Participatory truth between Adorno’s negativity and Gadamer’s play: digital media, the culture industry, and Kantian aesthetic consciousness

This article investigates the intersection between critical theory and hermeneutics, examining whether Hans-Georg Gadamer’s aesthetic philosophy – especially his critique of Kantian aesthetics – might offer an ontological alternative to the culture industry critique developed by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Gadamer reimagines aesthetic experience as a participatory event of understanding, rooted in the ontological seriousness of play (Spiel), in contrast to the Frankfurt School, which contends that art under capitalism becomes commodified and bereft of critical potential. His paradigm suggests that artworks reveal truth through dialogical involvement, challenging Kantian “aesthetic consciousness” as a detached, disinterested subject. The article proposes that Gadamer reframes the question of aesthetic critique by foregrounding tradition, interpretation, and historical consciousness. In doing so, it invites reflection on how art might resist commodification and sustain critical possibilities, even within the structures of digital capitalism, by renewing attention to the interpretive act as a space of truth-making.