Normativity and politics in Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics

• Grant number: 17/13278-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: July 15, 2017
• End date: June 14, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Luiz Sérgio Repa
• Grantee: Mariana Fidelis Jerônimo de Oliveira
• Supervisor: Rahel Simone Anna Jaeggi
• Host Institution: Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (CEBRAP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Humboldt University, Germany
• Associated to the scholarship: 16/15181-9 - Philosophy and Social Theory: on the political meaning of utopia in Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics., BP.DR

Abstract

Adorno's political position has often been debated, since it seems to contain traces of Marxist critique of capitalism and, even so, does not present a distinct kind of practical discourse. Especially Negative Dialectics (1966), one of his major works, seems to lack political significance in that it starts by refusing to move toward praxis and proposes a self-critique of identitarian philosophy instead. As part of a doctoral project directed to better investigate politics in Adorno's Negative Dialectics, this internship proposal is intended to better formulate the doctoral thesis' philosophical problem discussing both: 1) the critique to identitarian thinking that turns problematic normative statements, and 2) the consequences of such critique to political philosophy, especially within the contemporary debate. In the last few years, Critical Theory has been increasingly involved in discussions on its normative basis in order to justify emancipatory demands. The aim of this internship project is to establish such contemporary political problem with Negative Dialectics' conceptual tools, taking advantage of all debate surrounding Rahel Jaeggi's research about normativity in Critical Theory at Humboldt University of Berlin. This constitutes the first part of the doctoral thesis and prepares the next one, intended to give a solution to the question through elaboration on the concept of "utopian thinking". (AU)