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To imitate all that is hidden. The place of mimesis in Adorno’s theory of musical performance
(2017)
The article examines the use of the concept of mimesis in Adorno’s notes towards a theory of musical performance. In trying to idiosyncratically define the latter as “reproduction”, Adorno relied on a framework elaborating on concepts introduced by Arnold Schoenberg, Hugo Riemann and Walter Benjamin – a framework that the article discusses insofar as it deals with the problem of mimesis. Specific attention is devoted to the relation between Benjamin’s essays on language and translation and Adorno’s theory of notation, that soon became the crucial aspect of his theory of reproduction. Given the shortcomings of Adorno’s theory, which in the end did not achieve its goals, the article proposes to capitalize on his terminology while at the same time rethinking his framework in the light of recent musicological paradigms for the study of musical performance. On the whole, the article shows that it was Adorno’s philosophical assumptions – in particular the theses of music’s non-intentionality and of its non-similarity to language – that prevented him from convincingly theorizing musical performance, and suggests an alternative framework for future research.
Starting from Warburg, the distinguishing mark of an image, considered as identity-difference of visible and invisible, is its offering itself as an implementation of a temporality, and at the same time of a memory that is immanent in the sensible structure of the image. It’s what we find both in Benjamin and in Adorno: in both cases, it is just because the image is marked by a “internal time” that it is able to have a critical function towards reality, and at the same time an utopian character that is all the same with its non-renounceable testimonial task.
Both Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno consider ‘aesthetical experience’ as an “image experience” assuming a power of images “to set free forces” directed to produce or support aesthetical-political (Benjamin) or aesthetical-critical (Adorno) requirements. Profane illumination, ‘thinkimages’, phantasmagory, dialectical images, decayed ‘aura’ and technicalized images in Benjamin’s theory of aesthetical modernity. Expressive feature or “mimetic” eloquence in nature and art countering reality, dismantled ‘aura’ in contemporary desacralized work of art, but also persisting ‘aura’ in its meaningful dimension in Adorno’s aesthetical theory.
In my paper, I intend firmly to criticize Taubes' interpretation of Benjamin's Theology as a modern form of Gnosticism (Benjamin as a modern Marcionit). In a positive way, I sustain rather the thesis that Benjamin's Messianism is in close connection with his conception of reason (“the sharpened axe of reason”) and, in particularly, with the paradoxical unity of Mysticism and Enlightenment, which, according to the famous definition of Adorno, distinguishes his thought. As a radically anti-magical and anti-mythical conception of the historical time, Benjamin's Messianism has to be considered as an original synthesis between motifs of the mystical tradition of the Jewish Kabbalah and motifs belonging to the rationalist tradition of the Jewish philosophy. Moving from Cohen's standpoint of a continuity between Maimonides and Kant, I consider therefore the affinity between his messianic conception of history and that of Benjamin. Both, Benjamin and Cohen, share, together with the reference to the a priori of the idea of justice, the reference to the Kantian connection between rationality and hope. Hence originates the non-eschatological Messianism of both. Motives of difference between Cohen and Benjamin’s messianic idea are to be found, conversely, in their different way to consider the idea of "the infinite task" and of its infinite fulfillment in the context of the historical time. Unlike the fundamentally ethical interpretation that Cohen gives of this relationship, Benjamin understands it ontologically in a monadological sense. This explains the constitutive relationship that exists, in Benjamin's philosophy, between Origin, Fragment and Revelation. In the light of this connection, Benjamin's messianic understanding of the historical time exceeds the Scholemian alternative between a restorative and a utopian conception of Messianism. Consequently, the Krausian motto “Ursprung ist das Ziel” (“The Origin is the Goal”) displays its truth in the idea of the messianic fragment or spark.
In order to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of Benjamin's death, the conference "Dialectic images and sudden constellations: Warburg, Benjamin, Adorno" was held in Florence. The idea, common to the three authors, of a truth content that can only be realised in its concrete and istantaneous configuration, was embodied here in the form of a "philosophical concert", where contributions by philosophers, philologists and historians of arts and architecture succeeded each other.
