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    BERNSTEIN, J. M. The Fate of Art - Aesthetic Alienation From Kant To Derrida and Adorno PDF

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    To my fer and ster The Fate of Art and memory of my mother ae Aesthetic Alienation from Kant to Derrida and Adorno Literature and Philosophy J. M. Bernstein A. J Caseard, Geral Editor ‘Thisnew seieswll publish booksina wide range of subjects in philosophy and necatre, inching tudes of the seal Sd tora ius that eae these eo Hide, Drawing fon the resources ofthe Anglo-American and Continental traditions, the series wil be open to pilosophially Informed scholarship covering the entite range of cote ‘emporar tial hough ‘The Pennsylvania State University Press University Park, Pennsylvania Copyighe © JM. Bere 1992 cs pied 1992 in th ied Sts by The Penne Sate Unsesty ress Se C, 820 Now Unversy Dre, Unversity Park, PA T6802 Alig eseved IsBN0-271-00838-5 ot) ISHND=271=00839-3 (pope) Lary of Cong Cataloging i abt Dts [NCP calor ths bk aval fom the abeary of Cong Init pc of The Pema Sate Univeriy Pret tose acid re ape foe ‘hex ping al ecu ook. Pabeatons on noted sok ati) ‘heminmum eqeremensaf Amercan National andar fo Toran SEE mance of Paper for Pritt sens, ANSI 299481988 “Typeset in 1014 on 12 pt Eade by Grapher Typeset, Hong Kone Pred Gree Beran by TJ res, Pade Contents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Inredoction: Aesthetic Alienation Memorial Aesthetics: Ken's Qrtique of Judgement 1 Judgement without Knowledge Imperative Beno? {ii The Antnomy of Autonomous Aesthetics a Freeand Dependent Beaty 'b ree Beauty and the Hea f Beaty €. The Beautiful and the Sublime lv "The Question of Reflective Jodgement Beauty andthe Labour of Mourning ‘Mi Indetrminacy and Metaphysics (Anticipating Deconstruction) ‘The Genius of Being: Heidegger's “The Origin ofthe Work of At 1 Inoduetion: Imagination and Finitude i Orereaming Aesthetic (0): Thing, Historcty and Double Reading ‘i Overcoming Aesthetics (II) Great Art |v Great Artand Genius! On Being Exemplary 0 a B 2 3 3s 5 « % 2 ® Govtents Geni, Commit and Pras Mi Amand Technology vi Earth, World and Alterity: The Pols a Act Vii Acrheic Alienation 3, The Deonstutve Subline: Derias The Tah Paitin iar History and Langage 4 Ping mht Truth ii Theres Paining iv Imeruping Metaphysics {Framing she Without End of Pure Bey 1 Framing the Sobline i Sabyor Tragic? 4 Conlin Concept and nition: Adora’ Ac n °F” ncincibng Acetic: Modena, tonomy and Synhee Spates, tsion and None i Without Parone it An, Tehnalogy and Nature 5, Ol Gate Ascending: Distrito nd Speculation in een They 1 Raneation, Dienst and Categories 4 Disimegraion, Sate and Truth 4 Trathor Communion? Trak ad Speculation Spline and Pts Notes Indes 108 16 10 136 136 0 18 155, 19 166 05 188 190 m7 206 22 as ns 233 m1 2B 261 us 289 Acknowledgements ‘This work would not hae taken its present shape hid it not been for the intense and congenial atmosphere T have enjoyed in the Philosophy Department ofthe Univesity of Esex over the past dozen years, In par ticular, T must thank Robert Bernasconi; his enthusiasm for Heidegger pt me reading him, and twas he who Bet expsned to me Heidegger’ history of being. During the decade me were colepucs, we shared out frst reading of Derrida with exch ether, and lot more Wiile T have learned mach from several research students in the Department, I must mention Nick Land; Michael Newman, who helped ‘me to understand Van Gogh and modern ars Olivier Serafnowie, and Ian Willamson, whose effors in helping me translate pasages from Adorno’s Aethtie Theory will bea bonus for all readers Of ths tex. Tf ‘there iced here, it must be hiss mine the blame ‘Three friends read the manuscript asa whole and offered advice, rit= ‘dam and support. Noone wil ead this work a areflly and thougheflly a6 Robert Pippin did. His pages of ets and argument shaped the Adretion of my rewriting. Howard Caygll knew jst what [wa trying to do and told me how to do it beer. He and Gillan Rose gave me Brighton during the summer of 1988 where the Birt draft of chapter 4 was writen There sao one to whom [am closer intlletaly and silly than Gillan Rose; what i het in thi work would not have ben there without her. For the rest alone am responsible ‘My editor at Paiy Pres, John Thompson, kept ith and though his ‘tutions made me produce a more generally accessible text Portions of this Work have been published previously as “Aesthetic vi Acksowtanersrs ainsi: Heeger, Adorno, and ath te ed of ain Lif fer Parmar em Flee (on: Mav, 1) pp. “the ptf fiient ad tastqrto, Rdee! Pop, (spy 1-9 "An api exigent sc o - Antena’ in The Peon of day, Aron Ben Ean Rote, p98 JM. Bernstein Colchester, Essex ar ows PH RB Abbreviations ‘T.W. Adoro, Astetic Theory tr. Lenhart (London: Rout ledge & Kegan Pl 1984) Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgement st. James Creed “Meredith Oxford: Clarendon Pres, 1952) Max Fiorkbeimer and TW. