The Cambridge Companion to ADORNO Edited by Tom Huhn CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521775007 © Cambridge University Press 2004 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2004 A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data The Cambridge companion to Adorno / edited by Tom Huhn. p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-521-77289-3 – ISBN 0-521-77500-0 (pbk.) 1. Adorno, Theodor W., 1903–1969. I. 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Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work are correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter. tom huhn Introduction Thoughts beside Themselves Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno was a philosopher, composer, essay- ist,andsocialtheorist.Hewasbornin1903inFrankfurt,Germany, where his father, Oskar Wiesengrund, was a prominent wine mer- chantandassimilatedJewwhohadconvertedtoProtestantism.His mother, Maria Cavelli-Adorno della Piana, was a Catholic and had enjoyed a successful career as a singer until the time of her mar- riagetoAdorno’sfather.(In1938Adornohadhisnamechangedfrom Wiesengrund to Adorno.) Adorno was an only child in a quite well offhouseholdthathedescribedaspresidedoverbytwomothers.His other“mother”washismother’ssister,AgatheCalvelli-Adorno.She toohadhadasuccessfulmusicalcareer,asapianist. At the age of fifteen, Adorno began weekly study meetings with Siegfried Kracauer, a man fourteen years his senior and then editor oftheliberalnewspaperFrankfurterZeitung.Theweeklymeetings continued for many years and had Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason astheirfirstobjectofstudy.Adornolaterreportedthatheowedfar more of his intellectual development to these meetings than to his academicteachers.AdornobeganhisuniversitystudiesinFrankfurt in 1921, studying philosophy, sociology, music, and psychology. It was during the time of his studies that Adorno met and befriended MaxHorkheimerandWalterBenjamin;thelatterwouldbecomees- peciallyinfluentialforAdorno’sphilosophicalwork.In1924Adorno completed a doctorate in philosophy. In 1925 he went to Vienna, wherehestayedonandoffformonthsatatimethrough1927,with the idea of continuing his musical training and possibly pursuing a careerasacomposerandconcertpianist.InViennaAlbanBergtaught himcompositionandEduardSteurmannpiano;bothweremembers of the Schoenberg circle. Adorno also continued writing the music 1 2 tom huhn criticismhehadbegunpublishingin1921.AsRichardLeppertnotes in his introduction to the recent collection of Adorno’s writings on music,“Between1921,whilestillateenager,and1931hepublished dozensofoperaandconcertreviews,reviewsofpublishednewmusic, aswellasessaysonaesthetics,andheavilyfavoringnewmusic.”1 Back in Frankfurt in 1927 Adorno began to associate with HorkheimerandothermembersoftheInstituteforSocialResearch, whichlaterwouldbereferredtoasthe“FrankfurtSchool.”2 TheIn- stitutfu¨rSozialforschungopenedinFrankfurtin1924andhadasits missionthecombiningofphilosophyandsocialscienceintoacriti- caltheoryofsocialexistence.Adorno’spublicationsfortheInstitute beganin1932inthefirstissueofitsjournal.AstheInstitute’scom- mitment to a version of Marxist insight was never concealed, the policecloseditsofficessixweeksafterHitlerassumedthepowerof theGermanstateonJanuary30,1933.AfewmonthslatertheNazis tookfromAdornohisofficialrighttoteach.AftertheSecondWorld War the Institute was officially reopened in Frankfurt in 1951. The membersoftheInstitutespenttheNaziperiodinexile,manyofthem intheUnitedStates,wheretheyestablishedtieswithColumbiaand PrincetonUniversities.AdornoarrivedinNewYorkin1938andre- mained there until 1941, when he moved to Los Angeles, where he wouldspendalmosteightyearsandadoptUnitedStatescitizenship. Ina1957letter,Adornowroteofhiseleven-yearexileinAmerica:“I believe90percentofallthatI’vepublishedinGermanywaswritten inAmerica.”3 AdornoreturnedtoGermanyin1949;in1953hewas appointedtoatenuredfacultypositioninFrankfurt.Hebecamethe directoroftheInstituteafterHorkheimer’sretirementin1958,and heremaineddirectoruntilhisdeathfromaheartattack,onholiday inSwitzerland,in1969. Though Adorno is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for two major philosophical publications, Negative Dialec- tics,publishedinGermanin1966,andAestheticTheory,notquite finishedatthetimeofhisdeath,wewoulddowelltoheedtworecent observationsregardingAdorno’swork.ThefirstisRichardLeppert’s reminderofthelargeplacethatmusicoccupiedinAdorno’slife.In- deed, Adorno continued composing throughout his adult life, and, asLeppertcalculates,nearlyathirdofAdorno’s23volumesofpub- lishedwritings(theposthumouswritingsareestimatedtoappearin roughlythesamequantity)areconcernedwithmusic.4Thesecondis