My previous post in reply to you was rather dismissive and simplistic. I do see the problems, you've set them out well in your latest post, your position is coherent, and it highlights the tension at the heart of Adorno's philosophy. He is not simply anti-idealist. It's good to take time over the antagonism rather than, as I am tempted to do, forget about it and move on.

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.

So I'll keep it short. I think you're on the right track with the line of throught that goes from Aristotle, through Hegel, and to Adorno: the "blurring" is exactly his intention, but not so as to muddy the waters but to be more truthful. He hasn't just forgotten to lay out his principles—he is against doing philosophy in that way. Your position is ultimately based on a framework Adorno rejects.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

I suggest we return to that interminable debate later on. Suffice to say I'm glad you chose not to let go of this particular bone of contention, and I'll continue to think about it.

Here I think there's a certain agreement then, too -- because I tend to take the intersectional approach, and by so doing I can point to more than the labor struggle as examples that I have in mind: Not just the Soviet Union, but also the labor movement. And not just the United States' labor movement, but also the modern Chinese labor movement. And not just labor, but also race. And not just race, but also sex. — Moliere

Yes, and that would be very much in sympathy with Marcuse, I suppose. Adorno is just a lot less optimistic across the board.

But, I'll keep the apologism reigned in. — Moliere

Feel free! Anyway, I'll read lecture 5 and say something soonish.

I'm interested to learn more. I really do not see the anti-idealism which you refer to, yet. — Metaphysician Undercover

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.

I count the ὄστρακον by each citizen and will leave of my own accord.

May fortune be yours.

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.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay, this is great. I think you've hit the nail on the head. I was focusing on the full-on idealism because you had been seeking justification not just for real objects but for real interconnectedness (but I guess if the objects are in some sense ideal/imposed then so is the interconnectedness). So you're right that I was missing something, but what I was missing, specifically, is that you're expressing the problem that negative dialectics seeks to address. Adorno agrees with you (up to a point), and you're making a very Adornian point, which is that reality exceeds the grasp of concepts. That in reality which exceeds this grasp he calls the nonidentical.

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).

My simplistic way of thinking of it is that we can use "the working-class" as a convenient shorthand, because there is something real there which is a lot like that, so long as we remember to keep our minds open. That is, the conclusion that the object is in your words "simply a creation of boundaries imposed by thought" is not quite right: it is not simply or only that. It might be more or less close to what is real, but the important point is that sometimes it is very far from close, which is when we fail to hear the "suffering voices."

NOTE: See my post below in which I criticize and attempt to revise what I just said:

So it's sort of a starting point for negative dialectics that philosophy is paradoxical. Concepts always leave something out or fail to fit reality, i.e., they to some degree reflect thought. Imposing a boundary is a good example. And yet to do philosophy at all (and not only philosophy) we have to think in concepts. Adorno's solution will be the method of constellations.

In his inaugural lecture of 1931 he said:

philosophy has to bring its elements, which it receives from the sciences, into changing constellations … into changing trial combinations until they fall into a figure which can be read as an answer, while at the same time the question disappears — Copied from the SEP entry

(constellations of concepts, he means)

I'm guessing that later on he abandoned the idea that the procedure comes to an end and the question just disappears (that would seem to result in a system), but this gives a flavour of the method of constellations (wrapping the idea neatly in the phrase "the method of constellations" is probably very un-Adornian but it's ok for now).

So society and hurricanes are real but are also in a sense ideal, in that judgements are socially and historically mediated through concepts. Adorno's theory is one of mediation: reality is not constituted by the subject, but neither is it just given immediately as in empiricism.

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. — Metaphysician Undercover

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

Anyway, generally I think you go too far when you (appear to) reject the objects entirely, as if they are subjective illusions. This is attempting to dissolve the problem too soon, and Adorno resists this—he settles within the tension rather than coming down on one side, as he must do to do justice to what's real. So, in summary, I think you are quite deeply in tune with Adorno, but you give too much ground to idealism, which is the point at which you begin to demand foundational principles and justifications.

This is attempting to dissolve the problem too soon — Jamal

Specifically it is dissolving the problem in favour of the subject, which is why he is against idealism.