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, tt, John Cumming (London: Allen Lane, 1973) Jacques Derrida, "Economimesi, Dearie 11, 2 (981), pp. 305 “Martin Heidegger, Nish, vol. I The Will to Por at rt David Farell Krell (London: Routledge and Kegan Pal, i981) Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. I: The Wil 1 Poser ‘Knowleie and as Metaphysics, Joun Stambaugh, David Farrell Krall and Frank A. Capuzei (London: Rowtledge and Kegan Pa 1989) T. W, Adorno, Negative Disetis, te. E. B. Ashton (London: Routledge and Kegan Pal, 1973) Martin Heidegger, "The origin of the work of a in Potry Longuace, Though, Albert Hotsadter (London: Harper snd Row, 171) Hans-Georg Gadamer, Phisophial Hemeneatis, tad od David E- Ling (Berkeley: Univesity of California res, 1976) “Martin Heidegger, The Destion Concerning Technology and Other Essays, te. Willa Lovit (New York Harper and Row, 1977) Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relecance of the Bes nd Other Enays, tt. Nicholas Walker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1986) sat ™ Anwaevixrions TW. Adorno, Methiche Theorie (Prankfure am. Subvhamp Verlag, 1970) Hans-Georg Gadamer, Trath and Methd,e W. Glen-Doepel (London: Sheed and Ward, 195) Jacques Deri, The Truth in Peinting tr Geoff Bennington and Tan MeL.cod (London: University of Chicago Pres, 1987) Albrecht Wellner, “Truth, semblance, reconalation: Adoro's aesthetic redemption of maderiy', Telos, 61 (1984/5), pp. 89— Ms Introduction: Aesthetic Alienation Very early in my if | ook the question af he relation of et to truth seriously fen now T stand in holy dread in the Face of thie discordance P. Niece, Nachos: “The discordance of art and truth, in the fice of which Nitsche fl aly Area, isa old a philosophy itself. Pilsophy began with Plato's chal lenge tothe authority of Homer, and withthe expulsion ofthe poets from the republic that was to be grounded in reson, uh, alone. That ele lenge and expulsion stand over and constte modernity even. more emphatically than they did Pto’s phileophial utopia. Moder, auton- fmous aft ~ the at whose forms have become autonomous fom the dominion of the metaphysical assumptions and orientations of Christian faith ~ has been ‘expelled from modern soci, Tram the constitutive, ‘cognitive and practical mechanisms producing and reproducing societal ‘modernity that isthe thesis animating this work, nd is prmary am ito susan Nicusche’s holy dread through an aalsis of the dicordance ‘between art and truth si informscontemporry philosophy. For Nietzsche but ot for him alone, the discordance between art and truth arouses dread because art and aesthetics (the theoretical diseurse ‘tha comprehends arin is autonomous, post-Christan guise) appear at Somehow more truthful than empirical uth (knowledge understood at ‘the subsumption of paniulrs under conceps or Kinds under lam, and 2 [stro cron: AESTHETIC ALIENATION truth ata carespondence beeen statements ~ laws, theories, ee ~ and ‘es), more ational than methodical reason, mor ust than liberal justice (beasiy, or what beauty sigs, designating the fist vetu of socal Insitutions), more valuable than principled morality oe uy. There i dread inthis fortwo reasons: ist, because part of our experience of at iets becoming only art, mere a7, matter of tase, secondly, because 135 such, art and zesthetcs always appt to be outside wuth reason and ‘morality, thus at being “more’ than these i always indemonsrable, and incommensuable with what truth saying and valuing have become a8 rational enterprises far is taken a ing outside wath and reason then if Arc speaks ints own Voice it doesnot speak truthflly or rationally; while it ome defends art from within the confines ofthe language of uth-oly ‘gition one belies the claim that are move truthful than that tuth- ly cognition. inorder to make sense ofthis aor it must be conceded thatthe dis- cordance between art and truth i misconstrued if reatded a an oppo ‘Sion hat simply inverts ther relationship: art and aesthetics are toe ‘while rathonly copiton, yim it elzation inthe natural scenes, Tae. The