T.W. Adorno's essay is really quite incredible. Instead of urging for more authenticity towards the object. A's argument soberly reminds us of the limits of working towards the object. The essay as a thing should realize its life blood comes from something that its analytical concepts are entirely cut out from. This comes to light here in a passage that reminds me of his Nature discussion in Aesthetic Theory:
"The essay silently abandons the illusion that thought can break out of thesis into physis, out of culture into nature. Spellbound by what is fixed and admittedly deduced, by artifacts, the essay honors nature by confirming that it no longer exists for human beings."
Yet the essay should pursue new relations and mediators towards "the thing itself" even if there is no access to it:
"By transgressing the orthodoxy of thought, something becomes visible in the object which it is orthodoxy's secret thought to keep invisible."
I think we can still affirm the negative in A's work and say right on.
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