Introduction: Interest of Philosophy

We covered a lot of this when we looked at lecture 7. The five paragraphs go something like this:

1. The proper interest of philosophy now is the particular, that which has traditionally been denigrated as contingent and imperfect.

What is urgent for the concept is what it does not encompass, what its abstraction-mechanism eliminates, what is not already an exemplar of the concept.

What the philosophical concept desperately requires is to somehow apply to what it necessarily eliminates.

2. Bergson and Husserl set about this task but failed, the former with dualism and a cult of immediacy, the latter with a system that didn't transcend the concepts he was trying to transcend.

3. Bergson's mistake was to fail to see that all cognition of concrete particulars is conceptual—it requires mediation by concepts and intellectual reflection.

4. Husserl's essences were indistinguishable from the general concepts he rejected, and his intuition of essences ended up as pretty much equivalent to the abstract generalization he aimed to replace. Against both Bergson and Husserl, the task of philosophy is to say what cannot be said.

The former as well as the latter remained frozen in the demesne of subjective immanence. What is to be insisted on against both is what each tries to conjure up in vain; pace Wittgenstein, to say what cannot be said.

Bergson and Husserl remained trapped in the purely subjective, unable to break out and reach what they had set out to reach.

5. The fundamental paradox or contradiction of philosophy: philosophy works with concepts, and yet its proper domain is the non-conceptual. In other words, philosophy must attempt to say what cannot be said.

The way I think about it, there's a more general paradox lying beneath this (or is it just a different way of putting the same one?): philosophy has to find truth in the concrete and particular, but by its very nature philosophy is the most abstract and general of all intellectual disciplines. We see that Adorno is like Nietzsche in insisting on the primacy of life, of lived experience, against the philosophers from Plato to Hegel who regard contingent life as a pale imitation of truth, subordinating it to their abstract systems.

According to Adorno the first step is to see that dialectics is the way to go:

The simple contradiction of this demand is that of philosophy itself: it qualifies the latter as dialectics, before it embroils itself in its specific contradictions.

Philosophy as dialectics is a recognition at the outset that philosophy itself is contradictory, even before it gets involved with the everyday contradictions which are its bread and butter.

The work of philosophical self-reflection consists of working out this paradox. Everything else is signification, post-construction, today as in Hegel’s time pre-philosophical.

With the terms "signification" and "post-construction" Adorno is referring to Bergson, Husserl, and probably every other philosophy except negative dialectics. I take "signification" to mean something like the gesture towards truth using names, without really grasping the things named; and "post-construction" could be a description of how idealism operates, by constructing systems after one has decided how it all works.

A faith, as always subject to question, that philosophy would still be possible; that the concept could leapfrog the concept, the preparatory stages and the final touches, and thereby reach the non-conceptual, is indispensable to philosophy and therein lies something of the naivete, which ails it.

Attempted breakouts like those of Bergson and Husserl had the right motivation, because philosophy is nothing without it—but this motivation is based on a faith which is in a sense essentially naive.

He ends with his "utopia of cognition":

Whatever of the truth can be gleaned through concepts beyond their abstract circumference, can have no other staging-grounds than that which is suppressed, disparaged and thrown away by concepts. The utopia of cognition would be to open up the non-conceptual with concepts, without making it the same as them.

I think it's important to note that Adorno's cognitive utopia remains conceptual, i.e., it is not mystical or intuitive.

QUESTION: This description of philosophy as essentially paradoxical can look rather too irrationalist. Would it be a misrepresentation of Adorno to just say that philosophy seems paradoxical, but there might be a way to do it? I know he wants us to keep contradictions open, but this one to me is a bit on-the-nose.

like I did with Jamal the other day, and unwittingly confused him. — Pussycat

Easily done.

Have you guys discussed the unique way Hegel used the word concept? I think Adorno is referring to Hegel's use.

I don't think we are doing anything but. :joke:

:up:

He ends with his "utopia of cognition":

Whatever of the truth can be gleaned through concepts beyond their abstract circumference, can have no other staging-grounds than that which is suppressed, disparaged and thrown away by concepts. The utopia of cognition would be to open up the non-conceptual with concepts, without making it the same as them.

I think it's important to note that Adorno's cognitive utopia remains conceptual, i.e., it is not mystical or intuitive.

QUESTION: This description of philosophy as essentially paradoxical can look rather too irrationalist. Would it be a misrepresentation of Adorno to just say that philosophy seems paradoxical, but there might be a way to do it? I know he wants us to keep contradictions open, but this one to me is a bit on-the-nose. — Jamal

I think the answer here is to look at the process rather than the concepts themselves, or even the supposed relations between concepts and objects. If truth is a relation between concept and object, then the act which makes this relation is what produces truth, and that act is not the concept itself. Notice that it is a type of act, which is described by "open up the non-conceptual with concepts". This is the act of applying concepts to the nonconceptual.

So philosophy becomes paradoxical, even self-contradicting, when it totally envelopes itself in concepts, applying concepts to concepts (thinking about thinking perhaps). This "thinking" is said to be a type of activity, but it's not a real activity because objects are avoided instead of engaged with. Intentionally avoiding objects makes it the opposite of activity. Real activity engages concepts with objects, and this I believe is Adorno's proposal for avoiding paradox, a dialectics which consists of real activity.

That works for me :up:

Introduction: The Antagonistic Whole

This section takes its cue from the previous sentence:

The utopia of cognition would be to open up the non-conceptual with concepts, without making it the same as them.

Within this concept of negative dialectics there is a tension:

Such a concept of dialectics casts doubt on its possibility.

This first paragraph begins by conceding that negative dialectics, as a form of dialectics, looks quite idealist; but then emphasizes that it's a materialist philosophy. On the one hand, negative dialectics implies the thesis of idealism; on the other hand ("Against this"), the object of negative dialectics is the real beyond the subject, i.e., society or the antagonistic whole.

In more detail...

The anticipation of universal movement in contradictions seems, however varied, to teach the totality of the Spirit, precisely the identity-thesis just nullified.

The treatment of contradiction as the key to reality in negative dialectics looks a lot like an idealist imposition of a universal structure belonging to Spirit. This is because such a universal structure is a totalizing concept, exactly what ND is trying to avoid.

The Spirit, which would unceasingly reflect on the contradiction in things, ought to be this itself, if it is to be organized according to the form of the contradiction.

The phrase "this itself" refers to "the contradiction in things," so the sentence is saying that Spirit must itself be the contradiction in things if it is to be organized according to the form of the contradiction, as dialectics demands. In other words, if Spirit is to truthfully reflect the contradiction in things then it must itself be---must embody or partake of---contradiction, because otherwise it would be external to what it's interested in; it would be a spectator rather than something dialectically intertwined. But this collapse of the separation of Spirit and the world of course represents a regression into idealism, since it makes the object of Spirit's thought identical with Spirit.

