Natural history is a key concept in Adorno’s philosophy of history. In the second model of Negative Dialectics, he develops this concept following Marx’s critique of political economy, which, as a critique of ideology, criticises the appearance of natural necessity of social practices and relations. Starting from an irritation concerning a note by Adorno in which he reproaches Marx for “language mannerisms” and conceptual inability, this article argues that Adorno’s critique is based on a one-sided reading, preventing him from adequately (...) considering the critical-emancipatory potential of the concept of natural history. This potential is not independent of linguistic and aesthetic mediation. Rather, Marx uses metaphors, caricatures, etc. in his depiction of social practices as natural history, enabling him to convey more than theoretical knowledge. His critical theory is emancipatory precisely in that it compels agents to self-criticism, which is a necessary condition for sustainably shattering the appearance of natural necessity. (shrink)

Towards a Philosophy of Photography presents all aspects of Flusser’s theory of technical images as well as the images’ ambivalence and paradoxes: the relation of writing and image from a historical and a post-historical perspective, the definition of technical images as images of concepts and as products of the apparatus. The starting point of this approach to the photographic image is meta-theoretical: Flusser’s philosophical method oscillates between ‘telling stories’, a philosophical argumentation in the tradition of phenomenology, language philosophy and structuralism, (...) a specific use of metaphors – and often together with Flusser’s own reflections of his ‘stories’, of ‘method’ and ‘metaphors’. This article explores Flusser’s philosophy as a field of intertwined ‘layers’ of argumentation that overlap in Flusser’s search for a new philosophy, corresponding with the new kind of images he proposes: a new philosophy in or through images. From this perspective, the shift from writing to image is accomplished by a shift from meta-theory to a ‘dia’ philosophy , referring to the ‘metaphorological’ dimension of Flusser’s texts and his ‘gestures’. (shrink)