Traducción capítulo siete del libro de Brian O’Connor Adorno, publicado por Routledge en 2013.

La teoría crítica de Adorno –cuyo desarrollo filosófico y metódico fundamental se encuentra en Dialéctica negativa– ha sido objeto de lecturas marcadamente contrapuestas, desde aquellas que critican las estreches de su análisis social y la impotencia de su actitud política, hasta los que advierten en ella una lucidez analítica admirable y un trasfondo político radical cuyas posibilidades no han terminado aún de explorarse en profundidad. Esta ambigüedad interpretativa, debido en gran parte a la reticencia de Adorno a formular una filosofía (...) política como tal, nos lleva a preguntarnos en qué medida la extemporaneidad de su pensamiento lo ha convertido en un precedente de aproximaciones políticas que hoy ya nos resultan familiares y, sobre todo, si nos puede ayudar a reconceptualizar algunas de estas nociones y a dar respuesta así a la cuestión de la transformación política en un contexto tan problemático como el contemporáneo. Por eso, el objetivo de este trabajo es tratar de elucidar la concepción de lo político que subyace a la teoría de Adorno y poner su pensamiento en diálogo con perspectivas políticas rigurosamente contemporáneas –particularmente, la de la impolítica y la del pensamiento político posfundacional– para delinear el sentido y la forma posibles de una propuesta de transformación política a partir de la dialéctica adorniana. (shrink)

This thesis explores the concept of subsumption in the work of Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx in order to construct a distinct theoretical problem resting on the articulation of conceptual and social relations. Each of these authors develops a ‘logic’ within which subsumptive relations are operative: Transcendental logic, dialectical logic and finally Marx’s ‘logic of the body politic’; these are investigated in turn. The thesis opens with a close reading of subsumption in Kant’s philosophy, arguing that it is (...) here that the concept first attains its modern or critical sense. This critical sense distinguishes it from the classical notion of subsumption and gives rise to a novel philosophical account of how synthetic subsumption acts unite heterogeneous elements within a compositional totality. In Hegel’s philosophy this account takes on a series of new determinations, as social, historical and developmental aspects to subsumption are introduced. Nonetheless, Hegel’s concept of subsumption remains within the ambit of a ‘closed’ idealist discourse, just as Kant’s does. The second section of the thesis explores how this closure is thrown into crisis by Marx’s materialist attack on philosophy as a self-sufficient branch of knowledge, altering the stakes of conceptual relations as such, and therefore subsumption. Drawing on the work of Mexican-Ecuadoran philosopher Bolívar Echeverría, Marx’s materialism is reconstructed as a theory of social reproduction, encompassing the practical process of social life in its entirety. This then provides the basis for an analysis of subsumption in its specifically capitalist form, which, the thesis argues, must be thought as operative at three levels of social activity: exchange, production and reproduction, each with their own distinct but interconnected logics of power and resistance. Grasping these three dimensions in their unity, the thesis finally outlines an original framework for comprehending capitalist domination in its concrete specificity. In order to do so it goes beyond Marx’s own theory of subsumption as well as interpretations of it that reinstate theoretical closure to historical contingency. Instead, a dynamic theory of capitalist subsumption is proposed in order to register the diverse mechanisms of control through which capitalist power shapes the course of social reproduction and historical development. (shrink)