:up: That makes sense to me.

Onto paragraph 5! ;)

Introduction: dialectics not a standpoint

The first paragraph stands up for (a kind of) dialectics and leads towards the first introduction of the concept of the non-identical.

Its name ["(negative) dialectics"] says to begin with nothing more than that objects do not vanish into their concept, that these end up in contradiction with the received norm of the adaequatio.

The norm of adaequatio refers to the expected correspondence between concepts and objects. Under this norm, contradictions appear because correspondence is imperfect, i.e., concepts do not exhaust their objects.

The contradiction is not what Hegel’s absolute idealism unavoidably transfigured it into: no Heraclitean essence. It is the index of the untruth of identity, of the vanishing of the conceptual into the concept.

For Hegel as for Heraclitus, contradiction is an essential part of reality. Adorno denies this, saying rather that contradiction is the result of a concept inadequately matching its object. This is a bit puzzling, because doesn't he say in the first or second lecture that contradictions are more than this mismatch, that in fact they inhere in the objects themselves (society really is full of them), not only between objects and concepts? How isn't this an inconsistency?

The answer, I suppose, has to be that the claim that contradictions are inherent in the object is not a claim of metaphysical essence. Instead, it is a claim that contradiction is neither solely on the side of ontology nor just a subjective inadequacy, but is an objective feature of the relation between the two. There is more to be said here but I'll leave it for now.

The second paragraph is fun—incredibly dense and really crucial. It goes from the important admission that identity thinking is fundamental to thought and cannot be completely avoided, to the idea of the non-identical.

The appearance [Schein] of identity dwells however in thinking itself as a pure form from within. To think means to identify.

The impossibility of avoiding identity-thinking is not a pessimistic point, because the pure ideal of bringing heterogeneous things together in unity can be used well or badly. Reading the chapter on identity and non-identity in Brian O'Connor's book Adorno helped me understand this. He makes the distinction between coercive and non-coercive identity-thinking:

In contrast to the coercive attitude – the one Adorno finds in modern society and in its philosophy – the non-coercive attitude attempts to close the gap between it and the object, without the authority of preconceived categories. — Brian O'Connor, Adorno, p78

This is backed up in Adorno's next sentence:

Conceptual schemata self-contentedly push aside what thinking wants to comprehend.

So for Adorno, identity thinking expresses a utopian ideal of unity, in which contradictions and antagonisms are reconciled and understanding is reached without domination. But what happens is that conceptual schemes subvert this ideal and turn it into domination and violence (both metaphorically and literally, of course).

O'Connor calls the utopian ideal "rational identity."

Adorno’s critique of identity thinking, then, is not of ‘rational identity’, but of the coercive attitude which, in the ways we have seen above, force an identity onto the object. — O'Connor

This raises the question, why does Adorno spend so much time attacking identity-thinking when in fact he could be positively promoting the good kind of identity thinking? The reason is that bad identity thinking is where we are at—the ideal is unattainable in our present material reality. It follows that negative critique of reality is what we need, not positive affirmation of what can only be a fantasy in present conditions. This negative critique takes the central form of an emphasis on the non-identical, that which resists (coercive) identity-thinking.

But I want to look at that paragraph's opening two sentences again:

The appearance [Schein] of identity dwells however in thinking itself as a pure form from within. To think means to identify.

This word for appearance, Schein, is the same as in appearance/essence, and it similarly suggests illusion. Here, the illusion is that thought has exhausted the object, that mind and world are united completely. But this is an illusion that arises from within, from the way we think: to think means to identify.

He goes on:

The former [the appearance or illusion of identity] is not to be summarily removed, for example by vouchsafing some existent-in-itself outside of the totality of thought-determinations.

In other words, we cannot (or ought not) deal with the mismatch between mind and world by appealing to a noumenal realm beyond concepts, saying it's inevitable that we cannot encompass objects with our concepts since real reality is inaccessible to them anyway.

Instead, we should deal with it by pushing thought to its limits from within:

To the consciousness of the phenomenal appearance [Scheinhaftigkeit] of the conceptual totality there remains nothing left but to break through the appearance [Schein] of total identity: in keeping with its own measure.

In other words, once we see that the conceptual system as a whole only appears to be complete—this is the illusion of total identity—there is only one option, namely to break through this illusion. "In keeping with its own measure" means we do this using the same conceptual means as we use in identity thinking, or in all thinking as such.

Since however this totality is formed according to logic, whose core is constructed from the proposition of the excluded third, everything which does not conform to such, everything qualitatively divergent assumes the signature of the contradiction. The contradiction is the non-identical under the aspect of identity; the primacy of the principle of contradiction in dialectics measures what is heterogenous in unitary thinking. By colliding against its own borders, it reaches beyond itself.

"This totality" refers back to "the conceptual totality" quoted above. It's the conceptual system as a whole, a result of identity thinking and giving the illusion of being the result of rational identity. So he says here that this system is shaped by logic. According to the law of the excluded middle, A or not-A with no third option. But reality is ambivalent and complex, so becomes contradictory according to this logic (or this zealous application of logic). For example, Duchamp's "Fountain" is both art and not art, and this is precisely what it means, so it appears contradictory.

So we can see (if we had forgotten) why contradiction is so central to Adorno. Negatively, it is the site of truth, meaning it is what shows there is something wrong, both with our concepts and with the reality described by them.

