Ratio, Mimesis, Dialectics: On Some Motifs in Theodor W. Adorno

At the center of the paper is the dialectical relationship between rationality and mimesis, according to the famous Adorno’s thesis that a ratio without mimesis is a “ratio that denies itself”. The starting point is given by the fact that Adorno’s posthumous work is not a Theory of Art in a positive sense, but an Aesthetic Theory. Consequently, Adorno’s aesthetics is considered the space in which the knot of the relationship between immediacy and mediation tightens up in the form of a mutual negativity. By activating a self-reflexive dialectic from within the work of art, Adorno’s aesthetics functions more as a dissolution of its object than as a movement towards it and its “truth content”. A great significance is then attributed at the relationship between the mutism of the work of art and Benjamin’s notion of “expressionless”. Conclusively, the paper analyzes how the dialectics of mimesis, paratactic style and athematic philosophy are for Adorno strictly intertwined.