Texturalism and Performance - Adorno's Theory of Truth

Abstract

This thesis establishes a new reading of Adorno’s theory of truth. I argue that Adorno posits truth as being mutually constituted by dialectical philosophical texts, and the agent’s cognitive engagement and ‘performance’ of these texts. This reading is founded on an interpretation of Adorno as a transcendental philosopher, who grounds the transcendental necessity of concepts in the requirements of self-preservation. The agent’s performative interaction with the text is held to provide access to truth by virtue of interfering with the conceptual mediation of the agent’s experience. I go on to argue that this conception of truth is also at play in Adorno’s philosophy of art. I claim that the artwork, for Adorno, presents a dialectically constituted whole which, when performatively engaged with by the agent, disrupts the conceptual mediation of his or her experience, and provides access to the truth. While I show that Adorno considers his theory of truth content for art and philosophy to be unified, I also demonstrate that Adorno nonetheless maintains the differentiation between art and philosophy. I do this by providing a new interpretation of the relationship which Adorno draws between aesthetic autonomy and heteronomy.