A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/125695 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications The Historical Negation of Aesthetic Categories: Adorno’s Inheritance of Kant’s Critique of Judgment By Justin Neville Kaushall A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy University of Warwick, Department of Philosophy August 2018 1 Abbreviations AT Adorno, Theodor W., Aesthetic Theory, Gretel Adorno, and Rolf Tiedemann (eds.), Robert Hullot-Kentor (trans), (London and New York, 1997). CJ Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, Werner S. Pluhar (trans), with a Foreword by Mary J. Gregor (Indianapolis and Cambridge, 1987). Hereafter I will reference the Critique of Judgment using this order: first the Section number, second the German Akademie edition pagination, and finally Pluhar’s English edition pagination. MM Adorno, Theodor W., Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, E. F. N. Jephcott (trans), (London and New York, 2002). 2 Table of Contents: Abbreviations…page 2 Acknowledgments…page 6 Declaration…page 9 Abstract…page 10 Introduction…page 14 An Outline of the Chapters…page 31 Objections and Replies…page 32 Chapter One: Kant’s Concept of Disinterested Contemplation and Adorno’s Concept of Natural Beauty Section One: Kant’s Concept of Disinterested Contemplation…page 37 Kantian Disinterested Contemplation…page 38 Section Two: Adorno’s Concept of Natural Beauty and Aesthetic Time…page 51 The Temporality of Adorno’s Concept of Natural Beauty…page 57 Chapter Two: Kant’s Concept of the Sublime and Adorno’s Concept of the Shudder Section One: Poetic Perception…page 73 Exegesis: Kant on the Mathematically and Dynamically Sublime…page 77 The Mathematical Sublime…page 80 The Dynamical Sublime…page 83 Kantian Poetic Perception…page 86 A New Concept of Poetic Perception…page 91 Poetic Perception and the Problems of the Kantian Sublime…page 94 3 Section Two: The Shudder: Adorno's Critique of the Kantian Sublime…page 100 Negative Dialectics and the Primacy of Critical Reason…page 106 The Shudder as Spontaneity…page 111 Chapter Three: Adorno’s Concept of Mimesis and the Kantian Imagination Section One: Expression, Mimesis, and Reification…page 118 Adorno’s Concept of Mimesis…page 122 Rigor Mortis: The Poetics of Tristan Tzara…page 133 Section Two: Kant’s Concepts of the Creative Imagination and the Artistic Genius…page 144 Adorno’s Concept of Expression…page 151 Chapter Four: Interpretation as Metaphysical Experience…page 161 Adorno’s Concept of Interpretation…page 167 Interpretation as Metaphysical Experience…page 174 Philosophy, Art, and Metaphysical Experience…page 177 Chapter Five: Adorno’s Concept of Technique and Max Ernst’s Natural History Series…page 186 Surrealism, Ernst, and Technical Magic…page 188 Adorno’s Concept of Technique: Reason Against Reason…page 195 Transfigured Night: Surrealism’s Transformation of Critical Theory…page 199 Conclusion…page 206 Bibliography…page 218 4 Table of Plates Figure 1: Hans Arp, Untitled (The Entombment of the Birds and Butterflies: Head of Tzara)... page 214 Figure 2: Kurt Schwitters, Das Unbild (The And Picture)…pages 215 Figure 3: Max Ernst, La Roue de la Lumiere (The Wheel of Light)…page 216 Figure 4: Max Ernst, Foret-aretes (Fishbone Forest)…page 217 List of Figures Figure 1: Hans Arp, Untitled (The Entombment of the Birds and Butterflies: Head of Tzara), 1916-17, painted wooden relief, 40 x 32.5 x 9.5 cm (16 x 13 x 4 in), Collection, Kunsthaus, Zurich Figure 2: Kurt Schwitters, Das Unbild (The And Picture), 1919, Collage/assemblage, 35.5 x 28 cm (14 x 11 in), Collection, Staatsgallerie, Stuttgart Figure 3: Max Ernst, La Roue de la Lumiere (The Wheel of Light), No. 29 of the Histoire naturelle series, 1925, Frottage, pencil on paper, 26 x 43 cm (10 1/4 x 16 15/15 in), Private Collection Figure 4: Max Ernst, Foret-aretes (Fishbone Forest), 1927, Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm (21 1/4 x 25 1/2 in), Galerie Beyeler, Basle 5 Acknowledgements When I was younger I naively imagined that a PhD student composed her thesis in total solitude, like some eccentric visionary, isolated from society. It has taken me nearly a decade and a half to realize that nothing could be further from the truth. I owe enormous debts to many different individuals, organizations, and experiences that I can never repay. By briefly acknowledging them here I hope to at least gesture towards my sincere gratitude, and to outline the helpful role that others have performed. I have learned over time that a debt, or historical inheritance, may never be returned or reversed, that it often reappears, occasionally with a vengeance, in a