Ethical Turns: Adorno Defended against His Devotees.

Zuidervaart, Lambert. “Ethical Turns: Adorno Defended against His Devotees.” Symposium, 13 (Spring 2009) 22-39. Available for download at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/symposium/vol13/iss1/2/.

This essay examines Theodor W. Adorno’s politics and ethics. Taking issue with sympathetic readings that overlook both his radical structural critique and his political limitations, I argue for a return to questions of collective agency and social ethics. I suggest that a democratic politics of global transformation is required in order to do justice to Adorno’s insights. The essay is a revised excerpt from Chapter 6 in Social Philosophy after Adorno (Cambridge UP, 2007).