challenge is rather to think through what truth, morality and eaury (or is primary instance art) are when what is denied is their ‘ategorial separation from one another separation, I shall argue, fal towing Weber and Haber, tat i constiuive of mderiy Is the entwinement of art and truth, the experience of ar a8 sorchow cognitive tnd of truth as sersoous and particular apd no the substation of one for ‘he other within a stable metaphyseal hierarchy, that constitutes the chal Jenge. The immediate repercusion of this thesis fr at and aesthetics, fs that they are wrongly understood if they are treated in opposition to knowledge and truth, morality and right action To consider arts esthetic, where “aesthetic” has come to mean the understand ing of beauty and arin non-eognitve terms, etal aicating at from truth and monty, Hence the challenge to modersty from the perspec= tive of art and aesthetics, which insofar as it wuly comprehends the ‘experience of art must exced its conssttion ak standing outside trath, tends to occur primarily through philosophies of art that tke arise phenomens as more than a mater of ste, a more than merely aesthese™ Phenomens "The theoretical and practical etilation of the meaning of aesthetic phenomena, the relegation of art and aesthetic to what is outside truth 4nd goodness, occured as a consequence of a double isolation: fst through the drempion of the questi of mural valve From questions of tuth and falsity the fatale distinction ~ that resulted from the fowth of modern since and its methodological sunderstanding, and Secondly, through the separation of artic worth fom maral worth the Inscribing of af within the autonomous domain of the “aesthetic”. This Iyrmooucton, AESTHETIC ALIENATION 3 later separation recived its most perspicuous represention in the Kandan dictum that works of ar are purpsefl in themselves, while ak ing any postive, practical (moral) end over and above their internal com- plesin. OF course, even in Kant, aesthetic judgement was defied ot Only by means ofthe exclusion of cognition and mal woth, but equally ‘through the approximation and analogy in aesthetic judgement of julge- ‘ment in concept andthe requirement of universality. Which i fo, from che beginning ofthe aesthetic cnstrua of ar there was a strain on fur conception of asthedc judgement and what it tld as about art ‘works ~ assuming fr the purpone of argument that our conception of art {nd judgement are roughly delineated bythe Kantian exclusions, What ‘an we make of «domain in which questions of truth, godnes, eficacy, tren pleasure (since our interest in artis ‘disinterested are climate at the outset? What sort of beast might beauty be ifn considering it we are ‘ot considering how the world i (ruth), how we do or shoud comport ‘ourselves inthe world (morality), or what might be uiful or plesureble to us? A silent beast, then, giten voice only through the gestures of ‘approximation and analogy to what it not. Ici x small wonder that the reigning philosophical orthodoxy inthe English-speaking world cn Sdered such 4 phenomenon all, for it says nothing ints own vie, and tnhen it doce speak it but an at of vetnoguism whereby trath and ‘morality speak through it "The central intention of this study i to imerrogate and underwrite the aesthetic etgue of truthonly cognition, and demonstrate how that ctiqe results ina critique of enlightened’ modernity. [shall further ‘him that there is an indirect reconcepaliation of plies and the ‘meaning ofthe pola at work inthe aesthetic erigue of modemitys the discourse of aesthetics isa proto-polital discourse standing infor and ‘marking the absence of a uly politcal domain in modern, enlightened socies, Ta order to indicate how this argument is 1 be pursued, We Should fist tara tothe very idea of philosophies of art that seek to go beyond aesthetics, 1f aesthetic in ite narrow sense refers tothe understanding of at as an abject of tate outside trath and morality, then post-asthet’ theories of fut are themselves cries of trudh-ony cognition insofar as their going beyond aesthetics imple a dil ofthe rg distinctions separating the clnims of taste from the claims af knowing or right ction. Postaesheic "theories ate the Lind of philosophies of art examined in this work. They ae, very approximately the aralague inthe philosophy of at for what post poutist thinking is in the philosophy of scence.” According to Pst-esthetic theories, at works must be understood in nonaesthtic terms becuse the very idea of aesthetics i based upon a setes of ‘chins which thenvelves asume conception of ruth in terms of ie + Iermopveris: Arsene ALENKTION ‘solation rom normative and ache values an lation which reent- 1y, post posit pilosuphis of cence have undermined. Further, justas ‘oslepotivism ses scence and its objet as histori contruction, 50 ost-astete theories of art attempt to interrogate at historical, asking ‘ot what ati, ahistorical, but wha i hasbeen and become To under= stand art, 19 answer the question of the meaning and beng of at, isto ‘understand, grasp and gather certain history. Which history, however, i jst the question n dispute among competing pos-aesthetic theories. Postasthetic pilsophis of ar, the kind of theories that employ art in order to challeage eath-only coin, tend to move in an oppo section to pos-posiisephulcophis of scence, locating the meaning and being of art in its cognitive dimension, thus connecting or recon ectng at and truth ‘This should nat surprise us, fr in denying pois ism we have come to deny the separation of domains thus the cena Plank in sciences aim for a hegemony over questions of ruth i taken 4039, which allows forthe posbiy thar ater forms of sctiviry might have significant cognitive capacities, however dlerent thse eapacies ae from thas of seience. However, although the history of ar up tthe mod ‘ern age appears 10 license the cim of ars cognitive potential (or ‘example, religious art representing the ruth of Christin metaphysis), the modem experience of ar does na; on the contray, moder expe ence of art 6 argued, is precisely the experience of art as ct of and Separated frm ruth, a silenced, as dremel from all hat would give it significance. Autonomous aris rt that is autonomous fom (aionlzed) truth and morality. Tht the historical truth that supports the clams of ‘euth-oaly cognition and principled morality; it the truth enderlying [Niewsche's hay dead, and it provides us with the Best hit a to ow he discordance of art and ruth comes fo sand a a sgn of modernity. The experience of art ar weet! isthe experience of at a8 having lot of ‘ben deprived of ts power co speak the truth ~ whatever truth will mean when no longer defined in exchsve ways, ‘Thit los, no macer how ‘heorized of explained, I shall cll sesthetc alienation’ it denominates fa alienation fom truth which s caused by ans Fecoming aesthetic, a becoming the hasbeen flly consummated only in modern socieis Further, 10 the extent to which pos-tsthetie philosophies of art con- xve ofa as having suffered os, he pasts projected fom the wate of ‘liemtion a time when art and truth were notin discordance, when they ‘rere united or in harmony. Thus every conception ofthe alienation of ar From rh is simultaneously a work of remembrance, a work of mourning and rit, even for those philosophers who doubt that sich an “ong” te of unin ever existed. In moderity Beauty ino only alienated from taut, but rieves is loss; modernity i the ste of benuty Bereaved — bereaved of tah, ‘One way of conceptualizing aesthetic alcation which includes the Iermgouction:Arsrirnic ALENSTION 5 ‘moment of mourning i in terms ofthe endo death of rt, Art ends ait ‘becomes progressively further distanced from trith and moral yoodnes, 1s it Toes its eapacity to speak the truth concerning our most fundamental ‘ategorial engagements and commitments ~an event Heel denies with fas separation from its epock-long submersion in Christan. But this frst end of artis ambiguous for two reson. Fist, what i lst oF suppressed in aesthetic alienation, the end of art, eqialy involves deformation of what arti separated fam: truth prior to subsume ton and guadness prior to procera, universe moral resson. Thee too are deformed, but in ways that ‘are not obvious, on the contrary, ‘aluenestral reason and wniversisic morality are often taken to re? ‘resent the coitive achievements of enlightened modernity. Nonetheless, iF ari alienated fom teuth and goodness by being oid into a ep arate sphere, then that entails that “teuth’ and “goodnes? ae alienated, Separated from themselves. Aesthetic alioation then betlens th's 4nd reasons iteral diremption and deformation, There is 2. second Feason forthe ambiguity. Because only art “sulle it aleaton, becase fr discovers its autonomous vocation to be unstable and incapable of being sstsined, Beaune art rst continslly conesive oft autonomy as 4 burden it mus bch embrace and escape from, in all this art comes t0 Speak the truth ~ ina Yanguage that snot that of ruh-oly cognition — shout the fate of truth and art in modernity. Ar’ exclusion