In the last paragraph of this section, he makes the conclusion explicit, that dialectics, with its treatment of contradiction, is the kind of philosophy we should be doing:

Dialectics is the consistent consciousness of non-identity. It is not related in advance to a standpoint. Thought is driven, out of its unavoidable insufficiency, its guilt for what it thinks, towards it.

Next, he notes that dialectics is seen as reductive. It "grinds everything indiscriminately in
its mill down into the mere logical form of the contradiction," overlooking the real polyvalence that might be better described just as difference. But Adorno doesn't back down:

That which is differentiated appears as divergent, dissonant, negative, so long as consciousness must push towards unity according to its own formation: so long as it measures that which is not identical with itself, with its claim to the totality. This is what dialectics holds up to the consciousness as the contradiction.

Lastly for now...

Thanks to the immanent nature of consciousness, that which is in contradiction has itself the character of inescapable and catastrophic nomothetism [Gesetzmaessigkeit: law-abiding character]. Identity and contradiction in thinking are welded to one another. The totality of the contradiction is nothing other than the untruth of the total identification, as it is manifested in the latter. Contradiction is non-identity under the bane [Bann] of the law, which also influences the non-identical.

He said before that "contradiction is the non-identical under the aspect of identity" and here says that "contradiction is non-identity under the bane [Bann] of the law," because identity imposes itself as laws, particularly the law of the excluded middle and the law of identity.

So the bane of the law is identity-thinking's tyrannical character, and the non-identical is actually affected by this ("also influences the non-identical"). I often say that the non-identical is that which "escapes" our concepts, but in fact, it suffers under their systems. Or, it is distorted by them and appears as contradiction.

What I haven't addressed so far is how dialectics is not a standpoint and what this has to do with anything. I suppose what it means is that dialectics is not a position, but is rather a process. And rather than taking sides, it tries to understand those sides as aspects of a single system. Maybe I'll come back to this when I have more to say about it.

The answer, I suppose, has to be that the claim that contradictions are inherent in the object is not a claim of metaphysical essence. Instead, it is a claim that contradiction is neither solely on the side of ontology nor just a subjective inadequacy, but is an objective feature of the relation between the two. There is more to be said here but I'll leave it for now. — Jamal

I find that this is a very confusing use of "objective". We have the subject on one side, and deficiencies in the approach of the subject are called "subjective". Also, we are discussing whether contradiction inheres within the object, and I would assume that such would be "objective". Now, you mention "an objective feature of the relation between the two". How can you classify a feature, which relies equally on the subject and the object, as "objective"?

I believe this is important, because when we seek to understand "relations", and this is key to understanding what Adorno calls identity thinking, we need to completely distance the relation from both sides of the related things, to understand the general principle of "relations". This becomes non-identity thinking. Then, from this perspective, I think that we find out that all relations which we talk about, are necessarily the products of subjects. And these relations are of two principal categories, those intended toward truth (correspondence), as representing supposed real relations, and those intended toward use (domination). All relations therefore, as understood, are subjective.

The way I'm using "objective," it does not mean "mind-independent," or pertaining only to what is not dependent on a subject. It means it's not just an invention or artifact of the subject. It's opposed to subjective in the sense of purely conceptual and thereby in some sense unrelated to what is outside it (depending on what we're talking about). "Objective" used in this way describes social reality, not just the concepts produced by subjects involved in that reality.

I can see why it might be confusing though, since it's not just the object we're talking about. We could distinguish between your traditional sense of "objective" and my dialectical one. In any case, I thought mine was legitimate and fairly easy to understand.

Anyway, in the end you seem to choose the route of total subjectivization, which I don't think is a good way of understanding Adorno, even if it's the way you like to look at things.

But I'm happy to use "real" instead. What would you say to that?

I don't think "real" solves the problem. If our primary distinction is between concepts and objects, and we are talking about relations between concepts and objects, all three are "real", concepts, objects and their relations.

So my proposal was that since we understand such relations as concepts, the relations must be themselves concepts. You don't think Adorno would accept this, so he must have a third category, something which is neither concept nor object, but consists of the relations between these. Do you think that this is the case? Would we put "identity" in this category? Is the category itself "identity", or does "non-identity" fit into the category as well, as a relation which is not an identity relation?

This word for appearance, Schein, is the same as in appearance/essence, and it similarly suggests illusion. Here, the illusion is that thought has exhausted the object, that mind and world are united completely. But this is an illusion that arises from within, from the way we think: to think means to identify. — Jamal

Here's a good example of such a relationship, expressed here by the word "exhausted". But this relationship, which is a complete identity relation, is said to be an illusion. And this is why "real" might be misleading, to refer to these relations, because they may be true or they may be false.

In other words, we cannot (or ought not) deal with the mismatch between mind and world by appealing to a noumenal realm beyond concepts — Jamal

Here, the word is "mismatch", and this word is supposed to describe the reality of that false relationship which was an illusion. But "mismatch" described a supposed relation which may not even be a real relation. So it may turn out that what appears as an illusion of a relation, may in reality not even be a relation at all.

I think that this is what happens with "identity". Identity, as described by Adorno is a relation. But if we negate identity with non-identity, it may turn out that the thing which was thought of as a relation, because that's how it appeared to us, is not even a relation at all. I think we need to leave this open, as a possibility. When we critique the artificial unity it may be necessary to deny all relations, as potentially illusory.

