I think this relates directly to what he says about system thinking. The idea of negative dialectics is not to reject systems thinking, but to determine its true form. And this displays how Adorno thinks of criticism. To criticize is not to reject, but a way of bettering the thing being criticized.

There's been some back and forth between you and I in this thread, concerning this issue. First there was the question of whether Adorno accepts or rejects Hegelian principles. Also we had the question of whether what Adorno presents is properly called "dialectics" in the context of Hegelian "dialectics". It's becoming apparent to me, that the process is to neither accept nor reject a given principle, but to criticize it. This leaves synthesis as unnecessary, because acceptance of principles, adoption of belief is not the intended end. The process may or may not enable synthesis, and having synthesis as a goal from the outcome would prejudice the procedure. — Metaphysician Undercover

This looks right to me. :up:

I think that this is the real issue with the idea of the concept going beyond, or overshooting the object. Relations between objects "affinity" is something categorically distinct from objects themselves. So conceptualization which focuses on objects, and representing objects (identity thinking), really cannot grasp this very significant aspect of reality which is the affinity between objects.

The issue appears to be the difference between the relations between concept and object, and the relations between object and object. When the concept overshoots the object it may establish a scientific relation of prediction. Notice though that this relation is a subject/object relation because that overshooting is directed by intention toward producing an extended conception of the object. What Adorno is interested in is the true object/object relation. This must take as its primary assumption, a separation which produces a multitude, rather than the primary assumption of unity which conceptualizes "the object". The difference being that the primary postulate is separation rather than unity. — Metaphysician Undercover

A strong statement of the problem, but I think this bit is wrong: 'Relations between objects "affinity" is something categorically distinct from objects themselves.'

And I think that's probably the key to unlocking the puzzle. Even though Adorno wants to focus on particulars, and in a fragmented way, it doesn't mean he thinks these particulars are themselves fragmented or necessarily lie, isolated, within a fragmented world. In other words, he does not want to treat objects as self-contained or atomistic. Rather, objects are always already mediated, connected to other objects in a web of history and society. And this mediation or connectivity is constitutive of the objects. Objects are nodes in networks. I think Adorno thereby avoids your dualism.

But I think things will become clearer when we begin to get a grip on the idea of constellations (which he took from Walter Benjamin).

What he describes with the bitmap analogy, is a difference. As I explained, that difference may enhance, or it may degrade the experience, in relation to the original. Further, it may enhance some aspects, and degrade others, and all sorts of different possibilities for "difference". In other words, the translator knows that there are good translations and bad, and might also even know that his translation is lacking in some areas, if he knew that he didn't adequately understand some areas. Therefore he is warning us to be wary of all translations, even his. — Metaphysician Undercover

I was thinking regarding the "false-color bitmap image of the planetary surface", whether it is one of ideology's ways to make us forget about the earthly problems, the ugliness, by presenting beautiful images from outer space.

As to whether Adorno would (not only) concur to thinking being one of the greatest pleasures of life, I very much doubt that he would:

If ideology encourages thought more than ever to wax in positivity, then it slyly registers the fact that precisely this would be contrary to thinking and that it requires the friendly word of advice from social authority, in order to accustom it to positivity.
...
While thinking does violence upon that which it exerts its syntheses, it follows at the same time a potential which waits in what it faces, and unconsciously obeys the idea of restituting to the pieces what it itself has done; in philosophy this unconsciousness becomes conscious. The hope of reconciliation is conjoined to irreconcilable thinking, because the resistance of thinking against the merely existent, the domineering freedom of the subject, also intends in the object what, through its preparation to the object, was lost to this latter.

As to whether Adorno would (not only) concur to thinking being one of the greatest pleasures of life, I very much doubt that he would: — Pussycat

Excuse me for butting in. That passage does not to me show what you think it shows. At most it shows he condemns thinking when it's a complacent or dominating pleasure. The “resistance of thinking against the merely existent” can be pleasurable, I would think. Why not? Adorno of course likely thought that good thinking was both pleasurable and painful. And since he speaks with such approval of play in philosophy, I reckon we can be confident that Redmond’s assessment is right.

Anyway, I think it jumps off the page. He’s enjoying himself.

And I think that's probably the key to unlocking the puzzle. Even though Adorno wants to focus on particulars, and in a fragmented way, it doesn't mean he thinks these particulars are themselves fragmented or necessarily lie, isolated, within a fragmented world. In other words, he does not want to treat objects as self-contained or atomistic. Rather, objects are always already mediated, connected to other objects in a web of history and society. And this mediation or connectivity is constitutive of the objects. Objects are nodes in networks. I think Adorno thereby avoids your dualism. — Jamal

This would be a subject requiring much discussion and debate. In my understanding, to assume "particulars" is to assume a world already divided. To assume "a universe" (system thinking), is to assume something already united, and potentially divisible in analysis. This dichotomy cannot really be avoided, because the way we speak, and the words we use, has to prioritize one or the other, or we end up speaking nonsense. We can go back and forth, but that's ambiguous and it even becomes equivocal and unintelligible.