fom Ss- fordercopetion and mora judgement is then, 3 condition of is ability to register (na speaking silence) a second-order tuth about frstardet truth. Artis the crcl self-reflection of truth-only cognition and is con- Science. To consider art as aenated from truth and not pt separated from it in a happy language game ofits own, is necessarily to conceive of i a acting in excess of ts excluded status, When at loses is critical ‘apucity it ends, wil end, fra second time "Ther sone moment in this story ofa ication from truth and its stzempt to overcome that alienation that is of special significance: i Kants Gru of Judgement ‘Te significance of Kant's work is ewofld (On the one hand, i Kans thied Cri thatatemps to generate, to ‘are out and eonstiue, the domain ofthe aesthetic nits wholly modern ‘Sinication. In securing an autonomous domain of aesthetic judgement, omain with its own norms, language and se of races, Kant was simultaneously secuting the independence ofthe domains of cogaition and ‘moral worth from sethetic interference. Following Habermas, [shall fue that the catoorial divisions of teaon represented by the three CGringueriseribes 4 theory of modernity thravph its provision of igor understanding of the difrences between what have come o be called the langue games of knowing ight action and moral worth, and and aesthetics’ Modernity i the eparation of spheres, the Becoming Ssutonomoer of trath, beauty and goodness from one another, and tit 6 IyrooucTiow: ArsTHETIE ALIENATION developing it sl-sufcient forms of practice: moder science and ech- ology, private morality and modern legal forms, and madem art, This Categoria separation of domains represents the distaltion ofthe meta physi totais ofthe pre-movern ge. To this day, for mst philosophers this division of labour remains unimpeachable. Even writers on ar who think thatthe proper way of compeehending arti as an institutional ‘Phenomenon, 2 move that at fst glue appeats o parallel pos-posist philosophy of science, hold thatthe language of art, art practices are 20- Tonomous practices, ally unlike ethical or cognitive practices. And this should tell ws that the move to ‘practic’ al, to providing an account of hai and what it snot to be al eittaen of the art world doesnot of isl ditety entail the Kind of subation of distinctions ental to over= ‘coming aesthetics; such alk merely eplaces mental alk (aesthetic aiudes nd the like) by practice (inatittion o language gue) talk, but eaves the ‘tego sepufation of at and wath fem in pce. ‘On the other hand, part of Kan’ projec in the Ciiue of Judtement wes to use asthe jagement in order to locate the underlying nity of "eas and to ros the gl separating the domains of Feedom and nate, ‘ought and is. Almost noone has thought Kant sucessful inthis endext~ ‘ur. On the contrary, for many ofthe generation of pilsopher allowing Kant, his allure here was a clue tothe lure the mrong turing, of the CCeitcl programme self. For them, the arguments of the third Crue indicated the falsity of the categoria divisions berven the thee faculties ‘of mind and theit respective abjes domains They saw in the third CCrtgue the shadowy outines ofa philosophy premised upon the suble= tion of those legislative divisions: But since for them, fr Schiler, Schelling and Hegel, the xtegoril divisions ofthe Critical system were indices of the fragmentations constituting modern societies, then in secking to contrive an overcoming of Kant they were simultaneously Engaged in 2 critical project for the overcoming of moderniy.® And [ecause for dem for Geran Kdealiom nd Romantic twas preily the domain of are and aesthetics that was the Archimedean point that allowed for the overcoming of modernity, then there was also natura ‘emptation wo regard the proviso of a new aechetic, + pos-acshetic pilosophy of are asthe polical means through which modernity was to ‘reconstituted. For them the highest at of reason was tobe anaesthetic et, and their gual was to provide a new mythology of reason that would ‘unite mankind: For aesthetic modernism, as these cial projects may be called, the alienation of at fom truth must be conrued as both a Categoria cause and # symptom of the dislocations and. deformations underlying modernity; the aesthetic domain at characterized by Kant ‘provides insight into those dislocations and deformations as well a3 Insinuting the conceptual resources for transformation and reintegration, resources forthe poll transformation af the modern world. Whether Termooucrion: AESTHETIC ALIENATION 7 indy