I don't think "real" solves the problem. If our primary distinction is between concepts and objects, and we are talking about relations between concepts and objects, all three are "real", concepts, objects and their relations. — Metaphysician Undercover

Fair enough. I just meant something like not fictional or not imaginary, in other words not purely conceptual. This has to be emphasized because Adorno sees contradiction as where the non-conceptual, thus non-subjective, is revealed.

So my proposal was that since we understand such relations as concepts, the relations must be themselves concepts. You don't think Adorno would accept this, so he must have a third category, something which is neither concept nor object, but consists of the relations between these. Do you think that this is the case? Would we put "identity" in this category? Is the category itself "identity", or does "non-identity" fit into the category as well, as a relation which is not an identity relation? — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't share your love of metaphysical taxonomy. Non-identity is precisely about where categories fail. But I suppose we can talk about a third relational term, namely mediation—without thinking of it as an ontological category. Identity, centrally, is a failed mediation; and the non-identical, rather than a negation of identity, is the remainder of that failure.

If you must talk in terms of ontological categories, at least see that for Adorno they're dynamic and provisional, and that it's about processes more than things.

At the risk of hand-waviness, note that these issues are exactly what negative dialectics is about, in the sense that Adorno uses concepts that despite everything are not quite right (to expose a world that is not quite right).

Identity, centrally, is a failed mediation; and the non-identical, rather than a negation of identity, is the remainder of that failure. — Jamal

I believe Plato went through a very similar issue with his dialectics, i.e. the failure of identity as a mediation. This is why Aristotle made identity something other than a mediation, placing the identity of the object within the object itself (a thing is the same as itself). And that's the basis for Kant's separation. Notice that this is a relation of separation between object and subject rather than a relation of unity. It implicitly states that the identity which the subject assigns to the object can never be the same as the true identity within the object.

Hegel rejected Aristotle's law of identity, so post-Hegelian "identity" reverts back to this sort of mediation, which had already been proven by Plato, to be a failure. This is alluded to by Adorno when he speaks of the "Aristotelian critics of Hegel". The issue is, where the logic of contradiction fails, and Aristotle 'identified' this as "potential", the "matter" of a thing. He proposed violation of the law of excluded middle, to accommodate this category, where the logic of contradiction is inapplicable.

However, Adorno seizes on this form of "identity", what he calls "the appearance of identity", which is already a property of the subject rather than a property of the object, and he rejects it. It fails because the identity which the subject assigns to the object can never be "total", complete, or perfect. That leaves the part which cannot be apprehended by the human mind with its logic of contradiction, as unintelligible matter, or potential. For Adorno, it appears like the belief in the "totality" of this form of identity is what misleads us, in the primary sense. That totality of "unitary thinking", which assumes all (the totality of the object) can be represented as a unified system, is an illusion created by that sort of ideology.

The appearance [Schein] of identity dwells however in thinking
itself as a pure form from within. To think means to identify.
Conceptual schemata self-contentedly push aside what thinking wants
to comprehend. Its appearance [Schein] and its truth delimit
themselves. The former is not to be summarily removed, for example
by vouchsafing some existent-in-itself outside of the totality of thought
determinations. There is a moment in Kant, and this was mobilized
against him by Hegel, which secretly regards the in-itself beyond the
concept as something wholly indeterminable, as null and void. To the
consciousness of the phenomenal appearance [Scheinhaftigkeit] of the
conceptual totality there remains nothing left but to break through the
appearance [Schein] of total identity: in keeping with its own measure.
Since however this totality is formed according to logic, whose core is
constructed from the proposition of the excluded third, everything
which does not conform to such, everything qualitatively divergent
assumes the signature of the contradiction. The contradiction is the
non-identical under the aspect of identity; the primacy of the principle
of contradiction in dialectics measures what is heterogenous in unitary
thinking. By colliding against its own borders, it reaches beyond itself. — p15

Your post strikes me as perspicacious.

Well, I had to look that one up. I didn't know how to take it, but thank you. We'll see how the reading progresses, but the critical question seems to be what is the best approach toward a knowledge of the object. If, there is a natural separation between the concept and the object, and the effort to unite the two in some form of identity is a mistaken approach, because that identity is a mere illusion, then what are we left with? If we wanted to analyze the difference, how could we even start? I would say that each instance of failure of identity, is a demonstration of that difference.

We'll see how the reading progresses, but the critical question seems to be what is the best approach toward a knowledge of the object. If, there is a natural separation between the concept and the object, and the effort to unite the two in some form of identity is a mistaken approach, because that identity is a mere illusion, then what are we left with? If we wanted to analyze the difference, how could we even start? I would say that each instance of failure of identity, is a demonstration of that difference. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good questions. The idea of constellations will be important.

I believe the context for the next section is set by the opening sentence, referencing non-contradiction: "This law is however not one of thinking, but real". That suggests to me, that contradiction is not within the particular objects which the subject approaches, but within the subject's approach, and this constitutes the difference, the separation between the two, object and concept. Dialects attempts reconciliation. The conclusion I draw is that the Hegelian approach, which forces the primacy of the subject, is mistaken, because it wrongly projects contradiction into the object, and finds its supposed reconciliation that way.