My simplistic way of thinking of it is that we can use "the working-class" as a convenient shorthand, because there is something real there which is a lot like that, so long as we remember to keep our minds open. — Jamal

Partly for my own benefit I'd like to work out exactly what is lost, what is misleading, in this over-simple formulation. It seems to assume there is an object that in principle might be captured by a concept, if only we found the right one. But the object itself is not a stable entity and the idea that the concept resembles or approximates it is a reification of the concept. It pretends to abnegate itself while secretly continuing to apply it. Better put, the concept and the object are historical, fractured, necessarily non-identical. It's not a matter of finding a good approximation but of finding the truth in the contradictions. That's pretty vague but it's the best I can do right now.

There's also a risk, with "so long as we remember to keep our minds open," of psychologizing and trivializing negative dialectics. The non-identity of concepts and objects is not just a matter of mental attitude but is an objective condition of society.

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.

Ultimately, I believe it leads to unintelligibility, which to avoid requires the priority of the subject. — Metaphysician Undercover

Adorno thinks that gets you intelligibility at the cost of falsity.

Well, your position is interesting and I’ve enjoyed grappling with it, but I’ll move on to theory and practice now. No doubt we’ll revisit this stuff.

LND6 was a wild ride. I found myself agreeing with him on Heidegger, and his distinction between two bad poles of philosophy that feed on one another -- the formal and the arbitrary -- is very interesting.

Philosophy always deals in concepts, and it is for this reason that the philosopher is easily tempted to cut out what philosophy is supposedly about -- the ever changing world, the "content", the "referent".


The paragraph which talks about Hegel's move I don't think I'm fully following. Hegel makes an inference , or an equivocation, in moving from "the indeterminate" to "indeterminateness":

However, when Hegel substitutes ‘indeterminateness’ for this, the concept, namely, thethe w absence of
determinateness as such takes the place of what is undetermined – through what Kant would have called a ‘subreption’, that is, a misrepresentation. The purely linguistic slippage from ‘the indeterminate’,
the term that denotes what is underlying, to indeterminateness is itself the turn to the concept.

"The turn to the concept" -- I'm not sure I'm understanding. My first guess is that Hegel is moving from "the indeterminate", a concept about the concept "indeterminateness", and the linguistic move is his phenomenology from the concept of the concept to the concept itself. And Kant would call this move illegitimate, but that's kind of the whole rift between Kantian and Hegelian epistemology -- For Hegel terra incognita can be uncovered, and there is no separation between concepts and objects, not even in a parallel-functional operation of a pure-understanding/pure-intuition, where "intuition" is counted as part of the mind but is still the "object" which comes to justify concepts with respect to scientific knowledge.

Going back over LND5 I'm thinking I'm sympathetic to Adorno's take on theory/practice -- I certainly agree that "practice" can become a kind of fetish, and even anti-intellectual. Concepts -- theory -- are an important part of practice, and thinking is itself a practice.

Going back over LND5 I'm thinking I'm sympathetic to Adorno's take on theory/practice -- I certainly agree that "practice" can become a kind of fetish, and even anti-intellectual. Concepts -- theory -- are an important part of practice, and thinking is itself a practice. — Moliere

From what I remember—I still have to read it again—he says that this point is already in Marx, that the fetishization of practice is a feature of the contemporaneous versions of Marxism popular in the sixties. That lecture is very much of its time, as I recall, with the student protests brewing and activists hungry for action.

LND Lecture 5

I might not say much about this lecture, because it feels like a digression in which Adorno is answering the letter he received about Marx's Theses on Feuerbach. It's all very Marxist and practical—and not just because it concerns the relationship of theory to practice but because he seems genuinely concerned about what is to be done, and surprisingly even seems quite optimistic when he says that now is a good time to develop a philosophy fit for purpose, because "We find ourselves in a kind of historical breathing space." [EDIT: actually that's in lecture 6]

11. Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. — Marx, Theses on Feuerbach

There's a striking tension in what Adorno says. His interpretation has it that Marx in thesis 11 did not just mean that the time for philosophy is over and we have to just "wade in with our fists and there will be no more need for thought"—because it's the task of philosophy to change the world, philosophically. And yet...

That aside, I believe that Marx really did believe – and we have to think back to the period in which the writings we are considering here were written, that is to say, around the year 1848 – that philosophers would in fact be best advised to pack it in and become revolutionaries, in other words, man the barricades – which, as is well known, cannot be found anywhere nowadays, and if they were to be erected in any advanced society today they would be quickly eliminated by police or security guards. But he probably did mean something of the sort. — p.51

So this is close to contradiction, unless we say that around 1848, a few years after the Theses on Feuerbach, Marx changed his mind, or at least his emphasis. For Marx, there has to come a point when it's time for revolution.