So Adorno chooses to begin with particulars, and it's not a matter of oscillating back and forth, he is clear with this choice. From this perspective we look toward principles which might cause unity between distinct particulars. Relations are the cause of unity not the effect of unity. Notice Adorno's choice of words, "affinity", which describes a positive, unifying relation. The other perspective, where we assume a united universe to begin with, induces us to look for principles of division, for analysis, so we look for weaknesses and faults, negative aspects, within the existing structure. Adorno has become positive in this sense.

If we were to say that "the true way" would be to describe both perspectives, being careful not to be ambiguous, and maintaining clear separation between the positive way and the negative way, this divisive approach would be to adopt that one perspective, from the outset. So it's sort of unavoidable, that one or the other will be chosen as the presupposed.

This would be a subject requiring much discussion and debate. — Metaphysician Undercover

:scream:

Well, I’m willing to postpone it till we have our final showdown. I will say that “he is clear with his choice” is ambiguous. He is clear that particulars must be prioritized so as to let them speak for themselves without being devoured by dominating concepts, but that doesn't mean he can’t oscillate, and obviously he can’t abandon general concepts anyway, as he admits.

Introduction: Argument and Experience (ii)

The demand for committalness [Verbindlichkeit] without system is that for thought-models. These are not of a merely monadological sort. The model strikes the specific and more than the specific, without dissolving it into its more general master-concept. To think philosophically is so much as to think in models; negative dialectics is an ensemble of model-analyses.

This is the distinction I've mentioned before between examples and models (or "thought-models" as he puts it here). Models are better than examples for negative dialectics because they don't dissolve the object into its general master-concept. But more than just being the better choice (say for illustrative purposes), thinking in models is the constitutive activity of negative dialectics. It's its bread and butter.

Here's an updated list of where to find negative dialectics applied in the form of thought-models:

1. In ND itself, in "Part III: Models". However, these are still at a fairly high level of philosophical abstraction, so they're less useful as—for want of a better phrase—practical applications.

2. In Minima Moralia, a treasure trove of "micrology". Topics include marriage, genocide, tactfulness, technology, femininity, and the shortcomings of the American landscape.

3. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, in which Adorno and Horkheimer make some grand claims that seem very far from micrology.

4. In Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, which consists of articles and lectures intended for a general audience, produced at the height of his fame when he was appearing frequently on radio shows (this was the 50s and 60s, when he was back in Germany). Topics include television, sexual taboos, the concept of progress, and free time.

5. In Aesthetic Theory, the only major work of Adorno's written after ND.

But how exactly do models avoid dissolving the object into its master-concept? Primarily, by avoiding the reduction of the object to a mere instance of a universal. For example, a cynical critic of modern life who hadn't learned the art of negative dialectics might say that watching YouTube videos is a mindless compensation for a life of alienated labour. Thus YouTube is a mere instance of alienated escapism. In a thought-model, on the other hand, the complex tensions and textures of the experience of using YouTube are given their due. We could look at YouTube's strange temporality: the way the endless stream of recommended videos collapses time into a perpetual now, in contrast with watching a movie, which is clearly demarcated between a beginning and an end. Or with the variability of its content—educational, shallow, moving, profound—all delivered through a system designed to maximize attention. The viewer is neither simply brainwashed nor fully autonomous; instead, there's both freedom and compulsion, passive enjoyment and active engagement. A thought-model would draw out these tensions rather than simply condemning YouTube. The viewer is not regarded simply as an alienated and passive consumer of ideology, and their pleasure is not dismissed as false consciousness. Instead, the model recognizes and does not reconcile the dialectical interplay.

Crucially, this is not a softening of critique. The condemnation may still be there, and may actually be much stronger; but it would not be the whole point of the exercise. Critique can be sharper when it reveals the complexities, since that's where society's depths of brokenness are.

But I have to disagree with Adorno's insistence (implied in the lectures) that thought-models are not examples. Plainly speaking, thought-models do in fact serve as examples of negative dialectics. It's just that they do not exist merely for illustrative purposes, merely to help you understand the abstract concept—they're negative dialectics in action, in earnest, and they are not arbitrary, as examples sometimes are.

I see a distinction that I hadn't noticed before. There are two kinds of example (there might be others, but these are the relevant ones). One is what Adorno hates, and the other can accommodate his thought-models (otherwise the complete banishment of examples just seems unreasonable). I can best convey the distinction with ... an example.

A jazz teacher, introducing a student to improvisation, could give two kinds of examples. The teacher has already begun describing the way that the lead instrument improvises a melody using notes from the scales associated with the changing chords, so his first example of improvisation is to play notes from the most basic pentatonic scale for each chord. This is in a sense a good example, in that it illustrates a very basic potential strategy for improvisation, suitable for a beginner. But in another sense it's a really bad example, and barely even jazz, since it's likely to be boring and unoriginal. As a different kind of example he could play a 1959 recording of Ornette Coleman, in which there is no following of chord changes and in which there isn't even a chord-playing instrument in the band. This second example is more than a passive illustration; it is jazz, actively contradicting the rules the teacher has so far taught.