Introduction: Reality and Dialectics

This law is however not one of thinking, but real. Whoever submits to dialectical discipline, must unquestionably pay with the bitter sacrifice of the qualitative polyvalence of experience. The impoverishment of experience through dialectics, which infuriates mainstream opinion, proves itself however to be entirely appropriate to the abstract monotony of the administered world. What is painful about it is the pain of such, raised to a concept. Cognition must bow to it, if it does not wish to once again degrade the concretion to the ideology, which it really begins to become.

This refers back to the previous paragraph, where he mentioned the mainstream complaint that dialectics reduces everything to contradiction and thereby ignores the richness of experience, the polyvalence and difference. His response is another "that's too bad": this reductive approach is "entirely appropriate" for the world we live in, in which polyvalence is reduced in actuality.

This almost suggests that he thinks an experience of polyvalence is possible but believes that as philosophers we should not stop to celebrate it while so much of it is suppressed and distorted (his philosophy is not neutral). Instead, we need to persistently identify contradiction to maintain a focus on these sites of suppression and distortion, i.e., the non-identical. Polyvalence, the multiplicity and richness, stands as another instance of Adorno's negative utopianism.

But that's actually an over-simplification. I've made it look like Adorno is saying yes, we could philosophically stop and smell the roses, but we ought not to in present conditions. But this is not his view. Instead, he thinks that any such attempt is bound to be something like an ideological romanticization, and thus in itself another distortion. This is what he means when he says it would be to "degrade the concretion to the ideology."

The next paragraph develops this idea:

Another version of dialectics satisfied itself with its lacklustre renaissance: with its derivation in the history of ideas from the Kantian aporias and that which was programmed into the systems of his successors, but not achieved. It is to be achieved only negatively. Dialectics develops the difference of the particular from the generality, which is dictated by the generality. While it is inescapable to the subject, as the break between subject and object drilled into the consciousness, furrowing everything which it thinks, even that which is objective, it would have an end in reconciliation. This would release the non-identical, relieving it even of its intellectualized compulsion, opening up for the first time the multiplicity of the divergent, over which dialectics would have no more power. Reconciliation would be the meditation on the nolonger- hostile multiplicity, something which is subjective anathema to reason.

I take the point to be that some versions of dialectics have been far too hasty, acting like they can achieve the utopian reconciliation of unity and complete understanding, and attain the full experience of polyvalence. Genuine reconciliation would make dialectics obsolete, but these lacklustre dialectical philosophies have effectively abandoned dialectics long before such an obsolescence is possible, and are thereby effectively justifying present conditions, i.e., ideological.

The "intellectualized compulsion" that the non-identical would lose in this utopia of mediation is the form it currently takes in negative dialectics. This is referred back to later.

The last line of the paragraph is nice:

Reconciliation would be the meditation on the no-longer-hostile multiplicity, something which is subjective anathema to reason.

The multiplicity or polyvalence—which I've also described as diversity, difference, and richness—is currently experienced as hostile, as anathema to the subject's reason. This is because it reveals the subject's inability to fully capture it. In contrast to this failed mediation, genuine reconciliation would produce a happy mediation, a successful and non-dominating one. (This reconciliation is the ultimate secret goal of dialectics; see "dialectics serves reconciliation" in the next paragraph)

It's worth stopping to notice these more positive and utopian moments in Adorno, because I think they're important, even if there probably aren't many of them.

I don't really know which lacklustre versions of dialectics he is referring to. Right Hegelians? Orthodox Marxists? (He does mention Marxists a couple of paragraphs later)

Dialectics serves reconciliation. It dismantles the logical character of compulsion, which it follows; that is why it is denounced as pan-logism. In its idealistic form it was bracketed by the primacy of the absolute subject as the power, which negatively realized every single movement of the concept and the course of such in its entirety. Such a primacy of the subject has been condemned by history, even in the Hegelian conception, that of the particular human consciousness, which overshadowed the transcendental ones of Kant and Fichte. Not only was it suppressed by the lack of power of the waning thought, which failed to construe the hegemony of the course of the world before this latter. None of the reconciliations, however, from the logical one to the political-historical one, which absolute idealism maintained – every other remained inconsequential – was binding. That consistent idealism could simply not otherwise constitute itself than as the epitome of the contradiction, is as much its logically consistent truth as the punishment, which its logicity incurs as logicity; appearance [Schein], as much as necessary.

I puzzled over the second sentence for a while. Dialectics "dismantles the logical character of compulsion, which it follows; that is why it is denounced as pan-logism." It refers back to that "intellectualized compulsion" I was talking about above, the compulsion that dialectics feels (or should feel) when confronting the non-identical. This compulsion is intellectualized, taking a logical form—because that's how we do philosophy, and particularly in dialectics we are dealing with the logical category of contradiction—but it also "dismantles" this logical character. Dialectics dismantles the very logical character that it follows, i.e., undermines itself. This again is a gesture towards the utopia of reconciliation in which the non-identical could be experienced outwith such logical categories as contradiction, when dialectics has obsoleted itself.

But the last clause is troublesome: "that is why it is denounced as pan-logism". The "that" seems, grammatically, to refer to the dismantling of the logical character of the non-identical, when surely it is the logical character itself that leads to the perception of pan-logism.

Well, dialectics is denounced as pan-logism because in dismantling the logical character of the compulsion it must operate by that logic. If it were not engaged in dismantling the logic, it wouldn't be doing logic all over the place (recall that by "doing logic" I mainly just mean seeing contradiction everywhere). So both the compulsion and its dismantling have this logical character.

The rest of the paragraph describes the failure of the idealist version of dialectics.