If this isn't entirely convincing, it's best to see Adorno as alerting us to a tendency in dialectical philosophy.

The truth, which in the idealistic dialectic drives past every particularity as something false in its one-sidedness, would be that of the whole; if it were not already thought out, then the dialectical steps would lose their motivation and direction.

This follows logically to show that if the separation of Spirit and the contradictory world collapses, then the truth of the whole is presupposed and the entire thing is circular. Idealist dialectics knows what it's looking for when it begins. The better thing, perhaps, would be not to drive past every particularity, not to presuppose the truth only of the whole.

But the point here is to show how easily dialectics of any kind can regress back to idealism, or, better put, to show how essential an idealist element is even to materialist dialectics.

Next, Adorno shows how negative dialectics is to be rescued from its idealist temptations:

Against this one must counter that the object of intellectual experience would itself be the antagonistic system, something utterly real, and not just by virtue of its mediation to the cognizing subject which rediscovers itself therein. The compulsory constitution of reality which idealism projected into the regions of the subject and Spirit is to be retranslated back out of these.

This seems like just a flat denial of the idealism, saying no: although there seems to be an idealist tendency, in fact the object of this philosophy is the reality beyond the subject. Antagonistic society is real not merely by virtue of the subject's reciprocal relation (mediation) to it. The subjective constitution of reality must be retranslated as belonging to reality itself, which in effect means that contradiction belongs not only to the subject but to the object, i.e., the real world, or society.

We can see why it is so centrally important for Adorno to say that contradictions are real, or objective (in the object, not only the subject): it maintains the importance of dialectics, but in a realist, or materialist, context.

But idealism is not thereby expunged entirely:

What remains of idealism is that society, the objective determinant of the Spirit, is just as much the epitome of subjects as their negation.

Although we have, in something like the Marxian materialist fashion, downgraded Spirit to something determined by objective society, by the mode of production and so on---despite this, society remains a realm of subjects. Thus society has a subjective flavour and this materialism is thereby also somewhat idealist.

But the crucial step is to contrast this perhaps utopian conception of society as a realm of subjectivity with the reality, in which subjects are negated.

In it they are unknowable and disempowered; that is why it is so desperately objective and a concept, which idealism mistakes as something positive.

In real society, subjects are unknowable to themselves and others---because they are alienated from their work, their fellow members of society, and themselves, by the dictates of commodity exchange (including the labour market) and by the distortions of ideology---and they are also disempowered because society acts upon them economically and institutionally without their say-so, rather than being a collective expression of their subjectivity, or a domain in which individual expression and self-actualization might happen.

That's just the first paragraph. I'll try to cover the second one soonish. I've had to slow down because life has been getting in the way.

Introduction: The Antagonistic Whole (continued)

Sooner than I thought.

Despite the idealist tendencies of dialectics, the contradictory system does not in fact equate to Spirit:

The system is not that of the absolute Spirit, but of the most conditioned of those who have it at their disposal, and cannot even know how much it is their own.

Society is a system of human beings whose roles, behaviour, and thoughts are to a great extent determined by forces that seem out of their control but which are actually entirely made up of them, i.e., capitalism looms over and dominates the individuals who constitute it.

Or perhaps it's not just capitalism that does this, but all societies, and history in general? As Marx wrote:

Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. — Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

The subjective pre-formation of the material social production-process, entirely separate from its theoretical constitution, is that which is unresolved, irreconcilable to subjects.

The societal system, particularly the capitalist mode of production, which is pre-formed ("given and transmitted from the past") by people, that is, subjectively---this man-made thing is unreconciled with man, so to speak. In other words, there is an antagonism between what people have unconsciously produced and the people themselves. Society confronts the individual as something alien, hostile, and obscure.

Their own reason which produces identity through exchange, as unconsciously as the transcendental subject, remains incommensurable to the subjects which it reduces to the same common denominator: the subject as the enemy of the subject.

The reduction of things to fungibility, an achievement of human reason, acts unconsciously as if it's the result of transcendental conditions, as if subjectivity is conditioned somewhat in the Kantian manner, by the transcendental ego. This rationality, when applied back to the people who produce and maintain it, does not match up with lived individuality, which means that subject (as reproducer of the reductive rationality of the system) is the enemy of subject (as human being). A secondary meaning of this might be that some people become enemies of others, according to class, race, etc.

The preceding generality is true so much as untrue: true, because it forms that “ether”, which Hegel called the Spirit; untrue, because its reason is nothing of the sort, its generality the product of particular interests.

What does "the preceding generality" refer to? Is it the idea that Spirit = contradiction? The idealist thesis that the whole is the true? That the real is subjectively constituted?

I now think "preceding" means preceding in history, not preceding in this text, and that the generality is the achievement of human reason just discussed, that which is "given and transmitted from the past," specifically the instrumental reason that reduces things to units of exchange.

This instrumental reason is true in that it does actually maintain and reproduce the society that determines subjectivity, but it is false in that its reason is not universal: it claims to be the most general basis for society (as expressed in liberalism, for example) but merely expresses the particular interests of those with power.

That is why the philosophical critique of identity steps beyond philosophy. That it requires, nonetheless, what is not subsumed under identity – in Marxian terminology, use-value – so that life can continue to exist even under the ruling relations of production, is what is ineffable in utopia. It reaches deep into that which secretly forswears its realization. In view of the concrete possibility of utopia, dialectics is the ontology of the false condition. A true one would be emancipated from it, as little system as contradiction.

Adorno is even more utopian here than previously, and also explicitly equates the concept of the non-identical with the Marxist category of use-value, that which is reduced to exchange-value in a commodity economy.

Negative dialectics, in embracing the particular, goes beyond philosophy into empirical reality---so I suppose this means it has to inform or include sociology.

In our negatively utopian conception of the good life, use-value, or the non-identical, is that which cannot be fully captured in concepts, i.e., is ineffable. Our utopia cannot be positively set out.

Furthermore, a true condition, that of utopia, would no longer need dialectics.

Seems like negative/apophatic theology, but without the divine and metaphysical connotations.

I don't know anything about negative theology but yeah, it looks like it. As I understand it, how close negative dialectics is to negative theology—to what extent it's more than an analogy—would depend on how ineffable the non-identical is meant to be. Adorno appears to say it is and also is not ineffable, which is a reflection of philosophy's essentially paradoxical nature.

Well, on reflection, maybe not, since negative theology attempts at something positive. For example, when they say "god is not unjust", it is evident that they mean that "god is just", and so they are playing around with the law of contradiction. Does Adorno warn against this misuse of negative dialectics? But maybe I misunderstand negative theology. But also maybe, these folks somehow understood the violence done to the concept of god via positivity, and so decided to refrain from it, perhaps immaturely.

