I read through that again, and I really don't know what he means by this. But pre-eminence doesn't mean "prior to."

But that issue aside, when you say content can precede form, are you thinking about existence preceding essence? — frank

Content is logically prior, by Aristotelian logic, in the way I explained. And also the way that Adorn described, "the whole which is expressed by theory is contained within the particular to be analyzed".

i cannot draw any relation to existence and essence. Those terms have not yet been discussed by Adorno, and I don't know how you would understand them.

Content is logically prior, — Metaphysician Undercover

Logically prior. That doesn't compute.

I'll give you an example. I was walking through a park with a forestry student who was learning the latin names for trees. As we walked along, he would name off them. I realized eventually that listening to him do that had put me in a weird frame of mind in which I couldn't even see the trees anymore. All I saw was the species and genus names, not the individual leaves and unique shapes as I was used to. I struggled to get back to my homebase because I didn't like seeing the trees as Latin names.

So you might think that this is a case where form and content are completely isolated from one another. The more immersed in the form, the less I can even see the content. You might think that content preceded form, because I saw the individual trees as just trees before I knew their species names.

But I don't think so. There was no point where, like Sartre staring at the root, I lost consciousness of form. I didn't know species names, but I knew "leaves" and "branches." That idea of formless content is a little bit of a myth, I think. If you could enter that state, where you don't name anything, you wouldn't be able to remember what happened. We use concepts and names, which figure in webs of belief, to mark out any experience at all. Do you agree with that?

Logically prior. That doesn't compute. — frank

Sorry, my mistake, I wasn't thinking when i wrote that. I didn't adequately grasp what you were asking. I didn't say that content precedes form did I? I said content and form cannot be opposed dialectically, and that Adorno mentions the pre-eminence of content. He is saying that the content always extends beyond the conception, and this is due to "non-identity".

:up:

In this section, "Existentialism", I have difficulty to understand what is meant by "particular science", and "substantive content", in the following passage.

The schools which take derivatives of the Latin existere [Latin:
to exist] as their device, would like to summon up the reality of
corporeal experience against the alienated particular science. Out of
fear of reification they shrink back from what has substantive content.
It turns unwittingly into an example. What they subsume under epochê
[Greek: suspension] revenges itself by exerting its power behind the
back of philosophy, in what this latter would consider irrational
decisions. The non-conceptual particular science is not superior to
thinking purged of its substantive content; all its versions end up, a
second time, in precisely the formalism which it wished to combat for
the sake of the essential interest of philosophy. It is retroactively filled
up with contingent borrowings, especially from psychology. The
intention of existentialism at least in its radical French form would not
be realizable at a distance from substantive content, but in its
threatening nearness to this. The separation of subject and object is not
to be sublated through the reduction to human nature, were it even the
absolute particularization. The currently popular question of
humanity, all the way into the Marxism of Lukacsian provenance, is
ideological because it dictates the pure form of the invariant as the only
possible answer, and were this latter historicity itself.

From the last section, I understand "substantive content" to be the societal totality. And I assume "particular science" would be the science of human nature. But this is quite vague. Any help to understand the use of these terms would be appreciated.

This is my take, shoot it down as you will:

Existentialism says existence is prior to essence. It has a root in Kierkegaard, who emphasized direct experience over form. He noted that there are no words to describe 'that quality of being that comes to rest in the sanctuary of the form.' But once that quality of being becomes the primary topic, the effect of rationality and speech creep in: we end up removed from direct experience because we beat the hell out of it with words.

I think this is what he means by:

The schools which take derivatives of the Latin existere [Latin:
to exist] as their device, would like to summon up the reality of
corporeal experience against the alienated particular science. Out of
fear of reification they shrink back from what has substantive content.
It turns unwittingly into an example.

He's talking about the forced separation between direct experience (which contains no form, no names, no recognition of ideation) and form itself, which is a key component of knowledge (scientia, science). And it just occurred to me that no one is reading this or likely to respond to what I just said, so if I want to discuss it, I need to go to reddit. I don't know which subreddit, though. I don't think they have an Adorno subreddit. I could start one.

And it just occurred to me that no one is reading this or likely to respond to what I just said — frank

There are at least two or three people reading it. I'm not sure why you want to be famous. You're not even reading Negative Dialectics and yet I allow you to post here because you occasionally have insightful things to say. That's an honour. :smile:

@Metaphysician Undercover

Explain why Adorno isn't a nominalist. It relates to existentialism.

He's talking about the forced separation between direct experience (which contains no form, no names, no recognition of ideation) and form itself, which is a key component of knowledge (scientia, science). And it just occurred to me that no one is reading this or likely to respond to what I just said, so if I want to discuss it, I need to go to reddit. I don't know which subreddit, though. I don't think they have an Adorno subreddit. I could start one. — frank

This does very little for me. Suppose raw experience is as you say, without, and therefore prior to, all form, etc.. That might signify the priority of content, the proposed content being direct experience. But what is "the particular science" then? This could be the application of form to that content. Where would that form come from then, if we allow such a separation? It cannot just emerge out of the raw experience, and ty cannot inhere within it, because then it could not be pure direct experience without form, as is presupposed.

Furthermore, we then have Adorno imposing his proposition of "substantive content" as a required necessity. Content must be substantive. So he appears to be saying that the proposal of existentialism, being the "primacy of corporeal experience", instead of providing pure content, actually removes itself from content, because it is not a true "substantive content". Then it ends up being nothing more than an idealized "I" as a pure form, without any real content.

Notice:

The intention of existentialism at least in its radical French form would not be realizable at a distance from substantive content, but in its threatening nearness to this.

Existentialism imitates "substantive content", to the point where the untrained eye might not even see the difference, but it isn't substantive content. Then the trained eye would grasp the existential proposal as a pure invariant form, even though the intent of the proposition is that it be apprehended as pure content. (This is the fate of any materialism which proposes "prime matter" as matter without form. The proposal of prime matter can only be apprehended as a pure form, and such materialism is therefore reduced to idealism).

The reason for the difference, between the intent and the necessary interpretation, I will explain as the necessity that "substantive content" be a unity of form and content. The existential intent is to propose corporeal experience as pure content. But that is to ask the proposition to do what is impossible of it, to propose something without form. Then the proposition of something pure, "the reality of corporeal experience", in order to maintain the claimed purity, can only be interpreted as a pure form, though it is intended as pure content.

The pure form is "historicity" itself. And this leaves humanity as chained to the past. "Experience" is always either present or in the past. Therefore existentialism provides us no approach to the future.

Existentialism imitates "substantive content", to the point where the untrained eye might not even see the difference, but it isn't substantive content. Then the trained eye would grasp the existential proposal as a pure invariant form, even though the intent of the proposition is that it be apprehended as pure content. — Metaphysician Undercover

Pretty much, yes. You're agreeing with Adorno. I disagree that his critique hits home, but that would be for some other thread.

Not necessarily agreeing, but trying to understand. I cannot agree or disagree until I adequately understand. However, I think that is what is intended by his use of "substantive content", to distinguish it from a false conception of 'pure content'. His dismissal of existentialism requires that we adhere to the principle that content must be substantive.

If we do not adhere to that principle we fall into the trap exposed by Jamal. Rather than having true particulars as our substance, we have examples as our substance. But examples are often fictional. And by example the fiction can penetrate the substance. To avoid the infinite regress of fictional content we must deny its possibility from the start.

I'm aware that all appearance of agreement on your part is accidental.