That aside, Marx's metaphilosophical position seems to be assumed in a lot of what Adorno says. Marx thought that philosophy would eventually be overcome, negated or as I like to put it, solved, in an emancipated post-revolutionary society. In this way, philosophy would lead to practice and this practice would be the culmination of philosophy. Thus it's a teleological view, even if Marx did not always see a necessity in the process.

Adorno is asking what philosophy should do in the situation in which that culmination didn't happen, since the expected revolutions either failed or led to bad outcomes like the bureaucratic and totalitarian systems of the Eastern Bloc (it's interesting that he mentions "Those of you who have escaped from the East").

For Adorno, philosophy must remain autonomous, and only in that way, decoupled from practice, can it be of any use to practice. A familiarly dialectical view.

Note that to say philosophy must remain autonomous is not to imply that it can go on as if it can float freely, unmediated, above society and history—this is as much anathema to Adorno as it was to Marx. It just means it cannot be expected to justify its every move according to either the contemporary situation or to Marxist orthodoxy. This would amount to a "shackling" of philosophy.

One question: if emancipation is the realization of philosophy, does that mean there will be no more philosophy?

Excellent summary. My thoughts are still so scatterbrained I appreciate these synopses.

One question: if emancipation is the realization of philosophy, does that mean there will be no more philosophy? — Jamal

If we take Marx as an Orthodox sage --

In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.

It seems that even in communist society there's a time for those who wish to critique, but one need not become a philosopher.

I was just reading about Hegel and his situation with Napoleon. Hegel believed Napoleon was the World Soul, bringing in a new age. A lot of young Germans believed that. Hegel though he was watching the end of history. This is a fusion of esoteric wisdom and ancient apocalypticism. Instead of there being a second coming of Christ, it's Napoleon, advancing the principles of the French Revolution. Hegel eventually became disillusioned, but I was looking for whether he ever revised his philosophy to reflect the change. I don't think he did, and this isn't unusual for apocalypticists. If the vision isn't realized the way they thought, they often just put the date further into the future.

Hegel's experience with Napoleon wasn't an isolated thing. Across the world, from Russia to the USA, people were imagining that they were on the threshold of a new era, and if you think about it, they actually were. We could take Hegel's experience as an attempt to understand what was happening.

I think that with Marxism, the fever set in again, this time with the Proletariat animated by the World Soul to emancipate the world. It didn't happen the way they thought it would, but once again, people were thinking in terms of a massive shift in human life. In Russia, Marxists believed that even language would change as the new era emerged. There was a Russian poet who tried to write poetry in the "new" language. So I think the answer is yes: prior to disillusionment, German Marxists thought philosophy was basically done. The great metaphysical journey was finished.

Augustine is famous for taking the apocalypticism in Christianity and putting it in the category of myth: by myth, I don't mean something that's false exactly, just not to be taken entirely literally. I think with negative dialectics, Adorno was doing something similar.

It seems that even in communist society there's a time for those who wish to critique, but one need not become a philosopher. — Moliere

Suits me :smile:



Good stuff, thank you for filling in the Hegelian background. I noticed in one of Adorno's essays on Hegel (Hegel: Three Studies) that he identifies Spirit with "social labour", which sounds like a crude sociologization. It's like he was saying here's what Hegel was talking about without realizing it.

LND lecture 6

This was a fun one. I had to do a breakdown to make sense of it. For now, I'll just post it and leave it at that, before coming back to look at things in more detail.

So the lecture goes something like this:

1. How philosophy can proceed, picking up the problem in lecture 5 (p56)
2. One reason the world wasn't changed is that it wasn't interpreted sufficiently: Marx and Marxism failed to critique the domination of nature, and in fact celebrated it, and this is a major failure; there is more philosophizing to do (p58)
3. That the world has a meaning can't now be maintained, and this means Hegel is beyond redemption, and so is all identity thinking (p59)
4. Hegel's Logic (p60)
5. Illustration of the problem with Hegel by a linguistic analysis of Hegel's move from "the indeterminate" to "indeterminateness" (p61)
6. General points about Hegel just demonstrated: Hegel "conjures away" exactly what philosophy sets out to understand (p62)
7. The paradox of philosophy: can philosophy succeed using concepts to reach the nonconceptual? (p.62)
8. Two bad options remaining if philosophy fails to face this challenge: the formal or the arbitrary (p63)
9. Heidegger and being (p64)

Generally, 2 is a really interesting critique of Marx, 3 is a fundamental tenet of Adorno's connected to his deepest motivations, and 4/5 is a fiendish puzzle.