I'll call these living and dead examples. Adorno doesn't like calling his thought-models examples at all, but I think we can, so long as we mean living examples.

Philosophy debases itself into apologetic affirmation the moment it deceives itself and others over the fact that whatever sets its objects into motion must also influence these from outside. What awaits within these, requires a foothold in order to speak, with the perspective that the forces mobilized from outside, and in the end every theory applied to the phenomena, would come to rest in those. To this extent, too, philosophical theory means its own end: through its realization.

Philosophy becomes mere ideology when it acts like objects can be studied in isolation, ignoring external influence. This is to say that you can't prioritize particulars without also taking into account the connections, and "affinities" between them. What awaits within the objects, which I take to be the truth about them, requires the foothold of philosophy in order to be revealed. Thus, external forces and philosophical theory itself all have the object as their goal (in negative dialectics). The last sentence is Adorno's utopianism cropping up again: to complete this task of philosophy would be to do away with philosophy, since thought would be properly reconciled with its objects.

But what is the connection between the former passage, about thought-models, with the latter passage, about philosophy more generally. I think it's that the only way of achieving the latter is by the former. The only way of directing the power of system unsystematically to allow objects to speak is using thought-models, which do not reduce objects to instances and specimens.

But what is the connection between the former passage, about thought-models, with the latter passage, about philosophy more generally. I think it's that the only way of achieving the latter is by the former. The only way of directing the power of system unsystematically to allow objects to speak is using thought-models, which do not reduce objects to instances and specimens. — Jamal

I see that there is a lot said about "theory" in this section. You\ll notice theory mentioned in the latter passage you quoted above.

The section ends with what I interpret as a discussion of the importance of theory. There is a relation between theory and intellectual experience which is referred to. I find "intellectual experience" to be a vague concept.

The scientific consensus would probably concede that even
experience would imply theory. 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. Exactly this demand is incompatible with
intellectual experience. 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.
Until this point theory embodies that discipline in intellectual
experience which already embarrassed Goethe in relation to Kant. If
experience relied solely on its dynamic and good fortune, there would
be no stopping.

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. The subject shrinks away from this, back onto itself and the
fullness of its modes of reaction. Only critical self-reflection protects it
from the limitations of its fullness and from building a wall [Wand:
interior wall] between itself and the object, indeed from presupposing
its being-for-itself as the in-itself and for-itself. The less the identity
between the subject and object can be ascertained, the more
contradictory what is presumed to cognize such, the unfettered
strength and open-minded self-consciousness. 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.

I think that what is implied in the first paragraph, is that intellectual experience is a type of experience which does not require theory. To the contrary, theory requires intellectual experience. But is this really the case?

In the next paragraph "Theory and intellectual experience require their reciprocal effect."

Then, "the ability to move" is brought into the relation, and a "double procedure" referred to..

And, I assume that "both", In the ending sentence refers to the two parts of that double procedure, though it may refer to both theory and intellectual experience.

"Both positions of consciousness are connected to one another through each other’s critique, not through compromise."

Yeah I've been meaning to say something about intellectual experience. The whole introduction is basically a "Theory of Intellectual Experience," as it's referred to in the appendix to the lectures and as ND was originally going to be called.

I'll reply more fully ... in the near future.

Experience is what is gained from action, and intellectual experience appears to be sort of like knowledge in general. Theory appears to be something which is prior to intellectual experience, as necessary for action, but also a sort of response to it, as a corrective to the consequent self-confidence.

I would say that we could theoretically distinguish two types of theory, that which is prior to action and intellectual experience, and that which is posterior. But, since it's all a reciprocating process, all theory would in reality consist of both types, as prior to this experience, and posterior to that experience.

As to whether Adorno would (not only) concur to thinking being one of the greatest pleasures of life, I very much doubt that he would: — Pussycat


Excuse me for butting in. That passage does not to me show what you think it shows. At most it shows he condemns thinking when it's a complacent or dominating pleasure. The “resistance of thinking against the merely existent” can be pleasurable, I would think. Why not? Adorno of course likely thought that good thinking was both pleasurable and painful. And since he speaks with such approval of play in philosophy, I reckon we can be confident that Redmond’s assessment is right.

Anyway, I think it jumps off the page. He’s enjoying himself. — Jamal

Wouldn't you think that equating thinking with pleasure, is identity-thinking?

Wouldn't you think that equating thinking with pleasure, is identity-thinking? — Pussycat

Clearly not a case of "equating". But what exactly do you think "identity-thinking" is?

It is the assumption that objects are identical to their concepts. I think the denial of this, is the only principle of negative dialectics, everything else follows and derives from it. And so, in principle, if I'm right of course, one should be able to construct and re-construct everything Adorno says. But what do you think?

