Adorno

Towards a Theory of Aesthetics 125

‘Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte’ (Contribution to the History of Ideas),
a highly original and witty comparison of Kant and Nietzsche,^19
appeared in the Frankfurter Zeitung on 6 June. He also wrote a number
of articles on music, very much in the spirit of his favourite proverb,
one he used to repeat throughout his life: ‘The leopard cannot change
its spots’ (literally: ‘The cat never stops catching mice’; trans.). These
writings included his articles for Anbruch and short concert reviews, as
well as a portrait of Arnold Schoenberg for the programme notes for
the Kroll Opera house. Previously, he had written a new interpretation
of Berg’s opera Wozzeck for a new production in Essen, and this
appeared in the programme booklet Der Scheinwerfer: Blätter der
Städtischen Bühne.

Rather more than a beginner’s foray into philosophy

Of Kierkegaard’s writings, Adorno focused chiefly on Either/Or, Fear
and Trembling, The Concept of Dread and the Philosophical Fragments.
Apart from these, he confined his study to a quite narrow field of sec-
ondary literature. In the notes, apart from Kant, Hegel and Husserl, he
refers only to a few contemporary thinkers, such as Georg Lukács,
Ernst Bloch and Martin Heidegger.
The title The Construction of the Aesthetic was a clear indication that
Adorno intended to give Kierkegaard’s philosophy an unconven-
tional interpretation. For, of the latter’s three stages on life’s way – the
aesthetic, the ethical and the religious – the aesthetic was conceived as
the least authoritative and the most superficial mode of existence. In
contrast to this, Adorno’s programme was the salvaging of aesthetic
illusion.^20 The provocative question he put was whether the aesthetic
was the realm in which truth is made manifest.
In the ‘Exposition’, and in tune with the title, he sets out the plan
of the following six chapters. The reader is at once drawn into his inter-
pretation. From the very first page he is confronted with the crucial
question whether Kierkegaard’s writings are philosophy or literature.
Adorno explains his own criteria and introduces his own definition
of philosophy: ‘Philosophical form requires the interpretation of the
real as a binding nexus of concepts. Neither the manifestation of the
thinker’s subjectivity nor the pure coherence of the work determines its
character as philosophy. This is, rather, determined in the first place by
the degree to which the real has entered into concepts, manifests itself
in these concepts, and comprehensibly justifies them.’^21 He defines
Kierkegaard’s philosophy as a strictly subjective mode of thought.
Despite the speculative element that is fundamental to it, this type of
thought differs from literature, he believes, because it forms its con-
cepts dialectically. The central question Adorno raises is: what con-
struction of the aesthetic do we find in Kierkegaard? He distinguishes