The striking similarities between Adorno’s ideal of philosophical writing — the so-called constellation — and his ideal of musical structure makes Adorno prone to the allegation that his...Show moreThe striking similarities between Adorno’s ideal of philosophical writing — the so-called constellation — and his ideal of musical structure makes Adorno prone to the allegation that his philosophical writing is an illegal trespassing from the domain of philosophy to that of art. This thesis researches whether this allegation is founded or not. It therefore presents Adorno’s philosophy of negative dialectics and his theory of constellation in order to look at their interconnection and refutes the arguments for the beforementioned allegation. The thesis claims that Adorno’s constellation is not aesthetically, but philosophically motivated, more specifically ethically, because Adorno’s philosophy in its entirety is an ethically motivated theory of concepts. It further claims, that his constellation is grounded in the old philosophical tradition of performativity and the young tradition of performative writing; and that his philosophy as a whole, as a ethically motivated theory of concepts, as well the ethical motivation of the performativity of his writing, is grounded in what Brandom calls Kant’s ‘normative turn’.Show less
