AT THE INTERSECTION OF ETHICS AND AESTHETICS: EMMANUEL LEVINAS AND THEODOR ADORNO ON THE WORK OF ART STEPHANIE BELMER A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THOUGHT YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO JUNE 2014 © Stephanie Belmer Abstract This dissertation undertakes a comparative study of the aesthetic theory of Theodor Adorno and the ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. I argue that Levinas’s resistance to aesthetics and Adorno’s to ethics have led interpreters to miss an essential overlap in their writings. My first concern is to demonstrate that Adorno’s theory of aesthetics, when placed side by side with Levinas's philosophy, serves to expand Levinas’s conception of the ethical encounter. While Levinas provides a rich account of the ethical, he does not commit himself in any serious way to the study of aesthetics. The expression unique to ethics, for Levinas, occurs as a face-to-face encounter, and Levinas is quite emphatic that the ethical encounter is not produced by any work, including and especially the work of art. Nonetheless, Levinas finds in certain artists evidence of ethical expression. When read alongside Adorno's aesthetic theory, it becomes possible to argue that Levinas’s ethics of responsibility need not be limited to the relation between two human beings. The experience of ethics described by Levinas can then be extended to include the experience of works of art. My second concern is to demonstrate how Levinas’s notion of ethical transcendence challenges Adorno's perceived confinement within a system of immanent critique. Adorno, like Levinas, criticizes a form of rationality that would elevate the subject to an absolute; and Adorno, again like Levinas, seeks ways to interrupt this subject’s totalizing stance. However, Adorno refuses to outline an ethics and there is much to his writing, particularly his reliance on a negative dialectics, which makes it very difficult to imagine ethics in the way that Levinas describes. Nonetheless, I argue that the two thinkers are not as far apart as they at first seem. There are striking similarities between Adorno's account of the artwork’s disorienting effect on subjectivity in Aesthetic Theory, and Levinas’s description of the effect of alterity on the subject in Otherwise Than Being. By exposing these similarities, it becomes possible to attribute a Levinasian ethical dimension to Adornian aesthetic experience. In other words, Levinas helps us to push Adorno beyond his reliance on a privative description of ethics and thus allows for a productive rereading of Adorno's theory of art as critique. ii Acknowledgments There are many people without whom I could not have completed this project. Since the beginning of my graduate work at York, I have had Sol and Bessie Goldberg to thank for their endless encouragement, their rigorous thinking, and their commitment to the art of writing. In Montreal, I’ve been fortunate to find a group of people who resemble family more than friends, and who maintained their support even when I was at my most insane - and boring - during the writing process. Thank-you to Nicky, Ange, Sarah, Lisa, David, Jay, Jenn and Beth for being there over these many years. At Vanier, I couldn’t have asked for better colleagues. My officemates, past, present, and unofficial - Brian, Gordon and Michael - all deserve a special mention. Others in Montreal: thank-you to Elisabeth and Louis for your patience and your generosity throughout these years on Hutchison, and to the Symansky family, who have been there for me during the most important stages of my life. There are a few people who deserve special thanks for their involvement in the writing of this dissertation. First of all, I have immense gratitude to Gretchen Bakke for coaching me through the most difficult stages of the writing process, for editing my work with such diligence and attention, and for asking the most original and surprising questions. At York, I feel fortunate to have had so many excellent teachers, and could not have imagined a more thoughtful or generous supervisory committee. Thank-you to David McNally, Shannon Bell and Ian Balfour in particular for your support and for your encouragement over the many years I spent at York. And most of all, I want to thank my supervisor Asher Horowitz. You gave me the autonomy to develop my ideas not only with but also against your own. You also taught me the art of thinking well - ever questioning, and always vigilant against worn and unimaginative forms of thought. I feel so lucky to have had you as my teacher. And, finally, to my parents and my family for their tireless support, without whom this endeavour would not have been possible, and to Aaron, my most demanding interlocutor, my confidant, and my greatest friend, to whom I owe everything. iii Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................. iii Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Levinas and the Aesthetic ............................................................................................................ 12 Adorno, Art and Ethics .................................................................................................................. 18 Chapter Summaries ....................................................................................................................... 24 Chapter One: A Levinasian Aesthetic .............................................................................. 27 Aesthetic Evasion vs. Ethical Expression ................................................................................ 30 Proper Names .................................................................................................................................. 40 Poetry and Transcendence .......................................................................................................... 54 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 61 Chapter Two: Ethics and Critique .................................................................................... 64 Adorno ................................................................................................................................................ 66 Identity-Thinking: Kant and Hegel ........................................................................................... 69 Rationality Redefined ................................................................................................................... 77 Levinas ............................................................................................................................................... 82 Husserl and Heidegger .................................................................................................................. 85 Alterity ............................................................................................................................................... 89 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 95 Chapter Three: The Work of Art as Complex Totality ............................................... 98 Riddle and Truth .......................................................................................................................... 103 Mimetic Rationality .................................................................................................................... 110 Classical and Modern Conceptions of Mimesis .................................................................. 119 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 122 Chapter Four: Modernism and the Sublime .............................................................. 127 A Rejection of Beauty ................................................................................................................. 134 The Category of the Sublime .................................................................................................... 145 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 155 Chapter Five: An Intersection Between Aesthetics and Ethics ........................... 158 Donation, Proximity, Obsession ............................................................................................. 166 Shudder ........................................................................................................................................... 175 Ethically Aesthetic Experience ................................................................................................ 187 Afterword .............................................................................................................................. 192 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................