J. M. Bernstein

This was a weird one. Bernstein wants to put Adorno into dialogue with contemporary meta-ethics. He argues that, once upon a time, human beings’ practical reason was identical with our theoretical reason: there was a form of moral knowledge. We knew what we ought to do. Thanks to disenchantment and rationalization, as analyzed by Weber, this has ceased to be the case. We are no longer motivated by reason to perform ethical actions. Adorno picks up on the German Idealist theses that:

i) conceptuality is subjectivity; and that
ii) conceptuality is normative.

The problem we have is that our concept of the concept is inadequate, overly rationalized, no longer capable of motivating us normatively. Bernstein calls this the ‘simple concept.’ In its place, we have to start thinking in accordance with the ‘complex concept,’ which will motivate ethical action, because it will take into account the materiality of our world and the fact that we're animals.

As a work of ethical philosophy, Bernstein’s book is remarkable, but it also ends up making claims which completely contradict Adorno’s own arguments. For Bernstein, the problem is a non-identity of general and particular (our general concept does not motivate our particular actions); for Adorno, the problem is the identity of them. For Bernstein, we need to ‘re-enchant’ our world; for Adorno, the problem is that our world remains too enchanted. For Bernstein, bad reason is negative and critical; for Adorno, good reason is negative and critical. For Bernstein, reason is insufficiently authoritative; for Adorno, it is overly authoritative; and most importantly, for Bernstein “It is our reasoning that disenchants nature and creates the iron cage of modernity,” 138, while for Adorno – following Marx, rather than Weber – it is material social processes which lead to reification, fetishisation and alienation. In short, the danger of a Hegelian reading of Adorno is that it makes him into an idealist in the bad sense: it looks, on Bernstein’s reading, like the problem is with individual human beings, who have just made some intellectual mistakes. Bernstein was trying to get philosophers to pay attention to Adorno; but the Adorno they’re paying attention to is just a slightly more stylish version of themselves.… (mais)

This is a good book...IF one is at least somewhat familiar with Adorno's aesthetic theory and current debates in art theory and criticism (in particular, the works of T.J. Clark, Michael Fried, and Rosalind Krauss) as well as the work of the philosophers Stanley Cavell and Immanuel Kant.

Definitely not the place to begin if you aren't.

In this collection of related essays, Bernstein examines the role of modern art as it relates to the modern predicament as diagnosed by Adorno (i.e. alienation from society and from nature through reification). Within this context, Bernstein analyzes the work of artists such as Soutine, Pollock, Cindy Sherman and Anthony Caro.

Another caveat: If you don't share buy the claims made by Adorno in works such as _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ or _Aesthetic Theory_, then this book may not be for you. Bernstein working within this context rather than attempting to defend it.… (mais)