Notes on Aesthetic Theory

Translator's IntroductionPages xi-xiv situates Aesthetic Theory in the context of Adorno's physical location in the world and (at the end of) his other works. Establishing the text as "antagonist" lets the translator prepare the reader by dismissing an accusation like that; instead, the stylistics of Adorno are particular to the theory about to be worked through—a reworking of "aesthetic theory" to the "thing-in-itself," rather than its externality. Through Negative Dialectics and Dialectic of Enlightenment, a methodology has been worked out that Adorno uses to rework the aesthetic to a place within the artwork rather than outside of it; that is, not to minimize and further objectify the artwork, but to, in a way, invert (not invert, that's not right) the relationship and instead theorize the aesthetic from within the object...making the object more capacious as an understanding of it and everything around it, not a reduction that actually negates the artwork in service of the concept…