I've been reading Heidegger in Ruins by Wolin, and I have to say that in spite of his best efforts, he's not showing a clear connection between Heidegger's philosophy and his political views. It's true that Heidegger was a hard core fascist and extremely anti-Semitic, and he did try to offer his philosophical insights to the cause, but Being and Time is just a brand of phenomenology with some old school dialectics thrown in. There's really nothing Nazi about it.

Yet what I see in Adorno is a form of systematization around an opposition to "identity-thinking." I want to say that there is no thought that is not susceptible to systematization, and that every thinker is more or less systematic. But the curious question asks whether a thinker like Adorno who is emphatically opposed to "philosophical systems" in a thoroughgoing way could ever himself avoid a system erected around this goal—a goal that he energetically devotes himself to.

System-thinking is a form of monomania, and therefore anyone who is especially devoted to a singular cause will tend to be a system-thinker in one way or another. I would argue that the only way for the devoted person to avoid this is by devoting themselves to a cause that is not singular, and this is what the analogia entis or the coincidentia oppositorum attempts to provide. Causes which are negative and therefore act in opposition have an especially difficult time avoiding monomania. Adorno's cause is not only negative, but the thing that he opposes (identity-thinking) itself strikes me as being singular. At the same time, it does involve a certain ambiguity and subtlety which makes it vaguely familiar to Przywara's or Rommen's approach, but I think it will fail to avoid systems-thinking precisely because it is insufficiently ontologically grounded.

But again, I think the ultimate test here has to do with the way of life of the philosophers in question. Figures like Przywara or his student, Josef Pieper, intentionally lived lives that were resistant to systematization. Their activities, engagements, readings, and relationships were all significantly varied, which is what ultimately leads one away from monomania. Supposing that Adorno desperately wanted to oppose the Holocaust and its (logical) pre-conditions, the point here is that one can actually want to avoid the Holocaust too much, strange as that may seem. One can be led into a form of monomania even in their project to oppose pure evil (and this is a basic reason why evil is so pernicious). In order to avoid systems-thinking one is required to engage systems and even evil systems in paradoxical ways (e.g. Luke 6:29). Totalitarian thinking is very likely to breed totalitarian thinking, either by propagation or, more likely, by opposition. When one says, for example, "This must never happen again!," they inevitably commit themselves to a coercive and systematizing approach. They are forced to offer a program which will guarantee a certain outcome, and guarantees require systems. — Leontiskos

Thanks Leon, this is beautifully expressed, erudite, full of interesting ideas, and fundamentally misguided.

I'm reminded of the famous charge that relativism is self-refuting, which Adorno criticized:

The popular argument ... that relativism presupposes an absolute, namely its own validity and thus contradicts itself, is wretched. It confuses the general negation of a principle with its own ascent to an affirmation, without consideration of the specific difference of the positional value of both. — Negative Dialectics Against Relativism

In other words, this popular argument against relativism mistakes a critical stance for a positive, universal proposition. Similarly, in your criticism of Adorno you mistake his critical focus on identity thinking for some first principle or originary ground—something that might function as the foundation of a system. But it's not that, and I don't think your performative-contradiction gotcha works. (It's not a temperamental fixation either, and I might come to that)

1. Adorno is not anti-system in any simple way. He regards system as a necessary or inevitable moment in, or element of, all significant philosophical thought, one that he has to pass through himself. Relatedly, he is not simply against identity thinking or classificatory concepts. These are all part of a process. Note that I do not mean that he uses them just to later on throw them away like Wittgenstein, rather that he uses them dialectically, such that they are always in play. Used like this they articulate what they cannot capture alone. The "system" of negative dialectics, if you want to call it that, is not a positive edifice but a set of critical movements designed to fail productively so as to demonstrate the priority of the object negatively, i.e., not by stating it but by showing the failure of the subject to fully constitute it.

2. System is not best characterized psychologically as monomania, but as a form of thought, one that tends to comprehensiveness and closure, synthesis and reconciliation, and the subsumption of the non-identical under identity. System, Adorno might say, is a conceptual expression of the social compulsion towards unquestionable authority. Reducing it to temperament misses its historical and structural character, basically that it's philosophical and sociological rather than psychological. The question is not whether a thinker is devoted or balanced, but whether their thought fits the conditions and reproduces or resists the social compulsion.

