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Adorno's Tragic Vision JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN EDUCATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH 600 Markku Nivalainen Adorno’s Tragic Vision JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN EDUCATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH 600 Markku Nivalainen Adorno’s Tragic Vision Esitetään Jyväskylän yliopiston humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellisen tiedekunnan suostumuksella julkisesti tarkastettavaksi yliopiston vanhassa juhlasalissa S212 tammikuun 19. päivänä 2018 kello 12. Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by permission of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä, in building Seminarium, auditorium S212, on January 19, 2018 at 12 o’clock noon. UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ JYVÄSKYLÄ 2018 Adorno’s Tragic Vision JYVÄSKYLÄ STUDIES IN EDUCATION, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH 600 Markku Nivalainen Adorno’s Tragic Vision UNIVERSITY OF JYVÄSKYLÄ JYVÄSKYLÄ 2018 Editors Olli-Pekka Moisio Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä Pekka Olsbo, Harri Hirvi Publishing Unit, University Library of Jyväskylä Cover photo: Pixabay Permanent link to this publication: http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-39-7283-7 URN:ISBN:978-951-39-7283-7 ISBN 978-951-39-7283-7 (PDF) ISBN 978-951-39-7282-0 (nid.) ISSN 0075-4625 Copyright © 2018, by University of Jyväskylä Jyväskylä University Printing House, Jyväskylä 2018 ABSTRACT Nivalainen, Markku Adorno’s Tragic Vision Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä, 2018, 109 p. (Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research ISSN 0075-4625; 600) ISBN 978-951-39-7282-0 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-7283-7 (PDF) This dissertation deals with the tragic vision that motivates certain key aspects of Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy. While in the formative early work, the Dialectic of Enlightenment, co-written with Max Horkheimer, the tragic views are clear, in later works, such as the Aesthetic Theory and the Negative Dialectics, they are only implicit. The study reconstructs the tragic vision found in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and uses it as a key to understand Adorno’s mature philosophy. A tragic vision is born when specific philosophical convictions regarding agency and morality coalesce with certain ethical and political conditions. A tragic vision forms the grounds for tragic views. For Adorno, the key convic- tions rise out of the failures of reason and culture to enable the eradication of unnecessary suffering by creating the kind of conditions in which human be- ings could flourish. These convictions give rise to a view of humanity as blind to its own shortcomings and thus doomed to perpetuate suffering in the name of progress and growth. Adorno’s persistent negativism prevents him from offering practical solu- tions for changing the world, but he does offer a scathing critique of the modern world that continues to resonate with new generations of readers. The analysis of the tragic vision presented in this dissertation will highlight the fundamental philosophical and ethical commitments underlying Adorno’s views and will thus allow both situating his work into a larger cultural context and juxtaposing it with the work of other philosophers, as well as other writers, thereby opening new vistas for research not just on Adorno but on continental philosophy, social theory, and the domain of arts and letters at large. Keywords: Theodor W. Adorno, philosophy, aesthetics, tragedy, critical theory, history of philosophy, history of ideas, ethics, world-views Author’s address Markku Nivalainen Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy P.O. Box 35 FI-40014, University of Jyväskylä [email protected] Supervisors Olli-Pekka Moisio University of Jyväskylä Anna Helle University of Jyväskylä Reviewers Karoline Gritzner Aberystwyth University Jussi Kotkavirta University of Helsinki Opponent Karoline Gritzner Aberystwyth University ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation has been long in the making. Since it is impossible to name all the people who have in some way helped me over the years, I shall settle for thanking my family, friends, and acquaintances. I would like to single out Esko Harni, Joel Kaitila, Tarmo Kunnas, Matteus Laine, Antero Lehmuskenttä, Sini Piippo, Risto Niemi-Pynttäri, Veera Rautavuoma, Anna-Leena Toivanen, and Marjo Vallittu as well as my supervisors Anna Helle and Olli-Pekka Moisio and the reviewers Karoline Gritzner and Jussi Kotkavirta for the distinctive effect each of them has had on the outcome, however indirectly. The chapter on trag- edy, which forms the core of the entire dissertation, would never have come into being without the help of Hanna Appelqvist and Jussi Backman, to whom I am forever grateful. Jyväskylä University Library has provided me with much of the material needed and the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy funded several crucial months of the study. The now defunct Finnish Doctoral Programme of Philosophy enabled formative conference visits. Since movement yields clearer and more distinct ideas than sitting down, I feel obliged to extend my gratitude to Gracie, who never says no to a ramble. I dedicate this work to Nicola Blunden, my most important interlocutor. Cardiff 27.11.2017 Markku Nivalainen CONTENTS ABSTRACT ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 7 1.1 A Philosophy of Tragedy ......................................................................... 10 1.2 Theoretical Considerations ...................................................................... 14 2 MIMESIS AND NIHILISM ............................................................................... 16 2.1 The Natural History of Suffering ........................................................... 18 2.2 Modernity and Nihilism .......................................................................... 21 2.3 Melancholy Modernism ........................................................................... 26 2.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 30 3 THINKING THE TRAGIC ................................................................................ 32 3.1 Advent of Reason ...................................................................................... 34 3.2 The Aesthetic and the Tragic ................................................................... 39 3.3 Tragic Morality .......................................................................................... 45 3.4 Adorno and the Tragic ............................................................................. 49 3.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 52 4 A MODERNIST PHILOSOPHY ....................................................................... 54 4.1 The Possibility of Philosophy .................................................................. 55 4.2 Methodological Modernism .................................................................... 60 4.3 Art as Historiography .............................................................................. 63 4.4 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 66 5 TRAGIC MODERNITY ..................................................................................... 68 5.1 Life and Philosophy .................................................................................. 69 5.2 Reification and the Tragic ........................................................................ 71 5.3 Writing Modernity .................................................................................... 75 5.4 Modernist Sensibilities ............................................................................. 79 5.5 Materialist Eschatology ............................................................................ 83 5.6 Conclusion ................................................................................................. 85 6 CONCLUDING REMARKS ............................................................................. 87 6.1 A tragic philosophy .................................................................................. 87 6.2 The tragic predicament ............................................................................ 89 6.3 Melancholy resistance .............................................................................. 92 6.4 What is living and what is dead in this dissertation ........................... 94 TIIVISTELMÄ .............................................................................................................. 97 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 100 1 INTRODUCTION “One solitary man cannot help or save an age; he can only express that it is foundering.” —Søren Kierkegaard1 In the autumn of 1964, the French philosopher Jean-François Lyotard gave a series of introductory lectures to the students of philosophy in Sorbonne under the title, “Why philosophise?”2 In these lectures Lyotard argued that philoso- phy emerges in Ancient Greece once the ideological image offered by the polis does no longer mask the innately contradictory nature of social reality. Human beings desire unity, which they can never achieve, and the frustration of this desire is mirrored in philosophy, which can only reflect on its inability to reach complete understanding of the world. The role left for philosophy is to ease the human predicament by articulating concrete problems that have
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