Dialectic of Aesthetic Autonomy in Theodor W. Adorno

For Adorno, aesthetics must be understood within the framework of critical theory: in a society dominated by instrumental rationality and the culture industry, art can still serve as a space for resistance and truth. Unlike Kant and Hegel, he bases neither the autonomy of art on subjective judgment nor its truth on historical reconciliation. The work of art is both autonomous and socially determined: it is a product of society while at the same time offering resistance to it.