We're both right. In that passage Adorno describes the retreat into the subject as a danger or temptation faced by thinking, one that can be resisted with critical self-reflection, which is characteristic of intellectual experience. Thus in the end intellectual experience is the avoidance of retreating into the subject, even if it has to go through it (or successfully resist the temptation) first.

But he also describes it as a stage that thinking has to go through. This is intellectual experience as a dialectical process, which has as one of its moments a retreat from the non-identical back into itself, step 1 below:

1. Negation: when confronted with the non-identical, the subject negates it by retreating into itself in its "fullness", i.e., its preformed, comprehensive, comfortable systems of concepts, ideologies, etc.
2. Negation of the negation: critical self-reflection says no to this, bringing the subject's thinking back out again.

Neat huh?

Lupine dialectics

In I used concepts from Wilfrid Sellars to describe geistige Erfahrung as consisting of, or emerging out of, the dialectic between the scientific and manifest images. Now I'm not so sure, because I thought of another example and it doesn't quite fit.

In 2023 I used the example of wolves in my "Magical powers" discussion, in which I was interested in Adorno's ideas before knowing very much about them:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/789898

I think it's an illuminating example to bring into the discussion now, and it has the great benefit of showing how we can avoid interpreting Adorno as simply anti-science, which some of his comments, like the one about Anglo-Saxon positivism, might suggest.

The example in a nutshell is that ethologists used to think about wolves in terms of dominance hierarchies, with alpha and beta males, etc., but this was based on observing captive animals and it turned out that wild animals don't behave like that and don't have such dominance hierarchies. The alpha model was bebunked.

[David] Mech, like many wildlife biologists, once used terms such as alpha and beta to describe the pecking order in wolf packs. But now they are decades out of date, he says. This terminology arose from research done on captive wolf packs in the mid-20th century—but captive packs are nothing like wild ones, Mech says. When keeping wolves in captivity, humans typically throw together adult animals with no shared kinship. In these cases, a dominance hierarchy arises, Mech adds, but it’s the animal equivalent of what might happen in a human prison, not the way wolves behave when they are left to their own devices.

In contrast, wild wolf packs are usually made up of a breeding male, a breeding female and their offspring from the past two or three years that have not yet set out on their own—perhaps six to 10 individuals. In the late 1980s and 1990s Mech observed a pack every year at Ellesmere Island in northeastern Canada. His study, published in 1999 in the Canadian Journal of Zoology, was among the first multiyear research on a single pack over time. It revealed that all members of the pack defer to the breeding male and that, regardless of sex or age, all pack members besides that male defer to the breeding female. The youngest pups also submit to their older siblings, though when food is scarce, parents feed the young first, much as human parents might tend to a fragile infant.

The same is true across gray wolf packs: Infighting for dominance is basically unheard of in a typical pack. When offspring are two to three years old, they leave the pack in search of mates, aiming to start their own pack. The alpha wolf notion of challenging dad for dominance of the existing pack just isn’t in the wolf playbook. — Is the Alpha Wolf Idea a Myth?

I went on to describe how the alpha model, despite being debunked, came to be extended, taken up in the popular conception of dog behaviour, not only by dog owners but also by dog trainers and associated dog behaviour specialists---to the detriment of the relationship between dogs and people. (The key text here is In Defence of Dogs by John Bradshaw, which I recommend even though I've become a total cat person in my middle age).

What I don't think I mentioned in 2023 was the way the alpha model and the concept of the dominance hierarchy entered ideology more widely. These days it's thriving in the culture, from dating advice to comparisons of world leaders.

The original model, based on observations of captive, artificially grouped wolves, projected a rigid dominance hierarchy onto animals whose wild sociality is fundamentally cooperative and familial. This is a paradigm of the violence of identity-thinking. The wolves were caged twice: first literally and then again by the concept of a dominance hierarchy, imported no doubt from ideology.

Maybe the most interesting thing to see is that when wolf ethologists got closer to the truth of wolves---and I do think we can come right out and say they got closer to the non-identical in wolves by rejecting the alpha model---when this happened, science did it itself. Adorno and other Frankfurt School writers complain endlessly about the spirit of positivism, but they are complaining about scientism, not science. Science can benefit from Adorno's intellectual experience just as philosophy itself can; micrology and the priority of the object are not confined to abstract theory. Indeed Adorno practiced what he preached in this regard, getting involved in empirical psychology and sociology.

