Art and the concept of autonomy in Adorno's Kant critique

Max Paddison

pp. 291-308

in: The Palgrave handbook of critical theory, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter examines the concept of aesthetic autonomy in the context of Adorno's critical aesthetics and in relation to the writings on art and aesthetics of other members of the Frankfurt School such as Benjamin, Marcuse, Habermas and Wellmer. It does this against the background of the broader Kantian Enlightenment concept of the autonomy of the individual. The historical emergence of the concept and of its relation to art and the work concept in the West, together with its present problems, is outlined and a critique of ahistorical readings of "autonomous art" is offered, in particular the perennial problems in aesthetics to do with meaning and interpretation. The case is argued for "critique through form," underlying which is a mediated relation to the excluded social other. It is also argued that this "critical" dimension of autonomous art survives even the disintegration of the work concept that has become historically inseparable from it.

Cited authors

Kant Immanuel

Habermas Jürgen

Adorno Theodor