This framing presents substance as nothing more than individual objects, like particular dogs - or even stones or marbles, we would be entitled to think —whic is an oversimplification that loses sight of the deeper point that 'substance' is not mere particularity, but what something is in virtue of its form and actuality. Again, it is nearer to think of it as what of being it is, than what kind of object. And there's a difference! — Wayfarer

I think the point Aristotle was making is that particularity is what substance is, in the primary sense. What an individual object actually is, is a unique peculiar form, which is proper only to itself, (the law of identity). This uniqueness, which is a feature of spatial temporal existence, is what constitutes "substance" in the primary sense. In the secondary sense, "substance" is the primary species, what kind of thing it is. Commonly, in modern philosophy Aristotle's primary substance, along with the law of identity, are overlooked as superfluous, and identity is assigned to what we say about the thing (secondary substance), rather than what the thing actually is, in itself, a unique individual with a form of its very own.

Do you conceive of possible worlds as sharing an actual, existential timeline? Such that event A in world W literally happens at the same time as event B in world Y? — J

Yes, I think it is necessary to conceive of it as the same time, because it is referred to as "the future". So, we have one present, now, and one item at the present now. The multitude of possible worlds is a description of the time after now, which is the future, and all those possible worlds must share in the same future, or else the model would be useless.

The two events, being distinct, can't share the same space, so why would we imagine they could share the same time? — J

Space hasn't been mentioned, but the space would be limited by the possibilities. They all must share the same time, because that's what is being modeled, a specified time, "the future". If we are modeling the possibility of a sea battle tomorrow, for example, it doesn't make sense to say that one of the possible worlds models yesterday as tomorrow.

Not as Kripke understands "same object" -- and I would argue that this is the common-sense understanding as well. You've read Naming and Necessity, I suppose? In his example, "Richard Nixon" is a rigid designator; thus, Nixon remains Nixon -- the "same object" -- regardless of whether he wins or loses the 1968 election. For this to violate some law of non-contradiction, you'd have to maintain that every single property, action, and attribute of a given object is essential to its being what it is. Do you really want to do that? — J

I haven't read Kripke, I'm just going on what Banno said: "In rigid designation (Kripke), names refer to the same individual in every world where that individual exists." Obviously, if it is the same individual in every possible world, the law of noncontradiction is violated every time that the individual has contradictory properties between two different possible worlds. In your example, Nixon both wins and does not win the 1968 election. Therefore the law of non-contradiction which says that a thing cannot both have a property and not have that property, at the same time, is violated.

Also, I think it's very obvious that "every single property, action, and attribute of a given object is essential to its being what it is". If any object could be different from what it actually is, then it could be two different objects at the very same time. That's nonsensical to say that one object could be two different objects at the very same time.

I think you've hit the nail on the head. — Jamal

I like to sort of apply, in thought experiments, the theory which a philosopher expresses, this helps me to understand, but sometimes misunderstand.

Now, you'll notice that Adorno will refer to objects, using concepts, while also implying that the concept doesn't quite fit, which in your terms implies that the object is imposed and means that he cannot legitimately use that concept to refer to the real, or that the purported object is entirely ideal. But he has no choice. He will say things like "objects exceed the grasp of their concepts," and applying this to one object, say the working-class, this is a way of showing that we must refer to it as an object but must also remember that its very object-hood is partly a product of thought and does not precisely capture what it's trying to capture (and what's more, no object concept can capture it). — Jamal

I think we can distinguish between objects exceeding there concepts, and concepts exceeding their objects, and this roughly corresponds with the two types of criticism. The former is found in hypothesizing, theorizing about reality. The latter is found when we apply ideals, such as my example of applying systems theory.

This plays into the theory/practice distinction of lecture 5. I find that the two always get wrapped together with internal reciprocation, and I think this is why Adorno seems to recommend blurring the boundaries. I believe the blurring of boundaries is counterproductive to analysis and criticism in general, but maybe the point is just what I am saying, that any such application of boundaries produces an artificial representation which will be deficient. Incidentally, Charles Peirce has a lot to say about this blurring, and how we must allow exceptions to the laws of noncontradiction and excluded middle to avoid problems like the sorites paradox.

I believe, that at the base of this issue, is the incompatibility between "being" and "becoming" which was demonstrated by Plato. What gave me the problem in lecture 4 is the ambiguity between "system" as a way of thinking (activity, becoming), and "system" as an object (unity, whole, being). Because I accept as a fundamental, guiding principle, this incompatibility, my philosophical training has inclined me to reject the blurring of this categorical separation.

So when things are understood in terms of their activities, and these things are said to be parts of a whole, we need something further, a principle of equilibrium or something, which supports the interconnectedness required for the stability of "an object". Natural objects are understood to exist as active parts, fundamental particles, but extra "forces" are required to produce the equilibrium of the object. Likewise, if "society" is understood as a collective of active parts, we need a further principle to support the interconnectedness of those parts which is required for the equilibrium that is essential to a true "object". Systems theory inclines us to believe that we can arbitrarily impose boundaries without any such cause of equilibrium, producing "an object" without any real support for the supposed interconnectedness required for "an object".

But for Adorno the identity of being and thought is the result of the idealist prioritization of the subject. — Jamal

I haven't quite seen this yet, but I view this entire perspective, the one which blurs the boundaries and refuses to carry the critical analysis deeper, as a feature of the modern inclination toward monism. Ultimately, I believe it leads to unintelligibility, which to avoid requires the priority of the subject.

Partly for my own benefit I'd like to work out exactly what is lost, what is misleading, in this over-simple formulation. — Jamal

I think, the thing might be to recognize the two distinct directions of systematization type thought. In one case, we apply systems theory to existing reality. We produce a model, "a system" which to our purposes fits the reality, such that we can apply it and predict future activities (weather forecast). In the other direction (the case of society) we theorize with intent (perhaps latent system), to create an object according to what we view as desirable. Unless the intended object is the entirety, the whole, it must be the means to a further end. We can place the concept "working class" in that category, as an object creating for a purpose.

Now you are misrepresenting what I have said. — Banno

Well, you refused to explain yourself.

