Aesthetic TheoryTheodor Adorno (1903-69) was undoubtedly the foremost thinker of the Frankfurt School, the influential group of German thinkers that fled to the US in the 1930s, including such thinkers as Herbert Marcuse and Max Horkheimer. His work has proved enormously influential in sociology, philosophy and cultural theory. Aesthetic Theory is Adorno's posthumous magnum opus and the culmination of a lifetime's investigation. Analysing the sublime, the ugly and the beautiful, Adorno shows how such concepts frame and distil human experience and that it is human experience that ultimately underlies aesthetics. In Adorno's formulation ‘art is the sedimented history of human misery'. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedeman Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. |
Contents
Art Society Aesthetics | 1 |
Against the Question of Orgin | 2 |
Truth Content and the Life of Works | 3 |
On the Relation of Art and Society | 4 |
Critique of the Psychoanalytic Theory of Art | 8 |
The Art Theories of Kant and Freud | 9 |
The Pleasure of Art | 13 |
Aesthetic Hedonism and the Happiness of Knowledge | 14 |
Form | 140 |
Form and Content | 143 |
The Concept of Articulation I | 146 |
On the Concept of Material | 147 |
Intention and Content | 149 |
Intention and Meaning | 151 |
The Crisis of Meaning | 152 |
The Concept of Harmony and the Ideology of Closure | 157 |
Situation | 16 |
Language of Suffering | 18 |
Its Philosophy of History | 19 |
Experiment I | 23 |
Defense of Isms | 24 |
Isms as Secularized Schools | 25 |
Modernity and Quality | 26 |
The New and Duration | 27 |
Dialectic of Integration and the Subjective Point | 29 |
The New Utopia and Negativity | 32 |
Modern Art and Industrial Production | 33 |
Aesthetic Rationality and Criticism | 34 |
Canon of Prohibitions | 35 |
Experiment II Seriousness and Irresponsibility | 37 |
Black as an Ideal | 39 |
Relation to Tradition | 40 |
Subjectivity and Collective | 41 |
Solipsism Mimetic Taboo and Maturity | 42 |
Metier | 43 |
Expression and Contruction | 44 |
On the Categories of the Ugly the Beautiful and Technique | 45 |
Its Social Aspect and Its Philosophy of History | 48 |
On the Concept of the Beautiful | 50 |
Mimesis and Rationality | 53 |
On the Concept of Construction | 56 |
Technology | 58 |
Dialectic of Functionalism | 60 |
Natural Beauty | 61 |
Natural Beauty as a Stepping Out into the Open | 63 |
On Cultural Landscape | 64 |
Natural Beauty and Art Beauty Are Interlocked | 65 |
The Experience of Nature Is Historically Deformed | 68 |
Aesthetic Apperception Is Analytical | 69 |
Natural Beauty as Suspended History | 70 |
Determinate Indeterminateness | 71 |
Nature as a Cipher of the Reconciled | 73 |
Its Metacritique | 74 |
Transition from Natural to Art Beauty | 77 |
Apparition Spiritualization Intuitability | 78 |
Aesthetic Transcendence and Disenchantment | 79 |
Art and the ArtAlien | 81 |
The Nonexistent | 82 |
Image Character | 83 |
Explosion | 84 |
Image Content Is Collective | 85 |
Art as Spiritual | 86 |
Immanence of Works and the Heterogeneous | 88 |
On Hegels Aesthetics of Spirit | 90 |
Dialectic of Spiritualization | 91 |
Spiritualization and the Chaotic | 93 |
Arts Intuitability Is Aparetic | 94 |
Intuitability and Conceptuality | 97 |
Semblance and Expression | 100 |
Semblance Meaning and tour de force | 105 |
Toward the Redemption of September | 107 |
Expression and Dissonance | 110 |
SubjectObject | 111 |
Expression as Eloquence | 112 |
Domination and Conceptual Knowledge | 113 |
Expression and Mimesis | 114 |
Aporias of Expression | 115 |
Enigmaticalness Truth Content Metaphysics | 118 |
Cui bono | 119 |
Enigmaticalness and Understanding | 120 |
Nothing shall be left unchanged | 122 |
Enigma Script Interpretation | 124 |
Interpretation as Imitation | 125 |
Block | 126 |
On the Truth Content of Artworks | 127 |
Collective Content of Art | 130 |
Truth as Semblance of the Illusionless | 131 |
Mimesis of the Fatal Reconciliation | 133 |
Methexis in Darkness | 134 |
