I think we need to assume Adorno was attempting to be consistent, and not ambiguous or equivocal. So I see the difference as a matter of perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am sure he was, but the main problem is that all of our concepts have been reified by ideology. And so equivocality is more pertinent than ever. Take the concept of theory in this case. What does it tell you? Is it the same when it is used in "theory of knowledge" as in "critical theory"?

Another way to see the same concept differently, it would be with perspectivism, I suppose. This was advanced foremost by Nietzsche. Not having the concepts of reification and non-identity at hand, and unable to procure them on his own, since he was a psychologist and not a philosopher, lacking theory, he was naturally led to perspectivism.

That is why I spoke of pre-consumption and post-consumption, from the perspective of a particular subject. — Metaphysician Undercover

I take post-consumption to imply a deification process, where theory becomes live and kicking, in the subject, from its reified static and external state.

Consider that theory is fed to the subject as an educational tool in the form of ideology, in the process of the subject's intellectual experience. Also, the subject might freely choose theory for consumption. But post-consumption, theory is within the subject, and is then a tool of that subject. The analogy is one of eating. Food is fed to a child, who then learns to choose one's own food. But in both of these cases, after consumption the food is then used by the subject who consumes. The difference is an external/internal difference, and the point you appear to be claiming is that there is a difference between the thing when it is external, and the thing after its been internalized. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes exactly this is what I am saying, the thing - theory in this case - is transformed after consumption. Before, it was something external, say a set of rules that one learns, and applies them to objects of experience so that to receive knowledge. After, it is in dialectic with experience, the one shaping the other. But I am sorry, I got a bit confused with your food example, isn't this what you are also saying?

Maybe. I'm not opposed to these notions on their face, at least.

The importance of incoherence, contradiction, and falsity preoccupies much of my thoughts.

I take post-consumption to imply a deification process, where theory becomes live and kicking, in the subject, from its reified static and external state. — Pussycat

I don't buy this. He says that it disappears into experience. So the best we can say is that it becomes a part of experience. As such, you would think it is govern by the whole, like Adorno's food analogy. The food is consumed and the nutrients are used within the living being which has consumed it. The food is not alive and kicking within the subject, it is now a part of a system. But, it plays a very special role, and this is why you say it is "live and kicking". Think of the food you eat as energy, in a sense it is "live and kicking" as energy is active, but we tend to believe that it is controlled by the system that has consumed it. In the analogy, theory is consumed by experience, but it maintains a very special, active role, which is why you say that it is live and kicking. Nevertheless, we tend to believe that it is governed by the subject which consumes the theory.

Do you think we can figure out the special role which Adorno assigns to theory, after it disappears within the intellectual experience of the subject? To me, it seems like the subject is first repulsed by non-identity within the theory, and reacts by retreating into itself. This might be like a sort of toxicity in the food. So a separation of difference is still maintained after consumption, between subject and object, the object being theory here. There is a reciprocal relation between theory and intellectual experience, but theory is very limited and cannot fully provide what is desired by the subject, which is freedom, the ability to move.

The result is a dialectical movement, and this rebels against the system. So, is "the system" here, that which consumed the theory, the intellectual experience of the subject? Does theory now, from within the subject, in this immanent, authentically dialectical process, being open-minded self-consciousness, rebel against the very intellectual experience which consumed it? Is that what is meant by "Both
positions of consciousness are connected to one another through each other’s critique, not through compromise."?

SVO/SOV and inflection, as the main problems I see. :rofl: And so it would seem that the project is severely hampered and severed from the outset. The translated material we are working with is mostly analytic and not dialectical, as it has been mediated through the english language. This poses an additional challenge, as english readers can't be helped by language, the dialectic is neither immanent nor immediate in it. But I guess this is the whole point, mediation, which even in a highly dialectical language such as german, cannot be avoided. As to our own style and presentation, tone or syntax tricks must be employed, at the peril of making one sound like Yoda. Yet another challenge we brought ourselves against, who wouldn't love a challenge anyway, what else is there? — Pussycat

But what if we formalize dialectics into the one Final System.... :D

Yeah, the language barrier is already there -- though I think there's enough similarity between English and German that with a comprehension of both you can give "the idea", if not the strict meaning of a text. I liked the analogy which the translator had of the photo-negative or the depictions of planets that we see on NASA's website and the like: These aren't the images an astronaut looking from down on orbit would see, but they are also not-false, exactly, but bitmap recreations that have a sort of negative relationship to what would be seen. Whatever this negative relationship between say what the astronaut sees and what a picture of the Moon shows I might term "the conceptual" -- that which can be translated, but only through familiarity with the particulars of both and only in this negative way. i.e. there won't be some easy 1-to-1 substitution one can do between German and English such that "the meaning" would be expressed -- if the original is in German then the meaning, as meant, is German meaning, not English meaning. (but, luckily, there's an absurd world to keep us in check from getting lost in meaning)


Anyways, catching up with everyone now. Summers over, schools back in session, and I'm reading again.