Is it the case that the same object maintains its identity as itself throughout the multitude of possible worlds (Kripke), or is it the case that the multitude of possible worlds each have similar objects (Lewis)?

The first case (Kripke) violates the law of noncontradiction. The second case (Lewis) violates the law of identity, the same object becomes a number of similar objects at the moment of the present, when looking toward future possibilities.

You can dismiss those fundamental three laws as "a group of Aristotelian syllogisms that assume individuality requires an essence", but that does not change the fact that there is inconsistency between that system of logic, and the common interpretations of modal logic.

By not admitting that each is a useful system of logic, and yet there is inconsistency between the two, it is you who is restricting yourself to one of the two.

What it comes down to is (a) I am nevertheless ready to move on and don't think this is the right time to tackle the issue (though I intend now to keep it in mind), and (b) there is a real antagonism in Adorno's thinking, which goes right down to the bottom of idealism vs realism, which I hope will become, maybe not clearer, but more explicit as the reading goes on into ND. — Jamal

I agree that this is not the right time. I am not at all familiar with Adorno, this is my first reading. So what I am expressing is a first impression, which is bound to change as I become more familiar.

Good stuff, but here is the thing: the bolded conclusion isn't justified. It begs the question. From the fact that we impose artificial boundaries on hurricanes it doesn't follow that hurricanes don't exist apart from those boundaries. — Jamal

I think you are missing the point. The argument is not that this aspect of the weather does not have real existence, the argument is that it does not exist as an "object". Nor does it truthfully exist as a "system", though it might be modeled as a system. We impose imaginary boundaries as this is what is required of "system", and this imposition produces the illusion of an "object".

If we started from the core of the storm, and worked our way outward, looking for these boundaries which make the storm into a definitive "object" as a system, we wouldn't ever find them. We start at the eye, and we wouldn't limit the system just to the eye. Nor would we limit it to the eye and the eyewall. Then we have spiral rain bands, but still the wind and clouds extend further, right into the neighbouring high pressure area, such that there is a continuous pressure gradient from the middle of the low pressure area to the middle of the high. There is no real boundary which separates the storm from everything else, it's just an imaginary boundary imposed on a world of interconnectedness.

This could be an example of Adorno's "systematization". Notice, it's a sort of subjective boundary imposed upon the whole, to create what passes for a "system", out of a selected part. Adorno is talking about, and provides an example of this systematization in theory. What I have provided is a description of how it works in practise. We apply systems theory to partition out a specific, intentionally selected aspect of reality, and model that aspect as an object, a system which is bounded.

So I extend this by analogy to the way you consider "society" to be an object. How would you separate one specific society from another, as they are all interconnected. And if the entirety of humanity is "society" in general, how would we account for all the opposing customs, etc.? This practise of systematization, which is to take something which is inherently subjective, and portray it as objective we find everywhere. For example, some will take a subjectively created group of people such as "the working class", and treat this proposed group as an objective distinction. In reality, there is just arbitrary, subjective criteria which are imposed to create the illusion of a real unified group of people.

I think he states it openly 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. — Jamal

I don't think that constitutes anti-idealism, it simply signifies that it is a philosophy which is other than the philosophy which establishes an identity of being and thought. So for example, Parmenides promoted an idealism with that identity of being and thought. Socrates and Plato were critical of this idealism, mostly due to the way that it seemed to exclude the possibility of becoming as something real, and intelligible. Plato ended up outlining an idealism which places mind as prior to being. So he moved away from "the identity of being and thought", but he didn't get away from idealism.

You keep repeating this absurdity. PWS logic is consistent with a=a. End of story. The rest is in your imaginings .

Further discourse is only encouraging your confabulations. Cheers. — Banno

Thank you for confirming what I already knew. When someone produces a strong argument against what you already believe, you cease communications.

Are you familiar with Taylor's work on this, and DF Wallace's response? — J

No, I'm not familiar with that. I may take a look when I get a chance but I'm really not interested in fatalism.

Could you say what you have in mind by something being in a different world "at the same time"? The same time as what? It's a different world, isn't it? — J

This was in relation to Banno's explanation: "Possible Worlds Semantics (PWS) avoids fatalism by allowing multiple possible futures, each with fixed truths...". The different possible futures, each with its fixed truth, would all refer to the same future time. So the same item would have contradictory properties, at the same time, because that same item would have existence in a multitude of different worlds, with different properties, at the same time.

When I informed Banno that this is a violation of the law of identity, because the same item would have a multitude of distinct identities, all at the same time, Banno suggested that maybe the item in different possible worlds is not the same item, but similar items. But this doesn't jive with different possible futures of one item. How could one item divide itself into a multitude of future similar items, each with its own truth, at the moment of the present? That's nonsensical.

Or, more charitably, you're a hardcore idealist who cannot accept Adorno's materialism. — Jamal

Yes, that's the issue, appropriate principles (which i haven't yet seen), are required for acceptance, justification.

But what you're saying does go to the heart of the subject-object relation, which is a central part of his thinking; and there is in fact a dialectical antagonism in his thinking between objects as non-conceptual and objects as ineluctably mediated—so I'll try responding. — Jamal

You and I disagree as to what gets placed in the "subject" category of the subject-object relation, and what gets placed in the "object" category. For example, I said "society" refers to a concept, you said it refers to an object. I haven't yet seen from Adorno any clear principles as to how to categorize. In fact, when he said that he doesn't recognize a clear distinction between criticizing judgement and criticizing phenomena, I found this to be an indication that he is intentional blurring the separation between these categories. You say the subject-object relation is a central part of his thinking, but is blurring the boundary between them a central part of what he is doing? I don't see how that could be conducive to understanding.

The thing produced being a philosophical system such as Kant's transcendental idealism or Fichte's Science of Knowledge, yes? Well, why not both? They're part of the same deal. I don't think Adorno makes an important distinction between the activity of making a system and the resulting philosophical system itself, or if he does it's along the lines of the systematization/system distinction. — Jamal

The problem is that there is a fundamental difference between activities of change, and static states. Aristotle demonstrated how the two, as "becoming", and "being", are incompatible. Becoming cannot be described with the same terms as states of being, and states of being cannot be described by the terms of active becoming. So if we allow the same word, "system" to refer to both, that would be a serious ambiguity which could lead to equivocation and misunderstanding.

