The central issue seems to be a criticism against Hegel's categories needing to be both emergent and logically invariant. Adorno see these two descriptions as incompatible. So the section tries to untangle becoming, changing, evolving, from the invariant, immutable, eternal concepts of idealism. — Metaphysician Undercover

Right. Hegel can't have it both ways: if we want to do justice to the contingency and emergence, we can't also hold onto the a priori invariants.

He makes the distinction between concept and content. It appears to me, that the concept is always mediated, and content is immediate, also the medium. This puts solidity, being "that which holds together", and the ensuing whole, the concrete, as something mediated, conceptualized, or provided by conception. Content on the other hand is nebulous, and this leaves subjective experience, along with that which is immediate, content, in the strange situation of being unable to understand itself. "That which is most subjective of all, the immediately given, eludes its grasp." — Metaphysician Undercover

Surely the non-immediacy, i.e., the mediatedness, of content is the whole point of this section: the appearance is the bad positive and behind it lies some internally contradictory thing, which I take to be the content. Despite this terminological difference I suspect we agree more than disagree.

What do we even mean by "content"? The content is surely what Adorno is referring to with "the thing" here:

[Explicitly idealistic philosophy] hides in the substruction of something primary, almost indifferent as to which content, in the implicit identity of concept and thing ...

Adorno, being interested in the the non-identity of concept and thing, reveals through the analysis of mediation a different thing (different from the appearance). So the content here is not something like sense-data or the given, i.e., the content of experience in AP terms, but the content of philosophy (philosophy as it should be, i.e., negative dialectics).

It takes the unmediated immediacy, the formations, which society and its development present to thought, tel quel [French: as such], in order to reveal their mediations through analysis, according to the measure of the immanent difference of the phenomena to what they claim, for their own part, to be.

So I think we'd be close to a good interpretation if we either say that the things as revealed in all their mediatedness are the content, or the mediations themselves are the content.

In the final paragraph then, he attempts at an explanation of how the whole, as the concept, and mediated, emerges out of the immediate, the content. The two extremes, the immediate content, and the invariant concept, are described as "moments" rather than as "grounds". The supposed invariance however, is revealed as an artificial, or even false invariance, being "produced", created. We can see that the "immutability is the deception of prima philosophia", and the concepts gain the appearance of invariance when "they pass over into ideology", where they are solidified as part of the whole. — Metaphysician Undercover

Notice the solidity is only an appearance, because if it were true, dialectics could have no effect. So referring back to the beginning of the section, this is why solidity, and even the whole itself, are the bad positive. — Metaphysician Undercover

:up:

Surely the non-immediacy, i.e., the mediatedness, of content is the whole point of this section: the appearance is the bad positive and behind it lies some internally contradictory thing, which I take to be the content. Despite this terminological difference I suspect we agree more than disagree.

What do we even mean by "content"? The content is surely what Adorno is referring to with "the thing" here: — Jamal

The meaning of "content" is the difficult part. I suggest you pay attention to Marx who was explicit in separating form and content. The distinction Adorno makes is between concept, and content. After a number of readings i believe it is quite clear that he believes the concept is mediated, and content is immediate. This is the reverse of Hegel, but he thinks Hegel is mistaken, and it is Hegel's supposed immediacy of the concept which provides for its absoluteness.

Since Hegelian logic always had to do with the medium of the
concept and only generally reflected on the relationship of the concept
to its content, the non-conceptual, it is already assured in advance of
the absoluteness of the concept, which it was bent on proving.

"Content" is difficult to understand, but I believe it is that part of the subject which is material, therefore non-conceptual, the true object as it inheres within, being an intrinsic part of the consciousness. I believe this is the point which Marx makes, and how he differs fundamentally from Hegel. Hegel makes the idea pure, absolute, but Marx adheres to Aristotelian hylomorphism which necessitates a duality of matter and form, which manifests as content and form within the idea itself. The notion that there must be a "kernel" of content (which from the pure idealist perspective would be a contamination) within any idea, being 'matter' within the idea, I believe is the ontology which supports Marxist materialism.

