MUSIC, PHILOSOPHY, AND MODERNITY

366 music, philosophy, and modernity

already being the case. This extreme position relies on the totalising

argument about the delusions arising from instrumental reason and

the commodity form inDoE, and this leads to the counter-position that

becomes a sort of negative theology. The work on Mahler, however,

offers a more fruitful way of suggesting why philosophy might see its

task as getting beyond the given. Part of the point of Adorno’s use of the

idea of non-identity is to reorient the goals of philosophical thinking

away from foundationalism. This aim is echoed by Rorty’s claim that any

attempt to fix an ontological foundation for philosophy by, for example,

seeking to establish metaphysics on the basis of physics as the potential

‘theory of everything’, fails to offer political guidance or anything that

might enable individual ‘redemption’ by giving life a new orientation.

As we saw, Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology also can be

seen as trying to delineate ‘the basic forms of a possible articulation

(‘Gliederung’) of the meaning of all that can be understood’ (Heideg-

ger 1979 : 166 ).^31 Adorno thinks that such positions have shown them-

selves to be inadequate to the experience of modernity. Any attempt

at grounding such positions in the ‘real nature of things’ lacks the

dimension which results from seeing how that nature itself changes as

the historical relationships of humankind to nature change.^32 There

is therefore always the possibility that the apparently necessary order

is actually just a historical product, and so is transformable. Resources

that might aid such transformation are vital, but they always run the risk

of being either delusory or dangerous. False transcendence is precisely

what can be associated with the most nightmarish political visions in

modernity.^33

Adorno backs up his view by analysis of the historical failure of foun-

dational philosophies, and links this to his concern with music and

philosophy. He talks, connecting music to modern philosophy’s failure

to establish an agreed ontological order that he associates with Husserl

and Heidegger, of ‘the aesthetic impossibility of a reestablishment of an

31 This particular aim can reasonably be termed ‘ontological’ in the sense intended by
Adorno, even if Heidegger’s aims can also be construed as an attack on ‘ontotheology’,
the idea of a ready-made world.
32 This position does not reject particular scientific claims, but rather serves as a reminder
that what nature is thought to be depends on what questions are asked of it. Heidegger
can be read as saying something similar, but see Lafont’s objections in thelast chapter.
33 This is why Rorty argues that art is a matter of private transcendence, as opposed to
the public role of science in problem-solving. Adorno is aware of the danger of the
aestheticisation of politics, but thinks art is a key to public issues. See the Conclusion of
Bowie 2003 b.