Furthermore, ideology here is the bad guy, and ideology doesn't emerge out of the scientific image but from the manifest image. So my original attempt to make these concepts fit was not exactly right.

But not exactly wrong either. Adorno is defending the manifest image, but specifically the manifest image as it could or should be, free of reification and ideology. So in the end, intellectual experience might sometimes express the dialectic between manifest and scientific images, but might also sometimes criticize both: in this case, the scientific image was hubristic and tyrranical, and the manifest image was ideological.

@Banno I've noticed you're quite fond of using this example too.

I recommend this podcast episode in which Peter E. Gordon talks about his recent book about Adorno, arguing against the common understanding that his thinking is unremmitingly bleak and hopeless, that he thinks everything is shit, and that he has no conception of the good life.

It's obvious to me, at least, that these are bad interpretations. But they are indeed very common. For example, I listened to the only Adorno episode on the "Partially Examined Life" podcast, which is usually quite good, and it was embarrassing and infuriating. They hated Adorno from the outset and proceeded to misinterpret everything, I think because he dared to criticize American pop culture, which they took to be evidence of an essentially dour intellect.

https://www.intellectualhistory.net/new-work/new-podcast-zeitgeist-und-geschichte

(It only properly gets going around 20 minutes in)

I've noticed you're quite fond of using this example too. — Jamal

Dogs are servile and neurotic. I'm more a cat person. Cats live in our houses despite not having been domesticated - their only concession being to make use of the litter tray, although arguably this is for their comfort anyway.

I tried to work out what manifest image was, by searching this thread. My impression is that it's not unlike the third vertices of Davidson's triangulation, which for him is an unavoidable agreement between speaker and interpreter, as to how things are,.

But whereas Davidson uses charity to reach an understanding between speaker and interpreter, Adorno delights in the uncharitable, in the failure of translation, a difference such that the interpreter can never reach a coherent account of the utterance. And Adorno sees this as worthy.

The present discussion in the christian narrative might be a neat sandpit example of such failure to agree, and the resulting interminable dispute. That ceaseless taunting and counter play becomes the point of the exercise, rather than any resolution.

Is that Adorno?

I could go on, but the cat says its bowl need filling. Must go.

Then identity thinking is the equality, justice = Justice: my subjective conception of Justice (justice) equals to Justice - the object (of conceptualization).
— Pussycat

This is not how I understand Adorno's reference to identity thinking. I understand that he is talking about an identity relation between concept and object. — Metaphysician Undercover

Im confused... How is this different from what I said??

Adorno and other Frankfurt School writers complain endlessly about the spirit of positivism, but they are complaining about scientism, not science. — Jamal

Yes, that's how I understand it too.

But whereas Davidson uses charity to reach an understanding between speaker and interpreter, Adorno delights in the uncharitable, in the failure of translation, a difference such that the interpreter can never reach a coherent account of the utterance. And Adorno sees this as worthy. — Banno

"Delights in the uncharitable" is too far a step, as well as "the failure of translation" with regards to their worthiness.

"a difference such that the interpreter can never reach a coherent account of the utterance" is nothing like what I'm getting from Adorno so far, at least.

"utterance" can be read as whatever Adorno wrote, for instance. I think that'd be fair. So we must be able to reach some kind of a coherent account of an utterance, tho it may be dialectical at times (or even wrong).

All fair, except that in this discussion we might want to keep the wound open rather than heal it - it might help us (me?) to see the value in what Adorno is proposing.

The comforting Davidsonian view is that we can give an account that settles our differences. The uncomfortable Adorno view is that we not only can't, but ought not.

Hrm. Not only fair, but insightful.

And this:

Thanks, I needed that! (something to smile about)

:smile:

We're both right. In that passage Adorno describes the retreat into the subject as a danger or temptation faced by thinking, one that can be resisted with critical self-reflection, which is characteristic of intellectual experience. Thus in the end intellectual experience is the avoidance of retreating into the subject, even if it has to go through it (or successfully resist the temptation) first. — Jamal

Well perhaps, but I do not see any mention of "danger" or "temptation". Nor do I see that the retreat is "resisted". I see that it is a special reaction to the consumption of ideology.

