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

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So, as we follow the turns of Adorno’s dialectical view of subject and object, it will be essential to keep in mind that the views we consider and discuss at any particular moment are provisional, and that their meaning will undergo alterations until the whole dialectic comes together into an arrangement of views (the constellation) that orders them into a self-reflexive analysis of the total phenomenon and that illuminates the determinate failures of each partial analysis, as well as the whole. Since, moreover, the present chapter focuses exclusively on the subject’s relation to the object conceived as the social world, and leaves for later a discussion of how nature mediates and alters this relation, it is all the more essential to keep in mind that the views we will be reconstructing here are provisional and not a final account of the subject-object relation underlying negative dialectics. We are now ready to turn to Adorno’s text. As I already announced above, I will proceed by focusing on his essay “Zu Subjekt und Objekt.” 69 In particular, I will focus on one section, namely section 3 of the essay, which deals specifically with the subject’s relation to social reality. By exploring the dialectical moves contained in this section, the remainder of this chapter will construct an initial account of the relation of subject and object, on which other chapters will build, as well as an initial account of the negative dialectical method, which will be also refined in the course of further investigation. 69 In Adorno, Stichworte: Kritische Modelle, Vol. 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969), 151-168. English translation: Adorno, “On Subject and Object,” trans. Pickford, Henry, in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords (New York: Colombia University Press, 2005), 245-258. 68
2.2 The subject’s mediation of and by the social world This section gives an exegesis and commentary of Adorno’s dialectical reflections on the subject’s mediation of the object in sections 1-3 of “Zu Subjekt und Objekt.” The passage begins with a statement of the inherently ambiguous point of departure faced by any investigation of subjectivity. “Mit Erwägungen über Subjekt und Objekt einzusetzen, bereitet die Schwierigkeit anzugeben, worüber eigentlich geredet werden soll. Offenkundig sind die Termini äquivok. So kann »Subjekt« sich auf das einzelne Individuum ebenso wie auf allgemeine Bestimmungen, nach der Sprache der Kantischen Prolegomena von »Bewußtsein überhaupt« beziehen.” 70 The ambiguity here is one between reference to concrete and embodied individual selves, on the one hand, and to the universal structures of consciousness that order individual experience—something like Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception or Husserl’s transcendental ego—on the other. Because of the sedimented 71 meanings contained in the concept of the ‘subject,’ 70 Adorno, “Zu Subjekt und Objekt,” in Stichworte: Kritische Modelle, Vol. 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1969), 151. Cf. Pickford’s translation in Adorno, “On Subject and Object,” Critical Models (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 245: “To lead in with reflections about subject and object raises the difficulty of stating what exactly the topic of discussion should be. The terms are patently equivocal. Thus ‘subject’ can refer to the particular individual as well as to universal attributes of ‘consciousness in general,’ in the language of Kant’s Prolegomena.” 71 The idea that concepts contain meanings sedimented in them is one that will be explained in detail in chapters 7-8. In terms of the present discussion, the point is just that the concepts we use owe their content to a historical process that has imbued them with various meanings, which in their turn have arisen from specific socio-historical contexts. Every concept has a content that is historically inherited and that therefore is not “pure,” not free of presuppositions and one-sidedness derived from the historical development. In terms of the philosophical tradition specifically, the concept of a supra-individual subjectivity (whether merely logical or ontologically substantive) was at the center of philosophical discourse since at least Kant, and it took several different shades of meaning: Kant’s idea of the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, Fichte’s I as self-positing self-consciousness, Hegel’s notion of the “I that is a we, and a we that is an I” (Geist), etc. When thinking about the subject in the face of such a variegated tradition, the very meaning of what is meant by ‘subject’ is an issue. All of the senses of ‘subject’ I just mentioned above, though different, stand in contradistinction to a concept of the subject as an individual, empirical self. It is this fundamental difference that marks the point of departure in Adorno’s thinking here. 69
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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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Page 33 and 34: consciousness to perform the operat
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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
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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 and 58: as thought, is a form of thought th
Page 59 and 60: conceptual element. It is thus ulti
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
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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: in it as providing a stable view of
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
Page 109 and 110: says that the “fixity and invaria
Page 111 and 112: the subject-object relation. I cons
Page 113 and 114: the concrete living individual, exp
Page 115 and 116: Clarifying Adorno’s notion of ant
Page 117 and 118: structure of modern society maximiz
Page 119 and 120: the following points to be relative
Page 121 and 122: accordance with its own autonomous
Page 123 and 124: orthodox Freudianism, Adorno takes
Page 125 and 126: In this situation, autonomous ego-c
Page 127 and 128: Civil Society Let us now turn to an
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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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