Alright, this is where we left off last. Because of the pause I reread everything up to Portrayal and it was heartening because it read much faster and more smoothly this time -- which means we're making progress. And I think I've figured out the reason for Portrayal or expression is so important, and different, from the representation. I think I'm reading it like you do here where the representation is the fact itself, whereas the expression of a fact is an interpretation: And how this occurs follows from the previous section on the speculative moment.

I was wondering what he was going on about when talking about how reciting a philosophical text does not make you profound -- there's not a profoundness sitting within The Republic before anyone reads it -- but rather the expression of some text in the proper moment that leads to profundity, or by analogue, the goal that philosophy is aiming at: to express correctly is to move beyond the representation -- beyond the facts as he said in the speculative moment -- and speak freely about this unfree (factual) state of affairs fully dominated by things.

Your explanation of "thingly" helped me wrap my mind around that sentence. The "thingly bad state of affairs" -- a state of affairs dominated by the thing where expression does not exist but merely converges with science is this thingly state of affairs, and it is bad because there is the speculative impulse of philosophy which is being ignored by such an approach (or, perhaps, it's simply too dominating in the world Adorno finds himself in, where people sort of refuse to speculate on the basis of it not being worthy) ((Though I am also finding myself asking after a better explanation for why it is bad -- I feel like I'm doing some handwaiving to make sense of the text rather than referencing something he said))

I'm still reviewing "Portrayal" and intend on finishing "System" today. But there's something of a report (without an answer to your question you posed)

EDIT:

That final paragraph is a doozy.

To think is, already in itself and above all particular content,
negation, resistance against what is imposed on it; this is what thinking
inherited from the relationship of labor to its raw material, its Urimage. 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. The effort
which is implied in the concept of thinking itself, as the counterpart to
the passive intuition, is already negative, the rejection of the

31

overweening demand of bowing to everything immediate. The
judgement and the conclusion, the thought-forms whose critique
thought cannot dispense with either, contain critical sprouts in
themselves; their determination is at most simultaneously the
exclusion of what they have not achieved, and the truth which they wish
to organize, repudiating, though with doubtful justification, what is not
already molded by them. The judgement that something would be so,
is the potential rejection that the relation of its subject and its predicate
would be expressed otherwise than in the judgement. Thought-forms
want to go beyond what is merely extant, “given”. The point which
thinking directs against its material is not solely the domination of
nature turned spiritual. 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.

Mostly in the various justifications and explications rather than the thesis of the statement -- that thinking is negative rather than positive. The analogy between worker and "raw material" as the Ur-image makes sense, though. The part that really throws me is the very end: Where thought does violence upon its subject but with the ability to "restitute" what thought has done to its object.

What is this "hope" about? Does the proper expression always hope to reconcile its violence to its object in order to restitute it? Is this what it would mean to reach the non-conceptual?

Mostly thinking out loud about the difficult parts, though I'm tracking well enough to keep reading.

You might say that my re-write is a middlebrow petit-bourgeois deradicalized version. Maybe that describes all of my posts in this group? — Jamal

It could be... though I'm not really too concerned if it is or isn't. In some sense this would be inescapable in the administered state even by Marxist standards. The way he speaks of ideology can only be escaped, I'm guessing, through this negative dialectics, but coming to understand such a thing we can only start with what we are familiar with now which, if we're good Marxists, means that it's going to start with ideology whether we want that to be the case or not.

What I am concerned with is making sure I'm not just fooling myself, though :D -- I want something somewhat coherent to point to if I were to say, "When Adorno says... " blah, mostly because that's how I check myself and learn while reading: I purposefully attempt to restate what I believe I'm reading in my own words, which inevitably are simpler than the philosopher's that I'm reading. It's a good practice.

And given what Adorno said about how language is the only way to objectify thought, and that what is poorly written is poorly thought out, I think it makes a good deal of sense for the student to try and think it out in the manner we're able: we're still trying to figure out this beast negative dialectics, we can't be expected to "think dialectically" before finishing the book!

Anyways, catching up with everyone now. Summers over, schools back in session, and I'm reading again. — Moliere

Well, holidays got to me, eventually.. :cool: Have fun catching up!

A lot on my plate right now, so it might be a few weeks before I get back to the reading. Carry on without me and I'll catch up.

Yup, that's my intent.

The Vertiginous:

This section appears to describe an approach to truth. Vertiginous is distinguished from bottomlessness. And truth is vertiginous, (makes one's head swim) rather than bottomless as the abyss of untruth.

The last paragraph of the section appears to be describing the difference between coherency and soundness. The "frame of reference" provides the basis for a coordinate system, and everything within the system is consistent. But the soundness of the coordinate system, and the frame of reference itself, is generally not questioned. But, it may simply be a product of stipulated axioms.