Introduction 3 Henry Pickford’s acknowledgment of the very wide public life that Adorno led in West Germany from 1950 to 1969. Pickford writes, “His engagement in the mass media was a logical consequence of hiseminentlypracticalintentionstoeffectchange.”5Adornopartic- ipated in more than 150 radio programs and published often in the leadingnewspapersandjournals. As a thinker Adorno shunned systematic philosophy and doubted whether true thinking could ever achieve transparency: “True thoughts are those alone which do not understand themselves.”6 Hiscomplaintagainstsystematicphilosophywasofapiecewithhis sweepingobjectiontomethodologicalthinking:Bothsufferanavoid- ance of the purported object of inquiry by the very constraints that allowthemtohaveagoalorisolateaphenomenoninthefirstplace. Systematicphilosophyandmethodologicalthinkingshareapredilec- tionforreachingconclusionsthattoooftencannothelpbutconfirm whatever presuppositions are embedded in their premises. In this way,thinkingbecomesnotonlyopaquetoitselfbutalsorigid,likea thing,beforeithastheopportunitytoallowthingstoencounteritor forittobecomesomethingelse.Adorno’sinvolvementwithmusic, art, and literature, but so too especially his interest in philosophy, is then best considered as a means of overcoming, or rather at least eluding,therigidificationofexperiencebythought.AndyetAdorno was no anti-thinker, no Luddite of the mind, but rather one of the mostprobingandaccomplishedthinkersofthetwentiethcentury. The most extensive effects of the pervasiveness of the stiffening character of thought can be found in the forms of subjective life. The human subject, bound up by its hard edges, comes to be like – evenespeciallytoitself–anobject.ButjustasAdornoisnotagainst thought in toto, so is he also not against subjectivity. In Dialectic ofEnlightenment,AdornoandcoauthorHorkheimerfamouslyread Odysseusastheprototypeofrigid,albeitsuccessful,subjectivity.It is the cunning calculation of Odysseus, as well as his readiness to sacrifice his men and himself, which makes him the prototype of subjectivity.WemightsaythatthecleverstrategiesofOdysseusare the precursors of systematic thought. This aspect of subjective life isbestcharacterizedaccordingtotheascendancyofreflexivenessin it.Thatis,whatmakesOdysseussosuccessfulisnotjusthisheroic masteryoveranddominationofthemen,matter,andmonstersthat 4 tom huhn he encounters but also his having raised mastery and domination to the guiding principle of all his actions. And the success of this principle is to be attributed, according to Horkheimer and Adorno, toitspeculiarreflexivecharacter. At first glance, this reflexivity seems rather curious in the case ofmasteryanddomination,forhowcouldreflexivitybeappropriate whenthewholepointofmasteryanddomination–theirconcept,we mightsay–isthattheysubmittonootherforce.Andyet,consistent with their concept, mastery and domination require subjectivity to submititselftothem.Inshort,whatevermasteryOdysseusachieves requiresaprevioussubmissionandmasteryoftheself.Itisthusby means of its ability to submit that subjectivity becomes masterful. Thisisnosmallaccomplishment;greatandterriblethingshavefol- lowed hard upon it. The victorious thumping of the chest is the mostvividillustrationofthisreflexivity;thevictortherebydemon- strates his willingness to subdue and master himself as the very sign–andtheprice–ofhisvictoryoverothers. Now one might imagine that Adorno’s response to this critique of the structure and provenance of subjectivity would be to recom- menditstranscendence,akindofNietzscheanovercomingofallthe previous forms of mastered (and submitted) subjectivity. But such animaginedresponseforgetsAdorno’scommitmenttoavoidingthe sweeping obfuscations and dead ends of systematic philosophizing. TorespectthatcommitmentmeansthenthatAdorno’scritiqueim- pliesthatsubjectivityneeds,atmost,reformratherthanrevolution. Yet this realization does not diminish the scope and penetration of Adorno’s critique of subjectivity. It means instead that Adorno un- derstandsthedevelopmentofsubjectivityasadialectical,historical process.Therefore,whatisrequired,accordingtohim,isnotareturn toanearlierformofsubjectivitybutrathersomeforwardmovement fromwithinwhatsubjectivityhasalreadybecome.Andit’sjusthere thatthecentralityofaesthetics,andespeciallythedynamicofmime- sis,istobeunderstoodinhisthought.Onemightarriveatthiscen- tral insight of his by following Adorno’s critique of the limitations ofsubjectivethought. Ifthehistoricaltaskforthinkingislikethatforsubjectivity,then theforwardpathisnotthroughsomeovercomingbutratherbyway ofacertainreflexivenessin,andreflectionupon,thought.Inthisre- gard,onemighthazardthatAdornocouldnotbemoretraditionally Introduction 5 philosophical, if traditional