VÍTOR BEGHINI BARROS

That autonomous works of art establish a deep and complex relationship with truth, as a mode of critical knowledge analogous to theory, is one of the cores of Theodor Adorno's aesthetic thought, and indeed an a priori of his entire intellectual experience. The research aims to provide a model for comprehending this idea. We will start with an examination of the Adornian notion of artistic autonomy, centered on its mediation with empirical reality and the antinomy of the artwork's semblance character; these will prove to be the dialectical conditions of its “truth content”, which will be investigated in its dimensions of critical negativity, utopia, and enigma. The work of Samuel Beckett will then be taken thoroughly as a paradigmatic case for Aesthetic Theory, accompanied by reflections on Kafka, Celan, and the end of art. Finally, the elementary link between art and philosophy in Adorno will be addressed, in order to consider the possibility and meaning of a philosophy of art, as well as the question of its current relevance.