So in this context, content is that part of the consciousness which escapes intelligibility, being material in nature. But I believe that Adorno argues it is what is immediate to the conscious subject. Consider that the content comes from within the subject, one's own feelings and passions, while the concept comes from an exterior source, as that which is taught, ideology, formalisms.

Adorno, being interested in the the non-identity of concept and thing, reveals through the analysis of mediation a different thing (different from the appearance). So the content here is not something like sense-data or the given, i.e., the content of experience in AP terms, but the content of philosophy (philosophy as it should be, i.e., negative dialectics). — Jamal

The non-identity of concept and thing (thing being the object which is a subject) is the difference between the subject's own idiomatic thinking, and the concepts of ideology. As Adorno implied in other parts, the individualist ideology has propagated a widening of this gap allowing for 'free thinking'.

I believe it is only from this perspective that the closing paragraph makes sense. By making the content something material which inheres within consciousness itself, the content, the kernel (seed of potential) within the idea, then we have the required principle to account for evolving and changing ideas. Otherwise we are left with the idealist absolute forms, which are invariant and eternal, but this is demonstrably false.

. "Since Hegelian logic always had to do with the medium of the
concept and only generally reflected on the relationship of the concept
to its content, the non-conceptual,"

Seems to me that he explicitly defines the content as the non-conceptual.

material in nature — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this is right because materiality is non-conceptual in its thingness; that is, its concretality. Meanwhile, I read "solidified" as a kind of appropriation of the non-conceptual into thought; the conceptualization of it.


"So the content here is not something like sense-data or the given, i.e., the content of experience in AP terms, but the content of philosophy (philosophy as it should be, i.e., negative dialectics)."

Right, I think, because sense-data and the given are what they are for consciousness, not as such.

What does AP refer to?

Unless we read it as saying the content is the non-conceptual only for Hegelian logic.

To summarize, we have 3 putative theories of "content." 1. Philosophical content. 2. Material kernel of consciousness. 3. The non-conceptual.

What does AP refer to? — NotAristotle

Analytic philosophy.

:up: thanks

Seems to me that he explicitly defines the content as the non-conceptual — NotAristotle

Yes, he certainly does think that the non-conceptual is the proper object of study, which is to say content, of philosophy. And the non-conceptual can present itself immediately or at the end of an analysis of the thing's mediations.

Dialectics and the Solidified

1. Negative Dialectics, unfettered, does not dispense with the solid/fixed anymore than Hegel did. This may be surprising to hear because his origins don't emphasize the ending point, but this is misleading because it is the end result of Hegel's dialectics that is then illuminated by the preceding whole. This is why Hegel's dialectic displays a double-character as 1) Developing and 2) Invariant. This on its face opposition is brought in Harmony by the reproduction of every layer of the dialectic in the immediate. Negative dialectics keeps this feature of a double-character, i.e. the fixed and the developing, by starting with the seemingly unmediated immediate and then progressing to display the mediations that were not initially apparent but only became apparent through a comparison of differences between moments.

2. The "positive" of the young Hegel is the negative of dialectical analysis, just like Hegel's own dialectic is the negative of the young Hegel. Thought is still negative in the Phenomenology of Spirit. That which does not think tends towards the bad positive, i.e. the conceptual being interpreted as if we are seeing the thing. This difference between the positive and the negative is easy to see in that we can renounce thinking and yet then may still encounter the object as it is (a positive, non-conceptual); but a thought will always be negatable (leaving a negative)

3. Though Hegel is on the right track he still emphasizes the primacy of the subject over the object, i.e. there is nothing that is non-conceptual. Though Hegel attempts an immanence of the object through the subject the primacy of the subject remains in the semi-magical concept of Spirit. So he's not as far from those he criticizes as he thought.

4. This Spirit retains the primacy of the subject by not addressing the not-conceptual. There's an insistence that the content of thought "comes along with", but as soon as an actual concrete -- Krugian's feather -- was brought up Hegel dismissed it thereby showing he is still enamored in the phenomenal rather than the immediate non-conceptual. In fact the non-conceptual is what allows the dialectic to continue, though.