philosophy is taken to have its ground in self-examination. But what here sets him apart from so much of westernphilosophyistheplacewhereandthemannerinwhichre- flectionoccurs.Ifthinkingcannotturnuponitselftoreflectwithout bringing along its rigidifying tendencies and objectifying impulses, it would thereby doom whatever reflection it might achieve to be- comebutanotherreifiedversionofwhatithasalreadybeen.Andyet thedialecticaladvantageofobjectifyingthought–likethatofreify- ingsubjectivity–isthatitleavesinitswakeagreatmanydeadened things.Theaimisnottorevivifytheseossifiedobjects,asifwemight unlock some life trapped in them, but instead to allow subjectivity tobecome,reflectively,somethingelseinresponsetothem,perhaps byallowingthemtobecomesomethingotherthanwhatsystematic, strategicthinkingwouldhaveuscontinuetomakeofthem. Thoughtsandotherdeadthingsmightbetakentobeobjectlessons for life because they exhibit the stasis wherein life, for whatever reason, neglected to continue, except in a damaged and damaging fashion. And this means that life might be something more than whatever it is that blossomed and withered in the coming to be of objects, including especially that premier object, the subject. The thoroughness of Adorno’s dialectical thinking is apparent in Nega- tive Dialectics, one of his most important works. There he recon- sidersthesupposedinevitablyforwardtrajectoryofthedialecticand examines whether what Hegel called “determinate negation,” the antitheticalmomentofthedialectic,hasalwaysbeenfollowedbya recuperative,integrativesynthesis.Adornofamouslycontendsthat historicallyithasnotandthatthebestevidenceofthisfailureliesin thefactthatevenphilosophymisseditsownopportunitytorealize itselfasaformoflife. Thinkingtiedtootightlytoconcepts–philosophy’stragicflaw– istobecounteredbyobjectsthatelude,andthoughtsthatturnaway from, the objectifications of thinking. How might we think here about experience without reducing it to the contours of thought or conversely valorizing it as some transcendent category? Adorno’s attemptseemstohavebeentotrytofollow,intellectuallyandexpe- rientially,theshapeofcertainobjects,namelythosethatthemselves seemedirreducibletothoughtsalone.Thisintellectualmimetictrac- ing of the object might be called experience, if by that term we in- tendanencounterwithanobjectthatitselfissomethingnotwholly 6 tom huhn objective.Artworks–andespeciallytheexperiencestheyspark–are just such objects for Adorno. But rather than characterize artworks asresistingthoughtorobjecthood,therebyenjoiningjustthekindof agonisticstrugglethathelpedOdysseusmakehimselfintoanopposi- tiontothatwhichheimaginedresistedhim,wemightinsteadprag- matically describe artworks as objects which, in their incomplete- ness, invite a like-minded subjectivity. Artworks are incomplete in at least two senses. One is that they unavoidably address subjects whose experience or interpretation of them they presuppose. The other constitutive incompleteness of artworks can be mined from Hegel’s insight that each artwork is a symbol – or sole inhabitant – ofaworldthatisnonethelessimpliedbytheveryachievedsingular- ityofitsexistence.Thisincompletenessisthenakindofdislocation, for the artwork is the displaced and lonely sole example of a world that cannot otherwise bring itself more completely into existence. Theincompletenessoftheobjectbecomesforthoughtfulexperience a symptom of an incompleteness elsewhere. Put differently, what we might call the robustness, or the very existence, of the admit- tedly singular object is evidence of an incompletely realized world. Why don’t other objects imply incompletely realized worlds? Per- haps they might, if only we did not encounter so much difficulty imaginingthem. Marx’sanalysisofthecommodityalsoproceededbytakinganob- ject’sidentitytobepremiseduponaconstitutiveabsence.Inthecase ofthecommodity,itsappearancedependedonthedisappearanceof the social relations that allowed its coming into being. We might imagine the artwork for Adorno as a kind of reverse image of the commodity: The artwork, rather than efface a world for the sake of itscomingintobeing,insteadprojectsapossibleworld.Butitseems thisprojectionmustavoidboththesweepofconceptualthoughtas wellasitsimpulsetowardcompletion.ForAdornothemoststriking possibilityofaworldisnotglimpsedbythoughtalone.Rather,pos- sibilitiesresideintheparticularwaysinwhichexperiencehasbeen thwarted.Adorno’sdialecticalappreciationofexperience–aidedby Freud’spsychoanalytictheory–entailstheobservationthatexperi- ence is constituted also, or even especially, by the specific ways in whichithasbeenthwarted. But how does experience come to be thwarted if it comes to be possible only by the very limitations that constitute it? Space and Introduction 