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

and (3) to be transformed by this experience in such a way that it achieves the standpoint
of Absolute Knowledge, from which alone it can understand philosophical Wissenschaft.
All three of these achievements require that the reader follow the progression of the
ordinary consciousness; the observing consciousness “muß auch dem Inhalte nach die
Bildungsstufen des allgemeinen Geistes durchlaufen….” 19
Importantly, the contradiction reached at any given stage in the dialectic is
understood differently from the standpoint of the ordinary consciousness and from the
standpoint of the phenomenological observer (except, of course, at the end of the
dialectical journey, at which point the two standpoints coincide). The contradiction
derived within one position is for the ordinary consciousness a mere refutation of its view
of the world. The ordinary consciousness conceives of the form of consciousness that
follows as an achievement underdetermined by, and therefore to some degree
independent from, the failure that preceded it. The ordinary consciousness therefore is
not aware of the ontological necessity that drives it to adopt a specific new form of
understanding the world.
The observing consciousness, on the other hand, understands that the new form of
consciousness is uniquely determined by the contradiction, so that the connections
between forms of consciousness is necessary. But how is it that the observing
consciousness is able to see the connections between different forms of ordinary
consciousness as necessary? The key point in Hegel’s answer to this question is that the
19 Hegel, G.W.F., Phänomenologie des Geistes, in Werke, Vol. 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1970), 32: English translation in Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979),
28, p. 16: “The individual must also pass through the formative stages of universal Spirit so far as their
content is concerned….”
18