The end of the world has been on my mind lately. In the city where I live, Seattle, this summer saw dramatic differences in the climate; for weeks the air quality was worse than in Beijing. On one occasion ash rained down from the sky, covering windows, lawn chairs and...

Why would thinkers of a primarily analytic bent feel uncomfortable toward the idea of something on the order of what Adorno calls a magical residue or substrate in art, in music, in language? To what extent are they justified in dismissing this as m...