Adorno’s Philopolemology

Abstract

This article argues that the polemic(al) plays a crucial mediating role in Adorno's philosophy. As a theoretical category, it describes the resistance to thought which inevitably frustrates attempts to reconstruct the world in the image of reason. As a political and rhetorical strategy, it contributes in large measure to Adorno's self-understanding as a public intellectual in post-war Germany. The article attempts to chart the interrelationship and interdependence of these two aspects through a reading of 'Parataxis', Adorno's 1963 speech on Hölderlin. This speech suggests that art instantiates a polemic which first comes to be activated through the (polemical) speaking engagement of the philosopher.

Disclosing Critique

“…Of course, this by no means leads Adorno to conclude that the project of a critical theory must be abandoned, or that truth is anchored exclusively in the hypothetical consensus of a linguistic community. From his viewpoint, critical theory is still possible under the 'conditions of contingency' (see Bonacker, 2001) prevalent today only when it moves in this field of tension and seeks truth where it cannot be found: in exaggeration and in polemics (see Savage, 2005). Alexander García Düttmann has recently shown the extent to which exaggeration is, for Adorno, more than mere overstatement, more than a rhetorical device.…”