Now, by saying that thinking is pleasure, one is not really equating thinking with pleasure, as it would be absurd to think that thinking equals pleasure, one is only saying that thinking produces pleasure, or that thinking partakes in pleasure, or else. So how does this fit into identity thinking? I think it is something of this sort:

The two concepts of thinking and pleasure are bound together, each in their own identity, and without any qualification, thereby producing a grossly positive and ambiguous statement. For what thinking are we talking about? And what kind of pleasure? What of the non-identical residue in both of those concepts? It seems to me that one may talk like that only for static and reified concepts, where we seem to know exactly what thinking and pleasure are, contrary to ND. But this is the least of the statement's problem.

For it implies that there are a great many pleasures in life, that these are ordered hierarchically, and that thinking would be on top. Isn't this system building and categorization, of which Adorno was against?

The statement is blatantly positive and affirmative, and wallows in aestheticized positivity, where is the negativity? It paints thinkers as comfortably sitting in their armchairs, pipe at hand, thinking, and having the time of their lives. "Let them do their thing", one would say, "they found true happiness amongst their thoughts". What started off as something that didn't sound at all right for me, it now turned to something else. The more I think of it, the more I think that Adorno would anathematize it. I guess its because I take him to have been a deeply troubled man, most possibly suffering from PTSD and/or survivor's guilt, like Auswitz never left him. And so I cant really imagine him partaking in any pleasure, lest for the sake of a possible future reconciliation.

Introduction: Argument and Experience (iii)

I like this:

There is no lack of related intentions throughout history. The French Enlightenment was endowed by its highest concept, that of reason, with something systematic under the formal aspect; however the constitutive entanglement of its idea of reason with that of an objectively reasonable arrangement of society deprives the system of the pathos, which it only regained when reason renounced the idea of its realization and absolutized itself into the Spirit. Thinking akin to the encyclopedia, as something rationally organized and nevertheless discontinuous, unsystematic and spontaneous, expressed the self-critical Spirit of reason. It represented what was erased from philosophy, as much through its increasing distance from praxis as through its incorporation into the academic bustle: worldly experience, that eye for reality, whose moment is also that of thought.

I was initially surprised by this, because precisely the kind of arbitrary list of facts you find in an encyclopedia is what I would have expected him to point to as evidence of the failure of Enlightenment reason. But on second thought, it makes perfect sense. The encyclopedia is rationally organized but its entries are not forced to fit a conceptual scheme of any kind, as they are in philosophical systems. There is an in-built priority of the object in an encyclopedia, and the non-identical, what is unique and irreducible in things, is able to show itself. The encyclopedia is a model of Adorno's dialectical tightrope between systematicity and a fragmented approach to particulars.

The freedom of the Spirit is nothing else. Thought can no more do without the element of the homme de lettres [French: person of education] which the petit bourgeois scientific ethos maligns, than without what the scientific philosophies misuse, the meditative drawing-together, the argument, which earned so much skepticism. Whenever philosophy was truly substantial, both moments appeared together. From a distance, dialectics could be characterized as the effort raised to self-consciousness of letting itself be permeated by such. Otherwise the specialized argument degenerates into the technics of non-conceptual experts in the midst of the concept, just as nowadays so-called analytic philosophy, memorizable and copyable by robots, is disseminated academically.

What is immanently argumentative is legitimate where it registers the integrated reality become system, in order to oppose it with its own strength. What is on the other hand free in thought represents the authority which is already aware of what is emphatically untrue of that context. Without this knowledge it would not have come to the breakout, without the appropriation of the power of the system it would have failed. That both moments do not seamlessly meld into one another is due to the real power of the system, which includes that which also potentially surpasses it.

This is a different angle on the dialectical interplay expressed above. The man of letters is the essayist who writes about anything that attracts his curiosity, with more cultural commentary and impressionistic insight than formal treatises or rigorous argument---and from a standpoint of wide learning rather than specialist training. But judged by the technical specialist, or the analytic philosopher, who has been trained above all in rigour, this man of letters is a dilettante and an amateur.

Adorno says philosophy needs both. The way I would put it is that it needs both the active engagement or love of the amateur (an amateur is etymologically a lover, someone who pursues an activity for the love of it) and also the rigour of argument under the compulsion of logic. Without the former, thought degenerates into scientism and analytic philosophy (unfair but we know what he means), lacking self-awareness and insight, specifically the insight into what is wrong with whatever logical system is being used. And without the latter ... well, he doesn't really say. Maybe it's obvious. Maybe it's similar to what he said about play and the irrational: too much and you just get ineffectual gestures. I'm tempted to think of the person of letters' engaged insights as primary motivation, and the argument of the logician as the force that carries this through (although this is no doubt too linear a picture for Adorno).

However the untruth of the context of immanence discloses itself in the overwhelming experience that the world, which is as systematically organized as if it were truly that realized reason Hegel so glorified, simultaneously perpetuates the powerlessness of the Spirit, apparently so all-powerful, in its old unreason. The immanent critique of idealism defends idealism, to the extent it shows how far it is defrauded by itself; how much that which is first, which is according to such always the Spirit, stands in complicity with the blind primacy of the merely existent [Seiendes]. The doctrine of the absolute Spirit immediately promotes this latter.