As an exemplum of that kind of “modern” art, in terms of Adorno, Kafka’s work is marked not only by its strictly “realistic” character, but also by the unavoidable critical and testimonial value of that realism. According to this perspective, both in Adorno and in Benjamin the testimonial aspect of Kafkian writing – that is of a writing as “dialectical image”, as memory of the unfullfilled possibility – it’s all the same not with its symbolical or “epiphanical” aspect but instead with its “allegorical” one.
Hamlet or Europe and the end of modern Trauerspiel. On some shakespearians motifs in Walter Benjamin
(2019)
Hamlet’s character sets, under different shapes and extents, the benchmark against which a large part of the European philosophy of the very long «short twentieth-century» behind us has had to measure. In the name of Hamlet as the most enigmatic among Shakespeare’s creatures, even Europe, its spirit and destiny, is identified, according to the well-known claim by Paul Valery.
Common trait to a big part of these interpretations – from the juvenile works of Pavel Florenskij and Lev S. Vygotskij (respectively written in 1905 and 1915) to Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet oder Ekuba. Der Einbruch der Zeit in das Spiel (1956) – is offered by the detection, in Hamlet’s figure, of the contradiction inherent to an epochal transition: the time of an unresolved passage between two ages that only knows the endless pain of an “interim”. My paper concerns the possibility to interpret Hamlet’s time as the time of an “interim” in light of Benjamin’s claims about Shakespeare’s drama contained in his book on the German Trauerspiel.
While Florenskij interprets Hamlet’s time as tragic and the figure of Hamlet as a tragic one, in my essay - moving from some observations on the " Hamlet Problem " by the young Franz Rosenzweig - I consider the original Benjaminian thesis about the character and the drama of Hamlet as the end of the modern Trauerspiel. Starting from a statement by Theodor Adorno in the famed Hornberger Brief to Benjamin of August 2, 1935, I outline, therefore, how Benjamin characterizes the figure of Hamlet. This, from his early writings on the relationship between tragedy and Trauerspiel up to the great book on the Origin of the German Trauerspiel.
In the frame of Benjamin’s interpretation, exactly by virtue of its distance from the thesis on the duality of tragedy (evoked by Florenskij’s interpretation as well as other ones), the Shakespearian theatrum of consciousness, paradigmatically represented in the figure of Hamlet and in the intimately dialectic character of his drama, is accounted for as necessary correlate of the Cartesian’s theatrum of consciousness. From a theoretical point of view, the Benjaminian characterization of Hamlet's figure reveals, therefore, something of the nature of modern consciousness and of consciousness in general in relation to the problem of truth and its representation. Hence the end of modern Trauerspiel coincides with the original incompleteness of its time. Consequently, I also claim Hamlet's dramatic figure to represent the aporetic characters of modern politics. This contrasts the thesis of Carl Schmitt who (in direct controversy with Benjamin) speaks, instead, of the Shakespearean drama as an expression of a pre-modern barbaric time.
Nella sua opera estrema, Teoria estetica, Adorno menziona Paul Valéry una ventina di volte. Già questo fatto basterebbe ad attestare l’importanza che Valéry riveste per la riflessione adorniana sull’arte e sull’estetico. Infatti Teoria estetica, sebbene costituita nel suo complesso da un corpus testuale di mole imponente, è avara di citazioni e sono tutto sommato pochi gli autori (sia artisti sia filosofi) i cui nomi ricorrono numerose volte tra le sue pagine. Oltre a Kant e Hegel, e oltre a Benjamin, più frequenti di Valéry sono solo Baudelaire, Beckett, Beethoven e Schönberg, mentre all’incirca egualmente frequenti sono Brecht, Goethe e Nietzsche. Vista la parsimonia con la quale Adorno centellina i propri referenti espliciti nel momento in cui compie il massimo sforzo di condensazione teorica di una lunga riflessione sull’estetico, sarebbe avventato relegare il dato della frequenza del nome di Valéry in Teoria estetica nel novero degli accidenti meramente estrinseci. L’impressione della rilevanza di tale riferimento risulta poi sicuramente rafforzata se si vanno a leggere i luoghi in cui viene effettuato il rimando a Valéry.
