CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALECTIC IN ADORNO A ...

accordance with its own autonomous logic and is teleologically oriented toward the
achievement of specific goods appropriate to it. Together, the claims that each sphere (1)
operates in accordance with a principle internal to the sphere, and (2) in so doing
promotes the achievement of goods appropriate to the sphere, constitute the internal
autonomy of the sphere.
Adorno’s critique of the internal autonomy of the central spheres of modern social
life can be reconstructed as the negation of (1) and (2). Adorno argues that the different
spheres of modern society have all become subservient to a single principle—not,
however, a principle of rationality and freedom, but rather the principle of exchange. 113
Against (1) above, Adorno holds that the principle of exchange is external to each of the
particular spheres whose internal dynamics it determines. Against (2), he argues that the
principle of exchange undermines the achievement of goods internal to every one of the
spheres, and in fact threatens the very survival of the spheres as distinct fields of social
activity at all. As a result, the submission of each institutional sphere to the principle of
exchange furthers goals that are neither internal to, nor autonomously defined by, the
institutional sphere, and the appearance of the spheres’ autonomy is in the end just a
deceptive cover for the advantage of the market.
To begin unwrapping this two-pronged critique of Hegel’s condition of internal
autonomy, I will reconstruct Adorno’s arguments against the autonomy of each of the
central institutions of modern life. For each institution, I will show that Adorno holds
113 See Adorno, Minima Moralia, in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 4 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp
Verlag, 1951), “Zueignung,” pp. 13-17, and “Gesellschaftstheorie und empirische Forschung,” in
Gesammelte Schriften, 8. Band: Soziologische Schriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003), pp.
538-546.
109