What Would Be Different: Figures of Possibility in Adorno

Iain Macdonald

Published by Stanford University Press 2019

What Would Be Different

Figures of Possibility in Adorno

Iain Macdonald

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503610644

Overview
Contents

About this book

At the intersection of metaphysics and social theory, this book presents and examines Adorno's unusual concept of possibility and aims to answer how we are to articulate the possibility of a redeemed life without lapsing into a vague and naïve utopianism.

Author / Editor information

Iain Macdonald is Professor of Philosophy at the Université de Montréal.

Reviews

Espen Hammer:
"What is possible? With this question in mind, Macdonald sets out on a breathtaking intellectual journey. In a series of spectacularly powerful and compelling readings of such key thinkers as Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Benjamin, Bloch, and Adorno, he throws new and much needed light on the post-Kantian philosophical tradition while offering resources for responding to our contemporary crisis."

Henry Pickford:
"This exemplary and highly original piece of philosophical scholarship precisely illuminates a central but hitherto unrecognized concern in Adorno's work—his notion of 'real but blocked possibility'—demonstrating how it operates throughout his writing. I know of no study similar to it."

Maxim Pensky, Binghamton University:
"Macdonald is not only an authority on Adorno but also a deeply skilled philosopher. What Would Be Different deals with some ferociously difficult and abstract conceptual material while remaining lucid, careful, and thorough. Without question, it figures among the most genuinely pathbreaking recent work on Adorno."

Deborah Cook:
"What Would Be Different presents readers with the results of years of fruitful effort....[It] takes an important stand in a debate that matters, not just to armchair academics, but to everybody on the planet."

Matthew Eckel:
"What Would Be Different provides us with an essential, long neglected, philosophical and biographical examination of Adorno and Heidegger's complicated relationship....[It offers] a valuable contribution to philosophy in that it provides a clear, non-partisan presentation of famously difficult thinkers from disparate traditions. Macdonald's synthesis and framing of these ideas is admirable."

Christoph Menke:
"This much-needed book explores how possibility, for Adorno, can be thought beyond mere contingency or empty utopia. To ask 'what would be different' is as concrete as it is radical—and only radical insofar as it is concrete. Macdonald shows that the possible cannot be defined generally and ontologically but only historically and socially: as a world that could well be realized but that is blocked by the ruling powers."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
ABBREVIATIONS Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
CHAPTER 1. WHAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER 2. HEGEL’S FALLACY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
CHAPTER 3. ADORNO Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
CHAPTER 4. ADORNO AND HEIDEGGER Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
CHAPTER 5. ADORNO, BENJAMIN, AND WHAT WOULD BE DIFFERENT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227

Language: English
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 248
Keywords: possibility; metaphysics; modality; dialectic; social theory; Adorno; Hegel; Heidegger; Benjamin

eBook

Published: September 24, 2019
ISBN: 9781503610644