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

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eproducible art, especially film, as a tool for revolutionary change, not realizing the regressive potential of this art form). As early as his review of Benjamin’s essay on Kafka in 1934, Adorno showed strong reservations about Benjamin’s method. In a letter dated December 17, Adorno first praises the essay, particularly the method of “inverse theology” that employs natural interpretation to illuminate the supernatural, and the supernatural to illuminate the most natural, but he also says that the work is incomplete: “Denn dies ist ihre Unfertigkeit. Das Verhältnis von Urgeschichte und Moderne ist noch nicht zum Begriff erhoben und das Geligen einer Kafkainterpretation muß in letzter Instanz davon abhängen.” 405 Adorno discusses specific details from the Kafka piece, but the point seems to be the same in each case: The juxtaposition of archaic and dialectical images needs more conceptual mediation; it remains too image-like, and Adorno recommends a more Hegelian approach, noting that the juxtaposition of unmediated extremes remains “abstrakt im Hegelschen Sinne” [abstract in the Hegelian sense]. 406 Less than a year later, Adorno reiterates the same criticism with regard to Benjamin’s first exposé of the Arcades Project. His main complaint is that the method is undialectical because it presents history and nature by just juxtaposing images of both instead of mediating dialectically between them. In a letter from 2-4 August, 1935, 405 Lonitz, Henri, ed. Theodor W. Adorno: Briefe und Briefwechsel, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt Suhrkamp, 1994), 91. English translation in Lonitz, Henri, ed., trans. Walker, Nicholas, Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin: The Complete Correspondence 1928-1940 (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999), 67-68: “For this is its incompleteness. The relationship between primal history and modernity has yet to be conceptualized, and the success of an interpretation of Kafka must depend in the last analysis upon the former.” 406 Lonitz, Henri, ed. Theodor W. Adorno: Briefe und Briefwechsel, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt Suhrkamp, 1994), 92. Adorno also admits that Benjamin is “probably unaware” of just how close his method is to Hegel, but how its shortcomings are already explained by Hegel in the fact that the method remains too abstract. 432
Adorno says that “Die Formel daß »das Neue sich mit dem Alten durchdringt« ist mir höchst bedenklich im Sinne meiner Kritik am dialektischen Bild als einer Regression. Nicht wird darin aufs Alte zurückgegriffen sondern das Neueste ist, als Schein und Phantasmagorie, selber das Alte.” 407 Adorno argues that both the materialist element and the natural-historical (inverse theological) element suffer from a lack of mediation and become too positivistic; only a “radicalization” of the dialectical moment can prevent a fall into positivism. “Eine Restitution der Theologie oder lieber eine Radikalisierung der Dialektik bis in den theologischen Glutkern hinein müßte zugleich eine äußerste Schärfung des gesellschaftlich-dialektischen, ja des ökonomischen Motives bedeuten.” 408 The same philosophical difference continued to be evident in Adorno’s response to other works by Benjamin until his death (with the exception of the second Baudelaire essay, which Benjamin corrected in view of Adorno’s criticisms so that it would be published in the journal of the Institut für Sozialforschung, and the “Thesen über den Begriff der Geschichte,” the last of Benjamin’s written work, which Adorno in any case did not see until 1941, after Benjamin’s death). Adorno’s reaction to the first draft of Benjamin’s Baudelaire’s essay was extremely critical. Benjamin’s movement between minute facts and elements of nineteenth century life and the economic conditions was 407 Lonitz, Henri, ed. Theodor W. Adorno: Briefe und Briefwechsel, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt Suhrkamp, 1994), 145. English translation in Lonitz, Henri, ed., trans. Walker, Nicholas, Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin: The Complete Correspondence 1928-1940 (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999), 109: “The phrase ‘the new and the old are intermingled’ [from Benjamin’s exposé] is highly suspect to me, given my earlier critique of the dialectical image as regression. There is no real reversion to the old, but rather the newest, as semblance and phantasmagoria, is itself the old.” 408 Lonitz, Henri, ed. Theodor W. Adorno: Briefe und Briefwechsel, Vol. 1 (Frankfurt Suhrkamp, 1994), 143, emphasis mine. English translation in Lonitz, Henri, ed., trans. Walker, Nicholas, Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin: The Complete Correspondence 1928-1940 (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1999), 108: “A restoration of theology, or better still, a radicalization of dialectic introduced into the glowing heart of theology, would simultaneously require the utmost intensification of the social-dialectical, and indeed economic, motifs.” 433
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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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persuade it or “convince” it to
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much greater control over nature, b
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Threatening, wild nature is pushed
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stronger, and so became the exertio
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advanced capitalist societies is ne
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In his Vorlesung über Negative Dia
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Denken ineinsgesetzt, ohne dessen f
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instrumental reason. Stepping outsi
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een totally “civilized,” of all
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nature from the world; they repeat
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5.5 Conclusion This chapter has dev
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teleologically ordered structure th
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CHAPTER 6: THE DIALECTIC OF ENLIGHT
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6.1 The dialectic of enlightenment
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development of the modern period an
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necessitated by the very mechanism
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The interpretation of Dialektik der
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doing without society provides no a
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conception of historical developmen
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of the system and perhaps also taki
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alone, seemingly for its own sake.