or knowingly, this i the critical programme pursued by the writers dscuseed ia his book. Wha the chim forthe double effec ofthe third Cinque amounts to | ‘the thesis tha dhe division between erie and supporters of enlightened ‘modernity (division sometimes though of central to what separates the ‘taitons of moder continental and analytic philosophy) is best lested ‘om and around the ambiguous legacy of the third Caigu fone reads the Crague as moderately successful in exabishing the autonomy of the axsthetic domain, one wll flow he rajectay of analytic plow in its ‘pursuit of ruth-only cognition. Following this tractor amounts tothe Uncriicalaceptance of enlightened modernity. If one rade the Crue 4s the radial undoing of the extegorial divisions between knowledge, ‘morality and acetic, one wll follow the tector of the continental tradition, Following thi tector involves a ertque of enlightened mod emit. The Crue of Judgement, and ot the philosophy of Hegel i the place where the question of maderity i most pespcuously raised, where the eategorial chim that Enlightened modernity must substandate for itself are most visibly at issue. Are the goals of the Enlightenment erly fated through the categoria separation and division of spheres odo those divisions prohibit the fllment ofthe goals and intentions which their emergence promise? nity, Thad intended my opening chaper on Kant o be a rcheara ofthe coming tobe ofthe domain ofthe aesthetic premised upon a series of negations: aestheic judgment is without concep, without inter, without pleasure; its objet purposeful but withou purpose, et. Ths was to be followed by accounts of the post-acshctic theories that atempt to tive back to art and “aesthetics all that Kant had negated. The husk of| Such readings is, pesaps, sl visible. However, in the course of writing found myself beginning to perceive not the familiar third Critique af Anglo-American commentriy but the Crt at might have appeared to is German Idealist reader Chapter | attempts analytically to recon- struct such 2 reading; my goa iso demonstate how apreic is aesthetic autonomy (rom trath and moral rightness), and to locate within Kane's ‘ext its own implicit historical reflection, its own act of mourning, onthe ‘coming ito beng of autonomous aesthetics. "The repercussions of such a reading of Kant’s third Critigue are ‘immense, for not only dos it provides fi hint about the rare ofthe ‘overcoming of the alienation of ae fom cath, but it begins ro engender What we have come to think ofa the fundamental concept vocabulary ‘oF continental philosophy, the philosophy that challenges enlightened ‘modernity through recnurse tothe phenomena of at and sexes, A ‘ood del of what I want to demoastrate in this wok is that what we have ome to recognize a the continental tradition involve, of is best con ‘true as involrng, «series of variations on themes drawn frum Kans 5 Intro 0UCTION: AESTHETIC ALENATION emen. Theoretically, this means that each writer con sidered wil be shown to be pursing a version of esthesie modernise, 2m ‘esthetic ertigue of enlightened reason and modernity; interpreatves, ‘ich chapter il sek to demensrate thatthe Fundamental insight ofthe text under consideration i best understood as the working out of one {or more) of the fundamental concepts of Kans aesthetics. The cena ‘onarpts of Kant's aesthetics — asthe recive judgement, pein, ‘ens cman, the slime ~ are themselves critical inteogatons of tour standard epistemological and moral vocabulary: aesthetic judgement ‘questions the paradigm of knowing as subsoming particulars under uni ‘eal; che act of genius conceptualize re action 4 creative and legit tive rather than as rule Following; the ida of the sensu commas installs 2 notion of an epistemic cormmanity that breaks with the cms of meth- ‘dolgial slips and permits reiseiption of senility, while the en ofthe sublime provides fora caneption of aterity or eherness that ‘hallenges the sovereignty of the selFetermining, autonomous moral sub- ject. The language of Kansan aescheis i nt simply diferent from the CCeical vorabuary of Inowing and right action, but, despite Kans ‘intentions, rubs a challenge to that vocabulary. In exploiting Kant’ sex thetic discourse Heidewzer (genius), Derrida (he sublime) and. Adorno (Gjdgement and sens commun) systematically pursue the work of deform Sng and reforming our understanding of rath and meal "To pur this same point another ay, at last one sgifcnt strain of modern thought has been seeking wa of (fe) conseting the madera