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

case, Hegel’s model would remain valid as a normative model for the kind of social order
we should strive to establish.
In what follows I offer two arguments in opposition to this defense of Hegel
against Adorno. The first shows that, if Adorno’s arguments are successful, they refute
not only Hegel’s idea that his model describes the modern social order but also his
argumentative strategy for the claim that the model establishes a normative standard for
social organization in general. The second argument I propose shows moreover that, if
Adorno’s arguments are successful, then any model that prescribes rational autonomy as
the standard for social organization is misguided. Accepting Adorno’s critique of
Hegel’s social theory challenges the social theorist to think of a new socio-political ideal
in terms other than radical autonomy.
To see why Adorno’s arguments take aim not only at Hegel’s theory as a
descriptive model but also at Hegel’s arguments for the prescriptive legitimacy of the
model, we need to look at how the prescriptive dimension is justified in the Hegelian
philosophy. The structure of Hegel’s argumentation (not only in his social theory but in
his system as a whole) is such that it moves from an identification of the immanent logic
of reality to the normative claim that this immanent logic just is the logic of the rational;
it just is the standard of the rational. This does not mean that every detail of what
happens to be the case is rational; but it does mean that what exists can always be
understood as following, even if only implicitly and imperfectly, from a principle of
rationality; even if the real does not fully actualize that principle in every respect, it is
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