The enlightenment of the unconscious: Reason and mimesis in Adorno

My aim is to show that Adorno's thought contains an account of the interdependence of rationality and affective experience, which can be used to gain a better understanding of the affective conditions of rationality. I interpret the fundamental concept of mimesis in Adorno's work as somatic-affective, expressive communication, which is a necessary condition of rational intersubjective relations and of a rational relation to self.;The first step is a critical analysis of Adorno's hyperbolic critique of instrumental reason. I identify two basic claims--that rationality per se is a kind of domination of nature that culminates in a repressive social system of total scope; and that the normative criteria of critical social theory must be derived from an abstract principle of utopia--that are both untenable and incoherent with Adorno's best insights. The concept of mimesis in Benjamin and Adorno is then analyzed, and a definition of affects is developed as the perception-like awareness of affective significance. It is shown that, for Adorno, mimesis is a pre-conscious, somatic-affective dimension of communication in which affective significance is expressed. Here I argue explicitly what Adorno only suggests: that such affective communication is a necessary condition of understanding discourse. Part III interprets Adorno's moral philosophy and his analyses of totalitarianism. I argue for his claim that rational autonomy depends on affective openness to the other, particularly to alien suffering, and to one's own dependency and incompleteness. Autonomy is opposed to the stance of autarchy, which demands self-sufficiency and totality. The irrational consequences of the autarchic stance are shown in the phenomenon of collective narcissism, in which the totalitarian group becomes an all-powerful, collective subject defined in violent opposition to representations of otherness. Part IV integrates Adorno's conception of philosophical interpretation into a theory of communicative reason by showing that interpretive claims are a special form of validity claim, dependent on a mimetic experience of aspect perception. An appendix discusses empirical analyses of mimetic communication.