Thanks for that quite explicit and exquisite interpretation of a very short section. I think this section will be pivotal in guiding us toward an understanding of the difference in perspective between you and I.

Let me go back to the disagreement we had right from the beginning of our reading, concerning the objectivity of society. I cannot apprehend "society" as an object in the normal sense of "object", as a material thing. You have said that society is "objective" in a different sense, and this sense appears to me to be nothing other than some form of intersubjectivity.

I think we agree that in the previous section Adorno has laid down the principle that contradiction, and consequently non-identity is proper to the subject. I interpreted him as saying that the law of non-contradiction applies to objects, but the subject along with its concepts does not necessarily adhere to this law, such that contradiction is proper to the subject. I also argued that Adorno implies that Hegel's dialectics allows contradiction into objects by making the primacy of the subject, a primary premise. I believe that Adorno treats this as a mistake, and believes that we ought to maintain the principle that contradiction is excluded from objects.

In this section, I believe we can see how Hegel's dialectics allows contradiction, which is proper to the subject, to come to be within the object. This is the mistake of idealism which assumes the "Spirit", or "the Idea" as the foundation of the State, or society. This makes "absolute Spirit", or "the Idea", an object with its material manifestation as the State, or society. In my opinion, this is a false object, and since it is simply a compilation of subjects, contradiction inheres within this supposed object. The false object here is the "antagonistic whole". So this is the means by which Hegelian dialectics allows contradiction within object, by falsely assuming that absolute Spirit, which has contradiction within what is referred to as "Spirit", is an object, the antagonistic whole.

The subjective constitution of reality must be retranslated as belonging to reality itself, which in effect means that contradiction belongs not only to the subject but to the object, i.e., the real world, or society. — Jamal

So this is a representation of our disagreement in a nutshell. I do not think that Adorno is so quick to turn contradiction over to the object, as you do. I believe that he is highly critical of Hegelian dialectics for doing this very deed, and he thinks that it is a mistake which needs to be avoid. I think he believes that real objects obey the law of noncontradiction. Therefore, if we have any desire to resolve this disagreement between you and I, we need to pay very close attention to how Adorno describes subject-to-subject relations, and how he concludes the section.

The system is not that of the absolute Spirit, but of the most
conditioned of those who have it at their disposal, and cannot even
know how much it is their own. The subjective pre-formation of the
material social production-process, entirely separate from its
theoretical constitution, is that which is unresolved, irreconcilable to
subjects. Their own reason which produces identity through exchange,
as unconsciously as the transcendental subject, remains
incommensurable to the subjects which it reduces to the same common
denominator: the subject as the enemy of the subject. The preceding
generality is true so much as untrue: true, because it forms that “ether”,
which Hegel called the Spirit; untrue, because its reason is nothing of
the sort, its generality the product of particular interests. — p21-22

Notice, the system is not absolute Spirit, but it is the property of an elite few who cannot even know to what extent it is their own. Further, the actual, "subjective pre-formation" of production process is completely separate from what it is in theory (objective in theory, I assume). There, in theory, each subject is reduced to the same common denominator, in some cases equality (in order to construct this theoretical whole), and this form of generality leaves "the subject as the enemy of the subject". [This is how contradiction inheres within this antagonistic whole, it is a faulty generalization.] Now, it is true [more appropriately, valid] in the context of Hegel's "Spirit", but in reality Hegel's "Spirit" is a faulty concept, so it is "nothing of the sort", only a generalization which is the product of particular interests.

Let's proceed to the conclusion, where he firmly rejects Hegelian dialectics:

In view of the concrete possibility of utopia, dialectics is the ontology of
the false condition. A true one would be emancipated from it, as little
system as contradiction. — p 22

The "condition" referred to here is the environment, the object. The false object is the one proposed by Hegelian dialectics, the faulty generalization which produces concepts like "forces of production", "use-value" concludes that they are objective principles relative to that false object, which is the false condition.

For analogy sake, consider Plato's criticism of Protagorean relativity, with its principle "man is the measure of all things". We can ask which man is the measure, and see that different men, with different perspectives, may provide contradictory measurements of the same thing. So we assume that "man is the measure" uses "man" in a general sense. But since there is contradictions within this generalization, it is implied that the generalization is faulty. So the generalization of "man" is faulty when used in this context.

We can also see a very similar thing with Wittgenstein's "meaning is use". Since every time a word is used, much of the meaning is dependent on the unique particularities of the context, then "use" must refer to particular instances. In this sense, the same word would have a different meaning in each instance of use, because its meaning is dependent on the particularities of context, so there would be no generalized meaning for any word. Because of this, people tend to interpret "use" in a general sense, such that the word would have an 'objective' meaning, dependent on this generalized sense of "use". However, due to the extent of difference between particular instances, even to the point of contradictory, this is a faulty generalization.

Now, we can consider Marx's "use-value" in the same way, it is a faulty generalization which assumes a specific use, without considering the uniqueness and differences between different possible uses. All such faulty generalizations relate back to Protagorean relativity, in the sense that they are an attempt to assign an absolute (objective generalization) to something which is conceived as subjective and relative. The conception is of something relative and subjective, 'man's measure', 'the use of a word'. 'use-value', yet that it is an absolute, objective generalization is assumed. This is also a problem in modern sciences which employ relativity theory. Sometimes, the scientists in speculation attempt to find something absolute in the physical world, when they've already excluded that possibility by using relativity theory to understand the physical world. When relativity theory is the principle tool used for understanding, it is impossible to conclude absolutes. Conclusions must be consistent with the premises.

Anyway, I'm really digressing now. The point where we disagree is concerning Adorno's attitude toward contradiction within particular objects. I think he rejects this, and all the examples he gives of such, are examples of mistakes induced by Hegelian dialectics which he is rejecting as the wrong approach.

Therefore, if we have any desire to resolve this disagreement between you and I, we need to pay very close attention to how Adorno describes subject-to-subject relations, and how he concludes the section. — Metaphysician Undercover

We have both paid very close attention to the text, but we continue to have very different interpretations.

Notice, the system is not absolute Spirit, but it is the property of an elite few who cannot even know to what extent it is their own. — Metaphysician Undercover

He is referring not to an elite but to any and all members of society, particularly those dominated by it.

There, in theory, each subject is reduced to the same common denominator, — Metaphysician Undercover

It is the logic of exchange, and therefore the actual economy, that reduces subjects to a common denominator. That's what Adorno means.

The point where we disagree is concerning Adorno's attitude toward contradiction within particular objects. I think he rejects this, and all the examples he gives of such, are examples of mistakes induced by Hegelian dialectics which he is rejecting as the wrong approach. — Metaphysician Undercover

I disagree.

