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

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met intolerable frustration in relation to the social order requires an examination of socio- historical developments that made satisfaction impossible in relation to external reality— developments that are contingent and irreducible to what existed before and what had already inscribed itself in the natural substratum of existents. The fact that history reached a stage that created social conditions of intolerable frustration for the human psyche was not necessitated by the natural substratum of social life. Nor, finally, was there any necessity to the fact that, faced with intolerable frustration, humanity regressed to the stage of primary mimesis (in a distorted manner, of course) by withdrawing cathexes from the external world and attaching them to the subject. At the level of the individual, Freud points out that the human organism is capable of a variety of responses in the face of intolerable frustration: for instance, the object desired may be substituted for one more easily attainable, the component desire whose satisfaction is frustrated may be substituted for another, sublimation may take place, or a return to perversion, or regression. Similarly, at the level of the history of Western civilization, the fact that humanity regressed in response to the frustration brought about by the failure of the bourgeois era to fulfill its promises of emancipation and happiness was not the only possible reaction of a humanity faced with intolerable conditions of existence—or, at least, it was not a reaction necessitated by the fact of frustration. Changing the conditions of existence through revolutionary activity would have been an alternative, for instance. But the conflict was lived in such a way that the social imaginary simply regressed to a hyper-cathexis of the transcendental ego, the mind, and through projection gave rise to a new world order characterized by paranoid delusion. 290
Just like the social-historical level is insufficient for understanding the development of civilization and how its present state contains a historical dimension at all, similarly the natural level is insufficient for understanding the present in its historical dimension. Adorno in fact argues that all of history is constituted by mediation “zwischen dem mythisch-archaischen, natürlichen Stoff der Geschichte, des Gewesenen und dem, was dialektisch neu in ihr auftaucht, neu im prägnanten Sinn” [between the mythical archaic, natural material of history, of what has been, and that which surfaces as dialectically and emphatically new]. 270 In this mediation, history presents itself as something “durchaus Diskontinuierliches” [thoroughly discontinuous] that cannot be brought into a “Strukturganzheit” [structural whole]: 271 instead of understanding history as a singular continuous narrative, Adorno proposes that the interpretation of history moves precisely in dialectical connections and ineliminable oppositions between nature (which returns to the archaic and unchanging, for instance the domination of nature) and history (where new and contingent elements emerge). Die Grundbestimmung der Vergänglichkeit des Irdischen bedeutet nichts anderes als ein solches Verhältnis von Natur und Geschichte; daß alles Sein oder alles Seiende zu fassen ist nur als Verschränkung von geschichtlichem und naturhaftem Sein. Als Vergänglichkeit ist Urgeschichte absolut präsent. Sie ist es im Zeichen von »Bedeutung«. Der Terminus »Bedeutung« heißt, daß die Momente Natur und Geschichte nicht ineinander aufgehen, sondern daß sie zugleich auseinanderbrechen und sich so verschränken, daß das Natürliche auftritt als 270 Adorno, “Die Idee der Naturgeschichte,” in Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 1: Philosophische Frühschriften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003), 362. English translation by Robert Hullot- Kentor in Adorno, “The Idea of Natural History,” Telos, 17, No. 2 (1984): 122. 271 Ibid., emphasis in the original. 291
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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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how the potential can be fulfilled
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antagonistic relation to internal n
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Adorno’s conception of the antago
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The question I pursue in this and t
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local heteronomy, or total determin
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selbst waltende” [not merely the
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efusal to acknowledge social factor
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There is therefore a sort of social
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their own autonomously defined ends
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available to thought. By bringing t
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durch ihre einzelnen Momente hindur
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eality by the principle of exchange
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If a critical form of thought expos
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The following diagram illustrates t
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appearance and essence characterist
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Adorno’s famous statement that
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false or delusory. So, the idea tha
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it is also not merely ‘logically
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Hegel’s Science of Logic begins w
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In my view, the sublation [Aufhebun
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contingent historical development,
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further interpretation. This need f
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Marcuse’s builds his conception o
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essence gives way to a more develop
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(2) that there are tendencies alrea
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eality as a whole does not result i
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asking them to choose their prefere
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eality “in itself,” or essentia
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Since the contradiction between app
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appearance to essence. But the empi
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eflection to the study of social re
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nature, which constitutes social re
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objects, for the constitution of ob
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However, we do not yet know how the
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CHAPTER 5: A FREUDIAN INTERPRETATIO
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objects only to the extent that the
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it does not follow the rules of thi
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mechanism, namely paranoid projecti
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civilization and enlightenment has
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Adorno and Horkheimer see the Shoah
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thought has experienced a loss of e
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any objective appreciation and judg
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der Menschheit im Bann der technisc
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imagination exists that ‘reality
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esults in the radical creation of s
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of Adorno’s negative dialectics i
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that human beings on the average ca
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5.4.1 Development of civilization A
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The first stage of distance that Ad
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Page 255 and 256: Threatening, wild nature is pushed
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Page 261 and 262: In his Vorlesung über Negative Dia
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Page 265 and 266: instrumental reason. Stepping outsi
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Page 271 and 272: 5.5 Conclusion This chapter has dev
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Page 275 and 276: CHAPTER 6: THE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHT
Page 277 and 278: 6.1 The dialectic of enlightenment
Page 279 and 280: development of the modern period an
Page 281 and 282: necessitated by the very mechanism
Page 283 and 284: The interpretation of Dialektik der
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Page 293 and 294: accordance with which social realit
Page 295 and 296: (3) Therefore, the result of regres
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Page 299 and 300: subsection (6.2.2), I briefly expla
Page 301: constraints to bring about the emer
Page 305 and 306: 6.2.3 Adorno’s historical method:
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Page 309 and 310: emplacements et de déplacements, d
Page 311 and 312: individual as ailing from a weak eg
Page 313 and 314: this point is worth emphasizing bec
Page 315 and 316: element is a necessary component of
Page 317 and 318: exchange). Moreover, I said that, f
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Page 323 and 324: But the relation of nature to socie
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Page 327 and 328: The ‘natural history’ of a phen
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Page 341 and 342: The main goal of this chapter and t
Page 343 and 344: each of the Concept (beyond the rea
Page 345 and 346: object leaves room for an idea of c
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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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