The point being made earlier, is that theory is related to experience like the roast to the diner. Only after theory disappears into experience (is consumed by the subject), "would there be philosophy". Intellectual experience therefore, as a special type of experience which requires the consumption of theory, produces that retreat. Perhaps the retreat isn't necessary, but recognition of the reality of falsity within the ideology, the non-identical forces that retreat, as a response. So if the theory had no falsity there would be no retreat, but then there would be no need for philosophy either.

To resist, or avoid that retreat would be to deny the possibility of philosophy, and I believe it would be to resist "intellectual experience" in general, thereby falling into the idealist trap which I mentioned above. The idealist trap is to maintain the independent existence of ideas and theory in general, as eternal independent truth. To resist the retreat into oneself, would be to refuse or resist intellectual consumption, which is to understand, by simply taking the principles for granted, as given, posited as "the truth". When principles are taken for granted as eternal fact, there is no need to understand them, and this is a denial of intellectual experience.

The response to the consumption of theory, is the subjective retreat. It is the reaction to a world which is false to its innermost core. I believe that Adorno thinks the reaction is unavoidable, it is intuitive, reflex, and negative dialectics, as the proper form of philosophy is only possible after this retreat, whereby the subject comes to grips with its own limitations. If Adorno described the experience of consuming theory in a different way, he might describe a resistance to that retreat.

This provides an approach to your questions:

QUESTION: Is Adorno recommending a mode of thinking---he often says so---or is he just describing his way of thinking? Do all philosophers necessarily conflate these? — Jamal

I think he is describing a mode of thinking which is what he believes is the only adequate response to the existence of non-identity in identity ideology

But he also describes it as a stage that thinking has to go through. This is intellectual experience as a dialectical process, which has as one of its moments a retreat from the non-identical back into itself, step 1 below:

1. Negation: when confronted with the non-identical, the subject negates it by retreating into itself in its "fullness", i.e., its preformed, comprehensive, comfortable systems of concepts, ideologies, etc.
2. Negation of the negation: critical self-reflection says no to this, bringing the subject's thinking back out again.

Neat huh? — Jamal

I don't really agree with #2. Where does he imply a negation of the negation? Critical self-reflection brings out the limitations to the subject's fullness, and this avoids solipsism. If a subject were complete this would entail solipsism. But there is no negation of the subject's retreat. After recognizing its own limitations, the subject moves toward freedom.

So, he then proceeds to talk about "unregimented thought", and this I believe is negative dialectics. It is only a negation of the negation in the sense that it is a resistance to the non-identical, as the negative aspect of positivist idealism. So it is not a case of the subject saying no to the retreat into itself, it's a case of the subject saying no to the non-identity, falsity, of the ideology. The world is false to its innermost core, and freedom for the subject can only be produced through resistance to the ideology. After retreating, and acknowledging its own limitations, the subject seeks its own means for freedom, and this is described in the following passage:

Theory and intellectual
experience require their reciprocal effect. The former does not contain
answers for everything, but reacts to a world which is false to its
innermost core. Theory would have no jurisdiction over what would be
free of the bane of such. The ability to move is essential to
consciousness, not an accidental characteristic. It signifies a double
procedure: that of the inside out, the immanent process, the
authentically dialectical, and a free one, something unfettered which
steps out of dialectics, as it were. Neither of them are however
disparate. The unregimented thought has an elective affinity to
dialectics, which as critique of the system recalls to mind what would
be outside of the system; and the energy which dialectical movement in
cognition unleashes is that which rebels against the system. Both
positions of consciousness are connected to one another through each
other’s critique, not through compromise.

Im confused... How is this different from what I said?? — Pussycat

It's not an equality relation, which is purely ideal, i.e. this concept is equal to that concept. It is an identity relation which is more like correspondence, truth.



I read somewhere that dogs have very special genetics, genes which are abnormally conducive to mutation. This is why they were very successful in domestication, and readily provide all sorts of different breeds for different purposes.

Yes, my interpretation was too reductive and it looks like you're right that the retreat is not just cancelled out as I kind of implied.

But "unregimented thought" is only a part of negative dialectics. It is the part where thought steps beyond the methodology of dialectics. But negative dialectics involves dialectics too, of course.

If it's alright, and it might not be, and if so I apologize in advance, as someone who's been following this topic in a very light and casual way (it's really interesting I'm simply equally as busy at the moment so can only offer a passing glance as far as attentiveness), I wish to ask a simple question. Perhaps a two-part question.