He is referring not to an elite but to any and all members of society, particularly those dominated by it. — Jamal

Clearly he is noy referring to those dominated by it, but those who dominate it, having it "at their disposal", as "their own". He says:

"The system is not that of the absolute Spirit, but of the most
conditioned of those who have it at their disposal, and cannot even
know how much it is their own."

I believe, "the most conditioned" refers to the special few who have and use the system (as their own) for their own purposes.

Notice at the end of my quoted passage, the generality which Hegel called "the Spirit" is "the product of particular interests". This is why I believe that Aorndo thinks that the unity referred to by "the Spirit" is what I called a false object, the antagonistic whole.

I disagree. — Jamal

If that is not the point we disagree on then what do you think we disagree on?

Clearly he is noy referring to those dominated by it — Metaphysician Undercover

I think it's clear that he is, and that you're reading it wrong. It's a dialectical point: those most determined by the system also produce it, and those dominated by the system do not know how much they themselves constitute and maintain it. But in the context in which he discusses the status of subjects and subjectivity in general, he would not suddenly restrict his referent to a particular class, so that's why I'm inclined to think he meant anyone of whatever class.

Notice at the end of my quoted passage, the generality which Hegel called "the Spirit" is "the product of particular interests". — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, he is referring to instrumental reason in the service of capital, in the guise of universal reason. In other words, ideology. But ideology bewitches and is reproduced by everyone, not only by a conspiratorial elite.

So even if the particular interests are the interests of the bourgeoisie, it doesn't mean he was referring to the bourgeoisie when he mentioned those most conditioned by the system.

I'm not sure it's crucial though.

EDIT: I asked ChatGPT and Deepseek and they agreed with you that the "most conditioned" refers to the ruling class, so I'm definitely doubting myself now. On the other hand, the ruling class are also dominated by the system, so…either way, I win :grin:

If that is not the point we disagree on then what do you think we disagree on? — Metaphysician Undercover

Sorry, I meant I disagree with your interpretation of Adorno's attitude to contradiction in the object. I agree that we disagree on that point.

I think it's clear that he is, and that you're reading it wrong. It's a dialectical point: those most determined by the system also produce it, and those dominated by the system do not know how much they themselves constitute and maintain it. — Jamal

He's not talking about being dominated by the system, he is talking about those who are "most conditioned", and therefore have it at their disposal. Having something at your disposal is the opposite of being dominated by it, it is a case of dominating that thing. Therefore, as he says, they "own" the system, even if they do not fully grasp that.

But in the context in which he discusses the status of subjects and subjectivity in general, he would not suddenly restrict his referent to a particular class, so that's why I'm inclined to think he meant anyone of whatever class. — Jamal

This is his way of exposing the problem, which is the faulty generalization that reduces every subject "to the same common denominator". The very existence of that class, those who own the system, demonstrates that this generalization is faulty. He demonstrates how "subjects and subjectivity in general" is a faulty generalization in the context of social structures, due to this class difference. If "subject", in the classical sense of the word, refers to those who are ruled, then all the people in the social structure cannot be subjects, because we need to account for those who are the rulers, as other than subjects .

On the other hand, the ruling class are also dominated by the system, so…either way, I win :grin: — Jamal

I don't think so, he clearly says that these people have the system at their disposal, and they own it. If being "most conditioned" means conditioned by the system, this does not imply that they are dominated by the system, just like being conditioned by your parents and teachers as a child does not mean that as an adult you are dominated by them. It only means that these people are trained, or groomed to be in that position, to have the system at their disposal, and own it. Even in a monarchist system, in which the rulers are born into that circumstance, they still need to be conditioned through education to properly play that role.

Having something at your disposal is the opposite of being dominated by it — Metaphysician Undercover

May I remind you that Adorno is a dialectical thinker who relishes counterintuitive paradoxes?

As he says, "dialectics is the ontology of the false condition." The false condition is wrong society, and it is not (only) wrong because a nefarious group of gangsters and psychos is oppressing and impoverishing everyone else, but (also) because all people, from top to bottom, are under the spell of ideology and coerced by the system, their individuality stunted. This is true even of those who do not suffer direct oppression and poverty.

Adorno inherits his position on this matter from Marx:

The self-valorization of capital – the creation of surplus-value – is therefore the determining, dominating and overriding purpose of the capitalist; it is the absolute motive and content of his activity. And in fact it is no more than the rationalized motive and aim of the hoarder – a highly impoverished and abstract content which makes it plain that the capitalist is just as enslaved by the relationships of capitalism as is his opposite pole, the worker, albeit in a quite different manner. — Capital vol.1, p.990

No vaguely Marxian thinker believes that the material privilege of the ruling class confers a state of true freedom, of flourishing subjectivity and spiritual satisfaction. They are as conditioned by the system as anyone else, probably more so—and one of Adorno's points about late capitalism, made elsewhere (but probably in ND too, somewhere), is that the bourgeoisie managed to absorb large sections of the proletariat, in effect turning workers into bourgeois (with rights, comforts, and leisure unheard of in the Victorian factories of Marx's day). In this way, liberal capitalism becomes more ideological than is required by the naked domination of monarchy or dictatorship, since everyone begins to buy into the illusions that justify the system—including those at the top, who "cannot even know how much it is their own."

And yet, the capitalists buy into them most of all, and behave according to the delimitations of the system's logic. In this way, their subjectivity is captured and directed. This conditioning is a form of domination, plainly.

But I've gone back to thinking he's not just talking about capitalists. I think he thinks the very idea of a ruling class is outdated in late capitalism, so what he means is those not only at the top but also in the machine of capitalist administration—the managers, bureaucrats, lawyers, advertising executives, accountants, financial consultants, etc., whose "own reason ... produces identity through exchange", i.e., who understand their participation in the economy according to instrumental rationality, and reproduce and reinforce that understanding.

From my so far, brief introduction to Adorno, I have some difficulty accepting what you say here.

I think that in his theory of negative dialectics he is presenting philosophy, and is approaching sociology from a philosophical perspective. So we must respect that this is a philosophical work. And the philosophical perspective he has taken is decidedly not dialectical. "Dialectical" for Adorno is Hegelian, and by taking the position of negative dialectics (anti-dialectical) he is working to expose mistakes within the dialectical approach. Because of this, when he provides a description of specific conditions, we have to be careful to differentiate between what he is demonstrating to be wrongful thinking, concerning these conditions, from what is rightful thinking concerning these conditions. Furthermore, since Marx and Marxist thinkers mostly follow Hegelian principles, we must be very careful to distinguish the aspects of Marxist thinking which Adorno demonstrates to be mistaken, from those which might be acceptable.