The next two paragraphs trace the history of dialectics, particularly its degeneration at the hands of official Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism on one side, and academic Hegelianism on the other. Adorno believes only a negative dialectics can revitalize the critical spirit that Hegel's philosophy contained but also ultimately undermined.

He also at this point makes the distinction between the two bad routes for philosophy in the twentieth century, namely mundane and formalist, where "mundane" is clearly another name for what he calls "arbitrary" in the lectures:

Its contemporary version falls back, wherever anything at all substantive is dealt with, either into whatever mundane world-view is handy or into that formalism, that "indifference", against which Hegel rebelled.

I'll have a go at unpacking the concluding paragraph of the section.

Hegel’s substantive philosophizing had as its fundament and result the primacy of the subject or, in the famous formulation from the introduction to the Logic, the identity of identity and non-identity.4 To him, the determinate particular was determinable by the Spirit, because its immanent determination was supposed to be nothing other than the Spirit. Without this supposition, philosophy would, according to Hegel, be incapable of cognizing that which is substantive and essential. If the idealistically-achieved concept of dialectics did not hide experiences which, contrary to Hegel’s own emphasis, are independent from the idealistic apparatus, then nothing would remain of philosophy than the unavoidable renunciation which rejects the substantive insight, restricts itself to the methodology of science, declares this latter to be philosophy and thereby virtually cancels itself out.

Since I was struggling to understand that last sentence, I finally worked it out by putting it in the form of modus tollens: If Hegel's dialectics had not hidden the non-identical then philosophy would have collapsed into positivism and nihilism; but philosophy has not collapsed into positivism and nihilism, therefore Hegel's dialectics did hide the non-identical.

Adorno's idea is that although Hegel hid the non-identical by turning contradiction into reconciliation and subsuming difference—and did this with idealism, insisting on the identity of concept and object—it was in order to produce substantive knowledge. If he had not asserted this right of philosophy to find truth, then there would be no other philosophical tradition except those that resign themselves to the reduced role of handmaiden to science.



How does that fit with your interpretation? I did not interpret Adorno as criticizing Hegel for reading contradiction into the objects. Not saying you're wrong, just don't really get it.

In the face of an immeasurably expanded society and the progress of positive cognition of nature, the conceptual structures in which, according to philosophic mores, the totality is supposed to be housed, resemble remnants of simple commodity society amidst industrial late capitalism. The meanwhile completely mismatched relationship (since degraded to a mere topos) between each Spirit and power, strikes the attempt to comprehend this hegemony by those inspired with their own concept of the Spirit with futility. The very will to do so betokens a power-claim which countermands what is to be understood.

A lot has changed since Hegel and Marx. The classes of Victorian era don't exist anymore. Back in those days, a merchant, no matter how wealthy, could hardly compete with a bankrupt aristocrat, there was discrimination. Whereas nowadays, money talks, in a language that we all understand. Markets were mostly small and isolated, no comparison to today's global economy. The world expanded to the moon and beyond. Science and technology, population, and much much more. It is futile to try to understand today's world using outdated concepts, since they no longer fit, it is merely a power move that won't yield any knowledge.

Nicely put.

It had me thinking, if Adorno believes that conceptual thinking is some degrees away from understanding, then how many degrees further would he say is thinking in outdated concepts?

But I think you missed a part:

Hegel knew this, in spite of the teaching of the absolute Spirit to which he assigned philosophy, as a mere moment of reality, as an activity in the division of labor, and thereby restricted it. Since then, its own narrowness and discrepancy to reality has emerged out of this, and all the more so, the more thoroughly it forgot this delimitation and expunged it from itself as something alien, in order to justify its own position in a totality which it monopolizes as its object, instead of recognizing how very much its immanent truth depends on such, down to its innermost composition.

Its where he discusses the scholastic and world-concept of philosophy. I am not quite sure what he meant by "Hegel knew this", what did Adorno believe that Hegel knew? Was it the ludicrousness of philosophy confusing the scholastic with the world-concept? Is Adorno advocating the former or the latter? Or neither? What do you think?

What do you think? — Pussycat

I think the “this” is either the ludicrousness of philosophy’s confusion of the scholastic with the world-concept, or the retrogression itself (retrogression of philosophy to the scholastic or narrowly scientific).

So Hegel knew this as a mere moment of reality, an activity among others. And he knew it “in spite of the teaching of the absolute Spirit to which he assigned philosophy”.

Adorno is saying that Hegel, though officially claiming that philosophy is the culmination of absolute Spirit, representing total knowledge, actually knew that philosophy was a finite, socially situated activity. I’m not sure how he thereby restricted philosophy, though: just by knowing this about it? Or evidenced in the philosophy?

In the previous paragraph, it’s not just that the attempt to use outdated concepts seems futile, but that it seems futile to those who attempt it. So the line we’re discussing now refers back, implying Hegel knows that philosophy is somewhat futile, or at least is more restricted than he claims outwardly.

This would be more interesting if Adorno explained how this shows itself in Hegel’s philosophy. There is a clue in lecture 9, where he says that in the Logic Hegel writes…

that philosophy is itself merely one element in the actual life of mankind and should therefore not be turned into an absolute.

Unfortunately, the note says that this statement has not been found in the Logic or anywhere else. However, we could assume that Adorno has not just dreamt up this view of Hegel’s, that it might actually be found in his work, though perhaps not stated so clearly as Adorno remembers. I’m not enough of a Hegelian to know.

