Abstract

Adorno’s critical social theory is often accused of lacking a cogent account of its normative foundations. The problem of normativity arises when Adorno’s theory exhibits an inexorable commitment to both negativism and critique. Adorno’s negativism is usually taken as the unavailability of any conception of the good or right life, whereas his critique appeals to normative judgments that imply a certain grasp of the good. Thus, Adorno seems facing the dilemma that his critique involves normative connotations, whereas his negativism bans any form of normativity. This article argues that tackling this problem commands an elaborated account of Adorno’s dialectic of nature-history and its implied normativity. It connects Adorno’s idea of natural-history to his notions of suffering and experience as the structural moments of transience and transition. This reconstruction of concepts allows us to show that the idea of nature-history, weaved into suffering-experience, possesses the structure of ought, which then enables a new normativity tied to critique and negativism, without requiring to rely on transcendent or immanent norms.