Here he pivots to experience. I'll use the alternative translation to make sense of it, since Redmond seems to have produced an ungrammatical sentence. Here is the Thorne and Menda version:

The untruth of the context disclosed by immanence, however, is also revealed to one’s overwhelming experience of a world that has organized itself so systematically that it might as well be rationality made real, Hegel’s very glory, even as that world, in its irrationality, perpetuates the powerlessness of the omnipotent-seeming mind. — Argument and Experience

He is saying that what is revealed by immanent critique, i.e., the system's untruth, is also revealed by one's overwhelming experience of the world. This is a critique of Hegel's system and idealist systems in general but I'm more interested in this idea of experience. Let's see where he takes it (back in the Redmond translation):

The scientific consensus would probably concede that even experience would imply theory. 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. Exactly this demand is incompatible with intellectual experience. 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. Until this point theory embodies that discipline in intellectual experience which already embarrassed Goethe in relation to Kant. If experience relied solely on its dynamic and good fortune, there would be no stopping.

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. The subject shrinks away from this, back onto itself and the fullness of its modes of reaction. Only critical self-reflection protects it from the limitations of its fullness and from building a wall [Wand: interior wall] between itself and the object, indeed from presupposing its being-for-itself as the in-itself and for-itself. The less the identity between the subject and object can be ascertained, the more contradictory what is presumed to cognize such, the unfettered strength and open-minded self-consciousness. 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.

Now I can respond to this:

Experience is what is gained from action, and intellectual experience appears to be sort of like knowledge in general. Theory appears to be something which is prior to intellectual experience, as necessary for action, but also a sort of response to it, as a corrective to the consequent self-confidence.

I would say that we could theoretically distinguish two types of theory, that which is prior to action and intellectual experience, and that which is posterior. But, since it's all a reciprocating process, all theory would in reality consist of both types, as prior to this experience, and posterior to that experience. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this is about right. The scientific consensus can or often does concede that there is no raw pre-conceptual experience, no uninterpreted givens: there is no pre-theoretical level as posited in empiricism. This is in line with Kant and a whole host of thinkers up to Sellars and beyond (and what I was talking about in this post in @Moliere's "What is a painting?" discussion).

So theory accompanies and shapes experience from the start, but perhaps what really makes it intellectual experience is when theory is re-applied, that is, knowingly---what you refer to as "posterior" theory. And yes to your last sentence: I don't think we ought to make too much of the prior/posterior binary.

But Adorno's further point is that the scientific consensus, though it concedes all that, reduces the insight to a mere checkbox to add to the methodology of scientific observation, a feature of the observing consciousness, such that the scientific method can, say, control for bias and neutralize it, and carry on behaving like it's perfectly neutral. Adorno offers a better image of intellectual experience, a transforming rather than a spectating one: the diner to the roast. It's about digging in, not merely observing from a distance. In eating, neither the diner nor the roast remain unchanged.

I find this metaphor a bit awkward, coming so soon after the passage in which he says that idealism is the belly turned mind, a rage against the prey projected into reason.

Well, the way out is to take the metaphors seriously. Adorno must have been aware of the tension. I think this means that there are two different modes of eating here: there is idealism's rage-filled and murderous devourment, in which a living victim is torn to pieces; then there is the relaxed and non-violent experience enjoyed by the diner to the roast. It's the difference between forced assimilation and transformative gustation.

And he says that philosophy only really happens when the object disappears into the thinker. He means that philosophy requires that one fully internalize the experience of the object rather than keeping it at arm's length, a specimen to be studied from afar or from the other end of the microscope. Or rather, this internalization of the object is what intellectual experience, and thus philosophy, actually is.

Then the experience-theory dialectic is brought out once again and at length. It turns out that experience lines up with the "man of letters" and theory lines up with logical rigour, and intellectual experience is that which combines experience and theory. And if what he said above about real philosophy requiring total absorption looked a bit too idealist and tyrranical, we needn't worry, because theory/argument/critique can set us right again and bring us back down to earth.

Although the section doesn't quite finish with this, I think it's the culmination:

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.

Whether languages adapted so that to represent and match the dominating ideologies of the times.
— Pussycat

Such a relation would be reciprocal, over lengthy time. Ideology gets shaped by language as much as language gets shaped by ideology. In my reply to Jamal above, the use of profanity in language is described as a rejection of ideology. And, as the profundity of ideology is renounced in the manner described by Adorno, new ideology will fill the void, and this will be shaped by language. Some ideology will severely restrict language use, as was evident with Catholicism and The Inquisition. But ultimately such restriction of freedom induces rejection, then the new ideology which evolves is restricted by the limits of language. — Metaphysician Undercover

So a dialectic between ideology and language. I guess nowadays we have political correctness and woke culture, but it is not clear which is promoted by dominant ideology and which is resistance to it. Dialectics is surely complicated!

But regarding linguistic evolution, from what I read, there was a linguistic shift from subject-object-verb (SOV) towards subject-verb-object (SVO) order, that came together with the loss of inflection, ultimately strictly prioritizing the subject, both grammatically and conceptually. I don't think this to be a mere coincidence or accidental, but that it goes hand-in-hand with the ideology of domination, imperialism and colonization. It nevertheless reflects a cultural shift towards a human-centric perspective, as a way to dominate nature, which is not only grammatical, but also epistemological, ethical and metaphysical.