The paragraph which talks about Hegel's move I don't think I'm fully following. Hegel makes an inference , or an equivocation, in moving from "the indeterminate" to "indeterminateness": — Moliere

Yeah, I haven't got to the bottom of it yet. What's cool about it though is that it looks a lot like the linguistic analysis I've seen in ordinary language philosophy, like that of Austin and Ryle.

That the world has a meaning can't now be maintained, — Jamal

This is a theme I'm enjoying throughout -- not an assumption so much, but a Background belief that need not be demonstrated at all. I'm enjoying it because it's what I feel and I don't run into many deep thinkers who feel the same.

Yeah, I haven't got to the bottom of it yet. What's cool about it though is that it looks a lot like the linguistic analysis I've seen in ordinary language philosophy, like that of Austin and Ryle. — Jamal

Yeh! It's a very cool passage -- which is why I highlighted it, and gave the best guess interpretation I could give.

I'm glad you gave a structure for the lecture cuz I was thinking of doing the same, with numbers and summaries, and yours looks about right to me

Suits me :smile: — Jamal

Me too :smile: -- imagine a world where what you do for the economy doesn't define your entire existence. I like that imaginary.

Here's a few remarks on lecture 5:

Adorno does not promote a concise separation between theory and practice. The two are always intermingled. Even thinking is an activity, therefore a sort of practice, and not pure theory. He also refers to Marx's criticism of some anarchists' position of "absolute action", independent of all theory. The two, theory and practice do not exist separately

There is also a pervasive concept introduced, "the forces of production". This I find to be a vague concept, and I haven't really grasped its meaning. But it's roughly stated as human energies and technologies.

And if we fail to follow up this idea that the
forces of production could satisfy human needs and enable mankind
to enter into a condition worthy of human beings – if we fail to give
voice to this thought, then we certainly will be in danger of giving
ideology a helping hand. Such an outcome is prevented only by the
relations of production and by the extension of the forces of production
into the machinery of physical and intellectual power. — p48

It appears like the forces of production might lead us toward suffering and destruction, or else toward happiness and paradise. This emphasizes the need for theory, and the idea that we cannot allow theory to be shackled by practice. And so, to give absolute precedence to practice, is "bad practice" (p50)

For to take a dogmatic view of that book of Lenin’s, or indeed all
books by Lenin or even all the books ever produced by Marxism, is
the precise equivalent of the procedures adopted by administrations
that have set themselves up in the name of Marxism, that have
absolved themselves of the need for any further thought and that have
done nothing but base their own acts of violence on these theories
without thinking them through and developing them critically. — p50

He then explains his view of how interpretation is much the same as criticism. And, without this form of interpretation "there can be no such thing as true practice" (51). From here he criticizes "Scientific socialism", emphasizing the need for philosophy.

Engels also understood very clearly: that science is not only a force
of production but that it is implicated in the social power relations
and command structures of its age. It follows from this that we
cannot simply transfer to science the authority purloined from
philosophy or the authority denied to philosophy by criticism. — p52

After all this discussion about how practice ought not overcome theory he throws a twist. Thinking, in the end, is just a form of practice anyway. So all is ultimately reduced to practice, but distinct types of practice, theorizing being one of them. And he mentions "organizer" as a type of practice.

For thinking itself is always a form of behaviour;18 it is, whether it likes it or not,
a kind of practice, even in its purest logical operations. Every
synthesis it creates brings about change. Every judgement that links two
ideas together that were separate previously is, as such, work; I would
be tempted to say it always brings about a minute change in the
world. And once thinking sets out in its purest form to bring about
change in even the smallest thing, no power on earth can separate
theory from practice in an absolute way. The separation of theory
and practice is itself an expression of reified consciousness. And it is
the task of philosophy to dismantle the rigidity, the dogmatic and
irreconcilable character of this separation. — p53

It appears like the forces of production might lead us toward suffering and destruction, or else toward happiness and paradise. This emphasizes the need for theory, and the idea that we cannot allow theory to be shackled by practice. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, along with the stuff about the domination of nature, this helps to answer a question that always haunts me, which is, what is theory for anyway?