That, the coherent coordinate system, is contrasted with a philosophy which throws itself at objects. This throwing itself at objects creates a vertigo described as "index veri" (index of truth). The index to truth is revealed in negativity, as untruth.

Fragility of the Truth:

Here we get a deeper look at truth. He appears to be saying that we must let go of what gives us comfort. Clinging to what gives us comfort, which is really untruth, is actually the bane.

With these human beings fear they will lose everything, because they have no other happiness, also none within thought, than what you can hold on to yourself, perennial
unfreedom.

Later in the section, this turns out to be what is popular, I'd say conventional.

Philosophy must "continually renew itself". It makes "few concessions to relativism", and "drives past Hegel".

Then there is a paragraph that I have difficulty to understand, which appears to be directed against the absolutism of Hegel. There is a jettisoning of that which is first to thought, but the jettisoning does not absolutize it. The jettisoning seems to be intended to remove the content of thought, from thought. But it's irrational to think that the content of thinking could be removed from thinking, because this would leave thinking as something other than thinking.

Even in the logical abstraction-form of the
Something, as something which is meant or judged, which for its part
does not claim to constitute anything existent, indelibly survives that
which thinking would like to cancel out, whose non-identity is that
which is not thinking.

So, it seems to me, that Adorno is criticizing this type of thinking, which conceives of thinking as having creative power to put abstractions outside the mind, as this is fundamentally contrary to the meaning of "thinking".

The objection of
bottomlessness needs to be turned against the intellectual principle
which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins; there however,
where ontology, Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is
the place of truth.

He then gets to the fragility of truth, "fragile due to its temporal content". Contrary to the beliefs of some, who say that truth cannot be lost, Adorno says that truth can be lost, and we can fall into the abyss. This is because truth requires great effort.

Only those thoughts which go to extremes can face up to the
all-powerful powerlessness of certain agreement; only mental
acrobatics relate to the thing, which according to the fable convenu
[French: agreed-upon fiction] it holds in contempt for the sake of its
self-satisfaction.

How it is, that thought can actually find truth, when it is easily led astray by what is popular, and "nothing notifies it that it has adequately satisfied itself in the thing", is another question.

The consistency of its execution, however, the density of the web, enables it to hit what it should.

This section appears to describe an approach to truth. Vertiginous is distinguished from bottomlessness. And truth is vertiginous, (makes one's head swim) rather than bottomless as the abyss of untruth. — Metaphysician Undercover

He doesn't say that bottomlessness relates to untruth, rather the opposite, that the acknowledgment of it is what touches truth. Negative dialectics, being foundationless and non-unitarian - better, a dialectics which is no longer “pinned” to identity - will be either accused of:

a) bottomlessness. This accusation, he says, comes from the "fascist fruits", which demand strong foundations, eg race, family, "blood", religion, nation, history etc. And so, a philosophy that does not provide some foundations, is outright and with no much further thought discarded by them as silly, to say the least.

b) vertiginous. Those that think it through, will still discard it, because of the felt vertigo that bottomlessness induces. But this relates to great modern poetry, and moreover is what philosophy needs: "This feeling has been central to great modern poetry since Baudelaire; philosophy, runs the anachronistic suggestion, ought not to participate in any such thing".

Then there is a paragraph that I have difficulty to understand, which appears to be directed against the absolutism of Hegel. There is a jettisoning of that which is first to thought, but the jettisoning does not absolutize it. The jettisoning seems to be intended to remove the content of thought, from thought. But it's irrational to think that the content of thinking could be removed from thinking, because this would leave thinking as something other than thinking. — Metaphysician Undercover

The objection of bottomlessness needs to be turned against the intellectual principle
which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins; there however, where ontology, Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is the place of truth.

Here I think he is alluding to Heidegger, not Hegel. Of Heidegger's absolutization of Being. As if he thinks that Heidegger correctly arrived at bottomolessness, to Being, but then he stopped by making it absolute, and left it abstract:

Even in the logical abstraction-form of the Something, as something which is meant or judged, which for its part does not claim to constitute anything existent, indelibly survives that which thinking would like to cancel out, whose non-identity is that which is not thinking.

And so it seems that the above does not apply to Heidegger's Being.

The jettisoning of that which is first and solidified from thought does not absolutize it as something free-floating. Exactly this jettisoning attaches it all the more to what it itself is not, and removes the illusion of its autarky. The falsity of the jettisoned rationality which runs away from itself, the recoil of Enlightenment into mythology, is itself rationally determinable. Thinking is according to its own meaning the thinking of something. Even in the logical abstraction-form of the Something, as something which is meant or judged, which for its part does not claim to constitute anything existent, indelibly survives that which thinking would like to cancel out, whose non-identity is that which is not thinking. The ratio becomes irrational where it forgets this, hypostasizing its own creations, the abstractions, contrary to the meaning of thinking. The commandment of its autarky condemns it to nullity, in the end to stupidity and primitivity. The objection of bottomlessness needs to be turned against the intellectual principle which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins; there however, where ontology, Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is the place of truth.