3. Adorno himself is not monomaniacal. His focus on identity thinking is not a singular fixation or cause that he is devoted to above all else. Identity thinking isn't just one thing among others or, quoting myself from above, a first principle or originary ground. Rather, it's the general form of conceptual thought in its historical actuality—the way of thinking, under concrete conditions, which assimilates the object to the subject. His critique is not pushing a specific doctrine but is focused on this tendency, which he analyzes from within rather than opposing from without.

4. Your comments about the Holocaust don't do justice to the role it plays in his thought. To say it must never happen again is not a moral program or the foundation of a system, but the basic condition under which philosophy can still justify its existence, given the new conditions. For Adorno, the Holocaust reveals a basic defect in the Enlightenment and modernity, one that cannot be ignored. Thus he refuses to prescind from Auschwitz and carry on philosophizing as though it were just an aberration or temporary setback. To accuse him of monomania is therefore to miss the point entirely: what looks like obsession might in fact be philosophy's overdue awareness that it can no longer prescind from the catastrophe that defines the modern age. (I should also note that when Adorno mentions "Auschwitz" he means it to stand for all instances of industrial mass-slaughter, not just the Holocaust).

As for totalitarianism, I think it's too easy, or perhaps superficial, to say that an anti-totalitarian philosophy might itself become totalitarian if it goes too far. I just don't agree that Adorno's focus is unhealthily obsessive or that it risks trampling over reality on the way to the guaranteed outcome of a program. The more common complaint is that Adorno doesn't offer anything at all that can function as a program, nor any projected outcome beyond the minimal hope of an end to suffering and domination. On the contrary, he is painfully aware of how the revolutionary program led to totalitarianism in the USSR and in his own country (I mean East Germany).

Your suggestion that philosophers ought to live lives of variety and balance, and stop making such a fuss about the Holocaust, reminds me of something Terry Eagleton wrote:

Those who speak of harmony and consensus should beware of what one might call the industrial chaplain view of reality. The idea, roughly speaking, is that there are greedy bosses on one side and belligerent workers on the other, while in the middle, as the very incarnation of reason, equity and moderation, stands the decent, soft-spoken, liberal-minded chaplain who tries selflessly to bring the two warring parties together. But why should the middle always be the most sensible place to stand? Why do we tend to see ourselves as in the middle and other people as on the extremes? After all, one person’s moderation is another’s extremism. People don’t go around calling themselves a fanatic, any more than they go around calling themselves Pimply. Would one also seek to reconcile slaves and slave masters, or persuade native peoples to complain only moderately about those who are plotting their extermination? What is the middle ground between racism and anti-racism? — Why Marx Was Right

Thank you MU, this is very good and clear. You and Adorno certainly disagree here, but I'd like to emphasize some things about his position with a view to achieving general agreement of interpretation. His "mediation all the way down" as I called it is not nihilistic. It's not saying we can never reach the truth, but proposing a search for truth which is very different from first philosophy, of which Heideggerian fundamental ontology is a newer version, according to Adorno. In a nutshell, he is against ontology as such. Now, I can respect that you cannot accept his position here, but maybe we can agree that this is what he thinks. — Jamal

Well, I like to think that I am somewhat open minded, so I am open to the possibility that he will change my attitude toward ontology. Afterall, we are at the beginning of the book, and that's the reason for reading this stuff, to learn something new. He did manage to show me, in the introduction, how "substance" could be assigned to the societal whole, in a reasonable way. However, I fear that this move is related to the "mediation all the way down" position, and it appears to me that this results in a dead end ontology.

Not that it will change your mind, but I think the key might be to see that for Adorno, mediation is not an obstacle to truth, but rather its constitutive condition. This way of putting it is structurally similar to one of the ways I used to argue against indirect realism, phenomenalism, etc (BTW I haven't changed my mind about it, just left behind the debate): the sensorium is not a distorting medium between ourselves and the world, but is the condition for the world to appear to us at all, and is the means through which we are engaged with it. Just as indirect realists seem to regard only a suppositional perception without the senses as allowing us to get beyond ourselves to apprehend the Real, so ontologists in their own striving for immediacy regard only a non-sensory "intellectual intuition", a pure grasp of being, as sufficient for attaining the truth of what is. — Jamal

The problem is that mediation implies distinct aspects, and "mediation all the way down" implies that one cannot be prior to the other, nor can they be adequately separate to be understood individually. Essentially, we have a dualist philosophy within which we deny ourselves the possibility of separating one aspect from the other, in an absolute way, so this leaves the foundation of 'the world' which is the union of the two aspects, beyond our intellectual grasp. In assuming that the two are inseparable, i.e. one always mediates the other, we must conclude that we will never be able to understand one as prior to, or independent from the other.