What does "negative dialectics" actually "do", per se. Like, what does it offer. Specifically, the question being, what are the differences between a world where negative dialectics doesn't exist and one where it does. What's the benefit other than interesting mental chortling between those who "know" in the presence of those who do not.

What is hidden to those who never understand the concept? How are their lives negatively impacted? Like, as someone completely unacquainted with the concept, what am I being "deprived of", per se. Etc.

Thank you for your time in reading my questions of bewilderment.

Very good and difficult questions, and I don't know the answers yet. Adorno would say if you're asking how his philosophy can be used, as in a tool, then you're asking the wrong question. The life of the mind, especially the critical life of the mind, which is alive to suffering and deception, is valuable in itself.

That said, there are a few ways of answering. One nutshell is that Negative Dialectics, the book, contains the theoretical account and justification of his life's project, which is to help prevent human beings from becoming mere cogs in the machine of modern life, oppressed but also cold, heartless, and oppressive themselves. One way he does this is by standing up for things that have been swept under the carpet by philosophers: the uniqueness of individual things, suffering and pain, sensual pleasure, uncommodified creativity, and thinking which is free of the demands of power and money. He wants everyone to value or notice these things: that way, the human species will be worth saving.

Alternatively, it is a message in a bottle cast into the future, a future in which people who have a chance of making a better society are looking for philosophical resources to support their resistance to social coercion, bigotry, the tyrrany of work, and so on.

I think it might be possible to be fascinated by Adorno even if you are politically neutral or even conservative, but ultimately his philosophy is partisan. It takes sides. If you think, as you have implied, that capitalism is just fine and modernity---especially the US---is the culmination of the march of progress, Adorno is definitely not for you. His philosophy is a self-conscious response to a historical situation in which the Enlightenment had shown itself able to produce the greatest horrors ever unleashed, and in which the greatest hope of emancipation from oppression and misery, i.e., socialism, had failed.

I apologize if that's all too vague.

EDIT: I just realized that I contradicted myself. This can be resolved by replacing "Adorno is definitely not for you" with "Adorno might not be for you".

My impression is that it's not unlike the third vertices of Davidson's triangulation, which for him is an unavoidable agreement between speaker and interpreter, as to how things are,.

But whereas Davidson uses charity to reach an understanding between speaker and interpreter, Adorno delights in the uncharitable, in the failure of translation, a difference such that the interpreter can never reach a coherent account of the utterance. And Adorno sees this as worthy.

The present discussion in the christian narrative might be a neat sandpit example of such failure to agree, and the resulting interminable dispute. That ceaseless taunting and counter play becomes the point of the exercise, rather than any resolution.

Is that Adorno? — Banno

The comforting Davidsonian view is that we can give an account that settles our differences. The uncomfortable Adorno view is that we not only can't, but ought not. — Banno

You're more than half-right. What is wrong is to say that he delights in conflict or sees it as the point of the exercise. He wants to avoid reconciliation because he thinks that any reconciliation under presently irrational conditions is fake and thereby delusive.

On the other hand, there is indeed some sense of delight, perhaps mainly in his style: his exaggerations, perverse reversals and paradoxes. He gets that from Nietzsche I suppose.

(It was me who, without Adorno's permission, brought in the concept of "manifest image," so that angle might not be very important)

I'm starting to believe that the "diner to the roast" is the wrong old school model. And that experience is consumed into theory, not the opposite.

But "unregimented thought" is only a part of negative dialectics. It is the part where thought steps beyond the methodology of dialectics. — Jamal

Yes, at the beginning of that little section, Adorno specifically mentions "the subjective share of intellectual experience".

Ideology lurks in the Spirit which, dazzled with itself like
Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, irresistibly becomes well-nigh absolute.
Theory prevents this. It corrects the naiveté of its self-confidence,
without forcing it to sacrifice the spontaneity which theory for its part
wishes to get at. By no means does the difference between the so-called
subjective share of intellectual experience and its object vanish; the
necessary and painful exertion of the cognizing subject testifies to it.
In the unreconciled condition, non-identity is experienced as that which
is negative.

There's a number of interesting points made here. The first thing I notice is the "painful exertion" of the subject. This, I believe refers to the effort and disillusionment required to approach the reality of "non-identity". Non-identity is apprehended as negative, so it is like a problem which is being forced upon the subject, such that pain is induced, and effort required for resolution.