It may be the case that Hegelian dialectics of logic allow for this sort of "both", by allowing that being is subsumed within the category of becoming. If this is the case, then I would argue that Hegel is mistaken. Aristotle demonstrated decisively how describing the active becoming as consisting of states of being leads to an infinite regress, and unintelligibility. So the Hegelian approach, of allowing that states of being are negated by the antithesis, in the activity of becoming, which is a synthesis of the two, is actually a recipe for unintelligibility. The contraries, being and nothing are allowed to coexist, in contradiction, within the synthesized "becoming". That is the problem with making the descriptive terms of "becoming" (or activity in general), the same as the descriptive terms of being.

Adorno, it appears shares my disdain for Hegelian dialectics. Notice the way that he rejects Hegelian "synthesis". If the opposing terms are true negations there can be nothing left for synthesis, and if they are not true opposites the premise fails. So Hegelian dialectics is a misunderstanding from the outset.

Well, which interconnectedness are we talking about? Adorno is saying there is an interconnectedness beyond thought, not only beyond philosophical systems but obscured by philosophical systems. — Jamal

If we assume an interconnectedness which is "beyond thought", then we need proper principles to distinguish this type of interconnectedness from that which is imposed by thought. Kant provides a good example. At this point, after reading lecture 4, I would say that Adorno seems intent on blurring the distinction.

Here's an example of the need for distinction. Advocates for the application of systems theory in science, will say that a weather storm, like a hurricane, can be modeled as "a system". This system is assumed to be a composition of interconnected active parts, interconnected through their activities, and operating as a whole, an object," the system". The problem is that in reality there is no such boundary between the low pressure area and the high pressure area, just a gradation, and the supposed boundary which makes all that interconnected activity into "a system" as a whole, an object, is completely "imposed by thought".

This is common in modern thought, to impose an arbitrary boundary on activity, create "a system", and treat that created system as if it is a real, independent object, "beyond thought". I would argue that this is similar to how you claim that "society" refers to an object. You impose some arbitrary boundaries on activities, and you clim that there is an object here, called "society". But your object is simply a creation of boundaries imposed by thought.

The lesson here is that thought imposes "system" on the interconnectedness which is beyond thought, because "system" is the current trend in thinking. In reality, we have very little understanding of this interconnectedness, referred to in physics by terms like "strong force", "weak force", "gravity" "electromagnetism", and in social studies, "intentions", "emotions" "morals" etc.. We can model these activities as "systems" and "societies", but the boundaries or limits of the interconnectedness, which produce "the object", imposed by thought.

We should be careful. Adorno has an interesting theory of bodily experience, and tends to use "somatic" when he is talking about sensation, because he believes the concept of "sensation" is implicated in the subjectivization characteristic of idealism, i.e., the concept of sensation takes something physical and relational and unjustifiably turns it into something mental and private. This idealist pressure of thought is demonstrated by your own way of wording things here, I think. — Jamal

I'm interested to learn more. I really do not see the anti-idealism which you refer to, yet. His criticism seems true and honest, not directed at at any specific group, but approaching idealism and materialism equally.

identity is world-bound; talk of “Socrates in another world” means “someone like Socrates.” — Banno

Then it's not identity, and the fundamental laws would not even apply to "similar things". Which is it, identity or not?

That's just a misunderstanding of what it is to be an individual. — Banno

Well, if being an individual defies the law of identity, then so be it. We still have the same conclusion, the fundamental laws are violated by this conception of "individual".

In rigid designation (Kripke), names refer to the same individual in every world where that individual exists. Identity is preserved; variation in properties does not threaten self-identity, so long as essential properties remain fixed. — Banno

OK, so identity is preserved, even though the same thing, according to that identity, may have contrary properties in different worlds at the same time. If it's the same thing, i.e. the same identity, then noncontradiction is violated. The same thing has contrary properties at the same time.

So you've just moved from the Aristotelian definition of "possible" where excluded middle is violated because "possible" means neither has nor has not the property, to a definition of "possible" where noncontradiction is violated because "possible" means that the same thing (by the law of identity) has contrary properties at the same time, according to the various possible worlds.

OMG, interpretations could go on forever. But you're right, it would be awesome because it's incredibly difficult. Maybe later.

It's just a matter of having an adequate understanding. Something the vast majority will never take the time to develop. Look at how many dialogues Plato wrote before he got to the Parmenides. It's not something that comes easy.

Nevertheless, Aristotle went on to demonstrate how forms are necessary to support the law of identity, and the idea that there is what a thing is. This was a modified theory of Forms, required after Plato obliterated the old one.

Still, 10% tariffs and the 30% tariffs on Chinese goods do have some effect... not of an embargo, but still something. — ssu

It becomes just another tax now. Maybe that was the intent in the first place, but he hyped it up, to try and get some bonus effect.

PWS avoids fatalism because it doesn't allow semantics to determine what will be ontologically true. — J

As I explained, it avoids fatalism by violating the law of identity. The "multiple possible futures" proposed by Banno are a blatant violation.

Like Adorno, I don't accept the antecedent. Things are really connected, before a system is applied to them. Indeed we could think of that as his main point, since the problem with philosophical systems is that they forget the real interconnectedness in their drive to cover everything with their own schemes. — Jamal

This is why Adorno's philosophy gets difficult for me. I find that there is ambiguity, or vagueness in the distinction between "system" as a thing, and the act which is creating the thing. Notice that in my first interpretation I took "system" to mean a whole which includes everything, the totality of reality. From this interpretation I could not get beyond the idea that he promotes system thinking. However, I noticed at the part where he talks about Heidegger that "system" thinking refers to following a single principle, and this is what unifies thought. So I went back to the beginning of the lecture and found that he actually defines "system" as a movement of thought which follows a single principle. So "system" must be properly understood as the activity of a certain type of thinking, not as the thing produced by that type of thinking

So the interconnectedness we are talking about here, is relations of thought. And we can criticize these relations with the criticism of judgement, as he says. We can also criticize phenomena, and "phenomena" refers to how the material situation appears to us through sensation. You propose a "real interconnectedness" of phenomena, but how are we supposed to derive this? Any connections we make are made within our minds, by our minds, and the same holds for divisions. So I don't see how "real interconnectedness" can be supported. Or even if we assume it, it drops from relevance like Kant's noumena.