7 time,asKantobserved,arenotencroachmentsuponexperiencebut are instead the boundaries within and according to which experi- enceismadepossibleinthefirstplace.Sotoomightweobservefor Adorno that dialectically the object, and subject, are not mere im- pediments to some imagined experience. They are instead the very stuff of, in, and out of which experience is made. Hegel understood the artwork as the object par excellence for subjective experience preciselyinsofarasitcouldnot–despiteitsoverwhelminglysubjec- tivecharacter–escapetheconstraintthatitremainobjective,which is to say an object rather than a thought. That is, for Hegel, just as beauty must always be a human artifact, so too can the artwork never entirely escape its materiality, which seemed to guarantee its remaining objective. For Hegel then, the artwork’s inescapable objecthood–whichsignalstheinabilityofsubjectivitytoeverfully consumetheartobjectwithoutremainder–makestheartworkthe mostfruitfulobjectinthepathofsubjectivebecoming.Theartwork objectisthusagoadratherthanimpedimenttoexperience.Andthis characterization of the productive thwarting of experience by art is not so far afield from a psychoanalytic conception of experience, whichpositstheegoastherigidificationandarmaturewithinwhich experiencecomestobe.Andjustastheforceoftheegoisfundamen- tally negative, as that which throws itself up against whatever is imaginedasopposedtoit,sotooistheartworkamimeticprojection ofwheresubjectivitymightmostproductivelyfounder.Perhapsthe artworkisakindofcunningmimeticdevicethatsubjectivitysome- whatunwittinglyputsupinfrontofitselfasatrap.Theartworkis amimeticreenactmentofsubjectivefoundering. Artworks and the aesthetic judgments that follow them are mimetic reproductions of thoughts and objects which themselves aredeadenedbitsofsubjectivity.Theytherebyprovidecuesforwhat subjectivityoncemighthavebeen–orfailedtobecome.Couldthere not then be a form of life, a form of subjectivity, which takes up thesemimeticresiduesasobjectsforreflection?Thuswemightun- derstandreflectionasthefurtherunfoldingofsubjectivepossibility. HeremimesisinAdornobecomesthenamefortheprojectionandre- projectionofsubjectivity,ofanunfoldingofaspects.Mimesisisnot then the copying or imitation of what has been but the continuity fromreflectiontoreflection,ofthemultipleaspectsandmovements ofsubjectivepossibility. 8 tom huhn The artwork is central to the project of reflection and the pos- sibility of further subjective unfolding because, for Adorno (follow- ingHegel),theartworkisthemostthoroughlysubjectiveofobjects. The subjectivity of the artwork is due to the peculiar character of itsobjectivity:Theartworkisanunfinished,incompleteobject,and by dint of this it invites reflection. We might observe that all ob- jectsareincompleteinsofarastheyarebuttruncatedaspectsofsub- jectivity. But the artwork, unlike all other objects, is also mimetic and reflexive insofar as it is an image of the ongoing incomplete- ness of subjective activity. The task of subjectivity is not of course to become complete, for that would signal but another version of staticrigidification.Thetaskisratherforsubjectivitytogoonwith itself, to become more of what it already is. But to become more of what it already is is problematic because, not only is it diffi- cult to distinguish what is living from what is dead in the form of the subject, it is also unclear how to distinguish between those deadobjectsthatmightrepaysubjectiveregardandthosethatmight not. The artwork – and in this Adorno follows the Kantian tradition regardingtheefficacyofaestheticjudgment–isanoccasionforsub- jective dissolution and reconstitution. It is precisely the artwork’s unfinishedness that holds the greatest promise for the subject. The artworkisnottheoccasionforthesubjecttocompleteitself;instead, whatAdornocallsitstruthcontentistheopen-endednessofanob- jectatrestwithinitslackofcompletion.Itscontentisnotsomething, especially not some truth, to be deciphered by the subject. The art- work is instead an occasion for the subject to liken itself to a state ofunfinishedness.Thesubjectistherebyaffordedamimeticmodel of the pitfalls of subjective becoming, of how to forestall becoming fixedandfixated,rigidandfurtherboundup. Thelargerissuehereistherelationofobjectstosubjectivebecom- ing. I want to suggest that, for Adorno, mimesis was the key term according to which he came to understand the dialectical relations between subjectivity and objects, and, more importantly, between subjective and objective becoming. Were Adorno not so adverse to metaphysics, not to mention sweeping philosophical formulations, we might even claim that all things come to be mimetically. But what might this mean? And why do art and aesthetic theory come