Coherence and Meaning | 136 |
Logic Causality Time | 137 |
Purposefulness without Purpose | 139 |
Affirmation | 159 |
Critique of Classicism | 160 |
SubjectObject | 163 |
Critique of Kants Concept of Objectivity | 165 |
Precarious Balance | 166 |
SubjectObject Dialectic | 168 |
Genius | 169 |
Originality | 172 |
Fantasy and Reflection | 173 |
Objectivity and Reification | 174 |
Toward a Theory of the Artwork | 175 |
Transcience | 178 |
The Artwork as Monad and Immanent Analysis | 179 |
Art and Artworks | 181 |
Intelligibility | 182 |
The Necessity of Objectivation and Dissociation | 183 |
Unity and Multiplicity | 186 |
The Category of Intensity | 187 |
Why a work can rightfully be said to be beautiful | 188 |
Depth | 189 |
The Concept of Articulation II | 190 |
On the Differentiation of Progress | 191 |
Development of Productive Forces | 192 |
The Transformation of Artworks | 193 |
Interpretation Commentary Critique | 194 |
The Sublime and Play | 197 |
Universal and Particular | 199 |
On Antiquitys GenreAesthetics | 202 |
Philosophy of History of Conventions | 203 |
One the Concept of Style | 205 |
The Progress of Art | 207 |
The History of Art Is Inhomogeneous | 209 |
Progress and Domination of the Material | 210 |
Technique | 212 |
Art in the Industrial Age | 217 |
Nominalism and Open Form | 219 |
Construction Static and Dynamic | 222 |
Society | 225 |
Reception and Production | 228 |
Choice of Thematic Material Artistic Subject Relation to Science | 229 |
Art as Comportment | 232 |
Ideology and Truth | 233 |
Guilt | 234 |
On the Reception of Advanced Art | 235 |
Mediation of Art and Society | 236 |
Kitsch and the Vulgar | 238 |
Effect Lived Experience Shudder | 241 |
Commitment | 246 |
Aestheticism Naturalism Beckett | 248 |
Against Administered Art | 250 |
The Possibility of Art Today | 251 |
Autonomy and Heteronomy | 252 |
Political Option | 254 |
Progress and Reaction | 256 |
Art and the Poverty of Philosophy | 258 |
The Problem of Solipsism and Flase Reconciliation | 259 |
Paralipomena | 262 |
Theories on the Origin of Art Excursus | 325 |
Draft Introduction | 332 |
The Changing Function of Naivete | 335 |
Irreconcilability of Traditional Aesthetics and Contemporary Art | 338 |
TruthContent and the Fetish Character of Artworks | 340 |
The Need for Aesthetics | 341 |
Aesthetics as the Refuge of Metaphysics | 343 |
Aesthetic Experience as Objective Understanding | 345 |
WorkImmanent Analysis and Aesthetic Theory | 348 |
Universal and Particular | 350 |
Critique of the Phenomenological Research of Origin | 351 |
Relation to Hegels Aesthetics | 352 |
Aesthetics of Form and Aesthetics of Content I | 353 |
Norms and Slogans | 355 |
Methodology Second Reflection History | 357 |
Editors Afterword | 361 |
Notes | 367 |
379 | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract achieved Adorno aesthetic experience Aesthetic Theory appearance art's authentic autonomy Baudelaire bourgeois character claim comportment concept concrete consciousness constitutive contemporary content Inhalt critical critique Critique of Judgment cubism dialectic domination dynamic element emancipation enigmaticalness essence everything existence expression external false false consciousness fetish force forces of production formal function genres Hegel heteronomous historical human idea ideal ideology immanent impulse in-itself individual insofar integration judgment Jugendstil Kant Kant's kitsch language law of form logic longer material means mediated ment mimesis mimetic modern art natural beauty negation nexus nominalistic object objectivation once opposition origin particular philistine philosophy play possible praxis precisely primacy principle production progress pure rationality reflection reified relation relations of production repressed semblance sensual simply social society sphere spirit sublime technique teleology thematic thetic thing tion totality traditional trans transcends transformed truth content unity universal virtue Walter Benjamin wants work's