Also, the idea that thinking is part of practice helps. Practice, in new and changing contexts, always involves decisions about what to do. What to do depends on an assessment of the situation. Hence the need for theory, as a part of practice.

The danger with that, though, is that it might imply that theory ought to be immediately applicable. So Adorno has to simultaneously say that theory is practice and that it has to be decoupled from practice.

LND lecture 6 (continued)

I'll take a look at the linguistic analysis. Referring back to my previous post...

5. Illustration of the problem with Hegel by a linguistic analysis of Hegel's move from "the indeterminate" to "indeterminateness" (p61)

6. General points about Hegel just demonstrated: Hegel "conjures away" exactly what philosophy sets out to understand (p62) — Jamal

Dare I say that the linguistic analysis is not as difficult as it looks? In the Science of Logic Hegel goes from this:

They [i.e. the thoughts of pure space, pure time, pure consciousness, or pure being] are the results of abstraction; they are expressly determined as indeterminate and this – to go back to its simplest form – is being.

To this:

But it is this very indeterminateness which constitutes its determinateness; for indeterminateness is opposed to determinateness; hence, as so opposed, it is itself determinate or the negative, and the pure, quite abstract negative. It is this indeterminateness or abstract negation which thus has being present within it, which reflection, both outer and inner, enunciates when it equates it’ – that is, being – ‘with nothing, declares it to be an empty product of thought, to be nothing.

Hegel goes from indeterminate to indeterminateness.

Indeterminate: As used by Hegel it's a substantive term referring to a something not yet determined, a kind of "substratum" that might later be specified (though it covers the concept as well). Even if this substratum is a logical placeholder, the grammar maintains an object.

Indeterminateness: The absence of determination as such; the concept only, a universal or abstract quality.

So Hegel starts with the something but drops it in favour of the concept. And this is how Hegel manages to equate being with nothing. It's fair enough to do that with the indeterminateness, but when we talk of being we're not just referring to the abstract concept of indeterminacy.

My initial thought was, doesn't this analysis assume that Hegel starts out by talking about beings, as in individual concrete entities? If so, Adorno is wrong because that's obviously not what Hegel is doing.

But the point Adorno is making is not that Hegel starts out talking about beings but that there is a minimal ontological commitment in the indeterminate as used in the first passage. It points to a logical something, not only to the abstract concept.

This feels right, but I'm not sure if I've wrapped my head around it fully. But it's a really neat way of showing where Hegel has gone wrong. It's where Hegel's idealism takes over, where the thing itself gets lost—right at the start of his system too.

EDIT: It’s like going from “the unknown” to “unknownness”.

What to do depends on an assessment of the situation. — Jamal

Further to this, "what to do" requires putting the assessment of the situation into the context of goals, objectives, or, vise versa. Notice how producing goals within the context of the situation is distinctly different from putting an assessment of the situation, into the context of one's goals. One way shapes the goals according to the situation, and the other holds steadfast to the goals, looking for ways to shape the situation toward the goals. I think that prioritizing goals, theory, is what is alluded to in the following passage. Otherwise the forces of production which naturally outgrow the bounds of any existing society, will sort of run amok.

Moreover, it is not enough
for us to live in hope that the history of mankind will move towards
theory and practice a satisfactory state of affairs of its own accord and that all that will
be required from us is a bit of a push from time to time to ensure
that everything works out. Even though – and here too I would rather
err on the side of caution – we should bear in mind, and in this respect
Marx was undoubtedly right to maintain that the forces of production,
in other words human energies and their extension in technology,
have a tendency of their own to overcome the limits that have
been set by society. To regard this overcoming as a kind of natural
law, however, and to imagine that it has to happen in this way, and
that it has to happen immediately, that would render the entire situation
harmless, since it would undermine every kind of practice that
placed its reliance on it. And, finally, in taking the link between
theory and practice seriously, one of our most vital tasks is to realize
that thought is not a priori impotent in the face of a possible practice.
This was in fact the point of Marx’s criticism of an abstract utopia. — p48-49

Yes, certainly with Adorno there is always a goal into which everything has to fit, namely…

… to follow up this idea that the forces of production could satisfy human needs and enable mankind to enter into a condition worthy of human beings — p48

