The Transcendental Economy Of Aesthetic

Hamilton, Andy; Stopford, Richard

Abstract

I have approached the complex issue of aesthetic autonomy through the lens of Adorno’s analysis of Kant. Speciically, my focus rests upon scattered remarks he makes about Kantian subjectivity in the idiom of economics. he recasting of key elements in Kant’s thinking in economic terms seems intended to reveal aspects of the theory which may otherwise remain obscured. Furthermore, it becomes apparent that these remarks convey some of what Adorno sees as ‘truth-content’ of Kant’s work. hat is, they help us to see how Kant’s philosophy relects important features of the socio-historical environment within which Kant was working.

In this piece, these remarks are drawn together and developed to provide the basis for a more systematic, ‘economic’ treatment of this aspect of Kant’s view. he analysis is divided into three parts. I consider what Adorno means by the truth- content of Kant’s philosophy. From that I turn to the economic account proper which is then divided into two further sections. First, I consider the ‘transcendental economy’ of Kantian subjectivity and its autonomy; I then use this analysis to situate the ‘transcendental economics’ of this subject’s aesthetic experience and its autonomy.

Adorno’s view appears to be as follows. Kant has reiied a particular socio-historical coniguration of bourgeois subjectivity in the form of a transcendentally necessary account of human subjectivity as such. Here, reification suggests a sort of fixity which denies the vitality and particularity of the entity in question. Second, despite failing to account for the dynamic and fluid nature of human subjectivity, this particular reification is a function of the developing bourgeois world and a capitalist division of labour.

These points inlect the view of aesthetic experience and autonomy. Kant’s aesthetics brings clear advances to the discipline, yet, for Adorno, his theory of aesthetic experience is wedded to heteronomous commitments concerning the transcendental conception of subjectivity as such. hese commitments inhibit the critical aspects of aesthetic experience and are unable to provide an appropriate basis for engaging with autonomous artworks which are, according to him, dialectical in character.

My account is the basis for a speculative interpretation of a small number of remarks by Adorno. It is provocative and relects controversial aspects of his thinking. Nevertheless, it presents a unique and arresting picture of one of the most inluential theories in aesthetics. In particular, the account suggests that the very attempt to wrest ourselves from mundane concerns in our appreciation of art is itself an expression of just those inluences.

Citation

Hamilton, A., & Stopford, R. (2013). The Transcendental Economy Of Aesthetic. In O. Hulatt (Ed.), Aesthetic and Artistic Autonomy. Bloomsbury

• Online Publication Date: Aug 1, 2013
• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Oct 30, 2024
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Book Title: Aesthetic and Artistic Autonomy
• ISBN: 9781441126078
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2993319