Abstract

In his first major published work, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, Theodor W. Adorno presents a complete rejection of the existence philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. This dissertation aims to elucidate the central arguments of Adorno's rejection as well as the way in which these arguments fail. Because Adorno's text cannot be summarized or analyzed in any systematic or repeatable manner, I uncover the problems of the text by focusing on two central themes: the sacrifice of the aesthetic life to that of the religious, and the flight of the individual from social reality. Through an analysis of these themes arise and fall the multiplicity of strains and tensions in Adorno's destruction and subsequent reconstruction of' an aesthetic-religious nexus in the collected writings of Kierkegaard. I demonstrate the extent to which Adorno's arguments have little or no relation to the writings of Kierkegaard and of his pseudonyms; I attempt to prove, rather, that Adorno's treatment of the aesthetic in Kierkegaard is a first insight into what was later to become Adorno's own aesthetic theory. This is made clear through a discussion of Adorno's posthumously published Aesthetic Theory