans Cornelius, who was the only full professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt, playing therefore an important role in shaping the first academic steps of several Critical Theorists: Max Horkheimer was his assistant and close friend, while Walter Benjamin as well as Theodor W. Adorno attempted to habilitate under his supervision. Anyway, Hans Cornelius rejected Adorno's habilitation thesis on The Concept of the Unconscious in the Transcendental Doctrine of the Soul. Attempting to measure the influences of Cornelius' teaching on the young Adorno, the Author analyzes the main passages of his first academic works in order to compare them with the ideas cultivated by the supervisor, who was close to the most recent epistemological currents of the time and a sort of precursor of Gestalt psychology. Being a fierce enemy of every atomistic approach to experience, Cornelius developed an holistic version of Neo-Kantianism, stressing the role of Gestalt qualities in the unity of the self. This specific point of view influenced Adorno's reception of kantian philosophy for a long time, giving to the concept of wholeness a pivotal role in a thought that always opposed dualisms. Moreover, Cornelius offered the tools for a critical understanding of phenomenology, which was continued by Adorno, even after he had apprehended the limits of his academic education. During his lectures in post-war Germany, Adorno himself admitted that he was strongly indebted to the teaching of his supervisor. Nevertheless, the cornelian legacy was not only a positive one, and the confrontation with Cornelius' ideas played a major role in deepening the skepticism of later Critical Theory.