The Migration of Metaphysics into the Realm of the Profane Theodor W. Adorno Reads Gershom Scholem (Ijs Studies in Judaica, 20)

Ansgar Martins's The Migration of Metaphysics into the Realm of the Profane is the first book-length study focusing on Adorno's idiosyncratic appropriation of Jewish mysticism in the light of his relationship to Gershom Scholem and their shared intellectual contexts. Rather than merely posit vague associative connections, as previous authors have often done, Martins's close reading of specific references in published and private texts alike allows him to highlight both commonalities and differences between Adorno's and Scholem's understanding of Kabbalistic tropes and the issue of metaphysics in the modern world, and to demonstrate the extent to which similarities resulted from mutual and/or third-party influences (especially Benjamin). Martins throws the specifics of their respective idiosyncratic appropriations of (Jewish) tradition into sharp relief. Half Title Series Information Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Preface to the English Edition Acknowledgements Translator’s Preface Introduction How to Read Adorno 1 Relevant Secondary Literature 2 On Adorno’s Style and Terminology Chapter 1 Adorno, Scholem & Co.: An Historical Constellation 1 How Central is the Kabbalah to Benjamin’s Philosophy? 2 From the Defence of Metaphysics to the Salvage of a Heretical Theology 3 The Absolute as Process: Kabbalah and Dialectical Idealism in Frankfurt 4 Moving Everything by Just a Smidgen to Its Rightful Place: A Metaphor of Redemption in Adorno, Scholem, Benjamin, Bloch and Buber 5 The Drastic Guilt of Having Been Spared Chapter 2 Adorno’s Comments on Scholem’s Zohar Translation (1939) 1 Critiquing Symbolic Language: Nonintentionality, Nature, Myth 1.1 Nonintentionality 1.2 Nature 1.3 Immanence as Myth 2 The “Decay” of Occidental Gnosticism or Primordial Religious Experience? 2.1 The Decay of the Neoplatonic–Gnostic Tradition 2.2 Primordial Experience and Reified Consciousness 2.3 Truth’s Temporal Nucleus 2.4 The Remarkable Trait of All Sensible Forms of Mysticism Chapter 3 From Sabbatai Zevi to Kafka: The Assay of Migrating into the Profane 1 Antinomian Mysticism: Adorno’s Sabbatianism 1.1 Redemption through Sin 1.2 Three Levels of Profanation, or the Art of Making the Lifeboat Capsize 1.3 Anything but an Atheist 1.4 Religious Nihilism and the Radical Transformation of All Human Affairs 2 Kafka: The Emptying of the World to a Meaningless Void 2.1 An Infinite Amount of Hope—Just Not for Us 2.2 Adorno’s Inverse Theology 2.3 Parting Ways on the Issue of Revelation 2.4 The Problem of Gnosticism 2.5 Odradek or the Salvage of Useless Things Chapter 4 Tradition and Experience: Kabbalah and Negative Dialectics 1 Kabbalah Means Tradition: On the Inner Historicity of Knowledge 1.1 Philosophy and Tradition 1.2 Revelation, Tradition, Commentary 1.3 Dialectics of Tradition 1.4 Profane and Sacred Texts in Walter Benjamin 1.5 Dubious Genealogies: The Concept of Recollection (Eingedenken) 2 Does Metaphysical Experience Foreshadow Reconciliation? 2.1 The Joy and Hazard of Embracing Experience 2.2 The Interpretive Immersion in Traditional Texts 2.3 What Dawned on Proust in Illiers 2.4 A Form of What is within Objects That Simultaneously Exists outside of Them 2.5 Sparks of the Messianic End of History 2.6 Waiting in Vain: On the Negativity of Metaphysical Experience Chapter 5 Kabbalah and Aesthetics 1 Mysticism and Aesthetics in Adorno 2 The Language of the Angels: The Paradoxes of Negativism and Hope in Music 2.1 The Purely Symphonic Movement as Divine Lament 2.2 Grass Angels: The Representation of Transience and Reconciliation 2.3 The Formal Law of Shrinkage 2.4 Tied-on Wings 3 Kabbalistic Motifs and Aesthetic Interpretation 3.1 Whether Goethe Intended Them to or Not 3.2 Not Abraham but Abram 3.3 The Rending Asunder of the Veil 3.4 Evil as Scattered Manifestations of Shattered Divine Power 3.5 An Attempt to Name the Name 4 Scholem Responds to Adorno’s “Sacred Fragment” 4.1 Has the Creation of Sacred Music Become Impossible? 4.2 A Subterranean Mystical Tradition? Conclusion: Something Is Missing Bibliography Acronyms Cited Writings by Theodor W. Adorno Cited Writings by Gershom Scholem Other Literature References to Adorno’s Published Texts References to Scholem’s Published Texts General Index Im neunten Band der Reihe geht Ansgar Martins kabbalistischen Spuren in der Philosophie Theodor W. Adornos (1903–1969) nach. Der Frankfurter Gesellschaftskritiker griff im Rahmen seines radikalen materialistischen Projekts gleichwohl auch auf ‚theologische‘ Deutungsfiguren zurück. Vermittelt durch den gemeinsamen Freund Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) stieß Adorno dabei auf das Werk des Kabbala-Forschers Gershom Scholem (1897–1982). Zwischen Frankfurt und Jerusalem entwickelte sich eine lebenslange Korrespondenz. Für Adorno erscheint vor dem Hintergrund lückenloser kapitalistischer Vergesellschaftung jede religiöse Sinngebung in der Moderne als unmöglich. Der Tradition der jüdischen Mystik schreibt er hingegen eine innere Affinität zu dieser hoffnungslosen Logik des ‚Verfalls‘ zu. Sie scheint ihm zur unumgänglichen Säkularisierung religiöser Gehalte aufzufordern. Adornos kabbalistische Marginalien beziehen einen breiten Horizont jüdisch-messianischer Ideen ein. Er verleugnet dabei nie, dass es ihm um eine sehr diesseite Verwirklichung geoffenbarter Heilsversprechen zu tun ist: Transzendenz sei als erfüllte Immanenz, als verwirklichte Utopie zu denken. In diesem Anliegen sieht Adorno selbst jedoch gerade seine Übereinstimmung mit der Kabbala. Adornos kabbalistische Motive, die auf Scholems Forschungen zurückgehen, werden hier ausführlich an seinen Schriften und Vorlesungen untersucht. In seinem Verständnis der philosophischen Tradition sowie im Modell der Metaphysischen Erfahrung suchte er etwa explizit Anschluss an Deutungen der Kabbala: Das unerreichbare Urbild der Philosophie sei die Interpretation der geoffenbarten Schrift. Wie säkularisierte heilige Texte wurden Werke von Beethoven, Goethe, Kafka oder Schönberg so zum Anlass für ‚mystische‘ Interpretationen. Deren detaillierte Untersuchung erlaubt, das viel beschworene jüdische Erbe von Adornos Philosophie zu konkretisieren und bedenkenswerte Einzelheiten von der Negativen Dialektik zur Ästhetik in den Blick zu nehmen. "In this study, I examine and interpret Kabbalistic traces in Theodor W. Adorno's philosophy. The fundamental issue is hardly new. The editor of Adorno's and Benjamin's writings, Rolf Tiedemann, has pointed to "the affinity between Adorno's thought and some motifs of Jewish mysticism"-- Provided by publisher