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

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conceptual element. In order to experience the object in thought, both elements must be interpreted because both elements are constitutive of the object. In fact, philosophy’s desire to know the object as an object of thought (thus as not defined only by the subject) requires an interpretation of the non-conceptual element in the object that does not reduce it to the mind. 48 The Hegelian view of the object, however, ultimately reduces it to its “turned against itself” in order to reach the non-conceptual without denying it as non-conceptual, we rule out the very possibility of philosophy. See Adorno, Vorlesung über Negative Dialektik, in Nachgelassene Schriften, Vol. 16 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003), 111-112: Aber wenn man nicht das Vertrauen darauf hat, daß dieser Ausbruch aus der Sphäre des gemachten Begriffs in das diesem Begriff wesentlich zugehörige Nichtbegriffliche eben doch möglich sei, dann kann man wirklich überhaupt nicht philosophieren. Sie können sagen: warum muß philosophiert werden, —und darauf kann ich Ihnen eine Antwort nicht geben. Aber immerhin: wenn man eine solche Nötigung überhaupt verspürt, dann ist sie ohne ein Moment das Vertrauens auf die Möglichkeit des Ausbruchs nicht zu vollziehen. … Sondern die Philosophie besteht gerade in der Anstrengung, das zu sagen, was nicht sich sagen läßt: nämlich was nicht unmittelbar, was nicht in einem einzelnen Satz oder in einzelnen Sätzen, sondern nur in einem Zusammenhang sich sagen läßt. … Es wäre die Utopie der Erkenntnis…, das Begriffslose nun nicht etwa durch irgendwelche begriffslosen, angeblich höheren Methoden zu ergreifen, sondern das Begriffslose vermittels des Begriffs und vermittels der Selbstkritik der Begriffe aufzuschließen, —ohne daß dabei das Begriffslose, das Begriffene seinerseits gewalttätig von außen her den Begriffen gleichgemacht werden dürfte. English translation by Rodney Livingstone in Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 74: But if we have no confidence in the feasibility of such a breakout from the sphere of the manufactured concept into the non-conceptual realm essentially belonging to that concept, this would rule out philosophizing of any kind. You may well reply: then why philosophize at all— and I can give you no answer to that. Nevertheless, if you feel such a need, it cannot be satisfied without an element of confidence in the possibility of a breakout. … We should insist instead that philosophy consists in the effort to say what cannot be said, in particular whatever cannot be said directly, in a single sentence or a few sentences, but only in a context. … It would be the utopia of cognition…if it might prove possible to grasp the non-conceptual not by means of some allegedly superior non-conceptual methods, but by unlocking the non-conceptual by means of the concept, and the self-criticism of concepts—without reducing what has been comprehended, the nonconceptual, to concepts by main force. 48 See Adorno, Vorlesung über Negative Dialektik, in Nachgelassene Schriften, Vol. 16 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2003), 85: “Denn diese ist die oberste Gestalt der Philosophie, als der Versuch, das nicht Begriffliche, der Philosophie] Heterogene in diese hineinzunchmen, also Phil[osophie] aufs Wesentliche auszudehnen, das sie in ihrer traditionellen, affirmativen Gestalt unterschlägt.” Cf. Livingstone’s translation in Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008), 55: “For this is the highest form of philosophy; it is the attempt to incorporate the non-conceptual into itself, that which is heterogeneous to philosophy, in short, to extend phil[osophy] to the essential, the very thing it suppresses in its traditional, affirmative form.” 46