subject or self with an order beyond it, searching “for moral Soares ‘usd the subject through languages which resonate avthor him or er the gasping of an order which 1 inseparably indexed to 2 personal sision'* Now the writers I interrogate consier that such soures cannot be discovered in, sy, the fact of liuage as always intersubjective o in Hnguisic community asthe inevitable Bearer ofthe possibilities of indi= ‘vidal spech and ation, that ony require positive commitment ot in order fr communal ie ro be reinvigorated as 2 moral source and auth ity. This the bland hope of so-called communitarian politcal theory ‘The deprivations of modernity are experiential as well as theoreti, 4 societal‘ cultural fatality as well at philosophical perplexity. So for Heider and Adorno access to sources of meaning beyond the self are ‘locked, on the one hand by the disposition of modern social formations 1 technologically evened or rationalized, am iron cage, and on the other and bythe disposition of our categoria framework, which in separating the discourses of truth goodnes and besuty from one another dears us from comprehensively recording our station, fia making ineligible bd significant is speci human weight and sence, is violence and ‘refs, disruptions and isensivtes. A cern deformation of soit and future simultaneously engenders « deformation of the terms through Termopvcrion: AESTHETIC ALIENKTION 5 hich dose istorde deformations could be cognized and cried, For ‘easons that will eed extensive expounding, autonomous art manages, fr managed, however indirectly, sich a cognition and critique; and, even ‘mote sgncandly fr my purpses, aesthen dicore conan concept and terms of ena, categorialfomework, which f red Jom cnet ot ‘an euonomonsactheic domain mould ope the pay of encountering Seclar world empowered asa ssurce of meaning yond the seo” yc. ‘Aesthetic udgement, the judgement of tute, intends a caniion of wht ' significant or wocth in iself through the way ft resonates fr us; sub- limityitends an experience of emphatic otherness or alert iedacible to teuth-onlyeognicin or moral reason; genius intends an acting beyond the meaning-gving povers of the subjective wil, the sna commas Inends a conception of community whose mutuaities and attunements ‘condition and orient what aesthetic judgement jdes and genius creates “Together these concept race or envision an aerate form of community Which is itrevoeaby “pola in it complerion Hiernating within aesthetic discourse is another discourse, another rmetaphyrics the very one we apparently need inorder to cognize and ‘wansform the one me routinely inhabit. Thus the refige that eesthetice represents for ths alremative canepaon of community and mode of eog- nition simultaneously entraps it, «trap chat remains unc aesthetic ‘confinement s brought to an end. In Heidegger, Derrida and Adorn the ‘tempt is made to undo the block, release what rt and aehetic discourse ‘Senify from the spell ha encloses them within the illusory wood of a. Par of what is involved in this atempe isthe assimilation a the discourse ‘ofthis philosophical enterprise to the dixsourse of aesthetics, the hope ‘of ths practice is that through this assimilation philosophy will come to possess the creal characteristics of the (asthe) objects i is talking houtAestbetc moerism in philosophy is not only abut ar’ alen- sion from and critique of modernity, but equally i that alienation and tvitique; i the atempt by philosophy wo like itself roan aesthetic object in oder that it ean both dncusvely analyse the fte of art and ‘wuth while simulancouly being works tobe judged (the way poems are ‘works to be judged). While this assiilation allows these philosophies to Appropriate for themselves some ofthe power and force of at works, ‘ually entails thei slncing and diemption from the sort of trth that ‘ermine dominant for ws. "At one level this state of airs is invitable. If ruthonly cognition i both 2 deformed conception of truth and constitutive of mademiy, then ‘Philosophy cannot sy whats rue without abandoning ise to that which Ie seeks to ercze. Alteraively, ifthe ertiqe of tuth-only cognition and modernity is lodged outside what truth has become, and hence ma {inl and external tothe accomplishments of modernity, then in retain ing loyal tis object, nits conceptual fidelity to at philosophy loses he 0 Iermopvcrin, Ansruenic ALENSTION ‘capacity discusively to understand and explain, Ths isthe constitutive spon of sethetic modernism: in remaining fully discursive i betrays What reason