Adorno seems to propose blurring the boundary between criticism of judgement and criticism of phenomena, but how can this help? What I think, is that we are to take phenomena as the consequences of the thinking of others, and we criticize it as a criticism of the judgements which created it. But then it all turns into a criticism of judgement, and we need principles by which to criticize.

Now, if you are looking for some kind of foundational argument justifying the claim of interconnectedness, I think you will look in vain, because negative dialectics is demonstrative and anti-foundational, rather than progressing in a linear fashion from, say, a proof that the world exists. I'm not quite clear: is that the kind of thing you're expecting he should do? — Jamal

The question is whether philosophy without system is possible. We do not have to prove that the world exists, nor even assume that the world exists, because we are dealing solely with thinking. The reality of the material world is sort of irrelevant. From this perspective, we have a creative activity of following a principle to unify thought, as "system", and we also have critical analysis, or the negative dialectics Adorno proposes which is an activity of division (blast apart). If we reject the creative activity of following a principle, and adhere strictly to the critical activity, as a type philosophy, we are confronted with the latency, which tends to indicate system. In other words when we remove ourselves from system thinking in the constructive way, there is still a latent tendency toward system thinking in the deconstructive way. There is a guidance from the philosopher's intentions in one's act of criticizing. So new a problem arises, because a philosopher must criticize according to some principle(s) which unify ones thoughts, or else it's all whimsical and incoherent. Now we're right back to the issue of "system". Isn't the best critical philosophy one which judges all according to the same principle, therefore a system?

I don't think so. Possible Worlds Semantics (PWS) avoids fatalism by allowing multiple possible futures, each with fixed truths, whereas Aristotle avoids fatalism by denying truth values to future contingents, preserving the openness of time. — Banno

Are you forgetting the law of identity? A thing is the same as itself. The idea that a thing has "multiple possible futures" is a violation of that law. You are allowing that a thing has a multitude of possible identities, in relation to the future. This is why I say that there is a choice, either violate noncontradiction, or violate excluded middle, when dealing with the future. We can say that a thing has contradictory futures, or we can say "possible futures" and interpret this as a violation of excluded middle. Aristotle insisted we maintain noncontradiction, and violate excluded middle. Therefore the concept of "possible" was developed from study of Aristotle. Some modern philosophies propose a violation of noncontradiction.

The difference lies in how each treats truth, time, and modality: Aristotle’s logic makes metaphysically assumptions of essence and potentiality, while PWS is a formal, model-theoretic system that treats possibility as quantification over worlds. Aristotle’s modal logic is limited to syllogisms, lacks a general semantics, and relies on essentialist assumptions. PWS, by contrast, provides a precise, neutral, and flexible framework for reasoning about modality. — Banno

This appears to be irrelevant. The question is whether the fundamental three laws can be maintained when dealing with future possibility, and the answer is no. Pretending that this is possible is self-deception.

Right, but it's worth pointing out that this is sometimes denied (i.e., there is no truth about "what a thing is") and people still try to do ontology with this assumption. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree, and I believe that this as well, is a worthwhile ontology. I was just responding to Banno's implication, that an ontology which held that there is truth and falsity to what a thing is, is not a worthwhile ontology.

IMO, this mostly comes down to the elevation of potency over actuality. When the order is inverted, then one always has limitless possibility first, and only after any (arbitrary) definiteness. Voluntarism plays a large role here. It becomes the will (of the individual, God, the collective language community, or a sort of "world will") that makes anything what it is through an initial act of naming/stipulation. But prior to that act, there is only potency without form and will. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem I have with this sort of ontology, the sort that assigns priority to potency, is that the patterns and regularities become chance occurrences. Then there is no way out of this highly improbable, chance occurrence ontology, so God becomes the only alternative. But if we do not proceed in that way, we can focus directly on the potency/actuality relation.

Presumably though, you need knowledge of an object in order to have any volitions towards that object. This is why I think knowing (even if it is just sense knowledge) must be prior to willing, and so acquisition of forms prior to "rules of language," and of course, act before potency (since potency never moves to act by itself, unless it does so for no reason at all, randomly). — Count Timothy von Icarus

I agree with this.

Edit: I suppose another fault line here that ties into your post (which I agree with) is: "truth as a property of being" versus "truth solely as a property of sentences." In the latter, nothing is true until a language has been created, and so nothing can truly be anything until a linguistic context exists. That might still require form to explain though, because again, it seems some knowledge must lie prior to naming. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I look at "truth as the property of sentences" as naivety. All sentences must be judged for meaning, prior to being judged for truth, and it is the meaning which is judged for truth. Truth and falsity are judgements bout meaning, This implies that the judgement of truth is dependent on the interpretation. Now we have an issue of subjective vs. objective interpretation, and the possibility of objective truth tends to get lost.

As things stand, I think I have presented very good reasons not to make use of forms in any worthwhile ontology, but instead to look at how we make use of words. — Banno

If there is any truth to what a thing is, then there is a need for forms. The form of a thing is what it is. If a thing has no form then there is no such truth, as what the thing is. So we need to allow that a thing has a form, if we want to allow that there is truth or falsity about what a thing is.

I believe that an ontology which holds that there is truth to what a thing is, is a worthwhile ontology. Therefore I find that there is good reason to make use of forms in a worthwhile ontology.

You appear to lack an understanding of the different senses of "possible".

The trouble here is that modal logic subsumes propositional logic. They are not inconsistent. — Banno

I believe this depends on how modal logic is interpreted and applied. So we can say that modal logic doesn't necessarily violate excluded middle. If we assume "it is possible that X" implies that the truth or falsity of X is simply unknown, and there is necessarily a truth or falsity to X, then the law of excluded middle may be upheld, and this use of modal logic would be consistent. This is an epistemic possibility, there is an actual truth which is unknown. It requires that of all possibilities one is necessarily the actual, and true.

