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

fragments of discursive language around the object in such a way that the idea arises, so
that the non-conceptual in the object expresses itself in language.
The exemplary particular is the one that challenges the inner unity of the concept
to the fullest extent.
Und zwar liegen jene Elemente, deren Auslösung aus den Phänomenen Aufgabe
des Begriffes ist, in den Extremen am genauesten zutage. Als Gestaltung des
Zusammenhanges, in dem das Einmalig-Extreme mit seinesgleichen steht, ist die
Idee umschrieben. ... Vom Extremen geht der Begriff aus. Wie die Mutter aus
voller Kraft sichtlich erst da zu leben beginnt, wo der Kreis ihrer Kinder aus dem
Gefühl ihrer Nähe sich um sie schließt, so treten die Ideen ins Leben erst, wo die
Extreme sich um sie versammeln. 363
The exemplary particular challenges the unity of the conceptual elements that have
sedimented around the thing that we want to express. By confronting the concepts with
the particular, specific relations between the conceptual elements become exacerbated:
relations where they are in tension with, or even straightforwardly contradict, each other
in their common application to the thing, or relations where elements of different
concepts, which are not connected logically, arise as reciprocally illuminating of some
objective features of the thing. These relations, which are not imposed by the
philosopher but rather emerge from the confrontation between the various conceptual
363 Benjamin, Walter, Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels, in Gesammelte Werke I (Frankfurt
am Main: Zweitausendeins, 2011), 771, emphasis mine. English translation by John Osborne in The
Origin of German Tragic Drama (London and New York: Verso, 2003), 35:
[T]hose elements which it is the function of the concept to elicit from phenomena are most clearly
evident at the extremes. The idea is best explained as the representation of the context within
which the unique and extreme stands alongside its counterpart. … The concept has its roots in the
extreme. Just as a mother is seen to begin to live in the fullness of her power only when the circle
of her children, inspired by the feeling of her proximity, closes around her, so do ideas come to
life only when extremes are assembled around them.
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