Adorno’s Philosophy of the Nonidentical

Book excerpt: This book focuses on a central notion in Theodor. W. Adorno’s philosophy: the nonidentical. The nonidentical is what our conceptual framework cannot grasp and must therefore silence, the unexpressed other of our rational engagement with the world. This study presents the nonidentical as the multidimensional centerpiece of Adorno’s reflections on subjectivity, truth, suffering, history, art, morality and politics, revealing the intimate relationship between how and what we think. Adorno’s work, written in the shadow of Auschwitz, is a quest for a different way of thinking, one that would give the nonidentical a voice – as the somatic in reasoning, the ephemeral in truth, the aesthetic in cognition, the other in society. Adorno’s philosophy of the nonidentical reveals itself not only as a powerful hermeneutics of the past, but also as an important tool for the understanding of modern phenomena such as xenophobia, populism, political polarization, identity politics, and systemic racism.