SOURCE: “Husserl and the Problem of Idealism,” in The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, January 4, 1940, pp. 5-18.

In the following essay, Adorno examines the meaning of idealism in Husserl's thought, and the problems it poses with regard to thinking and knowing.

The merits of a philosopher, that is, his truly philosophical merits, not the merits he may have as a teacher or Anreger, should not be defined by the “results” he has achieved in his thinking. The idea that a philosopher must produce a fixed set of irrefutable findings, an idea which Husserl himself certainly would have shared, presupposes that all the tasks he sets for himself can actually be fulfilled, that there can be an answer to every question he raises. This assumption, however, is disputable. It is possible that there are philosophical tasks which, although arising necessarily in a coherent process of thinking, can not...