Actuality of philosophy. In Skhid, No. 5 (157), 2018, pp. 99-106.

A translation of the inaugural lecture delivered by Theodor Adorno in 1931 on his appointment as Privatdozent at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt. The author examines the trends dominant in philosophy at the time: Neo-Kantianism, philosophy of life, phenomenology, and empirio-criticism. Particular attention is paid to the ontological teachings of Max Scheler and Martin Heidegger. The inability of each of these projects to answer the key questions of philosophy is noted. The author identifies the neglect of the historicity of the philosophical subject as the common cause of the crisis of both idealist and positivist thought. Reflecting on the relationship between philosophy and science, he argues that the task of science is research, whereas philosophy is concerned with interpretation.