As he says, "dialectics is the ontology of the false condition." The false condition is wrong society, and it is not (only) wrong because a nefarious group of gangsters and psychos is oppressing and impoverishing everyone else, but (also) because all people, from top to bottom, are under the spell of ideology and coerced by the system, their individuality stunted. This is true even of those who do not suffer direct oppression and poverty. — Jamal

I think, you are completely misinterpreting "dialectics is the ontology of the false condition". And, I believe you ought to reread the section assuming the following interpretation. What he is saying is that dialectics works from a false representation of "the condition". That is the representation derived from the dialectical approach, it is a false condition. It is a faulty ontology, the manifestation of an idealism which holds as a primary principle, a faulty generalization "Spirit". Notice what is said after that phrase, "a true one [ontology] would be emancipated from it [dialectics]".

I believe that in this closing passage he offers a little bit of (positive) guidance toward the possible utopia he is alluding to, with the following phrase "...so that life can continue to exist even under the ruling relations of production...". Notice that he has removed, abstracted "relations of production" from any particular circumstances, to stand alone, independent of all subjects, therefore all subjectivity, as an objective base for the ruling of all subjects. So we have, in this principle, the foundation for a society which is not ruled by any particular people (subjects), because this inevitably succumbs to particular interests, but tis society would be ruled by objective "relations of production".

As I mentioned earlier, the only true way to objectify "society" is to determine something beyond all individual subjects, as the guiding force of "society". This is something which transcends the collective of subjects, and stands for the unity of them, as validating that unity as an object, with the ensuing objectivity. Traditionally, in Christian society, this was God. Hegel proposed "the Idea", or "the Spirit", but this conception is inherently tied to God in its idealism. Marx attempted to remove the spirituality, replacing it with the material conditions of human existence. But this manifested in subjectivity, particular interests. Adorno wants to remove all that ungrounded idealism of Hegel, and avoid the mistakes of Marxism, to found an objective society in the material substance of human existence. It appears like he believes that "relations of production" will provide that base.

That is the representation derived from the dialectical approach, it is a false condition. It is a faulty ontology, the manifestation of an idealism which holds as a primary principle, a faulty generalization "Spirit". Notice what is said after that phrase, "a true one [ontology] would be emancipated from it [dialectics]". — Metaphysician Undercover

When "dialectics is the ontology of the false condition" is immediately followed by "A true one would be emancipated from it," we can be confident that "a true one" refers to the condition and the "it" refers to dialectics.

I had not realized until now that you actually believe Adorno is arguing against dialectics as such. That's an eccentric interpretation, to say the least.

EDIT: I suggest you have a look at lecture 1 again. Now that you have some Adorno under your belt, it'll make more sense, and you'll get a better idea of his intentions.

I had not realized until now that you actually believe Adorno is arguing against dialectics as such. That's an eccentric interpretation, to say the least. — Jamal

I wouldn't say that he's arguing against "dialectics" in the complete range of possible uses of this word, rather he is arguing against "dialectics" in the sense of Hegelian dialectics. And, since he positions Hegel as the founder of dialectics, then all conventional forms of dialectics are Hegelian dialectics, so he is arguing against dialectics as such. I would say that Adorno's "negative dialectics" is closely related to Hegelian dialectics, but he is very critical of Hegelian dialectics. And, since "dialectics" is defined in relation to Hegel, we ought to admit that Adorno is arguing against dialectics.

Here, let me explain using the following reference point, how we are really not far apart in our respective interpretations.

The false condition is wrong society, and it is not (only) wrong because a nefarious group of gangsters and psychos is oppressing and impoverishing everyone else, but (also) because all people, from top to bottom, are under the spell of ideology and coerced by the system, their individuality stunted. This is true even of those who do not suffer direct oppression and poverty. — Jamal

That very ideology, which you say constitutes "wrong society", is firmly based in the philosophy which Adorno calls identity-thinking, and it is a manifestation of Hegel's dialectics. So we are really not very far apart, we both see Adorno in the same way, fundamentally. However, I think that I see the philosophical implications more clearly than you do, so I extend "wrong society" to imply "wrong ideology", to imply wrong philosophy (Hegelian dialectics). Therefore I see Adorno as arguing against dialectics, as defined in relation to Hegel, and that amounts to all modern dialectics.

EDIT: I suggest you have a look at lecture 1 again. Now that you have some Adorno under your belt, it'll make more sense, and you'll get a better idea of his intentions. — Jamal

So, at your suggestion I did this, took a look at lecture 1. What I see is that Adorno is proposing a philosophy which is completely distinct from Hegelian dialectics and the consequent identity philosophy . He is clear to explain the difference. He calls it "negative dialectics" and a philosophy of non-identity. I am arguing that since "dialectics" is commonly understood under the terms of Hegelian dialectics, and Adorno dismantles Hegelian dialectics, his philosophy ought not be called "dialectics" under such a definition.

However, if we look at "dialectics" in a broader sense, and consider "Platonic dialectics", which is a completely different style of philosophy from Hegelian dialectics, so much so that they ought not be classed under the same word, "dialectics", then we have the premise for calling Adorno's philosophy "dialectics". The principal issue is "synthesis". Some would argue that the method of looking at opposing principles without the goal of synthesis, cannot be called dialectics.

Here's what I said at the beginning of the thread:

t's interesting that he positions Hegel as the founder of dialectics rather than Plato. It appears to me, like what Adorno is offering is a dialectics more closely related to Plato's than Hegel's. He dismisses "synthesis" completely, and focuses on a deconstruction of the concept. It may be characterized as deconstructionist. This is very similar to the Platonic dialectical method. Plato took varying definitions of the same term to break down the assumed concept, and expose contradiction within the supposed "concept", demonstrating its weaknesses. it is a skeptical method. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's Adorno in the first lecture:

We are concerned here
with a philosophical project that does not presuppose the identity of
being and thought, nor does it culminate in that identity. Instead it
will attempt to articulate the very opposite, namely the divergence of
concept and thing, subject and object, and their unreconciled state.
When I make use of the term ‘dialectics’ I would ask you not to think
of the famous triadic scheme of θε′σις [thesis], αντι ′θεσις [antithesis]
and συ′νθεσις [synthesis] in the usual sense, as you encounter it in
the most superficial account of school dialectics. — LND, p 6

The question now. When Adorno makes use of the term 'dialectics', in his proposed "negative dialectics", does it even qualify as "dialectics" at all? Well, I think it's just semantics, and it really doesn't matter, so long as we can grasp what he is doing.

All right. I think you got carried away in your previous post, when you said that the meaning of "negative dialectics" was "against dialectics", when obviously it just means dialectics of the negative variety.

