Aesthetics

1958/59
Theodor W. Adorno
Edited by Eberhard Ortland

Translated by Wieland Hoban

Polity Press, Cambridge, 2017

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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 Lukács 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.

"Adorno's lectures provide a fascinating glimpse into the philosophical workshop where his ideas were forged
and developed, and this lecture course on aesthetics from the late 1950s is no exception. With an irrepressible
sense of intellectual adventure, Adorno argues with the giants of the German tradition in the philosophy of art,
interprets Plato's theory of beauty in the Phaedrus, and struggles to make sense of the music of John Cage. He
offers a virtuoso series of variations on his central claim that, in art, we experience reason 'in the form of its
otherness', as a 'particular resistance' to the instrumental rationality which dominates our lives."
Peter Dews, University of Essex

"These lectures are much more than an early record of Adorno's path toward his late, uncompleted
masterwork, Aesthetic Theory. They represent an independent and often revelatory statement of his thinking
on aesthetics in the late 1950's. This book is an indispensable addition to the English-language reader's
understanding of this central thinker."
Michael Jennings, Princeton University

http://politybooks.com/bookdetail/?isbn=9780745679396
Table of Contents

Editor’s Foreword
LECTURE 1
The situation – The possibility of philosophical aesthetics today – The connection between
philosophy and aesthetics in Kant – Hegel’s definition of beauty – Aesthetic objectivity – A critique of
‘aesthetics from above’ – On the method – The problem of aesthetic relativity – The objectivity of
aesthetic judgement – Aesthetic logic – The irrationality of art – The work of art as an expression of
naïveté – Basic research in the field of aesthetics
LECTURE 2
Not a set of instructions – The individualist prejudice – Talent – Resistance to aesthetics – The poles
of aesthetic insight: (a) Theoretical reflection – (b) The experience of artistic practice – Against
cultivatedness – The riddle character – A justification of the philosophy of art – ‘Aesthetics’ is
equivocal – Natural beauty and artistic beauty – Hegel’s turn away from natural beauty – Unresolved
aspect to natural beauty
LECTURE 3
The elusiveness of natural beauty – The model character of natural beauty – Aura – The experiences
of something objective – ‘Mood’ – The mediation of natural beauty and artistic beauty – The
historicity of natural beauty – The sublime in Kant – Aesthetic experience is dialectical in itself –
‘Disinterested pleasure’
LECTURE 4
Special sphere of aesthetic semblance – The taboo on desire – Sublimation – Dissonance – ‘Spring’s
command, sweet need’ – Mimesis – Imitation – Transition
LECTURE 5
The separation of art from the real world – Play and semblance – ‘The world once again’ – Art as
‘unfolding of truth’ – The negation of the reality principle – Expression of suffering – The
participation of art in the process of controlling nature – Technique – Progress
LECTURE 6
Does art merely express what has been destroyed? – Restoring the body – Start from the most
advanced art – The expressive ideal of expressionism – Principium stilisationis – Construction – The
dialectic of expression and construction
LECTURE 7
Nature is historical – Construction and form – A critique of the creator role – The aversion to
expression – The reduction of the individual – Falling silent after Auschwitz – The crisis of meaning –
The limits of construction
LECTURE 8
The crisis of meaning (contd.) – Giving a voice to mutilated nature – Expression of alienation –
Defamiliarization – Consistency of construction – Aleatory music – The problem of characters
LECTURE 9
The Platonic doctrine of beauty – Introduction to an interpretation of the Phaedrus – Enthousiasmos
– Beauty as a form of madness – Being seized – Pain as a constituent of the experience of beauty –
Not a definition – Idea – The subjectivity of beauty – The imitation of the idea of beauty – The aspect
of danger in beauty
LECTURE 10
Interpretation of the Phaedrus, contd. – The paradox of beauty – The image of beauty – Affinity with
death – Elevating oneself above the contingent world – Kant’s theory of the sublime – The sensual
and the spiritual in art – Force field
LECTURE 11
Ontology and dialectic in Plato – The relationship between beauty and art – The aspect of ugliness –
The aspect of sensual pleasure – Aesthetic experience – ‘Throw away in order to gain!’ – The
meaning of the whole
LECTURE 12
Recapitulation – Enjoyment of art – The inhabitant – Fetishism – Aesthetic enjoyment – The
suspension of the principium individuationis – Understanding works of art
LECTURE 13
Reflective co-enactment – Aesthetic stupidity – Translation, commentary, critique – The
spiritualization of art – Constructivism – The dialectic of sensual and spiritual aspects in the work of
art
LECTURE 14
Spiritual content – The structural context – Force field – The allergy to sensual pleasure – Aesthetics
without beauty
LECTURE 15
Correcting the definition of the work of art – Alienation – Reference to the object in visual art –
‘Abstract’ art – Form as sedimented content – Loss of tension – Theoretical preconditions of artistic
experience
LECTURE 16
Beauty and truth – Naturalism – Truth of expression – Coherence – Necessity – The idea of beauty as
something internally in motion – Homeostasis – The mediated truth
LECTURE 17
Subjectivism and objectivism in aesthetics – Hegel’s critique of taste – The physiognomy of the
aesthete – Goût quamd même – Accumulated experience – Fashion
LECTURE 18
A critique of aesthetic subjectivism – A critique of psychological aesthetics – Methodology – The
immediacy of subjective reactions is mediated – The consumption of prestige – The emotional
relationship with art
LECTURE 19
Recapitulation – ‘The Tired Businessman’s Show’ – Conceptless synthesis – The cognition of art –
Defensive reactions to modern art
LECTURE 20
Recapitulation – The rancour of those left behind towards new art – Semi-literacy – The alienation of
modern art from consumption is itself social – Lukács’s pseudo-realism – The concept of ideology –
Kant’s subjectivism – A critique of the theory of aesthetic experience – The ambiguity of the work of
art
LECTURE 21
Recovery of the truth – The idea lies in the totality of aspects – ‘... being completely filled with the
matter’ – Experience – The psychology of the artist – Empathy – The work of art as objectified spirit –
Artistic production

Adorno’s Notes for the Lectures

Editor’s Notes
Index