5. If consciousness were not naive -- taking the immediately perceived as the real-deal rather than a phenomena -- then thought would not think of itself. There would be no negative. Thought would get on with the task of perceiving reality and never think of itself. Thought here would be a "dim copy" of the perceived.

6. The immediate reflection on the object which reflects upon the non-conceptual beyond the intuitions laid about the object is the least subject-like experience of all, and yet even here we must acknowledge that our experience is not the object as per paragraph 5.

7. That confidence in the immediate is an idealistic appearance. Dialectics gets around this by noting how the immediate does not remain the same and is not a ground, but rather a moment. On the other side of the mind, the purely abstract, there's a kind of naive truth in the same manner: Even children know that math works and would adopt the relativism of "that's not real" as a kind of joke or to win an argument with their peers. However for all that, even though "invariants" do not change in the dialectic in the same manner as rocks and trees these invariants are also only moments rather than transcendental truths -- to think of them as eternal things is to adopt an ideology of transcendence. Not all idealisms are transcendental but hide in some substructure (regardless of its content) which the world justifies even when one is a Hegel and claims immanence -- the underlying equality of thought and being remains -- Negative Dialectics uses these fixed point but it's important to remember they are moments and moments only.

Very nice summary :up:

Thanks :)

I'm glad I did it because there were a couple of knots in there that I skimmed over in my first reading and this forced me to untie them and I felt pretty good about it.

Yes, it definitely cleared up some things for me.

Thought is still negative in the Phenomenology of Spirit. That which does not think tends towards the bad positive, i.e. the conceptual being interpreted as if we are seeing the thing. This difference between the positive and the negative is easy to see in that we can renounce thinking and yet then may still encounter the object as it is (a positive, non-conceptual); but a thought will always be negatable (leaving a negative) — Moliere

This looks right to me. What confuses me, is how can non-thinking lead to a "bad positive" and at the same time enable seeing something "as it is." In the "that which does not think" section I thought he was referring to the naive consciousness. But again, I am confused by this apparent contradiction. I think you retold the paragraph well Moliere, I just do not understand it.

Similarly in paragraph 6, we have an apparent contradiction where immediate consciousness both appears to be entirely unsubjective, and at the same time the subjective moment.

Seems to me that he explicitly defines the content as the non-conceptual. — NotAristotle

Yes, that's right, he does. But the question we are looking at is the approach to the non-conceptual. Is the non-conceptual which is spoken of, an external material object, or is it the irrational, or material aspect of the conscious thinking mind. I believe Adorno is talking about the latter. This is because he designates it unmediated.

To summarize, we have 3 putative theories of "content." 1. Philosophical content. 2. Material kernel of consciousness. 3. The non-conceptual. — NotAristotle

The problem is that the non-conceptual, by its name, is fundamentally unintelligible. So trying to understand it, or conceptualize it, is sort of self-defeating. The three putative theories here are each just as correct as the others, but in a deeper sense, they are all equally incorrect.

5. If consciousness were not naive -- taking the immediately perceived as the real-deal rather than a phenomena -- then thought would not think of itself. There would be no negative. Thought would get on with the task of perceiving reality and never think of itself. Thought here would be a "dim copy" of the perceived. — Moliere

I generally agree with your summary Moliere, but I think you might have gotten something turned around here. The immediately perceived, as content is the real deal, hence the naivety of idealism in believing that the conceptual is the real deal.

6. The immediate reflection on the object which reflects upon the non-conceptual beyond the intuitions laid about the object is the least subject-like experience of all, and yet even here we must acknowledge that our experience is not the object as per paragraph 5. — Moliere

So in this paragraph, he is saying that the aspect of the object which extends beyond conceptual grasp and comes to the subject as something immediate, is the most subjective.

That which is most subjective of all, the immediately given, eludes its grasp."
Our experience is the object, but thinking only grasps a part of it, i.e the conceptual.

