Adorno and philosophical modernism : the inside of things / Roger S. Foster.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foster, Roger, 1971- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adorno, Theodor W., 1903-1969.

Adorno, Theodor W.

Modernism (Aesthetics).

Physical Description:

xiii, 245 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Lanham : Lexington Books, [2016]

Summary:

Adorno and Philosophical Modernism: The Inside of Things offers an original interpretation and vigorous defense of Theodor Adorno's idea of philosophy as the practice of what Roger Foster calls "philosophical modernism". Adorno's philosophical writings, from the early 1930s to the late 1960s, are deeply informed by a distinctively modernist vision of human experience. This book seeks to establish that Adorno's unique and lasting contribution to philosophy consists of his sustained and rigorous development of this modernist vision into an encompassing practice of philosophical interpretation. The essential features of this vision can be discerned in all of Adorno's major writings in philosophy, social theory, and aesthetics. Its defining element is the idea of a patterning underlying ordinary experience, which, although not directly accessible, can be disclosed by the reconstructive work of philosophical or literary language. This vision, Foster argues, can be discerned in the major works of literary modernism (including Woolf, Proust, and Musil) as well as the interpretive technique of psychoanalysis developed by Sigmund Freud. The importance of Adorno's contribution to twentieth-century philosophy can only be fully appreciated by understanding how he develops this vision into an overarching practice of philosophical interpretation that furnishes a coherent and profound response to the decay of experience afflicting late-modern societies. In this book, Foster expounds that interpretive practice, exploring its ramifications and, in particular, its relation with literary modernism, and places it in critical dialogue with alternative philosophical responses. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Philosophical Modernism 17

2 Adorno and Heidegger on Language and the Inexpressible 51

3 Philosophy in the Open 83

4 Language and Aesthetic Experience 111

5 The Internal History of Truth 133

6 Modernist Ethics: Musil and Adorno 167

7 Virginia Woolf- Literature and Aesthetic Experience 195.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781498525008

1498525008

OCLC:

952195941