It is why I insisted previously on SVO and inflection, with the report on the differences between the german and the english languages. I think that this is in tune with Adorno's genealogy account and his evolutionary natural history, as far as a series of historically conditioned stories go, with language being the third in line. English, as the common language for the administered, bureaucratic and calculative world, lingua infranka.

It is the assumption that objects are identical to their concepts. — Pussycat

I don't think anyone believes that objects are identical to concepts. I think the idea is more that concepts identify objects in a sort of relation of correspondence. There is a relation of identity between subject and object which is conducive to truth.

Adorno offers a better image of intellectual experience, a transforming rather than a spectating one: the diner to the roast. It's about digging in, not merely observing from a distance. In eating, neither the diner nor the roast remain unchanged. — Jamal

But, I think the point was that one of them is actually consumed by the other. So theory, being what is referred to as "the latter", disappears into the former, experience, and this I conclude, is what produces "intellectual experience".

Now there is a very significant issue, and that is what happens to "theory" in general, after it is consumed and becomes integral within intellectual experience. And this I believe, is why the prior/posterior distinction is important here. Notice, that "only when the latter disappears into the former", is "philosophy" possible.

Now, in post-consumption, theory confronts ideology as philosophy. It corrects the naiveté of Spirit's self-confidence. Only in this posterior condition do we get the subject/object division. Theory, having been consumed, now inheres within the subject, and the failures of theory, "a world which is false to its innermost core" are what constitutes non-identity.

So, I believe that the posterior position of theory is important to negative dialectics. It is only in this condition of "philosophy", when the theory has been consumed, that the separation between subject and object is produced. Theory is within the subject, therefore subjective, it is not out there as objective property of God, or the State. The separation is known by ideology as a form of unity between subject and object, identity, but that's an illusion which only veils the falsity. The philosophizing subject, which already apprehends the subject/object division as a result of the theory having been consumed, apprehends it as a division of untruth, even as a wall between subject and object, which prevents intellectual freedom, incapacitating the ability to move in general.

I don't think anyone believes that objects are identical to concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Some objects are in fact, manifest of concepts. Trash in a bin, for example. Sure, there may be a lost gold ring or other heirloom that would supersede the contents within. But how likely is that really.

Your point is valid, in most scenarios. Surely a hammer is not always a symbol of law and justice. It might be a tool to seal one's grave, one who has in fact fought for law and justice his or her whole life. Absolutely.

Surely, some concepts may be associated with objects, perhaps even to those ignorant of the true and encyclopedic definitions of what they are. Take for example, the concept of thought. A brain, raw and removed from a body, is generally considered to equate such. So, perhaps one may wish to stop and think as to what is really what when it comes to such a broad generalization. And of course, someone seeing a brain, perhaps not physically in front of them, all graphic, gory, and jarring and such, but rather as a friendly illustration or cartoon, might indeed equate such an object with such a concept. Wouldn't you think so?

There is a relation of identity between subject and object which is conducive to truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

Of course, one man's trash is indeed one man's treasure. Meaning, one man's guiding symbol or charm, could very well be another man's bewildering curse.

I don't think anyone believes that objects are identical to concepts. — Metaphysician Undercover

That's idealism.

And didn't you, yourself, say that society was no more than a concept?

That's idealism. — Jamal

Not really, Idealism involves a belief that concepts are objects, but not all objects are concepts. So that is not the identity relation referred to by Adorno.

And didn't you, yourself, say that society was no more than a concept? — Jamal

I think society is a concept, but I do not think it is an object. So I don't assume any identity relation between "society" as a concept, and any object, because there is no object which bears that name.

Those who believe that there is an object called "society" might assume that there is an identity relation between our concept "society", and the object which bears this name. The identity relation is what constitutes "truth" in the sense of correspondence. This idea of "truth", as a relation between subject and object when theory (therefore concept) has become a part of the subject in post-consumption, is very important at the end of this section.

Only critical self-reflection protects it from the limitations of its fullness and from building a wall [Wand: interior wall] between itself and the object, indeed from presupposing its being-for-itself as the in-itself and for-itself. The less the identity between the subject and object can be ascertained, the more contradictory what is presumed to cognize such, the unfettered strength and open-minded self-consciousness. 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.

The very act of consumption, when theory disappears into experience, is what denies the reality of idealism. In this act (which in general is education), theory is brought from the external, where it may be perceived as consisting of Platonic objects, and internalized by the subject. That is intellectual experience. In this post-consumption position it enables philosophy, but as part of the subject, therefore subjective. Therefore philosophy must reject idealism, or else it denies its own ground.

where it may be perceived as consisting of Platonic objects — Metaphysician Undercover

What makes you say that?

What makes you say that? — Jamal

Until our dear friend wishes to express a response, perhaps one interested in the overarching debate (such as myself) might find value in observing those who wish to offer contrast between the two concepts (apparently, from a quick Google search, in the ideascape that considers an object "Platonic" there is the, not necessarily opposite or inverse, but at least in a way contrasting idea of an Archimedean object.

