A strikingly original account of Theodor Adornos work as a critique animated by happinessnow in paperback.
Gordons confidently gripping and persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adornos negativism. J?rgen Habermas
Theodor Adorno is often portrayed as a totalizing negativist, a scowling contrarian who looked upon modern society with despair. Peter E. Gordon thinks we have this wrong: if Adorno is uncompromising in his critique, it is because he sees in modernity an unfulfilled possibility of human flourishing. In a damaged world, Gordon argues, all happiness is likewise damaged but not wholly absent. Through a comprehensive rereading of Adornos work,A Precarious Happinessrecovers Adornos commitment to traces of happinessfragments of the good amid the bad. Ultimately, Gordon argues that social criticism, while exposing falsehoods, must also cast a vision for an unrealized better world.
Peter E. Gordonis the Amabel B. James Professor of History and a faculty affiliate in philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of many books, most recentlyMigrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization.
"Gordon’s confidently gripping and at the same time persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adorno’s negativism. Engaging with Adorno's lectures, Gordon shows how the negative dialectic, though eluding direct access to statements about the 'good life,' means to spell out the contours of a 'right' life. Within the enchanted bounds of a distorted whole, Adorno searches for traces of a failed happiness. From the despairing criticism of the world’s hopeless condition, the Hegelian nonetheless discerns a transcending impulse of hope that points far beyond the Kantian encouragement to use our rational freedom."
“A brilliant and llƒ€
![A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/3/1/8/2_7050920.jpg "A Precarious Happiness: Adorno and the Sources of Normativity [Hardcover]")