Negative Organicism: Adorno, Emerson, and the Idea of a Disclosing Critique of Society
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Date
2020
Publication Type
Journal Article
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no
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Abstract
This article articulates the idea of a disclosing critique of society. It starts from the assumption that the curiously organicistic undertones of Adorno’s negative social ontology is part and parcel of a disclosing gesture in his social criticism. It then traces Adorno’s debate with social organicists to the point where the critical theorist’s own concept of society emerges with a claim to be critical in itself. It is argued that this critical claim is enforced by a disclosing gesture. To articulate what is at stake in this gesture of critical disclosure a parallel is drawn, and contrast made, to Emerson’s conception of disclosure as “drawing a circle around a circle”. The relationship between Adorno’s and Emerson’s conceptions of critical disclosure is complex. However, their juxtaposition allows for a distinction between two directions of critical disclosure. It will be argued that disclosing critique of society can be understood as an exemplary dissociation from alienated society by means of a creative association of empirical knowledge, poetic description and philosophical speculation by a critic standing, as it were, with one foot inside and the other outside our form of life.
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published
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Journal / series
Volume
21 (3)
Pages / Article No.
222 - 239
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
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Subject
Disclosing critique; Adorno; Emerson; critical theory; second nature; social ontology
Organisational unit
03665 - Hampe, Michael / Hampe, Michael