But if we allow for the real ontological possibility of future events, such as the sea battle example, then as Aristotle explained, the law of excluded middle must be violated in this case. A proposition about a future event will be neither true nor false because there is real possibility concerning this. To think that there is an actual truth or falsity would necessitate determinism and negate the possibility of any actual choices. To maintain the possibility of choice, excluded middle must be violated.

The problem with modal logic is that it provides no principles to distinguish one type of possibility from the other, and the common possible worlds interpretation does not necessitate that one possible world must be what is actually the case. And if we extend modal logic to deal with the probability of a future event, then the law of excluded middle is clearly violated in this application.

So the possible worlds interpretation, in conjunction with the common belief in the human being's capacity to choose, indicates that most interpretations of modal logic assume a violation of excluded middle. This is regardless of the fact that modal logic doesn't necessarily violate excluded middle, many of its common applications do.

Isn't there? Is this a Thatcherite point, i.e., there's no such thing as society? — Jamal

But this interconnectedness is by means of system. The issue is, if we reject system philosophy, what would maintain interconnectedness. If there is nothing other than system philosophy which produces interconnectedness, then it is still needed, and cannot be replaced by the inverse. The question is still, how is thought unified.

And from Adorno's point of view neither the myth nor the smorgasbord are good options, on their own. — Jamal

So are you saying that he thinks we still need system thinking, along with the inverse, a philosophy without system is actually not possible?

Do you disagree with this summary:

1. Philosophy should treat phenomena as interconnected within an organized whole
2. This is possible without system in the traditional sense
3. And this takes what is good about system rather than merely abandoning it dismissively
4. Imposing one's own scheme on the phenomena from the outside is to take what's bad about system---the phenomena should be allowed to speak for themselves — Jamal

I'll answer this now.
1. I agree that this is a sort of conclusion which Adorno makes, but I do not see that it is justified.
2. The problem is that system is what unites phenomena. Adorno turns the power of philosophy around to blast apart phenomena, but there is no reason to believe that phenomena, as a multiplicity already, has any sort of interconnectedness other than that granted by a system.
3. Really, he is taking the "power" of system, its force, or even its "latent force", and redirecting this. So we cannot say that this takes "what is good about system", because as Plato pointed out, the same power can be directed toward either good or evil. Adorno has not provided us the principles required to judge whether his proposed redirection of this power is good or bad. The critical point I believe, is his proposed duality of criticism. Criticism of judgement is generally based in principles of good and bad, correct and incorrect, or true and false. If we do not hand priority to this sort of judgement, how could we criticize phenomena? We have no principles for this.
4. I agree with this. I think the idea that we could get to the outside of phenomena is the naivety he refers to, the visibility of the world. This produces a false sense of objectivity. It is like the common assumption of "independent reality". What this does is separate the subject from the reality, leaving the subject with one's system of judgement as outside the phenomena which is to be judged. We ought to leave the phenomena to speak for themselves, as you say, but then as I say, we need principles to support any supposed interconnectedness.

So, I agree with you that what you present is pretty much consistent with what Adorno argues, but I think it may not be tenable. It may actually be the case that philosophy without system is really impossible, and the latency which he refers to is actually the essence of true "system". I've pointed out the reasons for considering this, but I'll reserve final judgement for now.

But this is ambiguous. He promotes the need for a system, in that he thinks there is something important in this need that can be redirected into "blasting open the phenomena with the insistent power of thought". But I don't think he's saying he wants to actually do a philosophical system. — Jamal

That idea, "blasting open the phenomena with the insistent power of thought", has given me much difficulty in understanding. I just couldn't get it. Here is another stab at it:

Upon further reading, I realize that the lecture gets very complex and difficult at page 38, where he addresses Heidegger directly. This induces me to reassess my interpretation of the defining aspect of "system". I had interpreted the essential feature as being one whole which includes everything, but now I'm inclined to see it as 'being guided by one principle'. So in the notes we see "System in this philosophical sense is the development of the fact from a principle, in a dynamic manner, in short, as a development, a movement that draws everything into itself...". And at page 39 when he says that the question of the possibility of philosophy without a system hasn't been given the serious thought it deserves, he says: "The question then becomes how can thought be unified if it is not guided by a principle?"

Now the difficult part of the lecture. When he addresses the influence of Heidegger on philosophy, he describes a change, a transformation of the concept of "system", a "secularization", whereby "system" becomes a "latent force". The central question is the unification of thought, how is thought unified. The issue of unification is brought up in the quote I already provided from page 39, where Adorno speaks of criticism of his own "apercu" thoughts, and says he didn't have to lay his cards on the table and reveal what unifies his thoughts. It is implied that the unifying force may remain latent. The issue is that without a guiding principle philosophy would be whimsical, or arbitrary. But the question appears to be, can the unifying principle remain latent within a philosophy?

So that is how Adorno approaches Heidegger. In my understanding, Heidegger employs the concept of "region" in "Being and Time", so that "Being" is divided into modes of Being generally corresponding with the three aspects of time, past present and future. "Being" is not a single principle, but a sort of plurality of distinct aspects derived rom the aspects of time. I would say that this plurality is unified by a single principle "time", but perhaps Adorno see things differently.

Starting from page 38, he explains how, from Heidegger the concept of system undergoes a qualitative change:

This means – and I am not
embarrassed to say that at this point I feel a certain emotion – that
the path on which system becomes secularized into a latent force
which ties disparate insights to one another (replacing any architectonic
organization) – this path in fact seems to me to be the only road
still open to philosophy. Admittedly, this path is very different from
the one that passes through the concept of Being, exploiting en route
the advantages provided by the neutrality of the concept of Being.
And it is from this standpoint that I would ask you to understand
the concept of a negative dialectic: as the consciousness, the critical
and self-critical consciousness of such a change in the idea of a philosophical
system in the sense that, as it disappears, it releases the
powers contained within itself. — p38

Then at page 39 the latent force is described as what produces the unification of thought, so that the unity of thought becomes the central issue. He distinguishes positive thinking from negative by applying an internal/external distinction. Positive thinking imposes its own authority on itself, and creates its own objects from within itself, while negative thinking is in a sense a response to the external, the situation, or environment, what "confronts" it.

