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

pathological, emancipated society is then a mere utopian fantasy that could never have
been true, and the realization of which has no room in any possible future.
In section 1, I explain the details of this widespread interpretation of Adorno.
Then, on the basis of the interpretation of the dialectic of enlightenment and nature that I
developed in chapter 5, I show in the second section of this chapter that the interpretation
explained in section 1 is erroneous. I argue instead that domination and pathology are not
necessarily connected in Adorno’s thought. Domination, which does in Adorno’s view
necessarily accompany the process of subjectivation and the formation of civilization, is a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for the onset of enlightened civilization’s
pathology of paranoia. The development of pathology requires, in addition, historically
contingent developments that have led to the total domination of capitalist relations over
the social order. Understanding how these contingent socio-economic developments
came about, how they affected (in fact, how they mediated) the relation between society
and nature, and how they led to the pathology of contemporary Western civilization is
key for understanding Adorno’s philosophy.
After explaining the role of contingent socio-historical and economic
developments in the dialectic of enlightenment and nature, and arguing that the resulting
picture opposes common misinterpretations of Adorno’s philosophy, I turn in section 3 to
constructing an overall interpretation of Adorno’s conception of contemporary society
and critical thought, and I explain how this interpretation answers questions that were left
open in the initial formulations of Adorno’s social theory that I advanced in chapter 4.
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