Heidegger, by throwing away first principles, arrived at Being. But this Being, according to Adorno, is neither absolute, nor free in itself, it is still dependent on what is thought. When philosophy forgets this and hypostasizes its own creations - without relation to what is being thought - it becomes irrational, null and stupid.

He doesn't say that bottomlessness relates to untruth, rather the opposite, that the acknowledgment of it is what touches truth. Negative dialectics, being foundationless and non-unitarian - better, a dialectics which is no longer “pinned” to identity - will be either accused of: — Pussycat

I agree with this to an extent. Acknowledgement of the bottomlessness is what touches the truth, but it is an acknowledgement of bottomlessness as untruth. What actually constitutes bottomlessness, is the untruth, and this is what negative dialectic sees in identity philosophy. And, the charge that negative dialectics is bottomless, is itself an untruth. This is evident in the last statement of the section. The bottomlessness of the untruth creates the vertigo which is the index of truth, in the negative approach. In general, the untruth of identity is the truth.

The vertigo which this creates is an index veri [Latin: index of truth]; the
shock of the revelation, the negativity, or what it necessarily seems to
be amidst what is hidden and monotonous, untruth only for the untrue.

As explained in the lectures, negative dialects is actually pinned to positivism, or identity, in a negative way. It is pinned to the falsity of positivism, and this constitutes the determinate negative. Otherwise negative dialectics would be completely indeterminate, negating anything, and everything, therefore useless. The subject of negative dialectics is the untruth of positivism and identity philosophy, and in this sense it actually is pinned to identity, in a way which allows it to escape the bottomlessness which is actually a part of the identity philosophy it resists.

Here I think he is alluding to Heidegger, not Hegel. — Pussycat

I think it applies to both, the philosophies of Hegel and Heidegger. I mean, Hegel is mentioned, as the philosopher who wished to have his dialectics as the "prima philosophia". He put the "identity-principle" as the "absolute-subject". So we cannot remove Hegel from this category of absolutism which Adorno is criticizing, even if Heidegger is cited as the prime example.

The key point being that "bottomlessness" is really characteristic of this absolutism. This is why the accusation of bottomlessness, although charged against negative dialectics, ought really be turned against this absolutism. Heidegger is the best example. The bottomlessness which is supposed to be truth, is really untruth.

Heidegger, by throwing away first principles, arrived at Being. But this Being, according to Adorno, is neither absolute, nor free in itself, it is still dependent on what is thought. When philosophy forgets this and hypostasizes its own creations - without relation to what is being thought - it becomes irrational, null and stupid. — Pussycat

I think it is important to note that this is described by Adorno as untruth. "The falsity of the jettisoned rationality which runs away from itself..." It is falsity because it dissociates thinking form its content, to make thinking, or as you say "Being" absolute. But content is necessary to thinking, so this way of absolutizing Being is a falsity. Therefore the "rationality which runs away from itself" by accepting this false impression of itself, as an absolute, is really irrational.

I agree with this to an extent. Acknowledgement of the bottomlessness is what touches the truth, but it is an acknowledgement of bottomlessness as untruth. What actually constitutes bottomlessness, is the untruth, and this is what negative dialectic sees in identity philosophy. And, the charge that negative dialectics is bottomless, is itself an untruth. This is evident in the last statement of the section. The bottomlessness of the untruth creates the vertigo which is the index of truth, in the negative approach. In general, the untruth of identity is the truth. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think you read it slightly wrong. My take is that Adorno says that identity philosophy despite claiming bottomlessness with its absolute, solid grounds, and scolding negative dialectics for lack of bottom, is in reality the epitome of bottomlessness. The fact that it doesn't recognize this, consists in its untruth. This is why he says that the objection of bottomlessness "needs to be turned against the intellectual principle which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins", it's a turntable, ah you said so yourself. And so the untruth lies in the claim, not in the bottomless itself.

As explained in the lectures, negative dialects is actually pinned to positivism, or identity, in a negative way. It is pinned to the falsity of positivism, and this constitutes the determinate negative. Otherwise negative dialectics would be completely indeterminate, negating anything, and everything, therefore useless. The subject of negative dialectics is the untruth of positivism and identity philosophy, and in this sense it actually is pinned to identity, in a way which allows it to escape the bottomlessness which is actually a part of the identity philosophy it resists. — Metaphysician Undercover

There is a misunderstanding here to what "pinned" means. THE VERTIGINOUS passage starts with "
A dialectics which is no longer “pinned” to identity provokes...". I understood it as Adorno describing negative dialectics, that the dialectics does not presume the identity claim. But like you say, if ND isn't pinned to anything, it will be completely arbitrary, criticizing everything in its pass, with no compass guiding it. Better then to say that ND is pinned to identity thinking, but not to identity. By its holding fast and being tethered to identity philosophy, ND doesn't lose itself and offers valuable critique. It feeds off the latter, and works towards its own dissolution. However, I don't think it escapes bottomlessness, maybe Adorno means that this tension should, as always, be kept standing?

