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Abstract What is philosophy's task in a world where the sciences have developed increasingly specialised fields of knowledge? In his 1931 lecture The Actuality of Philosophy , Theodor W. Adorno draws a distinction between their characteristic activities: “the idea of science (Wissenschaft) is research; that of philosophy is interpretation” (Adorno, 1977, p. 126). Philosophy should neither provide the foundations of scientific inquiry nor compete with the sciences on their own terms. Its task is to work with the knowledge they produce, arranging its elements in changing constellations that bring otherwise obscure relationships into view. Since no conceptual arrangement can fully exhaust its object, these interpretations must remain open to revision. Adorno thus understands philosophy as an ongoing activity of interpretation through which specialised knowledge acquires new intelligibility. 1. The Question of Philosophy Physics investigates the natural world, biology studies l...

1. The Familiarity of Materialism What does it mean to be a materialist? The familiar answer seems straightforward: materialism holds that matter is fundamental and that everything else can ultimately be explained in terms of it. Yet this definition raises a difficulty. If matter becomes the ultimate principle from which reality must be derived, does materialism reproduce the metaphysical structure it seeks to overcome, merely replacing spirit with matter as the foundation of everything? This question provides a point of entry into Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophische Terminologie , a series of lectures in which he examines philosophical concepts through the problems and historical debates that have shaped them. Adorno proceeds from the conviction that philosophical problems are largely problems of language : the terms through which philosophy thinks carry inherited distinctions and assumptions that influence how questions are formulated and which answers become possible (Adorno, 2...

1. The Familiarity of Words: Understanding Philosophical Terminology When reading philosophy, we often encounter words whose meanings seem perfectly familiar. We know what freedom , reason , nature , or will means in ordinary conversation, and this familiarity can make a philosophical text appear more accessible than it actually is. Yet recognising a word does not necessarily mean understanding the concept an author develops through it. A familiar term may acquire a more specialised significance or perform a role that cannot be grasped from its everyday use alone. The difficulty is easy to overlook because the word itself gives us the impression that we already know what is being discussed. Consider the word will . In everyday language, it generally refers to a person's capacity to want something, make a decision, or act deliberately. Schopenhauer's Wille , however, occupies a much broader place in his philosophy. It does not designate simply an individual's psychologi...