Abstract

This concluding chapter proposes an alternative interpretation of Theodor W. Adorno's unfinished Aesthetic Theory in which he reconsiders some of the philosopher's central aesthetic concepts, such as aesthetic autonomy, from the perspective of those moments when Adorno's writing appears to destabilize the work of art and, by extension, the philosophical claims that his theories generally are held to make on behalf of the aesthetic. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, initially shunned or attacked when it was posthumously published in 1970, has become increasingly his most widely and carefully read work. While the interpreters are still in disagreement about the appropriate reading of the text, there is largely consensus about its significance as the culmination of Adorno's œuvre and its importance for the contemporary debate on aesthetics.