Of course he criticizes Hegel a lot, since his (Adorno's) version of dialectics is meant to be a superior replacement for Hegel's. But he is still quite a lot closer to Hegel in method than he is to Plato, even using Hegel's terms and categories, e.g., mediation, determinate negation, moment, etc.

And I think it's crucial to keep in mind the fundamentally dialectical nature of Adorno's philosophy, in the Hegelian sense, otherwise we risk solidifying the concepts he uses along the way.

Anyway, as you say, I think we can sort of agree on this particular issue.

Introduction: Disenchantment of the Concept

The first paragraph in this section has the same form as the first paragraph of the previous section:

1. This thing we're doing can look a lot like idealism
2. Here is why it actually isn't

The earlier paragraph was about negative dialectics; this one is about philosophy in general. Adorno is tackling a common argument that accuses pretty much all philosophy of being idealist, at least all philosophy that strives to be more than clarification and therapy. So he might have in mind logical positivists, as well as any anti-philosophical empiricists who suppose that immediate access to reality is possible, that is, bypassing concepts. Ordinary language philosophy might fit the bill too. Of course, these philosophies are quite different, but what they have in common is the idea that philosophy's reliance on concepts is a self-imposed and self-reflecting confusion.

The critique that Adorno criticizes is referred to as "the general objection":

Philosophy, Hegel’s included, invites the general objection that insofar as it would have compulsory concepts as its material, it already characterizes itself in advance as idealistic.

His first response is to say that of course philosophy cannot just deal directly with the facts themselves, without going through concepts:

As a matter of fact none of them, not even extreme empiricism, can haul off the facta bruta [Latin: brute facts] and present them like anatomical cases or physics experiments; none, as so many paintings tempt one to believe, glue specific things onto the text.

Then comes his primary rejoinder:

But the argument in its formal generality grasps the concept as fetishistically as the manner in which it naively explicates itself within its domain, as a self-sufficient totality, which philosophical thinking cannot do anything about. In truth all concepts, even philosophical ones, move towards what is non-conceptual, because they are for their part moments of the reality, which necessitated – primarily for the purpose of controlling nature – their formation.

"The argument" refers to the general objection introduced in the first sentence. Adorno accuses it of treating concepts (he says "the concept," meaning concepts in general) precisely how idealism does, namely by fetishizing them as static, standalone objects, as totalities, i.e., as complete without any object beyond them (and exhausting the object without remainder). He counters that "in truth," all concepts are produced by and point back to material reality (whether they do the latter well or badly is a different matter). That is part of what a concept is. This flat assertion of materialism is similar to that in the earlier paragraph.

That which appears as the conceptual mediation from the inside, the pre-eminence of its sphere, without which nothing could be known, may not be confused with what it is in itself. Such an appearance [Schein] of the existent-in-itself lends it the movement which exempts it from the reality, within which it is for its part harnessed.

A very slippery couple of sentences. Does the "appearance of the existent-in-itself" in the second sentence refer to the "conceptual mediation" of the first sentence? If so, I think Adorno is saying that once this conceptual mediation is properly apprehended as an appearance, rather than as the very thing it points to in the real world, it gains the freedom of movement necessary for the dialectic, despite having material roots and connections.

Or, the acknowledgement of the material origin and non-conceptual goal of concepts frees philosophy from accusations of idealism, since its necessarily mediational nature just is how we access reality in thought.

With both of these interpretations together---because they're complementary---I think maybe I'm close to what Adorno is saying.

The next paragraph elaborates on the first.

The requirement that philosophy must operate with concepts is no more to be made into a virtue of this priority than, conversely, the critique of this virtue is to be the summary verdict over philosophy.

Neither philosophy's conceptual essence nor the above critique of this essence should have the last word. Instead...

Meanwhile, the insight that its conceptual essence would not be its absolute in spite of its inseparability is again mediated through the constitution of the concept; it is no dogmatic or even naively realistic thesis.

The crucial insight is that philosophy's conceptual essence is not absolute, i.e., it does not entail that it depends on nothing outside itself. And this insight is "mediated through the constitution of the concept," meaning that it arises organically from what we understand concepts to do, rather than being a bare assertion of dogmatic metaphysics or naive realism. And what we understand concepts to do is reach towards the non-conceptual:

Concepts such as that of being in the beginning of Hegel’s Logic indicate first of all that which is emphatically non-conceptual; they signify, as per Lask’s expression, beyond themselves.

It is in their nature not to be satisfied by their own conceptuality, although to the extent that they include the non-conceptual in their meaning, they tend to make this identical to itself and thereby remain entangled in
themselves.

Here he brings up identity-thinking again. When concepts explicitly refer to the non-conceptual, they attempt to make it identical with themselves and thereby forget about the non-conceptual they had been trying to reach in the first place.

Their content is as immanent in the intellectual sense as transcendent in the ontical sense to such. By means of the self-consciousness of this they have the capacity of discarding their fetishism.

The content of concepts is both immanent and transcendent. It is immanent because whatever is included in the concept is thereby conceptualized---it remains within the sphere of the intellect so long as it is a concept at all; and it is transcendent because it still points outside itself---although it is intellectually immanent, by its nature it transcends its own intellectuality, or seeks to.

And once we have a concept which takes this dual nature into account, the fetishism that usually characterizes both philosophy and the critique of philosophy (the fetishism of the concept as standalone object) can be discarded.

Negative dialectics is supposed to consist of the philosophical self-reflection that achieves this.

Philosophical self-reflection assures itself of the non-conceptual in the concept. Otherwise this latter would be, after Kant’s dictum, null, ultimately no longer the concept of something and thereby void.

Kant's dictum is "Thoughts without content are empty". Concepts must be of something.

The next paragraph makes the case somewhat polemically:

The philosophy which recognizes this, which cancels out the autarky of the concept, strikes the blinders from the eyes. That the concept is a concept even when it deals with the existent, hardly changes the fact that it is for its part enmeshed in a non-conceptual whole against which it seals itself off solely through its reification, which indeed created it as a concept.

The interesting thing here is the mention of reification. It is through the reification of concepts that they lose touch with what is outside of themselves. But more than that: it is actually through reification that a concept becomes a distinct individual intellectual item in the first place. This reminds us how deep Adorno's scepticism of concepts runs, and shows us that we can never expect final, satisfactory concepts in philosophy.

The concept is a moment like any other in dialectical logic. Its mediated nature through the non conceptual survives in it by means of its significance, which for its part founds its conceptual nature.

So far, so good. The concept's very conceptuality is founded on its signification beyond itself. He goes on to say pretty much the same thing in a different way:

It is characterized as much by its relation to the non-conceptual – as in keeping with traditional epistemology, where every definition of concepts ultimately requires non-conceptual, deictic moments – as the contrary, that the abstract unity of the onta subsumed under it are to be separated from the ontical.