and uth could be, what art and aesthetic discourse remain # promis of, but if it abandon the rigours of fill dscursivity it necessarily falls silent, an inmate in the refuge and prison of at Pethaps the procedural dilemma thatthe thesis of aesthetic alienation ‘enmls can be pu this way. If art wosks and aesthetic discourse do not ‘embody 3 selesucient alternative to truth-only contin, but rather revel it Knits through exemplijing their wn paral character, the jen internal cotadtons and apora, then one cannot rake up 2 posi- tion either inside or outside them. To take up a portion inside would ream having philosophy join ain its ranged disoure, thereby leaving. the origin of that sate of affairs unexplained and unaccounted foe ‘Conversely, to explain modernity philosophically means standing oxide the cial vantage point at permits and subsuming it under the very terms of reference itis srugling aginst. An outside’ positon is sug tested by each ofthe philosophers considered except Deri: it isthe he tory of progressive moral culture in Kan; the history of Being (a8 the pach of metaphysis) and modernity as governed by the essence of tech nology in Heidegger; and the history of rationalization completing tse in Capitalism in Adora. Each ofthese histories explain modernity, providing the ultimate fame of reference for understanding it And inorder ost ae thee competing accounts and arbirate between them, T shall place ‘heir accounts within what I take tobe the best historical account of mod ity. That will be this work's “ality to barbarism’ it rationalise "Yer Deva is not wrong in demsrrng fom such accounts, for thee twanscendeat perspectives approximate in one way or another tthe very thing they ae attempting to twist free from and overcome. In pasting, ‘through whatever means, history asthe specie determinant of out fe they, and I, ake up a poson ouside history and unify ivng it the very unity and transcendence they are otherwise writing agaist. A philosophical history of at, or politics, displaces the uniqueness ofthe art ‘work o human action with a meaning exteral tot. So, Hannah Arendt Tas argued, Higa’ philosophy, though cancerned with action and the realm of human afar, consisted in contemplation. Before the bacward- siete glance of though, everything that had been politcal act, and words, and events ~ became historical, with the result thatthe rnew word which was ushered in by the eghreenth century did not rective "new sence of polite’, bua plosophy of history Isrrooucrion: AdstHeHC ALIENATION " Arende’'s onn work is vitally concerned with the disappearance of politcal ‘ction and judgement, polite life itself, snc the tine ofthe Grek nd ‘ne of the central events in er narrative isthe development ofthe pls phy of history which simultaneously acknowledges and wipes a¥ay, 8 with 2 sponge, the immanence of human affairs, emewining them in provi- dence, progres, class conc, the workings ofthe “invsible hand et But in recording the story ofthe suppression of polit jdgement and accion Arendt becomes anocher philosophical contemplate of history. She an only reveal, judge, the fie of polit judgement through recoars ‘he very kind of istry which sche suppression of judgement Tar is alienated fom wrth but not its absolute other, if politcal ction is alienated fram historical menning bat not ite able other (as Arendt appears to belive), then the procedural, philsophical aporia rcapulated ithe dalectc’ of immanent (inde) and transcendent (outside) criticism, deriving rom thei incommensurabity with each other, mast eqully be «product and symptom othe phenomenon being analysed. When Adoeno, for example, concedes that transcendent eit ‘dsm, the providing ofa pilosphy af history, contains an afin to ar= tram’ and yet insists upon f, hei making more than an epistemological point about the unavoidably ofthe eriique recoiling upon the crc? ‘What appears 2s a eel tha usurp the ert epistemological is til 4 moment of selimplicatin, an acknowledgement of complicity and init For Adorno that acknowledgement of complicity and guilt isthe ‘thc gesture that makes eitique posible. I shal follow Adorno in this ‘arguing thatthe quesion of method, the question of inside and outside, (of immanence and transcendence, the question of how philosophy isto ‘eomprt is when is terms of analysis ae always already lements oft deformation of reason, must be construed a question of ethics and pol tis. Or rather, if ruth-onlycopntion docs represent bath the rity and

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