I am not the first to notice or at least nod to the respective differences, as this video here shows. Not that it's related. But it could be? Pardon if not, just something to pass the time until a response is procured. If nothing else.



I'm sure you know very well what so and so is. But one can never know what context or personal belief in the context of a larger argument said objects may hold in relation to the point express, which is also hard to pin down. Human nature, am I right? :smile:

I'm sure you know very well what so and so is. — Outlander

Yeah but I still struggle to get my head around such and such.

Cool video. Probably not very relevant. But then, MU's mention of Platonic objects was not very relevant either, so ... fair enough. In any case, I assume he was referring to the Forms and not just those solids.

What makes you say that? — Jamal

The argument for Platonic realism, is that ideas have existence independent from human minds, as "objects". This is produced from the assumption that different people have the same ideas. So you and I are supposed to each have the same idea of "two" for example. Since the notion of two in my mind is thought to be the same as the notion of two in your mind, it is concluded that each of our minds partakes of an independent idea, "Two". In Platonic realism the independent idea is supposed to be an object.

The problem is that something needs to support the existence of these independent ideas. It might be God, or the existence of these independent objects might somehow be thought to be supported by an objective State, as a part of the State, ideology. In one case the independent (objective) ideas are attributed to God, in the other they are attributed to the State. In each case they have existence independent from individual subjects, hence they are "objects", or "objective" and this is idealism.

So, when theory (ideas), are consumed by the individual subject, becoming a part of that subject's "intellectual experience", as described by Adorno, the theories (ideas) necessarily become subjective, regardless of whether or not they had independent objective existence. They are a part of the subject's intellectual experience, and are therefore subjective. This is what enables philosophy, theories and ideas being a part of the subject, i.e. subjective. However, this necessarily negates any notion of ideas as objects, the objectivity of ideas in general, and idealism overall. The philosopher cannot do philosophy and also assume idealism, because philosophy is only possible when ideas are subjective, within the subject. The division between subject and object is annihilated when the subject consumes the object.

Not really, Idealism involves a belief that concepts are objects, but not all objects are concepts. So that is not the identity relation referred to by Adorno. — Metaphysician Undercover

The relevant idealism is the view that reality is mental (in Hegel, rational-spiritual). It's the reduction of objects to correlates of thought.

If you don't mind I'm not going to follow you into the Platonic stuff, because I think it's a distraction. At least, it is for me.

@Metaphysician Undercover

As to what identity-thinking is, I refer back to my post on page 2:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/984552

Identity-thinking is everywhere — indeed it's practically unavoidable — and idealism is its philosophical apotheosis.

Geistige Erfahrung and the Scientific Image of Man

Intellectual experience is the common translation of geistige Erfahrung, but occasionally it's rendered as spiritual experience. I'm going to mostly carry on using intellectual but it's worth keeping in mind the original, since both English terms (and even the third option, mental) are inadequate or misleading.

Here's a way to think about it. A deep motivation of Adorno's, going back earlier than the failures of socialism and the trauma of the Holocaust, was—as I see it—to defend the manifest image against the encroachments of the scientific image (see the SEP on Sellars).

Roger Foster quotes a note of Adorno's:

Since my earliest youth, I knew that everything that I stood for found itself in a hopeless struggle with what I perceived as the anti-spirit incarnate — the spirit of Anglo-Saxon natural-scientific positivism. — Foster, Adorno: The Recovery of Experience

But phenomenology, vitalism, and existentialism did not appeal, since he had become a Marxian materialist. Thus we can see negative dialectics, and especially the idea of intellectual experience, as the philosophical elaboration of this instinct: resisting the reduction of experience to its empiricist concept, while insisting that such resistance is not a retreat into irrationalism, nor even a retreat into the subject, but rather a materialist critique of rationality itself.

So intellectual experience is something like the mode of thinking that attends to the dialectic between manifest and scientific image. And while Sellars probably argued for a synthesis of the two, Adorno wants to reveal how they conflict, and wants to keep the contradiction alive even in his own methodology. As he says, "Both positions of consciousness are connected to one another through each other’s critique, not through compromise." (Incidentally, recalling this line is a good way to expunge the thought of the "middle way" that often crops up when trying to understand Adorno.)

The relevant idealism is the view that reality is mental (in Hegel, rational-spiritual). It's the reduction of objects to correlates of thought. — Jamal

This I see as self-contradicting. "Correlates" implies a duality, so "the reduction of objects to correlates of thought", is inherently incompatible with "reality is mental". "Reality is mental" implies all objects are thoughts.

As to what identity-thinking is, I refer back to my post on page 2: — Jamal

There's a lot of ambiguity in that post. What you call "subject-object identity" is the identity which I've been addressing. However, you also propose "object-object identity", and this would be the only possible form of identity if the phrase "reality is mental", is the position being addressed. However, objects as "correlates of thought" implies subject-object identity. These two types of "identity" are very distinct, and if mixed would constitute equivocation.

