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

concept,” and chapter 8 gave a final account of the theory of language presupposed by
this conception.
Having clarified the two conceptions of “contradiction” central to Adorno’s
negative dialectics, my goals in this concluding chapter are, first, to show how the two
forms of contradiction come together into an overall account of dialectical contradiction;
second, to articulate the dialectical structure that follows from this account of
contradiction; and, finally, to answer the question with which I opened this study:
namely, how the overarching structure of contradiction in Adorno is a form of
determinate, rather than ‘abstract’ or ‘skeptical’ negation.
Let us begin by recalling the results of our investigations into the two forms of
contradiction at work in negative dialectics: the contradiction in the object and the
contradiction in the concept.
In chapter 4, I argued that the “contradiction in the object” refers to the
contradictory structure between essence and appearance that, according to Adorno,
characterizes reified social reality (reality as determined in its totality by the principle of
exchange), and that becomes subsumed under ‘appearance’ through the intervention of
critical thought. I have argued that, for Adorno, the structure of reified society contains
three distinct layers: (i) the layer of appearance, (ii) the layer of essence and its
opposition to appearance; and, thirdly, (iii) the layer of interpretation that yields the
pathological meaning of the structure of opposition between essence and appearance.
‘Appearance’ corresponds, subjectively, to the ordinary or positivist consciousness of
finite elements and ‘facts’ constitutive of social reality and, objectively, to these elements
themselves. ‘Essence’ corresponds, subjectively, to the theoretical consciousness of the
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