From nobody to autrui: dialectics and mimesis, judaism and humanism after Blanchot and Adorno

Abstract

This article aims to bring together the thoughts of Theodor Adorno and Maurice Blanchot around the problem of humanism. The “jewish question”, as we can still call it along with Marx, is the central issue of this conversation. Starting from Blanchot’s intuition regarding the indestructibility of man and the role of judaism in revealing an exorbitant relation between men in the presence of Autrui, the article follows examining the seemingly opposite role of judaism in Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s dialectic of enlightenment. In this path, two topics stand out: the critique of hegelian dialectics, but also the rehabilitation of dialectics as an antidote to the regression of enlightenment; and the humanistic potencial retained in the concept of mimesis, especially in Adorno’s work, concept which also allows the resignification of judaism inside the dialectic of enlightenment.