Like Socrates and the early Plato, he wields a negative dialectic and does not, like Hegel and the later Plato, derive a positive result, let alone an all-encompassing system or a philosophy of 'identity', from his critique of other philosophers and of social institutions. His aim is to dissolve conceptual forms before they harden into lenses which distort our vision of, and impair our practical engagements with, reality. When concepts fail us, art comes to our aid. Art, especially music, is relatively autonomous of repressive social structures and thus represents a demand for freedom and a critique of society. This is to be discerned in the formal properties of particular works.
Art is 'concentrated social substance'.
1. dialectics, negative The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 2. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 3. The Oxford Companion to Philosophy 4. Frankfurt School Penguin Dictionary of Sociology 5. All rights reserved.