Negative Ästhetik

The book seeks for elements of a new interpretation of Adorno's 'aesthetic theory'. While this has been read primarily with a view to his critical social theory and motifs such as the liquidation of the subject, the mimetic transformation of suffering, the anti-hermeneutic 'enigmatic figure' of the work as well as concrete interpretations of music and literature, the various investigations, with a focus on the philosophy of music, aim at the core of what could be called the special cognitive power of art. Adorno recognises this in the 'non-judgemental synthesis', which does not proceed propositionally, but literally 'compositionally', i.e. in the form of aesthetic constellations that show what cannot be said.