On the Difficulty of Reading Aesthetic Theory Today: Reasons and Consequences

This article approaches the question of Th. W. Adorno's relevance to the present by arguing that his oeuvre has become irrelevant. To its well-known layers of difficulty another must be added, the narrowing down of the horizon of what can be thought, which leads Aesthetic Theory to acquire a layer of unintelligibility. The work's response consists in doubling its theoretical wager and attempting to itself provide the conceptual context reality denies it. The article concludes with a few considerations on the political potential of such procedure.