The Ghosts of Normativity

What are the “normative foundations” of Critical Theory? Can Critical Theory be understood in the context of normative ethics? In particular, what is at stake in a normative reformulation of Adorno and Horkheimer's arguments, given that they insistently refused to provide any such “normative foundations”? This article addresses these questions of Critical Theory's alleged “normative turn” by offering a closer look at, on the one hand, Adorno's views on moral philosophy, and, on the other hand, his aesthetics of dissonance. The article argues that in his reflections on moral philosophy Adorno warns against the social and political dangers of positively formulated “normative foundations”; in his writings on questions of art and aesthetics, in particular his writings on music, Adorno explicitly articulates his understanding of theory and practice that counteracts the hazards of what he calls “repressive normativity.” Adorno's concept of dissonance, a centerpiece of his aesthetic theory, is explicated in this article in relation to its ethical context—as both a critique of normativity and as an alternative, negative normativity. If the problem that a search for “normative foundations” entails is the argument that norms and conventions claim validity and authority even after the social and historical situation in which they evolved changes, and therefore repressively impose themselves upon the subjects, then Adorno's ethics of dissonance counteracts them precisely in this temporal recurring aspect: it exposes their ghostlike character and allows for an emancipatory and anti-repressive polyphony. Understood this way, this article is also an attempt to liberate Critical Theory's original ideas from the ethical, normative, and foundationalist ghosts that haunt them

Argument (complex analysis · Cognitive dissonance · Context (archaeology · Critical theory · Epistemology · Normative · Normative ethics · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Dissonance

  Open Access•Maira Hayat•Cultural Anthropology•2024

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• Adorno on objects

  Pratap Itta, Sudarsan Padmanabhan•Distinktion Journal of Social…•2024

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