transformed guise, and that, finally, it never rests in peace. First, my advisors, Professor Diarmuid Costello and Professor Nick Lawrence, have been enormously helpful and generous. Their endless patience, critical attention, practical advice, and kind encouragement during chaotic times have always been extremely supportive. Diarmuid and Nick both helped me to find and clarify my own argument, to be more independent and creative, and to embody the spirit of critique in my engagement with both Adorno and Kant; for all of that, and more, I am very grateful. They have also demonstrated how to work relentlessly hard in order to achieve an end. In addition, Prof. Eileen John spent many hours discussing Adorno and Kant with me in my first year at Warwick. I would like to thank her for providing motivation and support. I would also like to thank Prof. Miguel Beistegui, Prof. Keith Ansell-Pearson, Prof. David James, Prof. Peter Poellner, and Prof. Johannes Roessler for sharpening and challenging my ideas during my various Graduate Progress Examinations. Their questions were always thoughtful and attentive. In addition, Diarmuid and Nick organized a reading group on Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory in 2014. Our many excellent discussions resulted in several thought-provoking questions and critical insights. Therefore, I would like to thank Prof. Miguel Beistegui, Prof. David James, Dr. Helmut Schmitz, and Prof. Eileen John. Finally, I would like to thank my postgraduate friends at Warwick who warmly welcomed me with exciting philosophical dialogue: Jemima, Rich, Karen, JC, Grahame, Ben, and Adam. 6 Thanks are also due to the Warwick Philosophy Department, for accepting me into the PhD program, and for funding in part my trip to an Adorno conference in Rennes, France, in October of 2017. At the conference, expertly organized by Dr. Florent Perrier and Dr. Christophe David, who were also very welcoming, I received much helpful advice, and had several excellent conversations. Dr. James Hellings encouraged me to continue studying Adorno and Kant, and his talk on Benjamin’s concept of aura enabled me to think about the concept in new ways. Christoph Haffter’s energetic analysis of the concept of mimesis corrected some blind spots in my own conception. And Dr. Andre Krebber has opened my eyes to the way in which Adorno’s analyses of nature, and natural beauty, might reconfigure our relationship to animals, and help us to reflect upon the environmental crisis currently engulfing the human and non-human world. I would also like to thank the Editors at Samuel Beckett Today/Aujourd’hui, for publishing my manuscript on Beckett and Adorno, back in 2015. Dr. Angela Moorjani in particular (as well as the anonymous reviewers) gave me very detailed, thorough, and acute advice on my writing. In addition, an anonymous reviewer at the British Journal of Aesthetics gave me very detailed advice on an earlier version of Chapter Two, Section Two (on Adorno’s concept of the shudder). The London Library, less a building than an atmosphere, was a source of blissful peace and calm, and the librarians were always unfailingly polite whenever I wanted advice. The Warwick University Library’s Postgraduate study space was a good resource when I needed an environment in which to study with comrades. The librarians at the National Library of Scotland have also been very helpful and efficient. Although I knew him at the University of Oregon in 2010, before I started on my PhD at Warwick, Prof. Brian Elliott has been enormously influential. He kindly offered to study Kant’s third Critique with me, and was always open to discussing ideas. His course on Critical Theory was invigorating and exciting. I would also like to thank Prof. Patricia Allmer, for showing such sincere hospitality, and for everyone else in the Dada and Surrealist Research Group at the Edinburgh College of Art. You have all challenged my ideas and introduced me to new perspectives with curiosity and verve. 7 My friend, Max, generously offered to read a few chapters of my thesis, and has helped to deepen and clarify the various arguments presented here. Max’s kindness shows how reason depends on conditions external to itself—his friendship over many years has strengthened and broadened my own capacity to philosophically reflect. Finally, much love and gratitude is due to Claire and Rose. Both have tolerated my obsessive routines and many bad habits with grace, kindness, love, and understanding. I would like to dedicate this thesis to Rose: in memory and promise. Last but not least, I am very grateful to both of my parents for their love and support from the very beginning.