The second thing is that a reconciliation is implied. It's not quite clear to me yet, what that reconciliation might be. I don't think it's a rejection of the retreat into the subject, but something which happens after the subject confronts the limitations of one's fullness. I would describe this process as how the subject's attitude toward its object is reformulated. After the negative experience described above, and the subject apprehends its limitations through critical self-reflection, it can then approach the object with "open-minded self-consciousness". This is a completely different approach to "the ability to move", a new understanding of freedom, and a new attitude toward the object.

So, I am very interested in Adorno's proposals for the objective share of intellectual experience, the new approach to the object. In your description you said that intellectual experience refers to a mode of thinking which progresses by "immersing itself in particulars", but I haven't really seen this yet from Adorno.

I've mentioned a number of times, that Aristotle's resolution was the law of identity. This, as "a thing is the same as itself", puts the identity of a particular thing into the thing itself, as a sort of relation between the thing and itself. This recognizes the temporal extension of a thing, allowing that an object changes as time passes, yet maintains its identity. Aristotle reacted to the sophistry exposed by Socrates and Plato, so we can say that his reaction was a reaction to the non-identity in the ideology of his day.

Now, I think Adorno has outlined his proposal with his discussion of free thinking at the end of the section. Notice that the ability to move is described as a double process. The first stage is "the authentically dialectical", but the second is "something unfettered which steps out of dialectics".

Since free thinking is very subjective and idiosyncratic, I'm very interested to see how Adorno describes the unfettered which steps out of dialectics. Strangely, this would be the objective share of intellectual experience. This makes the freedom to move, of the particular, the individual, subjectivity in general, something objective.

I'm starting to believe that the "diner to the roast" is the wrong old school model. And that experience is consumed into theory, not the opposite. — Pussycat

I don't think it's a matter of seeing that there is a right way and a wrong way of describing things. I think it's a matter of understanding the way that he describes things. if, in the end, it doesn't work for you, you cannot perceive what he is describing, then reject it. Is that what you are doing?

Good stuff, particularly the last paragraph. I think the unfettered is what he has variously described as speculation, play, the irrational within the rational, the spirit of system, and just "experience".

I don't know the answers yet — Jamal

Or do you? Heh. sorry. :lol:

I'm going to attempt to, likely trivially, but hopefully effectively, simplify a few things I would assume the average person either non familiar with philosophy or not adept in such might wonder. Questions the average person unfamiliar with the specific work in depth might have in their mind. I trust you won't take the (perhaps compromising and inappropriately) reductive nature of the following questions and comments as snarky or otherwise derived of something other than genuine curiosity.

Adorno would say if you're asking how his philosophy can be used, as in a tool, then you're asking the wrong question. — Jamal

How can it be misused? Ignored? Glossed over and its point derived lost entirely or hopelessly misinterpreted, perhaps due to human folly or the very concepts it purports to defend and validate? (example of hypothetical "right" questions?)

I imagine a critic asking something along the lines of "Okay. So instead of that, how about: 'What did you [Adorno] see as wrong with the world or the existing philosophical landscape and zeitgeist? What healing or correction or perhaps efficiency or otherwise change do you think your philosophy brought about?'

Naturally, that's a question only he himself could answer. Or is it? Surely, the intent of such types of literary work is to expose the reader to the inner depths of one's mind, or at least mindset and viewpoint. Or is that not necessarily true? (Meaning, sometimes authors can live on long after their physical death in the minds of those of who read and understand their works as intended, in a manner of speaking, no?)

The life of the mind, especially the critical life of the mind, which is alive to suffering and deception, is valuable in itself. — Jamal

So basically, thinking is cool. Thought (and as a result human life) has value. Sure, not really a "hot take" or anything new placed on the table, I'd say. Or is there much more to it?

to help prevent human beings from becoming mere cogs in the machine of modern life, oppressed but also cold, heartless, and oppressive themselves — Jamal

So, kind of like a "make your mark on the world, lest it make it's mark on you", kind of worldview. Or is that not accurate?

things that have been swept under the carpet by philosophers: the uniqueness of individual things, suffering and pain, sensual pleasure, uncommodified creativity, and thinking which is free of the demands of power and money. He wants everyone to value or notice these things: that way, the human species will be worth saving. — Jamal

Q1: Does that mean to imply, each person's suffering and pain is unique from one another's even if they are physically identical (I.E. two strangers being flogged) OR simply to state that suffering and pain are unique concepts despite many people failing to realize so?