I think it is important to note that this is described by Adorno as untruth. "The falsity of the jettisoned rationality which runs away from itself..." It is falsity because it dissociates thinking from its content, to make thinking, or as you say "Being" absolute. But content is necessary to thinking, so this way of absolutizing Being is a falsity. Therefore the "rationality which runs away from itself" by accepting this false impression of itself, as an absolute, is really irrational. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, I agree, it is a regress into myth, as Adorno also noted in his Enlightenment book with Horkheimer.

So it seems that he is really against any absolutizations, then, one would say that he is a relativist, since you must either be the one or the other.

The meaning of such complaints is to be grasped in a usage of the dominant opinion. This refers to present alternatives in such a way that one would
have to choose between one or the other. Administrations frequently reduce decisions over plans submitted to it to a simple yes or no; administrative thinking has secretly become the longed-for model of
one which pretends to be free of such. But it is up to philosophical thought, in its essential situations,
not to play along.

Didn't have time to get to "against relativism" next.

I think you read it slightly wrong. My take is that Adorno says that identity philosophy despite claiming bottomlessness with its absolute, solid grounds, and scolding negative dialectics for lack of bottom, is in reality the epitome of bottomlessness. The fact that it doesn't recognize this, consists in its untruth. This is why he says that the objection of bottomlessness "needs to be turned against the intellectual principle which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins", it's a turntable, ah you said so yourself. And so the untruth lies in the claim, not in the bottomless itself. — Pussycat

This is very consistent with my reading, except I read bottomlessness itself as untruth. It's like an infinite regress of indeterminacy. The accusation that negative dialectics is bottomless is untrue for the reason I explained. And, the assumption of the absolute, which creates bottomlessness, is an untruth. I don't know how to take the following sentence, maybe "is" is a typo which should be "in"? If so, then bottomlessness is clearly an untruth itself.

"Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is the place of truth."

So it seems that he is really against any absolutizations, then, one would say that he is a relativist, since you must either be the one or the other. — Pussycat

I don't know about that. If one does not take a positive stand, but remains critical, it would be possible to be against both, absolutism and relativism.

This is very consistent with my reading, except I read bottomlessness itself as untruth — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes I know, it is what I was saying, we agree in everything else but this, but this is a very crucial part.

I don't know how to take the following sentence, maybe "is" is a typo which should be "in"? If so, then bottomlessness is clearly an untruth itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

there however, where ontology ... hits bottomlessness, is the place of truth.

Take it as it stands: a true ontology is a bottomless ontology.

He is criticizing attempts to secure the bottomless abyss with tautological absolutes, whereas he'd rather leave the chasm open, engaging with it with mental acrobatics.

Take it as it stands: a true ontology is a bottomless ontology.

He is criticizing attempts to secure the bottomless abyss with tautological absolutes, whereas he'd rather leave the chasm open, engaging with it with mental acrobatics. — Pussycat

We'll just have to disagree then. I think what he says, is that this form of ontology, absolutism, hits bottomlessness, and that is the truth. He is not saying that any true ontology would hit bottomlessness. Further, the bottomlessness spoken about is a form of untruth, "to be recognized by its fascist
fruits", as described in the prior section. So the truth is that this ontology, absolutism, is untrue. You seem to be neglecting the negative aspect of the dialectics, truth is to reveal what is untrue. Look at the full sentence:

The objection of
bottomlessness needs to be turned against the intellectual principle
which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins; there however,
where ontology, Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is
the place of truth.

Notice, bottomlessness is hit by this absolutism. The point is that bottomlessness is a feature of this ontology, not a feature of negative dialectics. That the objection of bottomlessness is incorrectly directed at negative dialectics was the point of the prior section.

I don't know if it will help but it might be worthwhile to look at the alternative translation online, which is often easier to understand:

https://sites.williams.edu/cthorne/theodor-adorno-negative-dialectics/16-the-fragility-of-truth/

Their translation is "groundlessness" rather than "bottomlessness".

Indeed, in "fragility", it is "groundlessness". However, in "vertigo", it is bottomless:

A dialectic no longer “riveted” to identity prompts if not the objection, which ye shall know by its fascist fruits, that it is bodenlos—bottomless, without ground or soil—then the objection that it is dizzy-making.

Whereas the Thorne translation in "vertigo" is:

The objections leveled at everything groundless should be turned against the principle of a mind or spirit that maintains itself within itself as the sphere of absolute origins. But Wherever ontology, and above all Heidegger, starts banging away at groundlessness—that is where truth dwells.

But curious that you say that, because I was thinking of asking MU whether he thinks that bottomless is any different from groundless. For my part, I think they are all the same, bottomless, groundless, foundationless. The abyss, even.