I am thinking it in terms of separation of powers, much like in the political sense, where each are left to grow on their own terms, with philosophy not intervening, but criticizing and keeping them in check, like journalism for example. Things changed when philosophy forgot this, as being purely critical, and subsumed their role and identity, interwining with them. With "instead of
recognizing how very much its immanent truth depends on such, down to its innermost composition", I believe that Adorno is saying that philosophy, as critical theory, depends on the various "divisions of labours", because without them it would have nothing to be critical of, and by forgeting its limit, it monopolized their content matter.

I did not interpret Adorno as criticizing Hegel for reading contradiction into the objects. Not saying you're wrong, just don't really get it. — Jamal

I'll try to explain to you why I see it that way. Notice the end of the last section. "Contradiction is non-identity under the bane [Bann] of the law, which also influences the non-identical." The "law" referred to here is the law of non-contradiction, and contradiction renders identity as impossible, resulting in non-identity.

Then in this section, "REALITY AND DIALECTICS", it is stated that "This law is however not one of thinking, but real." This is a bit off the normal interpretation of that law which would hold it to be a law of thinking. But Adorno is stating that it is a law about what is real, rather than about what we can think. We can in fact think in contradictions, yet the real object cannot exist in a contradictory way.

Later in the section he talks about the lack of substantive thinking, which results in "null and void forms of cognition". This type of thinking is the rejection of content, and the content is the representation of the object, and that is what supports non-contradiction. So lack of substance in thinking is lack of object, and without real objects there is nothing to prevent contradiction in thought.

Hegel however, allowed for substantive philosophizing, but he held the primacy of the subject. This results in "the identity of identity and non-identity". But notice how the identity of non-identity is itself contradictory. So this is what happens with Hegel's principle where "the determinate particular was determinable by the Spirit". "Identity" is the subjective side of the relation between concept and object, due to the primacy of the subject, in this sense of identity. So assigning identity to non-identity is to make non-identity (contradiction) into an object. Simply put. it assumes a contradictory object. And unless identity is assigned to the object itself, "non-identity" is required to make "identity" intelligible through the dialectical method. Therefore to make this type of "identity" intelligible it is necessary that contradiction inheres within the object, as the non-identical aspect of it. That's why I said Hegelian dialectics projects contradiction into the object.

I’m not sure I’m understanding you, but maybe you just have a different way of reaching a similar interpretation. I think Adorno, particularly with that bit you quoted—“instead of
recognizing how very much its immanent truth depends on such, down to its innermost composition”—is saying that what was not quite conscious for Hegel can now be raised up to unashamed awareness, namely that it is in its very finitude, its narrowness and limitation, that philosophy can find truth. When philosophy finally understands that it is itself socially conditioned, it can proceed with confidence.

Does this fit with your interpretation at all?

To be clear, I am trying to interpret Adorno. So I think he is saying that philosophy is just another human activity, like politics, science, sociology etc., and that Hegel knew this, and restricted it to just that: to an activity, on the same level as all other activities, the divisions of labor. But then something happened, and philosophy forgot its own restriction, and imposed itself onto the other activities, by means of domination, a power move. So as long as it doesn't recognize this move, doesn't let go of its pretentious dominance over totality, it will never find its immanent truth, which is side-to-side to its brothers and sisters, and not over them.

Yes, I agree.

The multiplicity or polyvalence—which I've also described as diversity, difference, and richness—is currently experienced as hostile, as anathema to the subject's reason. This is because it reveals the subject's inability to fully capture it. In contrast to this failed mediation, genuine reconciliation would produce a happy mediation, a successful and non-dominating one. (This reconciliation is the ultimate secret goal of dialectics; see "dialectics serves reconciliation" in the next paragraph) — Jamal

Consider this passage, and the diversity of difference referred to. When primacy is granted to the subject, this diversity, which actually constitutes the richness and beauty of being, is lost into a category which we commonly hear as 'differences which don't make a difference'. For Adorno this is the category of non-identity, or non-identical. These differences can have no identity, because they do not fit into the categories imposed, trying to fit them creates contradiction, so they are simply left as unidentified.

However, this dialectical approach is actually based in an act of categorizing them, as non-identical. So there is an illusion created, that those differences which are impossible to categorize, have actually been categorized. But the category is really 'the contradictory', as the non-identical which have been given that contradictory identity.

Since I was struggling to understand that last sentence, I finally worked it out by putting it in the form of modus tollens: If Hegel's dialectics had not hidden the non-identical then philosophy would have collapsed into positivism and nihilism; but philosophy has not collapsed into positivism and nihilism, therefore Hegel's dialectics did hide the non-identical.

Adorno's idea is that although Hegel hid the non-identical by turning contradiction into reconciliation and subsuming difference—and did this with idealism, insisting on the identity of concept and object—it was in order to produce substantive knowledge. If he had not asserted this right of philosophy to find truth, then there would be no other philosophical tradition except those that resign themselves to the reduced role of handmaiden to science. — Jamal

So I generally agree with this, but I maybe wouldn't say it is a matter of hiding the non-identical. It's maybe even the opposite to that, as allowing the non-identical (as contradictory) right into the mind as if it has an identity. It hides it by making it so obvious that it's just ignored.

