Aesthetics

by Theodor W. Adorno

This volume of lectures on aesthetics, given by Adorno in the winter semester of 1958-9, formed the foundation for his later Aesthetic Theory, widely regarded as one of his greatest works.

The lectures cover a wide range of topics, from an intense analysis of the work of Georg LukAcs to a sustained reflection on the theory of aesthetic experience, from an examination of works by Plato, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Benjamin, to a discussion of the latest experiments of John Cage, attesting to the virtuosity and breadth of Adorno's engagement. All the while, Adorno remains deeply connected to his surrounding context, offering us a window onto the artistic, intellectual and political confrontations that shaped life in post-war Germany.

This volume will appeal to a broad range of students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, as well as anyone interested in the development of critical theory.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Art

376 pages, Hardcover

Published December 11, 2017

About the author

Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was one of the most important philosophers and social critics in Germany after World War II. Although less well known among anglophone philosophers than his contemporary Hans-Georg Gadamer, Adorno had even greater influence on scholars and intellectuals in postwar Germany. In the 1960s he was the most prominent challenger to both Sir Karl Popper's philosophy of science and Martin Heidegger's philosophy of existence. Jürgen Habermas, Germany's foremost social philosopher after 1970, was Adorno's student and assistant. The scope of Adorno's influence stems from the interdisciplinary character of his research and of the Frankfurt School to which he belonged. It also stems from the thoroughness with which he examined Western philosophical traditions, especially from Kant onward, and the radicalness to his critique of contemporary Western society. He was a seminal social philosopher and a leading member of the first generation of Critical Theory.

Unreliable translations hampered the initial reception of Adorno's published work in English speaking countries. Since the 1990s, however, better translations have appeared, along with newly translated lectures and other posthumous works that are still being published. These materials not only facilitate an emerging assessment of his work in epistemology and ethics but also strengthen an already advanced reception of his work in aesthetics and cultural theory.

Reviews

[Jade Aslain · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very interesting to see all of the elements of Adorno's philosophy come together around the element of aesthetics -- his dialectics, philosophy of history, musicology, metaphysics, phenomenology, sociology, etc., appear in various constellations in view of each of them separately, but in aesthetics all of these elements seem most to come life, and to more fully reveal their movements -- here we see the mimetic element, the extra-logical element, the primacy of the object, the objective spirit, and even Adorno's adoption of the Schopenhauerian principle of individuation, all seem to reveal themselves most clearly under the sign of aesthetic experience. This lecture series, delivered in Adorno's wonderfully clear speaking manner, is an invaluable companion to perhaps his greatest work, Aesthetic Theory.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I realize that these lectures are meant to cut across even the most straight-razor critical definitions of art ever to be considered philosophically, but I wonder what in Adorno's assessment remains standing as an example of solid, authentic art after all the detritus has been cleared away? Adorno claims that he has seen the effect of two acts of destruction in the 20th century which have led to the abolishment of mankind: first, Heidegger's destruction of the idea of meaning in art has demonstrated how, from the retrieval of Greek definitions of philosophical etymological terms, the fundamental opposition between language spoken and writing as a method of communication is shown to be in fundamental opposition to one another and, secondly, having witnessed the extinction of humanity in the gas chambers and crematoriums of WWII, he claims that all attempts to create art under such conditions is foreordained to be doomed. Adorno's paean for the continuance of the well-regulated aesthetic life of the mind strikes me as betraying a bad faith that is all the more shattering for the vitalism with which he inveighs against all types of artifice and falsity. Perhaps I am too much a Christian, a believer in American Democracy, (and by extension a Capitalist,) to be able to appreciate art as Adorno would wish me to. In terms of assessing his critical endeavor, I think his stertorous voice and his philosophical lexicon are of the highest quality and beg for the emergence of a critic who can inhabit a similar position, but at the same time I feel Adorno's critical perspective is somewhat lacking in terms its overall rotundity and even that there is some degree of psychological obtuseness and essentializing going on in some of the remarks he makes in these lectures. Adorno rejects critics who insist on evaluating the work of art by making psychological analysis of its creator but at the same time calls on us to recognize the artistic work's importance in terms of its collective aesthetic power-claims and psychohistorical motives. One insight I gained through this book is that there is an overall trend that extends far back into history, perhaps as far back as the Greeks, of the authorities seeking to put the lower-classes in their place by keeping them isolated from the dynamic workings of power and knowledge. Certainly, Adorno's acute genealogy traces this motif from the Kantian valorization of disinterested pleasure as being the favored position for a critical judgment and follows this path down to the dissonant music of the early 20th century, an art that that Adorno scorned so vehemently as a desire without an object, the absence of an objective correlate to our alienated being, which now stands as our greatest deficit in our fragmentary post-Auschwitz culture. It is surprising to learn that Adorno considers it a matter of dispute whether art is or is not created for human beings, but what seems more tenable is his argument that our relationship to the nature of art has been disturbed. Personally, I am more attracted to an aesthetics that embraces all forms of creativity and I support this belief by my contention that the human sciences have developed to a point where our world does indeed benefit from an approach that takes a synchronic understanding that encourages the evolution of art and its further technological development. To me, Adorno's approach to his survey of aesthetics, while revolutionary in terms of the gravity with which he dispenses it, has too little faith in a humanity that is continues to struggle for liberation and continues to reinvent itself in new post-Gutenberg artforms which, although they may not measure up to Adorno's concept of historically-established and verified aesthetic constructs, nevertheless embody messages of the continuous suffering and the undying hope of eventual freedom that the people of the last half-century have lived through so often and do needlessly. Three stars.

[Uriah Marc Todoroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

can't believe horkheimer gave teddy a copy of the marquis de sade's novel "Justine" (extremely horny book) as a wedding gift.

[TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as how, in the case of Hegel, there is the so-called Greater Logic and Lesser Logic, this is Adorno's 'Lesser Aesthetics'. Aesthetic Theory—the 'Greater Aesthetics', then—far surpasses this in breadth and depth. It also far surpasses this in absolute opaque difficulty. This is a highly useful and inviting text, then, thanks primarily to its oral essence as a set of lecture transcripts. The two Aesthetics complement each other quite nicely.

FYI, Adorno's recently-published (in English) lectures are often utterly outstanding, and some may even constitute some of his best work (though I suspect he'd disagree completely). In addition to the Lesser Aesthetics, Metaphysics: Concept and Problems, Introduction to Dialectics, History and Freedom, and Introduction to Sociology are absolutely essential reading. [I can't speak for the ones I haven't read yet.]