Wouldn't you think that, as long as subject and object cannot be reconciled, as in Hegel, then an abyss would form between them? And that this abyss would be manifest in any grounding attempts? So far we agree of what negative dialectics would say of others, but what would it say of itself?

I agree, bottomlessness, and groundlessness have pretty much the same meaning for me. "Bottomlessness" however is more illustrative, and better suited for criticism of Heidegger because of the image of endless falling, never hitting the bottom. So I believe that "groundlessness" is the charge made against negative dialectics, as a philosophical principle, without grounding, unsound, no foundation. Then Adorno turns this around to say that groundlessness is really better understood as endless falling (never hitting the ground) and this is the vertiginous position which absolute Spirit gives us.

So far we agree of what negative dialectics would say of others, but what would it say of itself? — Pussycat

I think that Adorno believes that the property of "groundlessness" is not good for a philosophy, as indicated by "its fascist fruits", therefore he wants to escape this charge. That is why, in the lectures he very deliberately posited the determinate negative. That posit gives negative dialectics a position relative to positivism, as the philosophy which will determine its mistakes. That is what grounds it.

Wouldn't you think that, as long as subject and object cannot be reconciled, as in Hegel, then an abyss would form between them? And that this abyss would be manifest in any grounding attempts? — Pussycat

Remember, the grounding is a negative grounding. Negative dialectics is grounded in the deficiencies and faults of the philosophies which it criticizes. Therefore the abyss between subject and object which may be evident in Hegel, would in fact be a grounding for negative dialectics.

I have actually been tackling "Argument and Experience" since my last posting. I found myself having to go back to "System Antinomical" several times as a lead-in to it, which caused me to go back to the beginning of "System" a few times -- but I think there's a good conceptual break between the Rage of Idealism and "System Antinomical" in that I don't see much of Idealism's rage in "Argument and Experience", but I do see the concepts of an antinomical system being used in it.

I'm breaking out the parts and rewriting them here because I've had to reread this several times and I think this is the time it's actually clicking:

____

Argument and Experience

1.

When we think, in a positive manner, there is "nothing outside the dialectic consummation" we must, by that very thought, recognize an overshooting of the object to which our thought is directed.

We can read Kant's separation between intuition and the intelligible sphere as an attempt at this insight, whereas Hegel would condemn saying the thought "overshoots" to a place aside from the object: He'd say that the dialectical consummation is absolute.

But negative dialectics notes that this thought creates an independence that allows for thought to think freely, neither being determined fully by the object such that " the object itself would begin to speak under the thought’s leisurely glance." nor are we separated from the in-itself ala Kant.


2. To accomplish this -- to have a real commitment which is not absolute and not claiming the in-itself in all of its non-conceptuality -- is to demand thought-models. And negative dialectics employs an ensemble of thought-models.

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.

I take this to mean that the "objective" attitude of Kant, whereby we only have access to our cognitions of intuition, is deceiving itself (or, perhaps more broadly, the scientific, positivistic attitude).

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

We need both a foothold in the in-itself as well as the relation to an outside thought which "comes to rest in those" [objects]. I read "end" here as "telos" rather than "no longer existing, finished and done"

3. Demonstration of the previous: the French Enlightenment was animated both by the idea of Reason as well as the rational design of the social order which stopped the French Enlightenment System from the Absolute, at least until Hegel Absolutized that Rational Freedom. In the interim D'alambert's Encyclopedia demonstrates this two-sidedness of both thought (intellectual experience) and wordly experience, of a System that is discontinuous, unsystematic, spontaneous which expresses the self-critical Spirit of reason.

4. If spirit is to be free it requires both the man of letters and the positivistic scientific goal. Philosophy is most productive with both moments together. Dialectics is a sort of critical recognition of this while attempting to maintain that sort of balance*** (or, be "permeated" by it). Otherwise (Adorna takes a jab at analytic philosophy as a purely computational habit)

5. How to argument immanently (which should be understood as "the good way"): Both moments of experience and argument must come together in a synthesis to create a system for the purpose of overturning itself, of finding its own weaknesses or "oppose its own strength". These don't blend seamlessly into one another, into a totality, even though Hegel was right to suspect -- given the organized world right there -- that it is a totality.

6. While scientists will concede some amount of intellectual structure of the world (i.e. not pure empiricism), their scientivism will still go against intellectual experience because it interprets this freedom of thought as a "standpoint" which can be reduced, in some manner, to create a cleaner science. But this is to "invite the diner to the roast"; i.e. I take this to mean that our differences in conceptualization cannot thereby be reduced to our spatio-temporal location in conjunct with the laws of the thingly world: the scientific explanation of "standpoint" does not do the philosophical work of making science "clean" of conceptual construction.

