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

nature, which constitutes social reality and discursivity. It is moreover as a result of this
double determination of thought (conceptual structure as a whole) and being (the
structure of the object world) by a single underlying principle that dialectics takes the
dynamic form that it takes in Hegel, Marx and Adorno, in all of which the analysis
proceeds by the progressive determination of the object of critique, beginning with more
general (abstract) categories and moving dialectically from these categories to more
determinate, concrete ones, with the goal of reproducing concrete reality in thought.
We can thus outline the following conditions for dialectics, which hold in the
accounts given by Hegel and Marx and, apparently, by Adorno as well:
a. Homology between conceptual structure and the structure of the world.
b. Holistic structure of concepts (which replicates the holistic intelligible ground of
the world).
c. Reproduction of concrete reality in thought through the progressive determination
of the object of critique, beginning with more general (abstract) categories and
moving dialectically from these categories to more determinate, concrete ones.
Conditions (a) and (b) account for the idea that dialectical logic is an ontological, rather
than a merely formal, logic. And (a) and (b) make possible a form of dialectical
reflection whose aim is expressed by (c).
The whole account developed thus far explains the ontological grounds that make
dialectical reflection possible, and the structure of such reflection, on the grounds of an
ontological monism of thought and being and of the inner structure that characterizes the
intelligibility of both. In terms of Adorno’s philosophy, this monism was developed from
the first component of his ontology of antagonism—that is, the element of internal
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