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

philosophical positions) because it encompasses all possible standpoints from which an
attempt to negate it could be articulated, and it does not contain any presuppositions of its
own that could be countered with equipollence considerations. This imperviousness to
skeptical challenge is what makes the dialectically derived system “absolute”: it
encompasses all standpoints and all theoretical and practical forms of consciousness, and
it is not itself a one-sided position or standpoint. The result is the final and complete
articulation of philosophical rationality.
There are two main points I want to stress regarding the Hegelian conception of
dialectical reflection: First, that dialectical movement presupposes determinate negation,
and, second, that determinate negation in turn presupposes the ‘absoluteness’ of the
Hegelian system. (By ‘absoluteness’ I mean specifically the idea that the system
encompasses all philosophical positions and is not itself susceptible of ‘negation’ or
dialectical development.)
1.1.1 Dialectical movement presupposes determinate negation.
Immanent critique works because contradiction, when philosophically
understood, produces a positive result. If the result of driving a position of thought into
contradiction with itself were the mere refutation of that position, and refutations of
different positions were just unrelated proofs of the failure of those positions, then there
would be no positive content to Hegel’s philosophy; it would instead constitute a form of
skepticism. However, according to Hegel, the contradiction internal to one position of
thought compels reflection to adopt a unique new position, which can be submitted to the
same treatment as the one before it. It is because the different positions are tightly
connected and give rise to one another in this way that they produce dialectical motion.
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