The displacements of the particular in Theodor Adorno’s aesthetics

Abstract

These work proposes to delimit and put into perspective the spot of the particular in Theodor Adorno's aesthetics, based on his displacements, especially considering: 1) the relationship between specific works of art and the tradition; 2) the relationship between works of art with themselves and with society; and, 3) the relationship between the particular and the universal – as a critical appropriation of Hegel's thought by Adorno, explicit in specific works by Beethoven and Berg. The relational juxtaposition, as superscripted in the three topics, will allow us to perceive the effects of the displacements of the particular which, once configured within the works of art, establishes itself as a denial and criticism of the current state of affairs, insofar as it points to the contradictions of the social fabric, but, denying its modus operandi, by appearing as a mode of non-coercive totality of the universal over the particular, within which the particular moves and, in its movement, determines itself and determines the universal. It is this mode of determination, effected by the displacements of the particular, that will position the work of art as an articulating agent – ​​from within – of possible ways that are distinct from the current ways of knowing and living in society.