conceptual element. It is thus ultimately one-sided and undialectical. To really attain a full experience of the object, the Hegelian account would need to be supplemented by a different account of the object, where the non-conceptual is an active participant in cognition without being subsumed fully under concepts. Like the argument against Hegel’s philosophy of history, this argument constitutes an internal critique of Hegel: a demonstration that Hegel ultimately fails by his own standards of dialectical rigor because his view of reality as a whole constitutes only one moment of a further dialectical opposition. According to Adorno, the Hegelian system is not self-grounding or “absolute” but rather mediated by nature. In both of the arguments that we have seen here—against the Hegelian philosophy of history and against his conception of the relation between concept and object—Adorno criticizes Hegel for ultimately forgetting the non-conceptual natural element that is in its own right an ontological and meaningful constituent of reality. 1.3 Determinate negation in negative dialectics The question I wish to consider now is how Adorno’s critique and dialectical development of Hegel affects how we should understand the notion of negation in negative dialectics. Adorno claims to endorse a Hegelian notion of determinate negation. 49 He claims of his own concept of negativity, “daß darin die Anweisung steckt 49 See, for example, Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung, in Max Horkheimer: Gesammelte Schriften, Vol. 5 (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997), 46, where Adorno assimilates Hegel’s call for determinate negation to philosophical respect for Bilderverbot—a respect we ought to follow and foster—but claims that, in his final complete system of identity, Hegel violates the Bilderverbot and thus also his own call for determinate negation. (English reference in trans. Jephcott, Edmund, Dialectic of Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 18.) 47
Page 1 and 2:
CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALEC
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CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALEC
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For my parents, Luz Marina and John
Page 7 and 8: 4.3 Adorno’s resolution of the di
Page 9 and 10: FIGURES Figure 4.1: Inner contradic
Page 11 and 12: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost,
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM OF DETERMINA
Page 15 and 16: in the present study, and which I t
Page 17 and 18: inadequate. In my view, O’Connor
Page 19 and 20: system, and Adorno rejects both the
Page 21 and 22: and instead examining only the assu
Page 23 and 24: In Hegel, there are three stages in
Page 25 and 26: dialectical movement in act. 16 Phi
Page 27 and 28: According to Hegel, the philosopher
Page 29 and 30: dialectic is driven forward from on
Page 31 and 32: observing consciousness has already
Page 33 and 34: consciousness to perform the operat
Page 35 and 36: and makes possible the successive a
Page 37 and 38: corresponds to the self-determining
Page 39 and 40: And yet, as I hope to have shown in
Page 41 and 42: claim; namely, that the Hegelian sy
Page 43 and 44: the system’s inability to express
Page 45 and 46: Hegel’s idea that history is in e
Page 47 and 48: irremediably caught in a situation
Page 49 and 50: defined in its essence by rationali
Page 51 and 52: zum Entsetzen verifiziert und auf d
Page 53 and 54: 1.2.2 Hegelian dialectics as a form
Page 55 and 56: objectivity, but rather as an empha
Page 57: as thought, is a form of thought th
Page 61 and 62: It is clear, however, that (2) is n
Page 63 and 64: ultimately blind to this problem. H
Page 65 and 66: Aber Denken darf auch nicht bei der
Page 67 and 68: The first contradiction is internal
Page 69 and 70: world, and the nature of the subjec
Page 71 and 72: undertaking of giving an account of
Page 73 and 74: eflection. 62 The idea is that, ins
Page 75 and 76: of subject and object characterizin
Page 77 and 78: then, will be to take a suitable ex
Page 79 and 80: in it as providing a stable view of
Page 81 and 82: 2.2 The subject’s mediation of an
Page 83 and 84: It might be thought, then, that the
Page 85 and 86: the subject as, on the one hand, an
Page 87 and 88: of consciousness that are then said
Page 89 and 90: Note the radical nature of Adorno
Page 91 and 92: tasks of ideology: first, to mask t
Page 93 and 94: more intelligible but also to lead
Page 95 and 96: empirical subject. The transcendent
Page 97 and 98: something external to the individua
Page 99 and 100: Even the individual who explicitly
Page 101 and 102: others, and even her own self-under
Page 103 and 104: is “contradictory” and “false
Page 105 and 106: Moreover, even modern critiques of
Page 107 and 108: 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,
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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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