Consider this analogy. You go out in the morning, and take notice of all the minute differences around you, different shades of green in the leaves and grass etc., this is the richness of diversity. You can go out every day, and notice this richness within the non-identical. But if you just go out and noticed the identified things, your bike, your car, your mailbox, etc., you can completely ignore the non-identical. And it's not a matter of having hid the non-identical, it's just a change of attitude, attention, focus. All that diversity just becomes 'the other' so you ignore it all together, but that ignorance is actually a matter of accepting it into your mind, as 'the other'. and something to be ignored. So if it is a matter of hiding it, it's a matter of hiding it from oneself, within one's own mind, by designating it as insignificant. It is that act of recognizing it, classifying it, designating it, which actually hides it.

In that quote I think he's saying that when we turn the dialectic on itself we find that the synthesis (unity) is dependent on its negation: the disunity of thesis and antithesis. I think Adorno's materialism is based on this insight. He points out that this fact doesn't appear to us until discrepancies show up, such as between the great hope of communism crashed by the Holocaust.

Hegel clearly knew this because he highlighted the way any concept has its history (and its negation) wrapped up within it, again, like the yin-yang symbol. You could say the absolute Spirit is supposed to be the whole yin-yang symbol. But that wholeness is made up of oppositions. We never escape them (until philosophy is finished?)

I'll try to explain to you why I see it that way.
[...]
That's why I said Hegelian dialectics projects contradiction into the object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Thanks. I'm not persuaded but I'm not going to dig any further.

I find your next post a bit closer to my wavelength:

However, this dialectical approach is actually based in an act of categorizing them, as non-identical. So there is an illusion created, that those differences which are impossible to categorize, have actually been categorized. But the category is really 'the contradictory', as the non-identical which have been given that contradictory identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Very meta. I don't know what to say about it, except that I don't think the non-identical is a positively applied category so much as a limit concept, a negative name (a bit like noumena in kant).

I do rather like the following, which seems very dialectical:

So I generally agree with this, but I maybe wouldn't say it is a matter of hiding the non-identical. It's maybe even the opposite to that, as allowing the non-identical (as contradictory) right into the mind as if it has an identity. It hides it by making it so obvious that it's just ignored. — Metaphysician Undercover

Very meta. I don't know what to say about it, except that I don't think the non-identical is a positively applied category so much as a limit concept, a negative name (a bit like noumena in kant). — Jamal

This is why I brought up the phrase "the identity of identity and non-identity". But to be clear, it is Hegel whom Adorno accuses of giving identity to non-identity, in that way, which I claim puts contradiction into the object. This is the means by which Hegel enables substantive thinking: " the determinate particular was determinable by the Spirit, because its immanent determination was supposed to be nothing other than the Spirit". The problem being what is indicated by Adorno at the beginning of the section, that the law of non-contradiction applies to objects, not to subjective thought (here as Spirit, which is in essence free). So when the determinate particular is nothing other than a determination of the free Spirit, this effectively avoids that law, allowing contradiction within the determinate particular, as the identity of non-identity.

Adorno I believe is rejecting Hegelian dialectics, recognizing what is described of Hegel at the end of the section as a mistake. Adorno is looking for a way to give primacy to the object rather than to the subject, but this would be a restriction to Spirit. Primacy of the subject is what I claim leads to contradiction within the object. So for Adorno, the non-identical is not a positively applied category (as you say, and I agree), as it is for Hegel. And, I think he is attempting to avoid any conceptualization of "non-identical", because conceptualization will inevitably be contradictory, as was the case when Aristotle tried to conceptualize "potential", and "matter". Nevertheless, it must be at the base of substantive thinking, as what enables it, the foundation.

So, as is the case with objects, we can name it without conceptualizing it. This provides a twist to Wittgenstein's bedrock, instead of a foundational certainty (which Adorno seems to think will always end up as a contradiction, such as the identity of non-identity), it is a foundational uncertainty. Even Wittgenstein's approach to the foundation is conceptual, an attempt "to say what cannot be said" and therefore contradictory. So Adorno's proposal, of a negative dialectics, seems to be to simply name it, so that we can speak of it, without actually conceptualizing it, which would be the attempt to give it identity.

It appears to me, at this point, like this will lead to a discipline of description, with Spirit being fundamentally free in its artistic endeavours, but discipline required for truth in representation.

So the bane of the law is identity-thinking's tyrannical character, and the non-identical is actually affected by this ("also influences the non-identical"). I often say that the non-identical is that which "escapes" our concepts, but in fact, it suffers under their systems. Or, it is distorted by them and appears as contradiction. — Jamal

Something I found interesting in the translator's introduction was that "Bann" can also be translated as "Spell", but the translator chose "bane" because it doesn't have magical connotations like "spell" does. But to say someone is under a spell could also be to say that identity-thinking has a way of becoming so coherent that the difference right before our eyes isn't being seen because we've started keeping track of the concept "reality" rather than what is real.

Very impressive summary. I had the same question about what Adorno meant by "a standpoint" -- best guess is that there aren't perspectival boundaries built into the method of negative dialectics, though upon going through the process obviously one will end up with some kind of standpoint, a "sidedness".

A bit behind but catching up.

I think the “this” is either the ludicrousness of philosophy’s confusion of the scholastic with the world-concept, or the retrogression itself (retrogression of philosophy to the scholastic or narrowly scientific).

So Hegel knew this as a mere moment of reality, an activity among others. And he knew it “in spite of the teaching of the absolute Spirit to which he assigned philosophy”.