On the one hand the concept is characterized by its separation---as the abstract unity that unifies existing things ("onta")---from the things themselves in their concrete reality (the "ontical"). But equally it can be characterized by its relation to the non-conceptual. In other words, it is just as much related to as separated from the non-conceptual.

To change this direction of conceptuality, to turn it towards the non-identical, is the hinge of negative dialectics. Before the insight into the constitutive character of the non-conceptual in the concept, the compulsion of identity, which carries along the concept without the delay of such a reflection, dissolves. Its self-determination leads away from the appearance [Schein] of the concept’s being-in-itself as a unity of meaning, out towards its own meaning.

The insight described above, that the concept is constitutively concerned with the non-conceptual, allows us to resist the compulsion of identity thinking and orient our concepts towards that which escapes them or is distorted by them.

Now we can see what the section title means. The disenchantment of the concept intentionally mirrors Weber's disenchantment of the world. Where the latter described the demystification of the world through the erosion of religious worldviews and sacred hierarchical bonds, the disenchantment of the concept means to erode its sacred power, to root it in material reality without casting it aside completely---bringing the concept down to Earth.

I've been thinking for the last few days of an analogy of what Adorno is saying of dialectics, and its relation to physics, namely thermodynamics, the similarities seem to me more than metaphorical, but I can't get my head around it. So I figured I would post these thoughts to the community, as it would know best what to do with them.

So it is basically dynamics, between object-subject, much like thermodynamics, the cold object and the hot subject. Positive dialectics transfers power from the subject to the object, while negative dialectics is the reverse, energy transfer from the object to the subject, with philosophy being the discipline or activity that both describes and affects these two processes.

Also, Adorno seems to be saying that the whole system is isolated, in that no new energy may come from outside the system, ie no "Heraclitean essence", no metaphysics, no transcendence, no divine intervention, no aliens, there ain't no help, the cavalry stayed home: philosophy must work through contradictions within the system, not posit a naive outside, liberation doesn't come from without, it must be immanently worked through.

Objects and subjects, both compete for power, between each other and between them, but since this is an isolated system, it is a zero-sum game we are playing, energetically speaking. The object cannot grow unless it drains power from the subject, and vice-versa, it is the antagonistic whole.

The whole, Adorno says, is an illusion, it's not real. It is what he would want us to resist. It is what Hegel posited in his famous "The true is the whole". We do not discover ourselves in the whole, but we are negated and alienated by it, in a sense we discover ourselves in it, but by negation, because the whole is broken. The object, society, is not passive, it is a negating force that antagonizes us, that in thermodynamic terms burns us with contradictions. Object and subject feed off each other.

And then, there is the thing with entropy. Entropy is related to uncertainty, (dis)order and information loss. Positive hegelian dialectics induces an information loss to the non-conceptual, that much is clear. And so Adorno's negative dialectics, that wants to recover it, can be seen as negative entropy, or negentropy, "a measure of distance to normality".

The thing with entropy in a closed system, as we learn from physics, is that, if no work is done, then the system tends towards maximum entropy, uniformity and statis, ending in a heat-death, a form of unfreedom, where the particles are so distant and alienatied to each other, that no further energy can be produced, in Adornian terms, it is total domination, the "totally administered world". Differences, contradictions, non-identical elements are flattened or neutralized, everything is reduced to exchange value. Subjects are reduced to just cogs in the machine, the object, without meaningful agency, where even no dialectics is possible, no critique and critical theory, nihilism. The throne of Spirit is empty and without meaning, it died due to the maximization of entropy.

Entropy presents us with a paradox, not unlike the one that Adorno is professing: entropy is chaos and disorganization, our institutions - society, the object - prevent against that, by control, at the cost of life and difference, by reducing everything to exchange value, input and output. This very effort reduces entropy, by alienation, which increases entropy in the individual, which then reflects on society, and thus entropy is globally increased. And so philosophy, according to Adorno, I think it has to do with solving this paradox.

Finally, I am thinking of cybernetics, something new and relatively unknown in Adorno's times, with its feedback loops and its rationality for control, but I cannot say, I am new to it.

All right. I think you got carried away in your previous post, when you said that the meaning of "negative dialectics" was "against dialectics", when obviously it just means dialectics of the negative variety. — Jamal

OK, but there is a little trick at play here. If we define "dialectics" as founded by Hegel, then anything which qualifies for the criteria of being named by the term, must fulfil the conditions. So, if synthesis is an essential aspect of Hegelian dialectics, and Adorno removes this from his philosophy, then we ought not call his philosophy "dialectics" at all, but come up a new term which distances it from dialectics, like "post-dialectics", or something like that would work. But then, I see that "negative dialectics" really could do that task, of distancing itself from dialectics, by being "against dialectics". And, I interpret Adorno's philosophy as actually being against dialectics (in the Hegelian sense), so this leaves the question of why he tries to characterize it as a type of dialectics.

This points back to that time when you called me scurrilous. What I said at that time was this:

The trickery is this. He implies that he and the thoughts he presents, originate from, or have been greatly influenced by ("contained") by Hegel, suggesting that he is Hegelian. In reality, he is not, but he knows that Hegel is understood as a powerful authority, and he desires to gain support for his project by appearing to be consistent with Hegel. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is no reason for him to mention "The enormous power of Hegel", and speak as if he's awed by this mysterious force of ideology. How is that consistent with his project of negative dialectics? And he did this right after claiming we need to critique the hypostasis of mind. Instead, he's sucking up to it when he says that all his ideas are contained in Hegel. — Metaphysician Undercover

But he is still quite a lot closer to Hegel in method than he is to Plato, even using Hegel's terms and categories, e.g., mediation, determinate negation, moment, etc. — Jamal

I reserve judgement on that statement

I see how "determinate negation" may establish a relation (other than a critical, negative relation) between him and Hegel, but I really do not yet fully understand his use of "mediation". So far it seems a but ambiguous to me. If mediation turns out to be a sort of synthesis, then he would be Hegelian, but then he'd be reintroducing the synthesis he claims to avoid.

However, his rejection of synthesis, if true, really separates him. The question might be, is an attempt at synthesis necessary for dialectics. But again, it's just semantics, and we should focus on what he's actually doing, rather than trying to name it.

So I figured I would post these thoughts to the community, as it would know best what to do with them. — Pussycat

Since it's not directly engaged in the reading it might be better in its own thread. But to get any responses I think you’d have to do more to explain the analogy (I for one do not understand it).

