Abstract

The dissertation is a critical interpretation of Theodor W. Adorno's Aesthetische Theorie . This interpretation aims for the main concerns of a difficult torso that awaits translation into English. Extensive reference is made to Adorno's other writings, especially to Dialectic of Enlightenment, Philosophy of Modern Music, and Negative Dialectics. ;Adorno's aesthetics revolves around the following problem: How can modern art belong to a false society but simultaneously disclose the truth about that society? The dissertation develops this problem by examining connections between Adorno's conception of truth and his theory about art in contemporary society. Emphasis is placed on Adorno's innovative understanding of Kant, Hegel, and Marx as well as on his penetrating knowledge of modern music and literature. ;The first five chapters expose tendencies, difficulties, and insights in Adorno's grasp of modern art and dialectical philosophy, art in society and society in art, artworks as modes of nonconceptual cognition and of unpractical praxis, the meaning of art, and the paradoxical character of artworks and of artistic truth. Chapter 6 assesses Adorno's contributions to philosophical aesthetics today. A six-page summary completes the dissertation. ;The author concludes that, in Adorno's aesthetics, philosophy and art have been brought up to date both with each other and with a critical consciousness of contemporary society. Adorno has correctly refused either to confine truth to thought and theory or to define solely in terms of social praxis and individual morality. By bringing philosophy up to date with art and society, and by reconceiving truth, Adorno's aesthetics has done justice both to modern art and to truth. ;But Adorno's conception of truth prompts several questions that imply criticisms of his theory of art in society. Must philosophy claim to have a decisive knowledge of truth? How can the truth about our society be socially enacted? What social functions and institutional settings condition artistic truth, and how must these functions and settings be changed? These questions bring out a need not only to criticize Aesthetische Theorie but also to reflect further on the problems Adorno has presented