7. That confidence in the immediate is an idealistic appearance. — Moliere

So here, the confidence in the immediate is the idealistic approach, but it is a false confidence due to a false immediate. It is a false confidence because "the immediate" is wrongly characterized as the conceptual, the abstract. In a sense, the idealist approach is to take the conceptual for granted as immediate, instead of portraying it as mediated through ideology, education etc..

These may be minor points, sort of nitpicking, but it does make a bit of a difference to the overall interpretation.

Adorno calls consciousness "universal mediation."

Some questions:

When does idealism become ideological? How are we to define ideology?

The problem is that the non-conceptual, by its name, is fundamentally unintelligible. So trying to understand it, or conceptualize it, is sort of self-defeating. The three putative theories here are each just as correct as the others, but in a deeper sense, they are all equally incorrect. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hmm, maybe the idea is not "non-conceptuality" as such, the non-conceptual as distinct from the conceptual. Rather, perhaps the "non-conceptual" is instead to be understood as the negation of [a particular] concept. In that way, it is not failing to be a concept, but is the unrendering of a specific concept.

Rather, perhaps the "non-conceptual" is instead to be understood as the negation of [a particular] concept. In that way, it is not failing to be a concept, but is the unrendering of a specific concept. — NotAristotle

There is a certain self-contradictory aspect of your terminology. A concept is a universal. So it is somewhat contradictory to refer to "a particular concept", if we maintain a category separation between the particular and the universal. Therefore this is a form of language which might best be negated. But language itself is counterproductive in apprehending the non-conceptual (demonstrated by Wittgenstein with "private language")

I think this idea gets developed in the next section on the import of experience. In this field of dialectics, the peculiarity and uniqueness of the individual subject is a description of the object. So to be objective requires that we study this, the individual, rather than the universal, which is the generalized whole of conception. But the generalized whole of conception is what is commonly referred to as "objective" knowledge.

Hegel’s doctrine, that the object
would reflect itself in itself, survives its idealistic version, because in a
changed dialectics the subject, disrobed of its sovereignty, virtually
becomes thereby the reflection-form of objectivity.

Truth is objective, but it is the objectivity of the subject, therefore it is the most subjective. As I argued in another thread, somewhere, sometime, real truth is an attitude of the subject, honesty, to be true to oneself, and others, which is to tell the truth, your honest belief. But communication, through the assumption of "independent object", twists the meaning of truth, attempting to force it into a form of "justified". This annihilates real truth by leaving it without any location of being.

Introduction: Privilege of Experience

The point of this section is to defend, against charges of elitism, the necessity for a difficult, non-conformist philosophy, as the only route to truth in social philosophy in the context of late capitalism and the administered society. What really stood out to me was not the main argument itself—which I find myself nodding along with in complete agreement—but the short detour that amounts to Adorno's theory of truth:

Truth is objective and not plausible. So little as it immediately falls into anyone’s lap, and so much as it requires subjective mediation, what counts for its imbrication is what Spinoza all too enthusiastically proclaimed for the specific truth: that it would be the index of itself. It loses its privileged character, which rancor holds against it, by not allowing itself to be talked out of the experiences to which it owes itself, but rather allows itself to enter into configurations and explanatory contexts which help make it evident or convict it of its inadequacies.

"Truth is objective and not plausible" is a very Adornian thing to say, but I think the meaning is clear. Truth is not a matter of personal or popular opinion; and at the same time it is not easy, reasonable, intuitive, or immediately acceptable, because it has to break through the ideological shell of common sense. And such difficult truths do not just "fall into anyone's lap."

Rather, they require "subjective mediation," the working through, by means of subjective application, of the material at hand in all its multifarious connectedness. (To this extent Adorno always agreed with Kant that objectivity is found via subjectivity)

what counts for its [i.e., truth's] imbrication is what Spinoza all too enthusiastically proclaimed for the specific truth: that it would be the index of itself

An imbrication is a pattern of overlapping scales, tiles, whatever. Thorne and Menda have "woven mesh". The idea is that truth is a matter of a kind of interweaving, so it's something like the coherence theory of truth. Adorno is saying that the truth is finally revealed through subjective mediation almost like Spinoza's self-evident truths that have no need of an external standard for verification, but in the case of negative dialectics it's more like the way that a certainty, for Wittgenstein, sometimes finds its place by fitting into your picture of the world.

