Thinking affectively: the concept of touch in Adorno's philosophy

This thesis has a twofold aim. First, it attempts to demonstrate that, contrary to existing scholarship that has overlooked its central role, the concept of touch - along with the affective experience it generates - underpins Adorno's entire philosophy. Throughout his work, Adorno indicates that the disembodied mind, cordoned off from the body by idealist philosophies, has historically relegated the sentient body and its emotions to an inferior position, causing the subject's violent compulsion toward both internal and external nature. The overarching argument seeks to show that, although not explicitly thematized, Adorno's repeated attempts to address this problem occur through the tactile register, framing touch as a force of resistance against the blind irrationalism of intellectualist philosophies. Second, by mobilizing the dialectical cast of Adorno's work, the study suggests that this organizational quality of touch does not serve as a verifier of empirical presence.