GABRIEL PETRECHEN KUGNHARSKI

This thesis investigates the meanings of the notion of antagonism and the limits of integration in Theodor W. Adorno's critical theory. The first chapter begins with the core concepts of the negative dialectics – totality, identity, contradiction, the nonidentical – and shows how Adorno articulates them to develop his own concept of domination and to interpret and criticize a reality that's full of unresolved antagonisms. Moving on to the sociological writings, two premises are fundamental for the following chapters. Firstly, the concept of integration as an objective process and, at the same time, as an ideology that conceals a continuous process of disintegration. Secondly, Adorno's thesis according to which, under the conditions of late capitalism, antagonism expresses itself in marginal phenomena. The subsequent chapters explore these premises in relation to different themes and objects: chapters two and three scrutinize the distortions in the processes of socialization and individuation through an analysis of Adorno's sociopsychological and psychoanalytical writings and, finally, the fourth and last chapter defends the critical dimension of the notion of antagonism, making explicit its connection to the notions of suffering and resistance.