Статтю «Нотатка про гуманітарну науку та освіту» німецький соціяльний філософ Теодор Адорно, представник критичної теорії суспільства, опублікував 1962 року. У цій філософсько-освітній роботі Теодор Адорно продовжив попередню тему свого критичного розгляду цілісної єдности елементів культури індустріально-масового соціуму, які сприяють утвердженню в суспільству його ідеології як цілком панівної. На переконання Теодора Адорно, сукупний вплив тих елементів, зокрема, культуріндустрії, системної філософії, науково орієнтованого пізнання тощо на колективну свідомість західних європейців виконує функцію дієвого чинника владного контролю над їхнім спільним життям. У своїх філософсько-освітніх творах Теодор Адорно здійснив також критичний напад на шкільну та університетську освіту повоєнної Західної Німеччини. Ця освіта, на думку філософа, залишається традиційно незмінною, що унеможливлює будь-які серйозні антиідеологічні перетворення в її системі. Такі зміни завдяки оновленому освітньому процесу сприяли б вихованню молодого громадянина, свідомого й активного учасника демократичних перетворень у посттоталітарному суспільстві. Однак, за Теодором Адорно, освітній процес у нереформованому університеті залишається керованим передовсім носіями сцієнтичної свідомості, що жодним чином не сприяє антиідеологічному вихованню студентів. У цій роботі Теодор Адорно зауважив особливе значення для освіти гуманітарних наук, які німецькою мовою перекладають як «науки про дух», традиційно присутніх у німецькій університетській освіті. На його переконання, гуманітарні науки, як науки про дух, через превалювання в освітньому процесі «диктату наукового ідеалу» втратили присутність у собі чинника індивідуального духу людини. Ознаками наявності того явища в університетській освіті Теодор Адорно назвав: абсолютний пріоритет серед гуманітарних студій досліджень наукового характеру, відсутність особистої педагогічної роботи викладача зі студентом-гуманітарієм, тенденція боротьби носія уречевленої наукової свідомости проти будь-якого відмінного знання, єдність соціяльного та теоретичного конформізму носія тої сцієнтичної свідомості. Як і в инших своїх філософських роботах Теодор Адорно запропонував убачати особисту діяльність людини, зумовлену силою її індивідуального духу, тим природним чинником, який здатний вести безупинну особисту боротьбу з тими неґативними явищами в освіти, що заводять на ідеологічні манівці освітній процес в університеті та в освіті загалом.
Este artigo tem por objetivo analisar comparativamente as semelhanças contidas nas críticas à democracia liberal presentes em alguns trabalhos selecionados de Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) e Robert Kurz (1943-2012). A despeito da estreita associação do primeiro autor com o regime nazista após 1933 e do segundo ser normalmente caracterizado como um pensador marxista (embora bastante crítico ao marxismo “ortodoxo”), são verificáveis inúmeras similitudes entre ambos quando se propõem a analisar as características do liberalismo parlamentar das democracias do século XX. Uma hipótese que pode explicar tais semelhanças seria a influência exercida por Schmitt sobre diversos teóricos da escola de Frankfurt, com os quais Kurz frequentemente dialoga em seus escritos e que foram inspiradores de algumas de suas reflexões – em especial, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno e Max Horkheimer, embora Schmitt também tenha influenciado Franz Neumann, Otto Kirchheimer, Karl Korsch e Herbert Marcuse. Outra via de interpretação abordada aqui se refere à possibilidade de Schmitt ter encontrado, em suas teorias sobre o Estado e sobre o direito, os limites epistemológicos do liberalismo moderno, o que constitui o principal objeto de pesquisa de Kurz e foi tema recorrente nos escritos dos teóricos de Frankfurt.