--

As far as "uncommodified creativity, and thinking which is free of the demands of power and money"

Basically, is this not utopian thinking? Some world where men don't steal from other men because they can or need to? Where the strong don't take from the weak but instead help them, despite not receiving any benefit but in fact loss of worldly benefit? Essentially, a world where my fridge is just always full, my kids (and I) are always safe, and everything is just sunshine and rainbows? A critic would call this fundamentally unrealistic as far as actual expectation. So I take it to mean, even so, the difference between a world where this is true, versus the one we live in where it is not true, is a valuable lesson and something to focus on, something that is "lost", even more effectively, by the modern system? (Which I would question because, as you might know I like to defend modern society, at least the good parts of it, those parts being stability and predictability that did not exist, except by folly of ignorance, in times before modern society that largely eliminates warring tribes and empires from conquering large swathes of land and laying ruin to everything in their wake, for example...that's the trade off, in my view, between 'then and now', and in my opinion, it's worth it, despite what some suggest is 'lost' or otherwise 'hindered' I.E. 'the grass is indeed always greener')

a future in which people who have a chance of making a better society are looking for philosophical resources to support their resistance to social coercion, bigotry, the tyrrany of work, and so on. — Jamal

So, to be one's true self as one wishes, to prevent dogmatic judgements on one's fellow man, and to avoid excessive (unnecessary?) labor? More or less? I've long said, everyone else on Earth but you could disappear tomorrow and you'd still eat only by the sweat of one's brow. There are no free lunches. At least, in a physical world, nothing gets done unless someone does it. Law of Motion or Conservation of Mass or, I dunno one of those guys. :confused:

"Tyranny of work" is again what makes me think those critical of the work might consider it "utopian" in nature I.E. non-realistic or the very least non-feasible.

"If you don't do it, somebody else will." Why not just destroy all your countries nuclear weapons, abandon all bio-warfare programs and robotics or other technology that can be used to kill or oppress life (killer drones and jets with missiles) and open all borders? The answer seems fairly obvious.

His philosophy is a self-conscious response to a historical situation in which the Enlightenment had shown itself able to produce the greatest horrors ever unleashed, and in which the greatest hope of emancipation from oppression and misery, i.e., socialism, had failed. — Jamal

Somewhat of the tragedy of progress, kind of thing? We discovered nuclear energy, that could in theory power the homes of every person on Earth, but also discovered nuclear weapons, that could in theory destroy the homes of every person on Earth. We discovered ways to create medicines, that could heal every person on Earth, but also discovered bio-warfare that could kill every person on Earth. Etc, ad infinitum with just about every innovation and discovery of all time?

I apologize if that's all too vague. — Jamal

No need. Your description (or in my opinion, your view of "what the text means to you") was excellent. Again, just trying to wrap my head around a few things and perhaps ask a few questions that I'm fairly sure other novices or those unfamiliar with the text might wonder themselves. Pardon the over-simplifications and general ignorance of the topic, none of these things are done in ill-will.

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I'll respond when I have fulfilled all of my personal and social duties.

. What is wrong is to say that he delights in conflict — Jamal

Yet that's the main synthesis, isn't it? The idea of the value of a negative dialectic?

It was me who, without Adorno's permission, brought in the concept of "manifest image," so that angle might not be very important — Jamal

That you felt some need for such a term might be an indication of another observation from Wittgenstein and Davidson, that disagreement presupposes some overarching or background agreement. The manifest image might be needed as the background - antithesis - against the "scientific image" through which we see the geistige Erfahrung...

We can't disagree about everything...?

I don't think it's a matter of seeing that there is a right way and a wrong way of describing things. I think it's a matter of understanding the way that he describes things. if, in the end, it doesn't work for you, you cannot perceive what he is describing, then reject it. Is that what you are doing? — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course there is. Anyway, hear me out:

The scientific consensus would probably concede that even experience would imply theory.