We might say, then, that thought which aspires to be authoritative without
system lets itself be guided by the resistance it encounters; in other
words, its unity arises from the coercion that material reality exercises
over the thought, as contrasted with the ‘free action’ of thought itself
which, always concealed and by no means as overt as in Fichte, used
to constitute the core of the system. — p39

However, we cannot forego, or overlook the latent aspect of this unity, so he adds:

I would ask you to combine this
with an idea that I have hinted at in quite a different context, that
of the idea of the secularization of system or the transformation of
the idea of system, in other words, with the fact that philosophical
systems have ceased to be possible. — 39-40

I interpret this as meaning that philosophical systems are not possible because we now have a form of contradiction where the latent aspect, which forms the system or unity, is within, yet at the same time the philosopher must be guided by the external circumstances. So Adorno gives priority to the external, and seems to imply that confrontation of external circumstances must be given priority over the latent tendency toward system. I believe that the implication is that the internal inclination toward unifications is inverted to the external inclination of division. Hence "blasting open the phenomena".

Now we have a duality of criticism, noological, as directed inward toward judgement, and phenomenal, as directed outward toward phenomena. This duality Adorno recognizes, but refuses to separate, so he sort of rejects the duality. And in this way, the power that was formerly directed inward toward criticism of judgement, creation and production of a coherent system, is directed outward toward the criticism of individual phenomena, the "blasting open".

Thinking would be a form
of thinking that is not itself a system, but one in which system and
the systematic impulse are consumed; a form of thinking that in its
analysis of individual phenomena demonstrates the power that
formerly aspired to build systems. By this I mean the power that is
liberated by blasting open individual phenomena through the insistent
power of thought. — p40

And the conclusion:

This means that something of the system can still
be salvaged in philosophy, namely the idea that phenomena are
objectively interconnected – and not merely by virtue of a
classification imposed on them by the knowing subject. — p40

I'd say that conclusion is doubtful. What supports " the idea that phenomena are
objectively interconnected"?

The final issue is the naivety of modern philosophy in relation to visibility. This naive attitude produces a sort of provincialism. This I take as a belief that our immediate circumstances are indicative of reality as a whole. This is where the incompatibility between the positive (system) and the negative (confrontation of phenomena) is exposed in philosophy. This I believe is the "philosophical cottage". It's the belief that the conditions which I am subjected to are indicative of the conditions which others are subjected to. And this produces a false unity (system). The real issue which arises in my mind, is how can he support this claim that "phenomena are objectively interconnected" when "phenomena" is already plural, and they can be blasted open with the power of thought. How can we justify an objective interconnectedness?

Anyway, I'll give it another read, and make a report one way or another.

He is saying there is value in the need for a system, but he is not promoting the project of a philosophical system itself. He is on board with the modern rejection of systematic philosophy, and makes that quite obvious. This is where he differs from Hegel and Fichte (and Kant, although it’s more complex with Kant). — Jamal

I did not read it like that. The "need for a system" speaks for itself. I think he rejects systematic philosophy as systematization. Further, he shows how the current use of "system" actually refers to what he calls systematization. So what is known as "anti-system philosophy" is really anti-systematization. He is anti-systematization, so we could call him "anti-system", but he really promotes the need for a proper philosophical system.

The way I'd put it is, philosophy should avoid both traditional system and systematization, but it should take the energy of the former. — Jamal

That's what I thought after first reading. After second, I realized that he is actually promoting the need for a true philosophical system. To unlock this understanding required that I take the time to fully consider the distinction between system and systematization laid out at the beginning. Systematization treats one subject as a whole and so is subjective according to the choice of subject. A system "is the development of the fact from a principle, in a dynamic manner, in short, as a development, a movement that draws everything into itself, that takes hold of everything and is itself a totality; it claims objective validity such that, as Hegel would put it,7 nothing between heaven and earth can be conceived of as being outside such a system."

The difference between the two is the difference between part and whole. The systematization treats the part as a whole, and this is where I see the problem. Treating the part like a whole leaves out the aspects where one part relates to another, in the larger whole. So each subject (each form of science for example) will have its own systematization, and there could very easily be contradiction between the distinct systematizations.

The provincialism he talks about can't just be a matter of systematization, because its problem is that it still acts like it's able to do traditional systemaic philosophy: — Jamal

That's exactly the problem which he is bringing to our attention, systematization (in this context provincialism) pretends to be system, and this gives "system" a new meaning as such. This would leave a sort of void where the true "system" ought to be, and the "latent system" creeps in to fill the void.

The "latent system" is is similar to what I was talking about which brings the charge of scurrilous. This is the author's secret intention. When only systematizing a part of reality, as a single subject, there are personal reasons why the author likes to address that part, in that way, and this is why the systematization is subjective. For example, in my early criticism, I faulted Adorno for focusing on Hegel (systematizing), instead of philosophy as a whole (system). I implied that Adorno believed Hegel had authoritative power as a philosopher, and Adorno's intention was to tap into this power.

So the latent system is the secret intentions of the author in the systematization. Intention is "the good" of Plato, what Aristotle described as "that for the sake of which", final cause. The good is what sort of guides our knowledge directing it toward this or that subject. When a philosopher presents a systematization, or a multitude of systematizations, there is usually an undisclosed intention behind the author's choice of subjects and how to deal with them. This undisclosed intention is what really unifies the systematization, but that unity is relative to something external to it, a larger "objective", in the sense of a goal, and this makes a latent system.

And this very criticism, that of the aperçu-like
nature of my thinking, has frequently been levelled at me too, until
finally – simply because so many things came together and created a
context – it then lost ground in favour of other objections, without
my having had to put my cards on the table13 and without my having
had to show what joins up my various insights and turns them into
a unity. — 39

So a proper philosophical system has the true unified understanding of all reality as its goal (objective), and hides nothing in latency because there is no further concealed unifying principle. The objective, a system, is presented as a system, without any hidden intentions which would make what is presented as a system really a systematization.

To me Adorno seems to be saying that we shouldn't be satisfied with a weak kind of philosophy that pursues restricted problems or else abandons itself to relativism, subject to "contingency and whim". We should want some kind of unity. — Jamal

This I believe is the key point of lecture 4. The reading is quite difficult with numerous twists and turns, so I won't give a full interpretation without more study, but I'll make a few initial comments. The distinction between "system" and "systematization", where a "system" is a whole and objective, while a systemization addresses a specific subject, and is subjective, sets up the framework for the discussion.

