:up: That makes sense to me.

Onto paragraph 5! ;)

Introduction: dialectics not a standpoint

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is backed up in Adorno's next sentence:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He goes on:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lastly for now...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your post strikes me as perspicacious.

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

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

Good questions. The idea of constellations will be important.