Abstract: Theodor Adorno has profoundly influenced western philosophy and critical theory of society in the 20^th century. As approaching the 120th anniversary of Adorno's birth,we should,in general,evaluate Adorno's contribution to Marxist philosophy in the 20^th century from the standpoint of China. Specifically,firstly,Adorno and Horkheimer jointly proposed a historical-philosophical meta-critique of capitalism,which completed the transformation of critical theory of Marxist capitalist society in the 20^th century. Secondly,Adorno proposed the “negative dialectics”,which gave Marxist philosophical materialism a new and far-reaching form in the 20^th century. Thirdly,Adorno made a strong Marxist criticism of the mainstream of modern German bourgeois philosophy,from Hegel to Heidegger. Fourthly,Adorno proposed a new theory of philosophical aesthetics that provides a Marxist answer to the question of the relationship between modernist art and truth.

Key words: Adorno, the critical theory of bourgeois society, negative dialectics, German modern philosophy, the relationship between art and truth