But a goal of earlier socialists was to dominate nature:

The present distribution of mountains and rivers, of fields, of meadows, of steppes, of forests, and of seashores, cannot be considered final. Man has already made changes in the map of nature that are not few nor insignificant. But they are mere pupils’ practice in comparison with what is coming. Faith merely promises to move mountains; but technology, which takes nothing “on faith”, is actually able to cut down mountains and move them. Up to now this was done for industrial purposes (mines) or for railways (tunnels); in the future this will be done on an immeasurably larger scale, according to a general industrial and artistic plan. Man will occupy himself with re-registering mountains and rivers, and will earnestly and repeatedly make improvements in nature. In the end, he will have rebuilt the earth, if not in his own image, at least according to his own taste. We have not the slightest fear that this taste will be bad. — Trotsky, Literature and Revolution

For Adorno, this goal is wrong (deeply bad in fact), even though it was arguably essential to the revolutionary project—and this is because he put that goal into the context of his assessment of the situation and of history.

So we could say that some goals should be steadfastly held to, while others shouldn’t. Or, the first, minimal goal takes priority, and the latter goal is tested in thought against the first.

That brings me back to my earlier point. If we do not maintain a clear separation between means and ends, such that the means are justified relative to the end, and the end gets judged relative to a further category of good or not good, how can we have decisive (or objective) principles for judgement of good? You say Adorno judged the goal by putting it "into the context of his assessment of the situation and of history", but that seems very subjective.

I think that what Adorno is indicating in the passage I quoted, is that there is something inherently deficient about judging the goodness of a goal, for the future, by placing it into the context of history, the past. There would be a sort of implied determinism intrinsic to that perspective. But he has respect for how the forces of production will naturally overcome the [determinist] limits of society. Therefore we must recognize the potency of thought, now, at the present, to free itself from the constraints of the past, and set goals for the future, which are free from past mistakes. This is stated as relative to Marx's criticism of "abstract utopia". However, the creative aspect, something completely new for the future, is a requirement to keep the forces of production on the good instead of the bad (the bad being essentially a lack of unity, aimless anarchy).

Not much there I disagree with. But...

However, the creative aspect, something completely new for the future, is a requirement to keep the forces of production on the good instead of the bad (the bad being essentially a lack of unity, aimless anarchy). — Metaphysician Undercover

I'm not quite sure what you mean here. When he says that "the forces of production, in other words human energies and their extension in technology, have a tendency of their own to overcome the limits that have been set by society," and that we must not think of this as a natural law, he seems to be unambiguously equating such an overcoming with revolutionary emancipation.

On the other hand, it is the forces of production applied instrumentally that he objects to, i.e., rational means to sometimes irrational ends (destruction of nature, nuclear weapons). So yes, you’re right to emphasize the importance of the goal for Adorno, since the big problem is the tendency in modern rationality to establish means without asking what the goal should be.

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.

:up:

Right, and common objections to this tend to rely on the assumption that any such systems must be defined according to some sort of rigid binary. But if unity (by which anything is one thing) and multiplicity represent a sort of contrariety (and so to for relative degrees of self-organization, self-government, self-determination), then we shouldn't expect the distinctions to be distinct. The storm need not have exact boundaries to be a storm. If the boundaries are "artificial" they nonetheless do not spring from the aether uncaused, but unfold for reasons (per Hegel at least).

In particular, rigid "building block" ontologies have a problem with defining systems or things. You can see this in the "Problem of the Many." Which molecules exactly make up a cloud? Which atoms exactly make up a cat?

But this is a demand that the higher order be explained in terms of, and ordered to, the lower, i.e. a cat is already assumed to be a mere concatenation lower constituents, as opposed to the higher, unifying principle itself.

Whereas, the focus on the principle of unity would seem to be a focus on "yes-saying," on actuality and form. An idealism? I suppose that depends on how one looks at such an actuality. But an actuality also determines potencies and powers, so it is always not just a "yes-saying," and specifically not a static yes-saying if this is kept in view, because the actuality of things is directed towards change/becoming, towards a potency to be actualized.

Actually, movement towards any goal assumes that the goal hasn't yet been reached, so there is a sort of bracketed priority of potency and difference in this. If a thing were not different from its perfection, it would have no impetus to change.

LND lecture 7

(Should I wait and allow people to catch up? Should we set a schedule from now on?)

