THE AESTHETIC DIGNITY OF WORDS: ADORNO AND THE PROBLEM OF PHILOSOPHICAL LANGUAGE

Abstract

On the horizon where the notion of concept enters into crisis, it is no longer enough to simply appeal to it. The purpose is different: without renouncing the concept, the task is, through it, to articulate a correct representation of what is, per se, unrepresentable. In other words, it is necessary to present the object in language. This not only gives the language a fundamental role as a tool for this other way of being but also deposits in itself the realization of criticism as a transforming praxis. In language, in general, and in expression and certain characteristics and elements associated with it, in particular, Adorno places the interpretive activity of philosophy as a meeting point (a kind of dialectical immanence) between language (thought) and the object. (thing). This paper aims to position the concept of language as a fundamental philosophical category not only about the general nature of Adorno's work but also - and specifically - in the context of the so-called first stage of his intellectual production.