He counters that "in truth," all concepts are produced by and point back to material reality (whether they do the latter well or badly is a different matter). That is part of what a concept is. This flat assertion of materialism is similar to that in the earlier paragraph. — Jamal

I see this as the key point to the section. And, there are two key words to Adorno's description of this, which I am trying to get a handle on. The words are "moment" and "mediation". The following are the passages with that usage:

In truth all concepts,
even philosophical ones, move towards what is non-conceptual,
because they are for their part moments of the reality, which
necessitated – primarily for the purpose of controlling nature – their
formation. That which appears as the conceptual mediation from the
inside, the pre-eminence of its sphere, without which nothing could be
known, may not be confused with what it is in itself. Such an
appearance [Schein] of the existent-in-itself lends it the movement
which exempts it from the reality, within which it is for its part
harnessed. — p 22

Meanwhile, the insight that its conceptual essence would not be its
absolute in spite of its inseparability is again mediated through the
constitution of the concept; it is no dogmatic or even naively realistic
thesis. — p23

The concept is a moment like any
other in dialectical logic. Its mediated nature through the non
conceptual survives in it by means of its significance, which for its part
founds its conceptual nature. It is characterized as much by its relation
to the non-conceptual – as in keeping with traditional epistemology,
where every definition of concepts ultimately requires non-conceptual,
deictic moments – as the contrary, that the abstract unity of the onta
subsumed under it are to be separated from the ontical. To change this
direction of conceptuality, to turn it towards the non-identical, is the
hinge of negative dialectics. — p 23

Now, "mediation" implies a medium or mediator, and this is something in between the two features which are distinct, and may be opposites, or two extremes. So we have three aspects, the two distinct features which we can say are mediated, and the medium/mediator. As far as I can tell, Adorno keeps the medium/mediator not well described or defined, and somewhat ambiguous. And, since I cannot understand "mediated" without some understanding of the medium/mediator, I am left to speculate.

Generally, a medium is understood to be passive, and a mediator is understood to be active, so I think we can eliminate the former as unlikely to be what Adorno talks of as mediation. This means that "moment" is used not as a passive instant, or point in time, but more like the use in physics, where the moment is an active force of causation. Following this exclusion, I see two principal possibilities for the meaning of mediator. The first is that the two opposing features are concept and object, and the mediator mediates between these two. The second is that the two opposing features are both conceptual, (contradictories such as is and is not), and the mediator between these two is the object.

I'll start with the first possibility. Since Adorno speaks of a separation between concept and object, it appears like the mediator lies between these two as a mediation of both. However, this leads to the problem outlined. Any description of the mediator is necessarily conceptual, such that the mediator is not a proper mediator, but is actually on the side of the concept and therefore not a proper mediator. For example, we might say that in general, the mediator between concept and object is the human being, but this is purely conceptual. And if we get more specific, we could say that the mediator is human activities, knowledge, or philosophy, but this is still conceptual. In the attempt to avoid this, we might think of the individual philosopher as the mediator, and the philosopher's actions under one's material conditions (historical context), as mediation between concept and object. But an important aspect of the material conditions is ideology, and again, the conceptual side takes priority.

So we ought to proceed to the second possibility. And since Adorno explicitly speaks of the mediation of conception, I believe that this is how he wants us to understand mediation. The object acts as mediator in the formation of concepts. Conception deals with opposing terms, contraries, and the objects act to mediate the conception of these contraries. So this, I believe is what he proposes as the "hinge of negative dialectics", to turn one's attention onto the particular objects which mediate the concept, instead of turning one's attention toward the identity relation, which is actually purely conceptual.

I have one problem with what Adorno says in this section, and that is how he distances himself from Hegel. He states the following:

Concepts such as that of being in the beginning of Hegel’s Logic
indicate first of all that which is emphatically non-conceptual; they
signify, as per Lask’s expression, beyond themselves. — p 23

I believe that this is a misrepresentation of Hegel. In his logic, "being" is a concept, which along with the opposing "not being" represents a logical form. "Being" does not represent the non-conceptual, it represents the opposite of not being. That's what supports its identity in that logical form. However, "becoming" in its classical form is a representation of the material world. So Hegel's dialectics can be interpreted as showing the (conceptual) logical contraries as being subsumed by the material world of changing objects (becoming) in a process known as synthesis.

This puts Hegel's dialectics as very similar to Adorno's. The difference I see is that Adorno's "mediation" is active in the production of the concept, which consists of contraries, whereas Hegel's "synthesis" is the result or effect of conception. Furthermore, Hegel's "synthesis" is a bit problematic in comparison to Adorno's "mediation", because it requires an active agent, which ends up being Spirit. Adorno can assign causal activity to the mediator, which is the active, objective reality of the material world, thereby avoiding the need for an active agent as cause of the concepts, while Hegel needs an agent to cause synthesis.

That could be the change of direction, the turn around that he speaks of for negative dialectics.

Now we can see what the section title means. The disenchantment of the concept intentionally mirrors Weber's disenchantment of the world. Where the latter described the demystification of the world through the erosion of religious worldviews and sacred hierarchical bonds, the disenchantment of the concept means to erode its sacred power, to root it in material reality without casting it aside completely---bringing the concept down to Earth. — Jamal

The interpretation I offered above is quite convoluted, and you may not understand it properly, but it is very consistent with yours. So here's a sort of paraphrase. The identity thinking, which Adorno criticizes is a movement of the concept attempting to become consistent with the object (such as representationalism). But this produces a division between concept and object (classic dualism), requiring a mediator between the two. (Plato's tripartite soul posits spirit as mediator between body and mind.)

As explained above, any proposed mediator must always be on the side of the concept, because that is what appears as immediate to the subject as actively manipulating the concepts. But this is a sort of bias which prevents a true representation of mediation. So the project is ill-fated as trying to do what its bias prevents. In this ill-fated project, the object, as well as concept, are in essence static, while an agent (Spirit) is required for the activity which moves the concepts shaping them to be consistent with the objects.

Adorno's proposal puts the foundational activity in the object itself, as the cause of concepts. This assigns to the object the position of mediator between the contraries of the concept. That might make the object, as active, immediate to the intellect, (which is Adorno goal, the priority of the object). This effectively replaces Spirit as the immediate active agent of mediation with the object as the immediate active agent of mediation.

Poor Jamal, I imagine him saying "I asked for a reading group, and all I got was a metaphysician and a smelly cat!" :grin:

I am now caught up to here. One thing I want to highlight that I didn't see anyone else highlight just yet:

To change this direction of conceptuality, to turn it towards the non-identical, is the hinge of negative dialectics. — p 23

The use of "hinge" stood out to me because of his invocation of Wittgenstein. (I did a quick google and PI was 1953, and ND was 1966 for publication dates)

Interesting to me in the way that he's reflecting from Hegel -- the metaphor of a hinge with relation to Hegel makes sense of what he's doing I think. There are some certainties which Hegel would not have grasped or set out as important whereas Negative Dialectics does, namely by the reading so far the particular and the non-conceptual, or non-identical.