So I see the imbrication like this:

141. When we first begin to believe anything, what we believe is not a single proposition, it is a whole system of propositions. (Light dawns gradually over the whole.)

142. It is not single axioms that strike me as obvious, it is a system in which consequences and premises give one another mutual support. — Wittgenstein, On Certainty

Adorno is combining this kind of insight with that of Spinoza:

[...] I know that I understand the true philosophy. If you ask in what way I know it, I answer: In the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles: that this is sufficient, will be denied by no one whose brain is sound, and who does not go dreaming of evil spirits inspiring us with false ideas like the true. For the truth is the index of itself and of what is false. — Spinoza to Albert Burgh

Spinoza was "all too enthusiastic," and yet there's an important insight there, which is basically what Wittgenstein's "On Certainty" is all about.

(It should be added that Wittgenstein and Adorno are far apart here in some ways too: for Adorno, the light dawning over the whole is no peaceful sunrise)

How are we to define ideology? — NotAristotle

This post from earlier in the discussion might help:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/990809

There is a certain self-contradictory aspect of your terminology. A concept is a universal. So it is somewhat contradictory to refer to "a particular concept", if we maintain a category separation between the particular and the universal. Therefore this is a form of language which might best be negated. But language itself is counterproductive in apprehending the non-conceptual — Metaphysician Undercover

If that is true it is not my language that is incoherent but the entire notion of non-conceptual. Even the word itself is nonsensical if what you are saying is correct.

Are there not particular concepts? Concept of capitalism. Concept of a car. Etc.

I really think the only way to make sense of the nonconceptual is as the negation of the concept.

Are there not particular concepts? Concept of capitalism. Concept of a car. Etc. — NotAristotle

Each of these concepts is tied up with a whole lot of other concepts. Concepts are defined by others.

I really think the only way to make sense of the nonconceptual is as the negation of the concept. — NotAristotle

I think Adorno is describing the nonconceptual in another way, as prior to concepts, the nonconceptual is the immediate. This means that it can't be understood as the negation of the conceptual, because it is something other than concepts, from which concepts emerge. This is part of denying the eternality of concepts, providing the alternative explanation as to how concepts come into being.

I think the concept is about how the mind works, so it's dynamic. It's about standing the thing against a backdrop of its negation, like the black dot exists because of its non-black background. But the mind can never reach a state of conceptual completion. I think @NotAristotle is right: the nonconceptual is the negation of the concept. It's an aspect of the way the mind works, not a material thing pinging the senses which the mind passively takes on as concepts.

I think you are just stating the Hegelian perspective which Adorno disagrees with.

When I was reading ND, this is the meaning of "concept" I was thinking of. If you were using a different meaning, we would come up with very different interpretations of Adorno.

CONCEPT (Begriff). Also translated (by Miller) as 'Notion'. The verb begreifen incorporates greifen, to seize. For Hegel, a concept is not (as it is for Kant) a representation of what several things have in common. Per Inwood, concepts are for Hegel not sharply distinct from the 'I' or from objects, nor from one another. When Hegel speaks of the Concept, he sometimes just means concepts in general, but he also uses it to mean, per Solomon, the most adequate conception of the world as a whole. Per Geraets et al, the Concept refers to the movement of logical thinking in its self-comprehension. Solomon suggests that for Hegel the Concept sometimes has the force of 'ourconception of concepts', and that it may also refer to the process of conceptual change, since for Hegel the identity of concepts is bound up with dialectical movement. Inwood suggests that Hegel sometimes assimilates the Concept to God. Kainz glosses the Concept as a 'grasping-together of opposites'. — UC San Diego

But the issue is the meaning of "nonconceptual". If "the nonconceptual is the negation of the concept", this just makes the nonconceptual something conceptual, because negation is a feature of conception.

The concept is the union of opposites, the union of subject and object. The nonconceptual is the disunity of same.