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

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contradiction between appearance and essence); and, finally, it shows that this relation of contradiction is not ultimate or necessary but rather the result of contingent conditions of reification (which means that it subsumes the contradiction under a more developed conception of appearance). The realms of appearance and essence are both available to thought because they are constitutive of reality and thought. The study of phenomena belonging to ‘appearance’ is available for instance, through the study of individuals’ avowed understanding of social reality through questionnaires, interviews, and statistical analysis. These opinions are mere appearance because they are socially pre-formed and distorted. How can such distortion be ascertained? Adorno’s answer is straightforward: through the study of objective social facts, which are also available to thought in reality, the apprehension of which requires only a form of theoretical attentiveness. These objective facts are “[der] Zwang zumal der ökonomischen Objektivität” [the constraints of economic objectivity].” 180 The determining feature of positivistic thought is that it stops short at the description of facts, without inquiring into the conditions of their formation, whereas critical thought sets the appearance of facts in opposition with the conditions of their social formation, and exposes the opposition as constitutive of reified social reality. Consider here Adorno’s own example regarding sociological analysis on the topic of musical taste. 181 Such a study can begin by inquiring into people’s musical tastes, 180 Adorno, “Soziologie und empirische Forschung” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1969), 200. English translation by Glyn Adey and David Frisby in Adorno, “Sociology and Empirical Research,” in The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology (Brookfield, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney: Avebury, 1994), 72. 181 Adorno, “Soziologie und empirische Forschung” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1969), 199-201. English translation by Glyn Adey and David Frisby in 192
asking them to choose their preference between the categories of “classical” and “popular” music, for instance. The division between these two categories, however, itself needs to be studied objectively. A study of this division would show it to be the contingent result of economic forces that promote and entrench the division rather than a natural or objectively necessary division, and it would moreover show that the division itself predisposes individuals to listen to music in a certain manner and to have specific, socially determined preferences, defined ultimately by the market. The study of these social forces is the objective part of the study, the part that refers finite elements and social facts—in this case people’s opinions and tastes on music—back to their ground of intelligibility in the social totality and its determining principle of exchange. But a critical analysis does not stop with showing the opposition between people’s opinions and tastes, on the one hand, and their pre-formation by exchange. Rather, Adorno argues that the tension between the two poles (between the quantificational analysis of people’s opinions and the qualitative analysis of the social foundations for these opinions) is the fertile ground of social theorizing. The tension or opposition is itself the proper object of social theory according to Adorno: “Die dabei hervortretenden Differenzen von sozialer Objektivität und dem wie immer auch allgemein verbreiteten Bewußtsein von jener Objektivität markieren eine Einbruchstelle der empirischen Sozialforschung in die Erkenntnis der Gesellschaft: in die der Ideologien, ihrer Genese und ihrer Funktion.” 182 Critical thought exposes the opposition between social Adorno, “Sociology and Empirical Research,” in The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology (Brookfield, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney: Avebury, 1994), 74-5. 182 Adorno, “Soziologie und empirische Forschung” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 8 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1969), 213. English translation by Glyn Adey and David Frisby in Adorno, “Sociology and Empirical Research,” in The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology (Brookfield, Hong 193
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CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALEC
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CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALEC
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For my parents, Luz Marina and John
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4.3 Adorno’s resolution of the di
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FIGURES Figure 4.1: Inner contradic
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost,
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CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM OF DETERMINA
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in the present study, and which I t
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inadequate. In my view, O’Connor
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system, and Adorno rejects both the
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and instead examining only the assu
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In Hegel, there are three stages in
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dialectical movement in act. 16 Phi
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According to Hegel, the philosopher
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dialectic is driven forward from on
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observing consciousness has already
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consciousness to perform the operat
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and makes possible the successive a
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corresponds to the self-determining
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And yet, as I hope to have shown in
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claim; namely, that the Hegelian sy
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the system’s inability to express
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Hegel’s idea that history is in e
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irremediably caught in a situation
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defined in its essence by rationali
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zum Entsetzen verifiziert und auf d
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1.2.2 Hegelian dialectics as a form
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objectivity, but rather as an empha
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as thought, is a form of thought th
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conceptual element. It is thus ulti
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It is clear, however, that (2) is n
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ultimately blind to this problem. H
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Aber Denken darf auch nicht bei der
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The first contradiction is internal
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world, and the nature of the subjec
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undertaking of giving an account of