7. When ideology lurks spirit becomes nigh-absolute: this is what theory prevents. There is a sort of spell which the subject can fall for, a self-certitude, but the non-identical is always there. Only critical self-reflection keeps spirit from falling into ideology which would prioritize Theory in shirking from its object or immenance -- the empirical -- in shirking from its active, cognizing freedom. Theory is the check which allows the subject to freely reflect through critical self-reflection.

" 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."

But this dependency between the moments is not one of compromise. -- rather both moments of consciousness are connected through each other's critique.

Hence the emphasis on dialectics in resolving the classic antinomy between experience and argument, or -- in the idealist lens he set up prior -- totality and infinity.



***EDIT: I want to change this somehow. "Balance" suggests "in the middle" -- but Adorno later points out how "compromise" isn't what he's after, but rather a dialectic between the opposites. So "balance" not in a static, but a dynamic way of opposites.

Because of the page break I decided to go back over each title previous and write it down, trying to feel the overall flow of the argument that we've slowly read over several months now to get back to "the whole":

I think I might summarize all these sections up to here as "What is negative dialectics, and why is it needed?"

The Vertiginous

Because of the discussion about bottomlessness/groundlessness I'm going to stop with this very short section to see what others think.

As I read that first paragraph I think Adorno is basically saying that two "charges" are provoked by denying identity-thinking: the proclamation that said philosophy is groundless, and the proclamation that only poets should deal with vertiginous feelings, whereas philosophers should "say what they mean, clearly".

I'm hesitant to say that ND keeps both open because I think he's trying to deny both charges by noting how, 1, ND is not groundless**, and 2, philosophy should deal with vertiginous feelings.

The hesitancy for 1 comes from Adorno describing the charge of bottomlessness as recognizable by the fruits of fascism: So I don't think he wants that as much as he's dismissing the charge as a fascist desire for control, certitude, and a kind of philosophy which finally tells everyone else what to think, whereas the latter I take it he's poking fun as the positivistic impulse towards totality. It is philosophy's job to push against both in order to arrive at truth -- the vertiginous feeling is a sign that we're getting closer to the non-conceptual, and the desire for absolute grounds is a fascist desire which is philosophy's task to fight against.

**EDIT: Getting to the next section I can understand where confusion is coming from on this. I think what I'd say wrt Heidegger is that he hits groundlessness, but the fascist objects to groundlessness and so posits a sphere of absolute origins. The truly groundless move here would be, after hitting groundlessness, to shirk back and create some absolute beginning in order to cover up the truth. (hence leading to its fragility next...)

The Fragility of Truth

I'm taking this section to be defending truth as something fragile, rather than describing the reasons for its fragility.

That is, rather than the absolute totality of the grounded system, truth is something other from this structure. Furthermore the opposite of this is no better:

No unreflective banality can, as the imprint of the false life, still
be true. Every attempt today to hold back thought, for the sake of its
utility, by talk of its smug overwroughtness and non-committal aspect
[Unverbindlichkeit], is reactionary.

Here I'm thinking of Heidegger's "everydayness" as an analogue, or perhaps Bergson's wash into indistinctness -- the other kind of bottomlessness, we might say, which falls to modern criticism:

if you want, I can give you any number of such
analyses. Therein each becomes devalued by every other.

But intellectual thinking, the open thought, has neither guardrails from being false nor is it the choice of just anything. It is remarkably fragile. But rather than following a deduction or an induction, a linear path from one point to the next, philosophy creates a web around its object. Rather than the faux-certainty of "I know this, and I cannot be wrong" Adorno points out the original desire for certainty was anti-dogmatic: but in such a world where truth is protected from error nothing happens at all, but it's merely a tautology.

Therefore the abyss between subject and object which may be evident in Hegel, would in fact be a grounding for negative dialectics. — Metaphysician Undercover

For Hegel, subject and object are ultimately identical, in the Absolute Spirit, and thus this is where his system is grounded, on this identity. Another dyad is thought and being, yet another reason (rationality) and reality: "The real is rational and the rational is real". There is no abyss in Hegel, truly optimistic.

But for someone, like Adorno, that rejects this identity thesis, the world rests on rather shaky grounds. Well, no rest for the wicked, like they say.

Anyhow, the question is whether the groundlessness is real or not, contradiction also, and what is ND's stance against it.

The truly groundless move here would be, after hitting groundlessness, to shirk back and create some absolute beginning in order to cover up the truth. (hence leading to its fragility next...) — Moliere

This is how I read it too, like there are two kind of groundlessness, a true and a false one. One that is acknowledged, and one that is not and forgotten.

This is how I read it too, like there are two kind of groundlessness, a true and a false one. One that is acknowledged, and one that is not and forgotten — Pussycat

Is groundlessness something has two kinds, or is it that the detractors show themselves to be groundless whereas ND, by acknowledging groundlessness is able to bounce back to the theoretical moment -- i.e. not be groundless ?

I'm not sure which is the best reading, it's just the question I had -- in a way I could see either yours or MU's point with respect to groundlessness.