In the introduction we saw how form and content must always mediate each other, and this resulted in the conclusion that the societal whole is substance. In this chapter we see that thinking, and what is thought, are mediated by each other, but this leads into the problem I explained. From this perspective i do not see how understanding and misunderstanding can ever be adequately distinguished from each other.

Words like problem and solution ring false in philosophy, because they
postulate the independence of what is thought from thinking exactly
there, where thinking and what is thought are mediated by one another.

This may be the direction which Kant's metaphysics leads us. In your example, you have "the world" and "the condition for the world to appear to us". The condition is "the sensorium". Since this is a necessary condition, then the world can only appear to us in this way, as phenomena, and we will never be able to separate out the noumenon to understand it directly, because it is just an unassailable postulate. Plato, on the other hand, posited the deficiencies of sensation, and insisted that the intellect can grasp the intelligible objects (noumena) directly. In this way intelligible objects are posited as immediate, and we have a way around the problem of mediation which Kant described.

Personally, I believe Plato was wrong on this issue. Aristotle showed how there is always "potential" as a medium between the forms in our mind and the independent forms. Therefore, I think that what appears to us as the unintelligible, i.e. matter, potential, is the medium between us and the independent forms. So matter, as the medium, is what is immediate to us. Notice, even in your example, what you call ""the condition for the world to appear to us", the sensorium, can be construed as immediate to us, as the medium between us and the world. This is the material aspect.

As I said though, I believe it becomes a moral issue, the way we "ought" to approach the unknown. So I think Plato actually had the right approach, with "the good", and the good approach is to assume that something is immediate. Where he went wrong perhaps was that he assumed the wrong thing to be immediate. And that is the problem of ontology which Adorno has exposed, it appears to be mediation all the way down. But I believe the way that the metaphysician ought to proceed is to attempt to isolate the immediate, even if only by trial and error. We cannot know for sure if it is mediation all the way down, until we try every other possibility.

Now, I can respect that you cannot accept his position here, but maybe we can agree that this is what he thinks. — Jamal

I will say, that it appears to be like this at this point in the book. But Adorno was very intelligent and quite crafty, so I'm not yet convinced that this will be his conclusion. Plato proceeded like this. He appeared to adopt Pythagorean idealism in his early work, to learn everything about it, and apply it to all aspects of the world, only to reject it in the end, as being inadequate. Since he has so much work which describes Pythagorean idealism, the untrained mind, or one who doesn't read thoroughly, would believe that he supported it. Hence we have the vulgar "Platonism".

Good stuff. Since Adorno believes that in the interdependent subject-object relation, the interdependence is asymmetrical—the object has primacy, in that it always exceeds the subject logically and historically—you might say that his philosophy implies an ontology, because this priority is simultaneously an ontological one, establishing the irreducability of the object to the subject and the condition for the possibility of the subject.

The trouble, from your point of view, will be that refuses to develop this into a positive ontology, instead using it as part of a critical move to reveal the shortcomings of all ontology ever attempted.

And there's also the fact that his materialism, like Marx's, is not a metaphysical materialism, so it doesn't really concern itself with the ultimate nature of reality.

But let's see how it goes. :up:

Thanks Jamal. I'm staring to understand the primacy of the object. It's difficult for me because traditionally (Aristotelian) the object itself is a composition of matter and form. Therefore one dualism is relinquished for another, by assuming the primacy of the object. Ontologically, there is still a need to determine primacy within the new dualism.

This, by way of the cosmological argument, is what leads the Christian theologians toward the immaterial Form, God, as primary. The problem which developed historically, is that matter separates us from God along with the true "Forms", as outlined by Kant (the intuitions of space and time being the manifestation of matter in this work). The human intellect is deficient because of its dependence on matter, making our understanding deficient, therefore the forms which we understand are distinct from the true independent Forms. That's why I conclude that matter rather than form is what is immediate to us. The theologians determined Form as primary, by logical priority, but matter is immediate.