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eflection. 62 The idea is that, ins
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of subject and object characterizin
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then, will be to take a suitable ex
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in it as providing a stable view of
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2.2 The subject’s mediation of an
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It might be thought, then, that the
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the subject as, on the one hand, an
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of consciousness that are then said
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Note the radical nature of Adorno
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tasks of ideology: first, to mask t
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more intelligible but also to lead
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empirical subject. The transcendent
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something external to the individua
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Even the individual who explicitly
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others, and even her own self-under
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is “contradictory” and “false
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Moreover, even modern critiques of
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Einzelmensch, so wie er zu agieren
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says that the “fixity and invaria
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the subject-object relation. I cons
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the concrete living individual, exp
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Clarifying Adorno’s notion of ant
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structure of modern society maximiz
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the following points to be relative
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accordance with its own autonomous
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orthodox Freudianism, Adorno takes
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In this situation, autonomous ego-c
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Civil Society Let us now turn to an
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den Mann zu bringen, das heißt in
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elations of production inherently l
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according to which any one individu
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The State Finally, we need to consi
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The forces of production have indee
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Gewalt, der von Repression, wie ein
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political and even its military pow
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economic activity for global capita
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that social freedom, or the freedom
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and nature has actually become a th
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epression and domination for their
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case, Hegel’s model would remain
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Page 155 and 156: antagonistic relation to internal n
Page 157 and 158: Adorno’s conception of the antago
Page 159 and 160: The question I pursue in this and t
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Page 163 and 164: selbst waltende” [not merely the
Page 165 and 166: efusal to acknowledge social factor
Page 167 and 168: There is therefore a sort of social
Page 169 and 170: their own autonomously defined ends
Page 171 and 172: available to thought. By bringing t
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Page 175 and 176: eality by the principle of exchange
Page 177 and 178: If a critical form of thought expos
Page 179 and 180: The following diagram illustrates t
Page 181 and 182: appearance and essence characterist
Page 183 and 184: Adorno’s famous statement that
Page 185 and 186: false or delusory. So, the idea tha
Page 187 and 188: it is also not merely ‘logically
Page 189 and 190: Hegel’s Science of Logic begins w
Page 191 and 192: In my view, the sublation [Aufhebun
Page 193 and 194: contingent historical development,
Page 195 and 196: further interpretation. This need f
Page 197 and 198: Marcuse’s builds his conception o
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Page 201 and 202: (2) that there are tendencies alrea
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Page 207 and 208: eality “in itself,” or essentia
Page 209 and 210: Since the contradiction between app
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Page 217 and 218: objects, for the constitution of ob
Page 219 and 220: However, we do not yet know how the
Page 221 and 222: CHAPTER 5: A FREUDIAN INTERPRETATIO
Page 223 and 224: objects only to the extent that the
Page 225 and 226: it does not follow the rules of thi
Page 227 and 228: mechanism, namely paranoid projecti
Page 229 and 230: civilization and enlightenment has
Page 231 and 232: Adorno and Horkheimer see the Shoah
Page 233 and 234: thought has experienced a loss of e
Page 235 and 236: any objective appreciation and judg
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Page 239 and 240: imagination exists that ‘reality
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Page 243 and 244: of Adorno’s negative dialectics i
Page 245 and 246: that human beings on the average ca
Page 247 and 248: 5.4.1 Development of civilization A
Page 249 and 250: The first stage of distance that Ad
Page 251 and 252: persuade it or “convince” it to
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Threatening, wild nature is pushed
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stronger, and so became the exertio
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advanced capitalist societies is ne
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In his Vorlesung über Negative Dia
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Denken ineinsgesetzt, ohne dessen f
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instrumental reason. Stepping outsi
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een totally “civilized,” of all
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nature from the world; they repeat
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5.5 Conclusion This chapter has dev
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teleologically ordered structure th
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CHAPTER 6: THE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHT
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6.1 The dialectic of enlightenment
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development of the modern period an
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necessitated by the very mechanism
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The interpretation of Dialektik der
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doing without society provides no a
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conception of historical developmen
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of the system and perhaps also taki
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alone, seemingly for its own sake.
