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A Precarious Happiness
Adorno and the Sources of Normativity
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Brief Description
A strikingly original account of Theodor Adorno's work as a critique animated by happiness - now in paperback. "Gordon's confidently gripping and persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adorno's negativism." - Jürgen Habermas Theodor Adorno is often portrayed as a totalizing...
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A Precarious Happiness
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Description
A strikingly original account of Theodor Adorno's work as a critique animated by happiness - now in paperback.
"Gordon's confidently gripping and persistently subtle interpretation brings a new tone to the debate about Adorno's negativism." - Jürgen Habermas
Theodor Adorno is often portrayed as a totalizing negativist, a scowling contrarian who looked upon modern society with despair. Peter E. Gordon thinks we have this wrong: if Adorno is uncompromising in his critique, it is because he sees in modernity an unfulfilled possibility of human flourishing.
In a damaged world, Gordon argues, all happiness is likewise damaged but not wholly absent. Through a comprehensive rereading of Adorno's work, A Precarious Happiness recovers Adorno's commitment to traces of happiness - fragments of the good amid the bad. Ultimately, Gordon argues that social criticism, while exposing falsehoods, must also cast a vision for an unrealized better world.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780226854441
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 05 January 2027
Country: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Illustration: 4 line drawings
Audience: Professional and scholarly
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 28.0mm
Width: 152.0mm
Height: 229.0mm
Weight: 454g
Pages: 320
About the Author
Peter E. Gordon is the Amabel B. James Professor of History and a faculty affiliate in philosophy at Harvard University. He is the author or editor of many books, most recently Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization.
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