Adorno’s late aesthetics frames mind and nature as mutually redeemable rather than opposed.

Evidence

In `Vers une musique informelle’, his most important work on musical theory after Philosophy of Modern Music, Adorno let loose on the reader the whole fireworks of his repertoire of motifs. The fatal dialectic between rigidified mind [Geist] and repressed nature must be replaced by a dialectic, freed from domination, between illuminating mind and fulfilling nature. The rigidified mind was a disconnected piece of nature, and could only exist for as long as it contained a germ of nature within itself; thus it also contained, for as long as it existed, a potential for improvement. Repressed nature was blind; it contained a longing for light and could only ignite that light by means of the mind. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2214

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives the core distinction of Adorno’s ‘Vers une musique informelle’: the dialectic between rigidified mind and repressed nature, each carrying a germ of the other.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno held that spontaneity of vision alone can counterbalance technical mastery’s domination. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1276; Adorno held that purified art converges with nature rather than alienating from it. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2734; Adorno’s aesthetics unify the critiques of nature-domination and administered society — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2736 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno held that purified art converges with nature rather than alienating from it. #corroborates (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2734
• Adorno’s natural history reconciles nature and history as a change of perspective #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 386
• Adorno’s aesthetics unify the critiques of nature-domination and administered society #corroborates (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2736