Aesthetics versus Instrumental Reason: The Critical Function of Art in Adorno

Abstract

This article examines Adorno’s aesthetic theory within the framework of his critique of instrumental reason, discussing the critical function of art in modern society. According to Adorno, Enlightenment thought failed to realize its ideal of emancipation and instead transformed reason into an instrument of domination. In this process, knowledge became a tool of control rather than freedom, and the relation between subject and object was reduced to the principle of identity. Against this reduction, Adorno emphasizes the resistant power of art. Art transcends the empirical world, making the non-identical visible and giving voice to suppressed differences. Within this context, the concept of mimesis is reinterpreted beyond its classical meaning of imitation as a mode of non-conceptual relation with the world. Art thus transcends the utilitarian framework of instrumental reason and establishes a negative dialectic that suggests truth without directly representing it. Aesthetic experience, in this sense, is not merely sensory pleasure but an intellectual shock and a practice of liberation. The article concludes that Adorno’s conception of art constitutes a form of critical consciousness against the rationality crisis of modernity.