To avoid these problems of ambiguity, Aristotle proposed the law of identity, which puts identity in the object itself, as distinct from thought. Adorno does not seem to address the law of identity.

Hold on, I was under the impression that "object" means anything that can be known or cognized, the philosopher's subject-matter, like justice, beauty, science, etc, basically everything that is not subject (ourselves).

For example, I want to know what justice is. I take it as object, camel case, then Justice. And then try to conceptualize it, using the concept of justice (lowercase). Then identity thinking is the equality, justice = Justice: my subjective conception of Justice (justice) equals to Justice - the object (of conceptualization).

I'm way off, you think?

This I see as self-contradicting. "Correlates" implies a duality, so "the reduction of objects to correlates of thought", is inherently incompatible with "reality is mental". "Reality is mental" implies all objects are thoughts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not self-contradictory; there's a spectrum in idealism from correlationism to full-blown subjective idealism. My short post was meant to cover all the bases (in modern thought).

problems of ambiguity — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think so. You show no sign of having read my interpretation of identity-thinking with any level of charity, so basically I can't see what your problem is. But never mind, I'm going to carry on working out what intellectual experience is all about...

In I described the role of intellectual experience, and the motivation behind it, but I didn't define it. I'll attempt that now (with all the relevant caveats about definitions automatically applied as always).

Intellectual or spiritual experience is the mode of thinking which, by immersing itself in particulars with a micrological attention to detail, exposes the non-identical and reveals the affinities between objects and their relationships to the social whole. The purpose is to relate things to the whole without reducing them to specimens of categories, thus without systematizing them. An example of the difference that works for me is an analysis of Kafka's fiction: the reductive way of identity-thinking is to see everything in his fiction as Kafkaesque---and it's actually quite difficult to read Kafka openly and innocently today, such is the ubiquity of the universal we could call Kafkaesqueness---whereas if we follow Adorno we can see the wide variety of absurdity, humour, and satire in his stories. These will surely be seen to reveal things about modern life, alienation, the bourgeoisie, and so on, and yet they will not be reduced to mere signs for them. Kafka is kept alive in intellectual experience, and deadened with the category of Kafkaesque.

For example, Gregor Samsa wakes up to find he's metamorphosed into a giant cockroach or something. Identity-thinking reduces this to a symbol of alienation, a sub-category under the classification "Kafkaesque". But in intellectual experience, the details of the story are kept in play, always ready to be re-interpreted (this is a feature of great art, that it can accommodate and support this). We see how Gregor's situation is reduced to an economic problem and a cause of social embarrassment, and this reveals something of the true nature of the petit-bourgeois household: the family's and the society's inhumanity was there all along, not irrational but rational in a bad way---and Gregor's predicament, i.e., the inhumanity of his appearance, brings it out in specific ways.

Notice how the former, "Kafkaesque", interpretation has little power to shock or reveal, since through this category it has been pre-digested. But the latter can continue to support critique---precisely because it has not already been reduced to critique.

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?

Hold on, I was under the impression that "object" means anything that can be known or cognized, the philosopher's subject-matter, like justice, beauty, science, etc, basically everything that is not subject (ourselves). — Pussycat

I don't think that this is the case for Adorno. He clearly distinguishes between the object, and the subject along with theory, and concepts, which are in some relation to the objects. We cannot say that there is a relation between concepts and objects unless we allow a difference between them. Otherwise we'd be talking about the relation between one object and another object, not the relation between concept and object.

For example, I want to know what justice is. I take it as object, camel case, then Justice. And then try to conceptualize it, using the concept of justice (lowercase). Then identity thinking is the equality, justice = Justice: my subjective conception of Justice (justice) equals to Justice - the object (of conceptualization).

I'm way off, you think? — 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. Jamal seems to have a slightly different understanding which allows object to object relations. I see no reason at this point, to think of internal aspects of concepts, theories, or even conceptual systems, as understood by Adorno to be object to object relations.

Thus we can see negative dialectics, and especially the idea of intellectual experience, as the philosophical elaboration of this instinct: resisting the reduction of experience to its empiricist concept, while insisting that such resistance is not a retreat into irrationalism, nor even a retreat into the subject, but rather a materialist critique of rationality itself. — Jamal

I would not agree with this. Intellectual experience, as described by Adorno in this section, is explicitly "a retreat into the subject".

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. The subject shrinks away from this, back onto itself and the
fullness of its modes of reaction. Only critical self-reflection protects it
from the limitations of its fullness and from building a wall [Wand:
interior wall] between itself and the object, indeed from presupposing
its being-for-itself as the in-itself and for-itself.

You see, the subject does retreat into itself, in this way, recoiling from the "negative" effects of non-identity (a world which is false to its innermost core). Only "critical self-reflection" saves it from building a wall of isolation, solipsism. It appears to me that you are completely ignoring what Adorno says about "intellectual experience" in this section, along with my apt interpretation of it presented above, to present your own understanding of "intellectual experience". But what you present does not appear to be consistent with what Adorno says here, in this section. I recommend that you read the last two paragraphs thoroughly.