Rowman & Littlefield Publishers The Aesthetic Ground of Critical Theory: New Readings of Benjamin and Adorno (Founding Critical Theory)

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Aesthetic Ground of Critical TheoryNew Readings of Benjamin and AdornoBy Nathan RossRowman & Littlefield International, Ltd.Copyright © 2015 Nathan Ross and ContributorsAll rights reserved.ISBN: 978-1-78348-292-4CHAPTER 1Benjamin and Adorno on Art as Critical PracticeGeorg W. BertramTo what extent is art critical? How can we understand the critical character of art under the aspect of its sensuousness? A debate took place between Adorno and Benjamin about these questions, the result of which has become familiar to us as follows: Adorno gave a powerful critique of Benjamin's position and thereby contributed to bringing about the fact that this position played and to this day continues to play a rather marginal role in systematically determining the concept of art. Adorno has made many philosophers — among others, Jürgen Habermas and those whom he influenced such as Albrecht Wellmer and his students — think that Benjamin's conception of art is too affirmative. On this view, Benjamin fails to appropriately articulate the critical aspect of art because he does not conceive the form of art in terms of the resistance of this form. By contrast, Adorno's position of negative aesthetics claims precisely to do justice to and appropriately understand the critical potential of art.It is my view, however, that Adorno is not completely right about this point and that his position has thoroughly problematic consequences for the philosophy of art. It has set many more recent positions, especially in so-called continental philosophy of art, in the direction of a negative understanding of art. Such an understanding is based, however, on a one-sided conception of critique. As I will argue in what follows, it is precisely this one-sided conception of critique that Benjamin's position challenges. It is thus my view that Adorno's interpretation of what is actually in dispute between his and Benjamin's positions is mistaken. It is my aim, then, to frame this dispute appropriately. An appropriate conception of this dispute is helpful in my view for arriving at an understanding of art as critical practice. It is important for this purpose to emphasize that Benjamin works with an understanding of art as critical practice that differs in some significant ways from Adorno's. It is precisely this different understanding of critique on Benjamin's part that can be made systematically fruitful for the concept of art.The question of how art can be understood as critical practice is connected with that of how one understands the sensuous aspect of art. To what extent do the sensuous aspects of art provide a critical impetus to the latter? Does art in its sensuousness bring about a disturbance of other practices? Does art in this way provide a basis for a form of critique that it initiates? Or is it rather the case that this form of critique can be conceptualized independently of the sensuous aspects of art? These are also questions that figure in the debate between Benjamin and Adorno.In what follows, I will take up this debate by first examining Adorno's critique of Benjamin. I will then turn to Benjamin's essay on the artwork in the age of its technical reproducibility and lay out the extent to which Adorno inadequately conceives Benjamin's concern in its central points. This will then, in the subsequent section, put me in position to analyze the divergent understandings of critique that guide Adorno and Benjamin as the issue that is actually in dispute between them. In a concluding section, I will sketch a Benjaminian perspective on art as critical practice that emerges by returning to Hegel's aesthetics as t Product Description Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno are considered today to be the two most significant early theorists in founding critical theory. In their works and correspondence, both thinkers turn to art and the aesthetic as a vital way for understanding modern soci