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

(the propositions to which ordinary individuals give or tend to give assent) are
contradictory, in a logical and straightforward sense, with the propositions that correctly
describe the essence of (social) reality. This is the sense in which Adorno holds that the
structure of social reality is a structure of contradiction between appearance and essence,
and this contradictory structure captures part of what he means by the “contradiction in
the object.”
But we must be careful in talking about the phenomenon by which reality is
bifurcated into ‘appearance’ and ‘essence’ as a split into two realms, for it is essential to
keep in mind that this is not an ontological separation into two different realms of being.
(If it were an ontological bifurcation, then the two realms, being contradictory, could not
co-exist.) The distinction between essence and appearance is not a distinction in the
order of being but rather a distinction in the order of intelligibility: a distinction between
the surface grammar of reality—i.e., appearance—and its deep logical structure—i.e.,
essence. The distinction between appearance and essence in Adorno is to be understood
along Hegelian lines: Essence is not disconnected from appearance but is rather the
ground of intelligibility for appearance and, as thus, is immanent in appearance. The
appearance of reality is the appearance of essence; it results from the dynamics of essence
(i.e., of the total determination of social reality by exchange). And the essence is essence
only through its effects: through the appearance to which it gives rise. Thus, Adorno
says, “Die gesellschafliche Totalität führt kein Eigenleben oberhalb des von ihr
Zusammengefaßten, aus dem sie selbst besteht. Sie produziert und reproduziert sich
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