Research Article

Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality

Volume: 21 Number: 1 March 30, 2022
EN TR

Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality

Abstract

Theodor Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory illuminates the basic question of the aesthetic claim to truth. Adorno’s text presents key philosophical questions about the nature of aesthetics. Through grounding Adorno’s aesthetic theory in Hegelian logic, this article explicates why and how the veracity of a modern artwork dwells in its claim to the truth of its own untruth. What is the relation between aesthetic truth and the objective truth of empirical reality? Can aesthetic truth disclose the truth of empirical reality? By relating negatively to what Adorno calls the empirical reality, modern artworks not only become identical to their nonidentity, but also present that which they are nonidentical with as their formative ground. If the truth of an object is mediated, aesthetic truth must disclose the degree of objectivity found in empirical reality. Consequently, aesthetic truth becomes for-itself a mediated truth, and aesthetic truth comes to reveal the mediatedness of empirical reality.

Keywords

References

  1. Adorno, T. (1997). Aesthetic Theory (trans. by R. Hullot-Kentor). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
  2. Adorno, T. (2003). Negative Dialectics. New York: Continuum.
  3. Friedman, G. (1981). The Political Philosophy of the Frankfurt School. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
  4. Hegel, G. W. F. (1812/2010). The Science of Logic (trans. by G. Giovanni). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  5. Jay, M. (1996). The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research 1923–1950. Berkeley, California: University of California Press.
  6. Menke, C. (1998). The Sovereignty of Art: Aesthetic Negativity in Adorno and Derrida (trans. by N. Solomon). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  7. Wellmer, A. (1991). The Persistence of Modernity: Essays on Aesthetics, Ethics, and Postmodernism (trans. by D. Midgley). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  8. Wiggershaus, R. (1995). The Frankfurt School, Its History, Theories and Political Significance. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Details

Primary Language

English

Subjects

Philosophy

Journal Section

Research Article

Publication Date

March 30, 2022

Submission Date

September 29, 2021

Acceptance Date

March 16, 2022

Published in Issue

Year 2022 Volume: 21 Number: 1

APA
Hatipoğlu, Ö. (2022). Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality. Kaygı. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi, 21(1), 130-144. https://doi.org/10.20981/kaygi.1001973
AMA
1.Hatipoğlu Ö. Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality. Kaygı. 2022;21(1):130-144. doi:10.20981/kaygi.1001973
Chicago
Hatipoğlu, Özüm. 2022. “Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality”. Kaygı. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi 21 (1): 130-44. https://doi.org/10.20981/kaygi.1001973.
EndNote
Hatipoğlu Ö (March 1, 2022) Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality. Kaygı. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi 21 1 130–144.
IEEE
[1]Ö. Hatipoğlu, “Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality”, Kaygı, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 130–144, Mar. 2022, doi: 10.20981/kaygi.1001973.
ISNAD
Hatipoğlu, Özüm. “Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality”. Kaygı. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi 21/1 (March 1, 2022): 130-144. https://doi.org/10.20981/kaygi.1001973.
JAMA
1.Hatipoğlu Ö. Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality. Kaygı. 2022;21:130–144.
MLA
Hatipoğlu, Özüm. “Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality”. Kaygı. Bursa Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi, vol. 21, no. 1, Mar. 2022, pp. 130-44, doi:10.20981/kaygi.1001973.
Vancouver
1.Özüm Hatipoğlu. Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: Aesthetic Display of the Empirical Reality. Kaygı. 2022 Mar. 1;21(1):130-44. doi:10.20981/kaygi.1001973

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