What kind of impact can a historical event have on philosophy? If philosophy is understood as a discipline of concepts refined in an ideal space untouched by the demands of the 'real world', it is difficult to imagine that history can have any impact. And yet two of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century have both tied thought to a historical event.
Martin Heidegger conceived of truth in the light of a Greek origin to be recovered by the German people. This recovery describes a movement -- Germania -- which extends from a historical beginning to an end of history. Conversely, Theodor Adorno argued for the necessity for philosophy to radically revise its concepts after Auschwitz, since everything that comes before this event belongs to a historical development leading right up to Auschwitz.
'The Memory of Thought' explores how these two incompatible ways of relating philosophy and history both allow us to think of history as a positive totality that needs to be established and as a negative totality that needs to be comprehended.