And, really, it could just be meaning the same things with different words -- rather than a "kind" it's the right "way" to treat the encounter with groundlessness rather than groundlessness "being a kind of truth"

I believe he's trying to keep the tension, the dialectic, of grounding alive. Descartes grounded certainty in the cogito, as a way to escape dogmatism, and this now has recoiled in just that. I guess for Adorno this is the ultimate fate of any stable grounds, they are sealed and buried, never to be questioned, until they become hollow. But the main reason I engaged with MU the way I did, is because he said that negative dialectics escapes bottomlessness, and that it is a lie. Whereas the way I see it, there is no escape, but Adorno seems to imply dialectical confrontation. Between you and me, he might as well think the same, not sure.

I didn't tag @Metaphysician Undercover so I'm doing so now so he sees the ping.

But the main reason I engaged with MU the way I did, is because he said that negative dialectics escapes bottomlessness, and that it is a lie. Whereas the way I see it, there is no escape, but Adorno seems to imply dialectical confrontation. Between you and me, he might as well think the same, not sure. — Pussycat

Makes sense.

I suppose I was trying to pay really close attention to untangling that just because of the dispute above -- one, as a way to focus my reading, but also to understand both of your respective readings (or, all y'all's readings, in my vernacular).

Anyhow, the question is whether the groundlessness is real or not, contradiction also, and what is ND's stance against it. — Pussycat

Try the following.

I think what I'd say wrt Heidegger is that he hits groundlessness, but the fascist objects to groundlessness and so posits a sphere of absolute origins. — Moliere

How would one ever "hit groundlessness"? Adorno claims that Heidegger hits bottomlessness, but that really doesn't make sense. One can hit the bottom, but if there is no bottom you'll keep falling endlessly without ever hitting bottomlessness. So, if Adorno says that Heidegger "hits bottomlessness" that's just a judgement or criticism which we throws at Heidegger. It's not what Heidegger actually did, or thought he was doing. And, since "hits bottomlessness" really makes no sense at all, he's casting it as a joke, a piece of sarcasm.

The other translation provided by Pussycat above, is even more telling: "...Heidegger, starts banging away at groundlessness...". I believe Adorno is actually making fun of this idea of groundlessness, or bottomlessness, talking about it as if it is something concrete, something one can bang away at, or hit upon, like the ground, or the bottom. It's like the concept of infinity, and making fun of it by saying something like 'so and so counted an infinity of these items, and an infinity of those items', etc.. That's the joke of "hitting bottomlessness". Banging away at bottomlessness, is like repeatedly reaching infinity in a count.

The truly groundless move here would be, after hitting groundlessness, to shirk back and create some absolute beginning in order to cover up the truth. — Moliere

So, this phrase "...after hitting groundlessness...", really makes no sense. It's like saying "after I reach infinity". And Adorno is really making fun of this entire concept of groundlessness, or bottomlessness. And, if Adorno says, truth is reached when we hit groundlessness, he means truth is never reached. When ontology hits bottomlessness [something which is self-contradictory and therefore impossible] there it finds truth.

After making this point that unlike some who believe truth cannot hide from us, the opposite is actually the case, truth is always hidden from us, he proceeds to explain the fragility of truth. "It sways gently", meaning it's a moving target, due to its temporal content.

The open
thought is unprotected against the risk of going astray into what is
popular; nothing notifies it that it has adequately satisfied itself in the
thing, in order to withstand that risk. The consistency of its execution,
however, the density of the web, enables it to hit what it should.

Notice, "truth" which has been dismissed as being equivalent to bottomlessness, has been replaced with an end "to hit what it should".

How would one ever "hit groundlessness"? Adorno claims that Heidegger hits bottomlessness, but that really doesn't make sense. — Metaphysician Undercover

As a moment in a dialectic rather than a literal ground.

The objection of bottomlessness needs to be turned against the intellectual principle which preserves itself as the sphere of absolute origins; there however, where ontology, Heidegger first and foremost, hits bottomlessness, is the place of truth.

I'm more inclined to see this as a straight expression, but I don't know. It seems hard to reconcile the notion that Adorno is making fun of this idea while also noting how the place where ontology hits bottomlessness is the place of truth.

Now, Heidegger's philosophy may not be guilty of such and such,, but also Heidegger, the man, was certainly a fascist. And while Heidegger, the man, may have an intricate philosophy the fascists, at large, pretty much fit the mold as I see it -- in the face of uncertainty the fascist provides easy answers as one might retreat from groundlessness and place a foundation in an infinite hole.

I wouldn't evoke that if it hadn't been for Adorno pointing out the fruits of fascism at the beginning of The Vertiginous -- but with all this heavy imagery going on I have a hard time reading this like he's poking fun. It seems to me that he used Heidegger because he broached the topic, but perhaps is a good example of what may come of that if we abandon the theoretical moment to reflect upon this bottomlessness.



Pure speculation on my part, but that's how I'm seeing it right now.