Adorno is saying that Hegel, though officially claiming that philosophy is the culmination of absolute Spirit, representing total knowledge, actually knew that philosophy was a finite, socially situated activity. I’m not sure how he thereby restricted philosophy, though: just by knowing this about it? Or evidenced in the philosophy? — Jamal

So I guess we agree that, on Adorno's view, Hegel saw philosophy as an activity among others and thereby restricted it. How? I don't know either, I guess we have to take Adorno's word for it, that he wasn't trying to inflate philosophy as to dominate over the other divisions, but to help them emancipate - society, people as well. The fact that he ascribed absolute Spirit to philosophy, doesn't mean that he himself knew everything, but that his method could eventually lead to total knowledge, theoretically. Practically of course, this may never have happened. Hegel believed that his method of (positive) dialectics was the sign of truth, the process through which all divisions of labour, if they would only adopt it, could lead them to all positive things, like knowledge, freedom, happiness etc. Also of note is the fact that Hegel's system is closed, in that, in theory at least, total knowledge is possible, irrespective of the fact that humanity could never attain it, due to its inherent limitations or whatever other reasons. But both socially and historically, philosophy, in Hegel's time, Hegel might have said that it was at its very beginning, after his great discovery of how nature works, in dialectical terms. Hegel even tried to apply his method in science, like mathematics or physics. An interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohmian mechanics named after physicist David Bohm, who was inspired by Hegel (he carried the Encyclopedia wherever he went), is based on his philosophy.

In the previous paragraph, it’s not just that the attempt to use outdated concepts seems futile, but that it seems futile to those who attempt it. So the line we’re discussing now refers back, implying Hegel knows that philosophy is somewhat futile, or at least is more restricted than he claims outwardly. — Jamal

Here I have to disagree, I know of a few stalinists that certainly don't think that their attempt is futile! :) And also I doubt that Hegel thought that philosophy was futile, quite the opposite. As to the restriction, I think I clarified it above.

This would be more interesting if Adorno explained how this shows itself in Hegel’s philosophy. There is a clue in lecture 9, where he says that in the Logic Hegel writes…

that philosophy is itself merely one element in the actual life of mankind and should therefore not be turned into an absolute.


Unfortunately, the note says that this statement has not been found in the Logic or anywhere else. However, we could assume that Adorno has not just dreamt up this view of Hegel’s, that it might actually be found in his work, though perhaps not stated so clearly as Adorno remembers. I’m not enough of a Hegelian to know. — Jamal

This would be a nice thing to know, or a way of doing critique to Adorno himself, as he would have wanted it, but I don't think that it would benefit us at the present time.

I am clueless to what it is you are saying. Nevertheless, how does all this follow from the text? I am not saying you are wrong, but maybe you are getting ahead of yourself, like I did with Jamal the other day, and unwittingly confused him.

Nice! I put a spell on you! :) I think I read somewhere in the lectures that Adorno was saying something like detachment while still being attached, or something like that, but I can't seem to find it right now.

Something I found interesting in the translator's introduction was that "Bann" can also be translated as "Spell", but the translator chose "bane" because it doesn't have magical connotations like "spell" does. But to say someone is under a spell could also be to say that identity-thinking has a way of becoming so coherent that the difference right before our eyes isn't being seen because we've started keeping track of the concept "reality" rather than what is real. — Moliere

Very nice. It reminds me of what I was saying about magical thinking a couple of years ago.

A bit behind but catching up. — Moliere

Cool. I might be slowing down over the next week or two.

This is why I brought up the phrase "the identity of identity and non-identity". But to be clear, it is Hegel whom Adorno accuses of giving identity to non-identity, in that way, which I claim puts contradiction into the object. This is the means by which Hegel enables substantive thinking: " the determinate particular was determinable by the Spirit, because its immanent determination was supposed to be nothing other than the Spirit". The problem being what is indicated by Adorno at the beginning of the section, that the law of non-contradiction applies to objects, not to subjective thought (here as Spirit, which is in essence free). So when the determinate particular is nothing other than a determination of the free Spirit, this effectively avoids that law, allowing contradiction within the determinate particular, as the identity of non-identity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right, that makes more sense.

Adorno I believe is rejecting Hegelian dialectics, recognizing what is described of Hegel at the end of the section as a mistake. Adorno is looking for a way to give primacy to the object rather than to the subject, but this would be a restriction to Spirit. Primacy of the subject is what I claim leads to contradiction within the object. So for Adorno, the non-identical is not a positively applied category (as you say, and I agree), as it is for Hegel. And, I think he is attempting to avoid any conceptualization of "non-identical", because conceptualization will inevitably be contradictory, as was the case when Aristotle tried to conceptualize "potential", and "matter". Nevertheless, it must be at the base of substantive thinking, as what enables it, the foundation. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yep, although when it comes to the concrete particulars I think it's important to bear in mind that distinction I made between good and bad identity-thinking, and the fact that Adorno's mission is not to reject conceptualization but to reject a kind of conceptualization that is unaware of its tendency to distort and lead to contradiction.

Here I have to disagree, I know of a few stalinists that certainly don't think that their attempt is futile! :) And also I doubt that Hegel thought that philosophy was futile, quite the opposite. — Pussycat

Yeah fair enough. I never did get to the bottom of that comment of his about futility.

What you say about Hegel's restriction makes sense too.