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About this quote

What does it mean?
Kafka: the solipsist without ipseity.
In plain terms
Kafka is described as a self‑focused thinker lacking a true sense of self.
What can you take from it?
Consider how extreme self‑focus can erase personal identity.

Where it applies

  • literary analysis
  • philosophical discussion

Putting it to work

  • examine works for signs of self‑centred abstraction

Questions to consider

  • What does ‘without ipseity’ imply about Kafka’s writing?
  • Is solipsism necessarily negative?

Another view

The phrase is paradoxical and vague, limiting clear meaning.

More from Theodor Adorno

  1. 'Work while you work, play while you play - this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.'

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  2. 'When intellectual formulations are treated simply by relegating them to the past and permitting the simple passage of time to substitute for development, the …

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  3. 'Without hope, the idea of truth would be scarcely even thinkable, and it is the cardinal untruth, having recognized existence to be bad, to present it as trut…

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