The first twist, is that the meaning of "system" has really changed. Now, what "system" refers to in anti-system philosophy, is really systematization. So anti-system, or a-system philosophy, if it's decent philosophy, will demonstrate system in a latent form. The latent system is really quite tricky because it's where the subjective meets the objective.

The point though, is that this systematization type of thinking, which becomes "provincial", and even "cottage" at the end of the lecture, is what true philosophy must strive to avoid.

He points out that Hegel contradicts himself, wanting to have his cake and eat it with a system that, like mathematics or logic, is one "gigantic tautology," yet is supposed to tell us something substantive about the world: — Jamal

I like the circle analogy. The Absolute, as the premise, is the cause of the Hegelian dialectical process, but it is also what is supposed to emerge as the result of that process. So we have an eternal circular motion, similar to what Aristotle demonstrated was logically possible, but is actually physically impossible.

He puts things differently by saying he wants to reject Spinoza's verum index sui et falsi, which is something like, the truth is an index of or standard for the false, meaning what is false can be just read of from what is true. He proposes the alternative: falsum index sui atque veri, the false indicates both itself and the true. — Jamal

I believe that the issue which lies beneath this conundrum is the problem of the relationship between the true and the false. The true, we can never know with absolute certainty, yet we have certainty about the false, as the impossible, beginning with contradiction. This produces a categorical distinction between the false and the true, as the false is "the thing" which is impossible, while the true is the possible, which is not a thing at all, but a multitude of possibility. I believe that this description provides an explanation of Adorno's reference to what is "definite", and to the "concrete expression" in the radio broadcast you quoted.

This outlook is set up in a general way, with the question of "is a negative dialectics possible". The negative actually determines what is impossible, and that forms the determinate, the determinate negation. Since the negative produces the determinate as the impossible, the requirement is to invert the dialectical process, from the Hegelian proposal of determining the positive, which is actually fruitless (or impossible), to a more realistic method of determining the negative. Determining the impossible then places the possible into a proper perspective. I believe that is sort of what is meant at the top of p29, with "index sui atque veri". Falsity is the index for truth.

...that this falseness proclaims itself in whether negative dialectics is possible what we might call a certain immediacy, and this immediacy of the false, this falsum, is the index sui atque veri.

Here's an interpretation from "Adorno Studies Through a Glass Darkly: Adorno's Inverse Theology"

The determinate negation of the negative conditions in
which we find ourselves provides a glimpse of “the only
permissible figure of the Other.”22 Amending Spinoza in his
essay “Critique,” Adorno argues that “the false, once
determinately known and precisely expressed, is already an
index of what is right and better.”23 Echoing this remark in his
lectures on Negative Dialectics, Adorno again rejects Spinoza’s
proposition “that verum index sui et falsi, or that the true and
the false can both be read directly ... from the truth.” Here
Adorno contends that “the false, that which should not be the
case, is in fact the standard of itself: . . . the false, namely that
which is not itself in the first instance–i.e. not itself in the
sense that it is not what it claims to be–that this falseness
proclaims itself in what we might call a certain immediacy, and
this immediacy of the false, this falsum, is the index sui atque
veri. So here then, . . . is a certain pointer to what I consider
‘right thinking’.”24

https://www.adornostudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/darkly.pdf

As well as the structure of a symphony, and the tension and resolution that lead to transformation, there's the way that the parts (movements and motifs) are shaped by the whole, and vice versa. — Jamal

Hmm, parts and whole, in relation. Doesn't this amount to "a system"? I'm in the middle of reading the next lecture, concerned with systems.

Your new example, "empty" and "full", only shows that these two do not properly qualify as contradictory terms, in the context of those fundamental laws we've been discussing. If those two qualified as contradictory, in that sense, then the glass would have to be either full or empty, excluding any middle terms like "half".

This reality is readily understood by recognizing that there is a multitude of states of "not-empty" which also qualify as "not-full", these are the degrees of the intermediate. Because of this, the contrary of "empty", "not-empty", cannot be truthfully said to be "full". Nor can the contrary of "full", "not-full", be said to be empty. Empty and full are distinct concepts which cannot be defined as opposite to each other.

We find this in every case of ideals which act as the extreme limits to a scale, hot and cold, big and small, good and bad, etc.. Each of these is not actually the contrary of the other, in the sense expressed by the law of non-contradiction. They all allow a range of intermediates and the degree may be measured by some sort of scale, warm, medium sized, indifferent acts, etc.. These ideal extremes are the defining boundaries of categories, and this is completely different from "contradictory" as employed by those laws.

What this demonstrates is that our common intuition, or inclination, to judge two terms as opposite, or "contradictory", is not consistent with "contradictory" as stated in those fundamental laws. And, in the activities of the real world, there is a whole slew of intermediates which violate the law of excluded middle, when we assign the contraries to real substance. This is what Aristotle demonstrated as the fact that the physical world of "becoming" is incompatible with the logical opposites of "being and not-being".

Did you read the quote? Maybe it's incorrect by conventional interpretations of Hegelian dialectics, but it is what Adorno is arguing about Hegelian dialectics.

So by Adorno's interpretation of Hegelian dialectics, "Becoming" is just a new proposal for the concept of "Being". It cannot be called "Being" because that word refers to what was identified as opposed to "Nothing". But that original concept of "Being" was manufactured by the mentioned violence, to match that antithesis, because "to put it quite crudely, they are not actually entirely identical".

Being and nothing are only made to be two sides of the same coin, by doing violence to the concept. When they "disappear into Becoming", that is the so-called synthesis, which is really nothing more that an attempt to rectify the violence which was required to establish the thesis/antithesis identity.