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accordance with which social realit
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(3) Therefore, the result of regres
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from its beginnings in animism to h
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subsection (6.2.2), I briefly expla
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constraints to bring about the emer
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Just like the social-historical lev
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6.2.3 Adorno’s historical method:
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dans sa force et sa faiblesse, la s
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emplacements et de déplacements, d
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individual as ailing from a weak eg
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this point is worth emphasizing bec
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element is a necessary component of
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exchange). Moreover, I said that, f
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within, and constructs the world as
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would be the case if exchange was a
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But the relation of nature to socie
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neither can be understood as more f
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The ‘natural history’ of a phen
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Verschlingungen; darum sind ihr so
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given to the structural order of so
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principle of exchange’s primacy o
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contradiction between appearance an
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introduced in chapter 3: the elemen
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When we consider the relation betwe
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The main goal of this chapter and t
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each of the Concept (beyond the rea
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object leaves room for an idea of c
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context of the object’s origin is
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each element of Kant’s theory on
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precisely through the interpretatio
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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,
Page 393 and 394: CHAPTER 8: PHILOSOPHY OF LANGUAGE A
Page 395 and 396: adicalization of the materialist st
Page 397 and 398: Adorno’s words, nature is that wh
Page 399 and 400: One important point in Benjamin’s
Page 401 and 402: After the fall, “the judging word
Page 403 and 404: Importantly, however, language afte
Page 405 and 406: particular object is preserved in o
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Page 409 and 410: Die platonische Anamnesis steht die
Page 411 and 412: elements in the exemplary particula
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Page 415 and 416: Das Echte - jenes Ursprungssiegel i
Page 417 and 418: It is not my purpose here philosoph
Page 419 and 420: Adorno takes the idea of constellat
Page 421 and 422: The notion of onomatopoeia is strai
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Page 429 and 430: an aesthetic (artistic) ability to
Page 431 and 432: The constellation provides a field,
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Page 435 and 436: Again in agreement, Benjamin and Ad
Page 437 and 438: Adorno’s basic disagreement with
Page 439 and 440: immediately related to the economic
Page 441 and 442: [B]eide sind die auseinandergerisse
Page 443: illumination of the phenomenon that
Page 447 and 448: echen: Ihre eigene, die rücksichts
Page 449 and 450: which nature mediates social realit
Page 451 and 452: concept,” and chapter 8 gave a fi
Page 453 and 454: eality—that is, the structure of
Page 455 and 456: conceptual tensions in the object a
Page 457 and 458: conceptual oppositions that arise f
Page 459 and 460: object,” as well as in the “con
Page 461 and 462: element and in terms of its interpr
Page 463 and 464: The logical structure of paranoid p
Page 465 and 466: I do want to conclude with some ref
Page 467 and 468: If Adorno is right, this abstract l
Page 469 and 470: that they repress the non-conceptua
Page 471 and 472: BIBLIOGRAPHY Works by Adorno in the
Page 473 and 474: ---. Negative Dialectics. Translate
Page 475 and 476: ---. “On Some Motifs in Baudelair
Page 477 and 478: ---. “Neurosis and psychosis.”
Page 479: ---. Capital, Vol. I. Translated by
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