Subjektets motsägelsefulla kraft : Hur Adorno utmanar subjektiviteten inifrån

Theodor W. Adorno is both known and criticized for his philosophy of the subject. While his focus on subjectivity by many is deemed an outdated approach, Adorno himself claims that subjectivity must be challenged through the subject itself. What this implies, and how the role of the subject in its transformation can be envisioned, is what I aim to discuss in this paper. My study adresses the subject’s challenge from different angles. The first is an analysis of the subject in relation to its object-part, where I show how the subject can come close to its object, not only through bodily impulses but also, and importantly, through subjectivity itself by self-reflection on its mediation. The second is an investigation of how Adorno uses Freud’s drive theory, and how the drive for self-preservation can be dangerous or utopian depending on the subject’s interaction with it. The third is a comparison of the position of Adorno to those of Jürgen Habermas and Giorgio Agamben, each in their own way sharing Adorno’s diagnosis of subjectivities challenge, but choosing entirely different paths to address it. This comparison shows how Adorno, by insisting on the subject’s role in its own challenge, makes the subject aware of its actual location in the false world, without giving up the idea of its redemption. Habermas and Agamben each try to leave subjectivity behind in ways that for Adorno would not only be false but also dangerous. In doing so, they miss the point that we cannot be anything but subjects, and that the challenge therefore must be addressed from within. My aim with this paper is to show how Adorno’s philosophy of the subject can open critical theory for a bolder utopian thinking than what Habermas’ heritage has accomplished, while at the same time preserving the subject’s power to accomplish change which postmodernists like Agamben seem to have given up upon.