Jamal was right to remember Kant, since he was the one that started with all these "conditions of possible experience", thereby formulating a theory consisting of stuff like forms of intuition, categories of understanding etc, a universal, objective and all-encompassing system. In his famous prolegomena (to any Future Metaphysic that can Present itself as a Science), for example, he writes:

The laws that govern our ways of knowing also govern the objects that we know, as long as these are considered as objects of experience and not as they are in themselves. There are two things we can say:
(1) A judgment of perception can’t count as valid for experience unless the mind in which it occurs conforms to the following law: When any event is observed to happen, it is connected with some earlier event that it follows according to a universal rule.
(2) Everything that we experience as happening must be caused to happen. — Kant

And so in this way, he was able to reject certain experiences (the ones that didn't fit in his schemata) as either invalid knowledge claims, unscientific, or otherwise meaningless, for all times, impervious to critique.

It is however a “standpoint”, at best hypothetical. Conciliatory representatives of scientivism demand what they call proper or clean science, which is supposed to account for these sorts of presuppositions.

But pejorative science - scientivism - demands theory, or a standpoint, should the accounts of one's experiences be taken seriously. If a critic does not choose a clear predefined standpoint - there sure are many to choose from - or doesn't supply a clear one of his own, then we'd better not listen to him, understandably.

Another interpretation is that conciliatory scientivism, ie some more charitable and less stringent scientists, would still allow a hypothetical standpoint, but only provided that there is a proper or clean science to back it up.

Exactly this demand is incompatible with intellectual experience.

Adorno says that intellectual experience cannot be coerced by theoretical frameworks. He could also have said that this demand stems from a bourgeois prejudice, as he's done elsewhere.

If a standpoint is demanded of the latter, then it would be that of the diner to the roast.

But if representatives of scientivism want a standpoint, he will indulge them and provide them with one: the diner to the roast. So he reluctantly gives them one, not one they were expecting, for sure. It is his way of ridiculing, both them, their compulsion, as well as epistemology - the theory of knowledge - in general, which takes itself as prior and superior to actual experience, with this waiting for theory to justify and validate it. Much like the roast that is waiting for the diner to come and call it a roast, like it would be nothing without the diner, the epistemological and proud philosopher. This nevertheless creates a false dichotomy between theory and experience, with no room for movement between them.

It lives by ingesting such; only when the latter disappears into the former, would there be philosophy.

But still, there's a twist in the story, with Adorno there always is, and even this sarcastic and ironic jab can be transformed: instead of the diner eating the roast, the roast eats the diner. Now I guess there is some confusion with the former and the latter, where the former actually maps to experience and the latter to theory, but in "the diner to the roast", the former is the presumptious philosopher with his theory of knowledge and the latter is experience. At least I was confused, which is why I said that "experience is consumed into theory". So it seems that I was half-right: the diner to the roast is the old-school wrong traditional epistemology, and the diner (theory) being devoured by the roast (experience) is the correct one. We can see this in what Adorno had been saying regarding Auschwitz, that after this dreadful experience, our theoretical philosophical frameworks no longer work, they have been, or at least should have been, discredited by what experience showed us, they were invalidated to the point of bankruptcy.

Until this point theory embodies that discipline in intellectual experience which already embarrassed Goethe in relation to Kant.

Question mark here, as I am completely ignorant of Goethe.

If experience relied solely on its dynamic and good fortune, there would be no stopping.

So after all this, we get the impression that Adorno crowns experience king. Alas no, yet another twist, as he is preparing for his dialectical moment which continues in the next paragraph.

But still, there's a twist in the story, with Adorno there always is, and even this sarcastic and ironic jab can be transformed: instead of the diner eating the roast, the roast eats the diner. — Pussycat

Well, I think you're grasping at straws Pussycat. Invisible straws at that! There is clearly no reason whatsoever, to interpret this as "the roast eats the diner". Here's the complete context, notice that one "lives by ingesting" the other.

If a standpoint is demanded of the latter, then
it would be that of the diner to the roast. It lives by ingesting such; only
when the latter disappears into the former, would there be philosophy.

So it seems that I was half-right: the diner to the roast is the old-school wrong traditional epistemology, and the diner (theory) being devoured by the roast (experience) is the correct one. — Pussycat

Well, if you look back at the passage, "experience" is the former, and "theory" is the latter.
Look:
"The scientific consensus would probably concede that even experience would imply theory."
And he says, "the latter disappears into the former". So it is clear that he is saying that theory is devoured by experience.

