--- layout: post status: publish published: true title: ! 'Adorno terminology: χωρισμός / chorismos' wordpress_id: 1730 wordpress_url: https://www.martineve.com/2012/01/06/adorno-terminology-%cf%87%cf%89%cf%81%ce%b9%cf%83%ce%bc%e1%bd%b9%cf%82-chorismos/ date: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0wNiAxMDo0NDo0NCArMDEwMA== date_gmt: !binary |- MjAxMi0wMS0wNiAxMDo0NDo0NCArMDEwMA== categories: - Academia - Philosophy - Theodor Adorno tags: - academia - Adorno - definition - greek comments: [] ---

A quick note as I had to look it up and might save somebody else some time.

First occurring on p. 7 of the Hullot-Kentor translation of Aesthetic Theory, χωρισμός or chorismos, can most accurately be translated as "separation". The context, for search engine purposes is "by abstract negation posits the χωρισμός of art as absolute". (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 7.)

Similarly on this page, χωρις or choris, means "without" in the sense of outside. "Art, χωρις from the empirically existing, takes up a position to it".

Other instances:
"The deeper the χωρισμός between the circumscribed, particular things, and the paling essence, the more hollowly artsworks gaze, the sole anamnesis of what could exist beyond the χωρισμός." (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 106.)

"the more its spiritual element is reified, χωρις from the appearance and isolated from the forming of apparation" (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 128.)

"is necessarily illusory; all spirit, χωρις from the corporeal, has an aspect of raising what does not exist" (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 142.)

"This collective remembrance in artworks is, however, not χωρις from the subject but rather takes place by way of the subject" (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 173.)

"The χωρισμός between subject and individual belongs to a late stage of philosophical reflection that was conceived for the sake of exalting the subject as the absolute." (Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Edited by Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor. London: Continuum, 2004. p. 263.)

Featured image by Пероша under a CC-BY-NC license.