In lecture 6 Adorno spoke of the big challenge facing philosophy post-Hegel:

In other words, can the self-reflection of the concept succeed in breaking through the wall that the concept erects around itself and its concerns by virtue of its own conceptual nature. — p63

And he identified two bad options remaining if philosophy fails to face this challenge of breaking out of the conceptual: the formal or the arbitrary.

Lecture 7, containing criticisms of a few notable philosophies that attempt a breakout, is very much a prelude to the following lectures, in which he discusses intellectual experience. So everything in lecture 7 leads to this:

[Philosophy's] task is not to reduce the entire world to a prefabricated system of categories, but rather the opposite, viz. to hold itself open to whatever experience presents itself to the mind

On the way there he criticizes Bergson, Husserl, and as always Heidegger. The criticisms are interesting and it’s worth trying to understand them, because (a) we haven’t read his extended critique of Husserl in Against Epistemology—so these lectures fill a gap—and (b) there’s an extended critique of Heidegger in ND, so this is good preparation.

Philosophical systems, particularly Hegel's, have a big advantage in that they assume...

that spirit is the sole reality and that all reality is reducible to spirit. — p66

Without this, we're in the realm of arbitrary material experience. Adorno then explains how this problem plays out in Heidegger:

Heidegger’s philosophy, which claims not to be formal and which nevertheless needs to draw itself together into supreme, abstract categories, this philosophy, when it then enters into the material side of things, has every interest in making sure that the transition into materiality does not appear to be as haphazard as it must be in reality, given the vagueness of the concept of existence. In consequence, it almost inevitably has recourse in its material propositions to the past, to conditions that have become historical and that have acquired a kind of aura through that historicity; the aura that events have developed in this way and no other, and which in addition, if we may put it like this, are in a sense pre-ordained. — p67

So Heidegger borrows a sentimental attachment to pre-modern ways as the way things are meant to be, i.e., their "aura," to compensate for the lack of a system to give material life meaning in his philosophy. But which "material propositions" is Adorno referring to? Well, some examples are in Heidegger's description of agrarian life in a Black Forest farmhouse, presented as a paradigm of authenticity:

Here the self-sufficiency of the power to let earth and sky, divinities and mortals enter in simple oneness into things ordered the house. It placed the farm on the wind-sheltered mountain slope, looking south, among the meadows close to the spring. It gave it the wide overhanging shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under the burden of snow, and that, reaching deep down, shields the chambers against the storms of the long winter nights. It did not forget the altar corner behind the community table; it made room in its chamber for the hallowed places of childbed and the “tree of the dead” — for that is what they call a coffin there; the Totenbaum — and in this way it designed for the different generations under one roof the character of their journey through time. — Heidegger, Being Dwelling Thinking

According to Adorno, such archaic ways thus become "hypostases of the transitory belonging to the realm of being," meaning that transitory historical ways of life are turned into something timeless with a special relation to being itself. It's easy to see how Adorno views this as fundamentally reactionary.

Then he repeats his characterization of where philosophy stands, or what he thinks the task of philosophy is:

I believe that this allows us to distinguish quite precisely between the programme I am trying to expound to you and Hegel’s philosophy, to which it is so closely related. The distinction I would make is to say that the interest of philosophy can be found to lie at the precise point where he and the entire philosophical tradition have no interest, namely, in the non-conceptual. — p68

Next he looks at an early criticism of Hegel by Krug, who "objected that if he really wished to do justice to Hegel’s philosophy he would have to be able to deduce the quill with which he had been writing."

Incidentally, something that annoys me about Adorno—and I say that as someone who finds his personality mostly very likeable—is that he regards such examples as "idiotic," as far too trivial for philosophy. Philosophy should concern itself only with essential matters, not the everyday. Me, I prefer his idea, presented in a later lecture (I've been reading ahead), that philosophy has to involve play, where he seems to be arguing along the lines of the Zen saying that in great matters, we should act as if they are small; and in small matters, act as if they are great.

But here, with the quill example, Adorno seems to reveal his elitist over-seriousness. Thus he says he disagrees with Plato, who in the Theaetetus said that...

if investigations of great matters are to be properly worked out we ought to practise them on small and easier matters before attacking the very greatest. — Plato

It's clear that Adorno would not be sympathetic to talk of tables or mugs in cupboards. Thus I see a tension in Adorno's philosophical temperament—and it might be philosophically significant, because isn't negative dialects supposed to "micrologically" open itself up to reality?