Question for you Pussycat. Why do you need to make "theory" analogous with the diner, and "experience" analogous with the roast, so that you end up with the diner being devoured by the roast? Why not just make "theory" analogous with the roast, and "experience" analogous with the diner? Then you have experience devouring theory just like the diner devours the roast, without the absurdity which you propose.

So after all this, we get the impression that Adorno crowns experience king. Alas no, yet another twist, as he is preparing for his dialectical moment which continues in the next paragraph. — Pussycat

"Experience" is proper to the subject right? "Theory" is a bit more complex though, because it may be ideology (objective), or it may be speculative (subjective). Notice above, that experience consumes theory. But in the next paragraph, post consumption, theory can also be used to resist ideology.

Question for you Pussycat. Why do you need to make "theory" analogous with the diner, and "experience" analogous with the roast, so that you end up with the diner being devoured by the roast? Why not just make "theory" analogous with the roast, and "experience" analogous with the diner? Then you have experience devouring theory just like the diner devours the roast, without the absurdity which you propose. — Metaphysician Undercover

Cause Adorno was coerced into giving a standpoint, as you well know he was against standpoints. So I would imagine he would offer one as absurd as it gets, in order to mock those asking for it. Theory, in the passage I attempted to interpret, is not like the theory in the passage after. The first theory points to a traditional theory of knowledge, like Kant's, ahistorical, atemporal, totalizing and universal, the very kind Adorno opposes. And so he says, if theory of knowledge is one you want, it would be one that is devoured by experience, and that this experience will also devour the philosophical seasoned subjects supporting it, the diners. Its supposed to be sarcastic. This is how I see it, anyway.

"Experience" is proper to the subject right? "Theory" is a bit more complex though, because it may be ideology (objective), or it may be speculative (subjective). Notice above, that experience consumes theory. But in the next paragraph, post consumption, theory can also be used to resist ideology. — Metaphysician Undercover

Experience is proper to the subject, yes, but I think its also more broad than that, as to all the happenings in the world. For example, Auschwitz was an experience, no matter if we didnt experience it. And since Adorno's death in the late sixties, new experiences were added in the world: the moon landing experience, the sixties movement, the bringing down of the Berlin wall, the internet experience, now the AI experience etc. Have our philosophical theories been able to keep pace with technological progress? Because progress seems to be running pretty fast, and our heavy feet are a problem.

In the next paragraph, I think he's talking about critical theory, unlike the first one.

Theory, in the passage I attempted to interpret, is not like the theory in the passage after. — Pussycat

I think we need to assume Adorno was attempting to be consistent, and not ambiguous or equivocal. So I see the difference as a matter of perspective. That is why I spoke of pre-consumption and post-consumption, from the perspective of a particular subject. Consider that theory is fed to the subject as an educational tool in the form of ideology, in the process of the subject's intellectual experience. Also, the subject might freely choose theory for consumption. But post-consumption, theory is within the subject, and is then a tool of that subject. The analogy is one of eating. Food is fed to a child, who then learns to choose one's own food. But in both of these cases, after consumption the food is then used by the subject who consumes. The difference is an external/internal difference, and the point you appear to be claiming is that there is a difference between the thing when it is external, and the thing after its been internalized.

Experience is proper to the subject, yes, but I think its also more broad than that, as to all the happenings in the world. For example, Auschwitz was an experience, no matter if we didnt experience it. And since Adorno's death in the late sixties, new experiences were added in the world: the moon landing experience, the sixties movement, the bringing down of the Berlin wall, the internet experience, now the AI experience etc. Have our philosophical theories been able to keep pace with technological progress? Because progress seems to be running pretty fast, and our heavy feet are a problem. — Pussycat

I'm sure that we can learn from the experience of others, but that involves the process of internalizing the external which is described above. So if I say that your experience is "an experience", I need to respect that difference. It is an external experience. And if you approach me with that experience, and attempt to educate me, I should also understand that this is a case of you using theory as a tool.

I don't think there is an issue of keeping pace. The process of internalizing external experiences is not hindered by slow pace, it is hindered by faulty direction. Even this process of internalizing external experiences, can be divided into two, those which are force fed to us as a child, and those which we choose as an adult. The philosopher has the will to choose, but one's direction is most often still guided by educational systems. Because the ambitious person is strongly motivated, I do not think that keeping pace is an issue. What is an issue is finding direction.