Thus once the identity of two contradictory concepts has been
reached, or at least asserted in the antithesis, as in the most famous
case of all, the identity of Nothing with Being, this is followed by a
further reflection to the effect that, indeed, these are identical, I have
indeed brought them together – Being, as something entirely undefined,
is also Nothing. However, to put it quite crudely, they are not
actually entirely identical. The thought that carries out the act of
identification always does violence to every single concept in the
process. And the negation of the negation is in fact nothing other
than the α¸να′µνησις, the recollection, of that violence, in other words
the acknowledgement that, by conjoining two opposing concepts, I
have on the one hand bowed to a necessity implicit in them, while
on the other hand I have done them a violence that has to be rectified.
And truth to tell, this rectification in the act of identification is
what is always intended by the Hegelian syntheses. — p30

And it's like he's saying that this insight is in Hegel already, or more like ... Hegel's dialectic "wants" to rectify the violence, but Hegel himself didn't allow it to. In other words, here's what Hegel should have done. — Jamal

I figure what he is saying is that the concept ("Being" in the example) must be abused (defined in a way which is inconsistent with what it really means to us) in order to produce the identity relationship required by the thesis/antithesis opposition. In other words, the proposed antithesis is the antithesis of an artificially manipulated concept, designed for that antithesis. Then it turns out that all that the synthesis is, is an attempt to rectify the damage caused by that abuse. And, depending on the skill of the dialectician, this may just as likely be a step backward for the concept, as it is likely to be a step forward.

Hmm... I still suspect this whole thing is just a play on words, where "possibly P" and "possibly not P" do not fit the desired format for the LNC and LEM to apply. I'll try one last example and then I'll leave it alone. — A Christian Philosophy

We are taking about P and not P therefore the LNC and LEM apply. The qualification of "possibly" creates an exception, a violation. Why do you see the need to persistently argue against this? I don't understand, it's a very simple matter. There is an aspect of reality, which we call "possibility", which those laws do not apply to. So we've developed a different type of logic, modal logic, to deal with this aspect.

And, like I explained to Banno, it's not the case that any specific system of logic is inconsistent, but it is the case that they are inconsistent with each other. This ought not be surprising because there are aspects of reality which are incommensurable with each other. That is why there is a need for dualism in ontology. The problem is that many people are inclined to reject dualism and attempt to reduce everything to a form of monism, and this is impossible because the two aspects are incompatible.

As per the LNC, we cannot have "P" and "not P" at the same time.
But we can have "the glass is half full" and "the glass is half not full" at the same time.
Does this example violate the LNC? Surely not; it is merely a play on words because the propositions "the glass is half full" and "the glass is half not full" say the same thing in different words. — A Christian Philosophy

I can't see the relevance. To make the example comparable you'd have to say "half full" and "not half full". What you present, "half not full", is meaningless. Either the glass is full or not full, and half full qualifies as not full. "Half not full" is nonsensical, meaningless, as if there could be half of nothing.

I really do not understand this drive to make all aspects of reality fit into one category, so much so that you would make up nonsensical phrases in an attempt to justify this motivation.

I have explicitly pointed out why this is not the case. The speak about two different things, so could not, in theory, tell us hte same thing. — AmadeusD

They don't speak about different things, they both speak about the very same thing, P. One says P might be false, the other says P might be true. Within the context of the fundamental laws of logic, they both say the same thing about P.

I understand what you're saying though, as i noted - they tell us the same thing (in practice). — AmadeusD

I don't think you quite get what I\m saying. In the context of applying the fundamental laws, the phrases tell us the same thing. That's theory, not practice. Theoretically they say the same thing, if the fundamental laws provide the theoretical context. In practice they tell us something different, depending on the context of the practice. In one context it might be something about success and failure of action, as in your example. In another context it could mean something different, like statements about what a person believes.

I don't believe we can really say that Plato had an ontology. Think that's strange? Look at the quote from Adorno, p32, in my post.

But they say different things... Certain contexts will give us the same information from each, but they mean different things as explicitly set out above. Is that translation of the logic above wrong? — AmadeusD

I really don't see the difference. By the fundamental laws, there are only two possibilities, true or false. Therefore "P might be false" means the very same thing as "P might be true". They both imply that there is a correct answer, (as there must be by the laws) but we do not know which is the case. So in the context of those laws they both mean the very same thing.

However, if we allow that there actually is no correct answer (as in the case of the sea battle), then we allow violation of those laws. It is only after we allow this violation that we can say that the two mean different things. But then we've put them into a different context, where the fundamental laws are not relevant, because we've allowed violation to put them into that context.

P1: LEM says one or the other must be true when "P" and "not P" contradict.
P2: "possibly P" and "possibly not P" do not contradict.
C: Therefore, "possibly P" and "possibly not P" both being true does not violate the LEM. — A Christian Philosophy

Ok, I see what you're saying, but I don't see the relevance. Each, "possibly P", and also "possibly not P", both inherently contradict LEM. Therefore to allow that they say something meaningful we must remove them from the context of the fundamental laws, as explained in my reply to Amadeus above. Since those laws must be violated to make the statements meaningful, placing them back into the context of those laws is pointless. We've already declared that the laws are inapplicable, in order to make sense of those propositions. So it's a demonstration of arbitrary application of the laws.

I didn't realize that. — frank

It's dependent on interpretation of a thorough reading. Plato's writing is commonly divided into three stages, early, middle, late. Here is a brief example of how one may interpret.

The early provides a good demonstration of an attempt to understand Pythagorean idealism, and the associated theory of participation, through application of the dialectical method. The middle work reveals problems with this form of idealism, such as what we know as "the interaction problem", so he introduces "the good" as an active principle which bridges this gap. The later work, such as Parmenides and Sophist, reveal all sorts of problems of idealism, especially with sophistry not maintaining clear categories, and arguments produced from a predetermined end, designed for specific purposes. (Compare Adorno's doing violence to the concept.) The Timeaeus uses "matter" as a fundamental principle to sort out categories, and this becomes the base of Aristotle's "primary substance".

Throughout, Plato's belief in idealism is strengthened, but the prevailing idealism is rejected by what we can call his "negative dialectics". This is his critical analysis of the conventional idealism. It does not refute idealism, but exposes problems, and produces the need to revamp outdated principles.

We were talking about "possibly P", and "possibly not P" as having the same meaning. Each means that neither "P" nor "not P" is true.

Which of course, often tell us hte same thing but are do not mean the same thing. — AmadeusD

How can two phrases tell us the same thing without meaning the same thing?