It takes as its starting point Husserl's phenomenological method and Adorno's critique of Husserl's belief that phenomenology constitutes a genuine scientific method. Moving forward--since "Husserl's philosophy is the occasion and not the point of this book"--Adorno demonstrates why the Frankfurt School rejected the methods of the natural sciences as a model for the development of the social sciences.These considerations lead directly to the book's primary argument: Adorno's refutation of the claim of Western philosophy since the time of Aristotle to hold the key to truths that are beyond doubt and that transcend presuppositions through the unaided instrumentality of human reason. Adorno takes as his epigraph a fragment from Epicharmus: "A mortal must think mortal and not immortal thoughts."Adorno wrote this work in Oxford during the first years of his exile, between 1934 and 1937. He assembled and edited the manuscript in Frankfurt for its first publication in 1956.