Abstract

Aesthetic philosophers, theorizing literary critics and editors, and reflective commentators on the restoration of paintings, buildings, and monuments have repeatedly shown that the concept of the work is anything but self-evident. The present essay examines major attempts to conceptualize this problematic area since the 1930s, before proposing a solution based on the semiotics of C. S. Peirce and Theodor Adorno's negative dialectics that will help clarify thinking when practices of preservation and conservation are being determined. The language and thinking come ultimately from scholarly editorial activity; the working assumption is that, with suitable adjustments for the medium, it will apply to other historically orientated forms of cultural conservation.

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