His antipathy to Krug's quill might also be an example of something else he shares with Hegel, namely an avoidance of and suspicion of concrete examples. I imagine this will continue to annoy me, since I'm a great believer in the power of such examples. On the other hand, in the lectures at least, he does provide a lot of good examples (though often with some embarrassed apology) so it's not as if he doesn't understand their use in conveying ideas.

Anyway, despite his sympathy with Hegel's dismissive attitude he agrees that Krug's criticism gets to the heart of the problem: in this system which is supposed to encompass everything, where have the real things gone? How do you get from these highfalutin concepts down to the stuff of life?

Then he says that philosophy ought to follow Freud's example and "concentrate on matters that have not been pre-digested by the pre-existing concepts of the prevailing philosophy and science." I can definitely go along with this, and believe it's fundamental to good philosophy.

He goes on to criticize two attempted breakouts: Bergson and Husserl. I'll save that for another post.

But this is a demand that the higher order be explained in terms of, and ordered to, the lower, i.e. a cat is already assumed to be a mere concatenation lower constituents, as opposed to the higher, unifying principle itself.

Whereas, the focus on the principle of unity would seem to be a focus on "yes-saying," on actuality and form. An idealism? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I think this is the tension that Adorno is dealing with. I think it's fair to say he is often arguing for a bottom-up approach against the higher idealist unity, but he would not regard scientific reductionism as an example of proper bottom-up reasoning, because it tends to view the lower as mere instances of laws which I think he views as idealistic impositions. So when Adorno advocates the "priority of the object" he is against both reductionism and the higher unity—or maybe I should say that in viewing this as dialectical, we might be able to reach some better unity?

When he says that "the forces of production, in other words human energies and their extension in technology, have a tendency of their own to overcome the limits that have been set by society," and that we must not think of this as a natural law, he seems to be unambiguously equating such an overcoming with revolutionary emancipation. — Jamal

I don't think this is a necessary conclusion. I think what is implied is that the forces of production overcoming the limits set by society is in some sense inevitable, but revolution is not. So overcoming the limits of society may occur in ways other than revolution. Look at the way modern technology has 'revolutionized' communications for example. The technology has globalized communication capacity to an extent far beyond the laws imposed by some societies. Changes in technology are faster than the capacity of the lawmakers to keep up, so laws are sort of posterior to the changes already brought on, they are reactive. Now, things like genetic manipulation, and AI are just beginning, and they will overcome limits of society which were not designed to reign them. This type of overcoming the limits doesn't necessitate revolution, but it indicates the need for significant, even structural, or radical societal change to keep pace with globalization.

Anyway, I'm trying to catch up so here's my opinion of Lecture 6.

Hegel goes from indeterminate to indeterminateness. — Jamal

Adorno applies substantial criticism to Hegel at this point. I believe the central issue here is the violence which Hegel does to the traditional "law of identity" derived from Aristotle. The law of identity places the identity of an individual, or particular object, directly within that object, as inhering within the object "a thing is the same as itself". This law recognizes that each object has a unique identity particular to itself. When Hegel goes from "the indeterminate" to "determinateness", he is taking identity from the object itself, which is approached by us as an indeterminate, and he is assigning it to how we apprehend the object, as "indeterminateness".

For background information on the way that Hegel deals with the law of identity, you could look at this thread in the Debates section of TPF: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/9078/hegel-versus-aristotle-and-the-law-of-identity . That topic was derived from discussion in another thread, which probably has better information.

Anyway, Hegel dismisses the Aristotelian law of identity, and this discussion about the indeterminate vs indeterminateness, which Adorno describes, supports a form of "identity" which is probably more common today. This form of "identity" places identity in what we say about the object, the concept, rather than the object itself. For example, in predication there is a subject and a predicate. The subject may be representative of an object. The law of identity places true identity within the object, and respects a separation between the subject with its predicates, and the object. The other form of "identity" allows that the subject has an identity provided for by predications. The essential difference is that the law of identity allows no imaginary objects to have an identity, because they are lacking in substance, while the other form of "identity" provides no difference between a subject which has a corresponding object, and an imaginary subject. The requirement of an object is completely removed from this identity concept, and this enables things like the possible worlds of modal logic.