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accordance with which social realit
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(3) Therefore, the result of regres
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from its beginnings in animism to h
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subsection (6.2.2), I briefly expla
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constraints to bring about the emer
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Just like the social-historical lev
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6.2.3 Adorno’s historical method:
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dans sa force et sa faiblesse, la s
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emplacements et de déplacements, d
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individual as ailing from a weak eg
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this point is worth emphasizing bec
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element is a necessary component of
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exchange). Moreover, I said that, f
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within, and constructs the world as
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would be the case if exchange was a
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But the relation of nature to socie
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neither can be understood as more f
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The ‘natural history’ of a phen
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Verschlingungen; darum sind ihr so
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given to the structural order of so
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principle of exchange’s primacy o
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contradiction between appearance an
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introduced in chapter 3: the elemen
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When we consider the relation betwe
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The main goal of this chapter and t
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each of the Concept (beyond the rea
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object leaves room for an idea of c
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context of the object’s origin is
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each element of Kant’s theory on
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precisely through the interpretatio
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problems of the text (or other obje
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Ängste auskennt, das ist auf der e
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The world of empirical experience,
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Adorno interprets Kant’s division
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interpretation as the dissolution o
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demonstrates that the contradiction
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ist—der Begriff des Widerspruchs
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a. The first component corresponds
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historical context. But this way of
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The concern with retrieving the non
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object, which necessarily exceeds i
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the problem seems to be inherent in
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However, this society is pathologic
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sufficiency the “Schein des Ansic
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The category of ‘inner nature’
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fragments and their rhetorical form
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TABLE 7.1 DISCURSIVE-CONCEPTUAL V.
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moreover, a critique that simply ig
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The two philosophical strands, or s
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experience of suffering or damage,
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CHAPTER 8: PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE A
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adicalization of the materialist st
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Adorno’s words, nature is that wh
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One important point in Benjamin’s
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After the fall, “the judging word
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Importantly, however, language afte
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particular object is preserved in o
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that, “Was aber solche Namen als
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Die platonische Anamnesis steht die
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elements in the exemplary particula
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hat Geschichte nur noch als einen G
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Das Echte - jenes Ursprungssiegel i
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It is not my purpose here philosoph
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Adorno takes the idea of constellat
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The notion of onomatopoeia is strai
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Ausdruck kommt, in sehr entrückten
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evelation of this symbolic dimensio
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anders als in der Sprache nicht ged
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an aesthetic (artistic) ability to
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The constellation provides a field,
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constellation succeeds, and in the
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Again in agreement, Benjamin and Ad
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Adorno’s basic disagreement with
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immediately related to the economic
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[B]eide sind die auseinandergerisse
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illumination of the phenomenon that
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Adorno says that “Die Formel daß
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echen: Ihre eigene, die rücksichts
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which nature mediates social realit
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concept,” and chapter 8 gave a fi
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eality—that is, the structure of
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conceptual tensions in the object a
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conceptual oppositions that arise f
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object,” as well as in the “con
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element and in terms of its interpr
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The logical structure of paranoid p
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I do want to conclude with some ref
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If Adorno is right, this abstract l
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that they repress the non-conceptua
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Adorno in the
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---. Negative Dialectics. Translate
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---. “On Some Motifs in Baudelair
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---. “Neurosis and psychosis.”
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---. Capital, Vol. I. Translated by
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