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Adorno’s Mimesis and its Limitations for Critical Social Thought

University of Notre Dame, everdeja{at}nd.edu

Adorno’s philosophy has enjoyed a resurgence of attention in political theory over the past decade. In this paper, I challenge contemporary efforts to adopt his critical theory by arguing that his conceptions of mimesis and negative dialectics, which are central to his thought, are ultimately unsatisfactory. I begin by critiquing the normative content of the negative dialectic, and then move on to explore its problematic relation with mimesis. In the following sections I argue that mimesis cannot do the normative work that Adorno requires of it. Rather, his idea of mimesis fails to inform critique (understood as ‘negative’ thought), relies on a problematic pre-modern idea of authenticity, and is incompatible with theoretical analyses of modern complex societies.

Key Words: Adorno • critical theory • negative dialectics • mimesis.

European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 8, No. 4, 493-511 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1474885109337995


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