I noticed that Adorno associated "substance" with the social whole, and this replaces "matter and form" with "content and form", in this type of substantial object, 'society'. But to me this does not resolve the problem. He seems to be proposing that each is mediated by the other, and I believe that this will render the proposed object 'society', as impossible to adequately understand, due to the issues I already described.

The trouble, from your point of view, will be that refuses to develop this into a positive ontology, instead using it as part of a critical move to reveal the shortcomings of all ontology ever attempted. — Jamal

This is why I described ontology as an attitudinal position, or even a moral discipline. We can take "the shortcomings of all ontology ever attempted" as inspiration to be a metaphysician, knowing that there is a real need for something better. Or, we can take "the shortcomings of all ontology ever attempted" as an indication that ontology is pointless and ought to be abandoned forever.

Anyway, I'm very interested to see how the book progresses.

:up:

If you're interested, there's a book of his 1965 lectures on metaphysics, which seems to be mainly about Aristotle: Metaphysics: Concept and Problems.

Looks interesting. A bit expensive, but probably worth it for me to get some background information.

If you're interested, there's a book of his 1965 lectures on metaphysics, which seems to be mainly about Aristotle: Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. — Jamal

This is quite nice, more ... humane than ND, meaning Adorno there speaks like a normal person, unlike the convoluting language employed in his theoretical work, I can actually understand him on first reading!

The trouble, from your point of view, will be that refuses to develop this into a positive ontology, instead using it as part of a critical move to reveal the shortcomings of all ontology ever attempted. — Jamal

Do you think it is because he only wants to be critical that he doesn't develop his philosophy into an ontology and epistemology? Wouldn't the development be ideological, or lead back to ideology via reification?

This is quite nice, more ... humane than ND, meaning Adorno there speaks like a normal person, unlike the convoluting language employed in his theoretical work, I can actually understand him on first reading! — Pussycat

Yes, I find all his lectures are like that.

Do you think it is because he only wants to be critical that he doesn't develop his philosophy into an ontology and epistemology? Wouldn't the development be ideological, or lead back to ideology via reification? — Pussycat

Yep. Being critical or negative is a necessity, not just an evasion of philosophical responsibilities.

Yep. Being critical or negative is a necessity, not just an evasion of philosophical responsibilities. — Jamal

Philosophical responsibilities! It's some strange phrase. First time I came across it was some years ago when reading Kant's Prolegomena (to any future metaphysic that can present itself as a science), and I am trying to wrap my head around it ever since. Here is what was said:

Reason bases an assertion on a universally admitted principle, and infers the exactly opposite assertion, with the greatest correctness of argument, from another principle that is equally accepted. That’s what actually does happen in our present case of the four natural Ideas of reason, from which arise four assertions and four counter-assertions, each validly derived from universally accepted principles, revealing the dialectical illusion of pure reason in the use of these principles—an illusion that would otherwise have stayed hidden for ever. So this is a decisive experiment, which must necessarily reveal to us any error lying hidden in the presuppositions of reason.*(10)

* I should therefore like the critical reader ·of the Critique of Pure Reason· to attend especially to this antinomy of pure reason, because nature itself seems to have arranged it to pull reason up short in its bold claims, and to force it to look into itself. I take responsibility for every proof I have given for the thesis as well as for the antithesis, and thereby promise to show the certainty of the inevitable antinomy of reason. If this curious phenomenon ·of the ‘proofs’ of both P and not-P· leads you to go back to examine the presupposition on which it is based, you will feel yourself obliged to join me in inquiring more deeply into the ultimate basis of all knowledge of pure reason. Contradictory propositions can’t both be false unless they both involve some self-contradictory concept.·And then they can both be false·. — Kant - prolegomena (52b)

Well, it seems that memory didn't serve me right, and Kant actually spoke of responsibility, instead of philosophical responsibility, but at the time I thought of "philosophical" as implicit, and it stayed within me ever since.

So Kant was driven to reject the presuppositions of reason, when arriving at a contradiction involving those, referring to a dialectical illusion. Hegel later said that this was not an illusion at all, but a moment in the dialectic, that needed development, leading to a synthesis. And now Adorno challenges this synthesis, adding that it was precisely what lead us into our current predicament and dire straits, forms of social domination.

And so, what are we to make of this concept of philosophical responsibility?

And so, what are we to make of this concept of philosophical responsibility? — Pussycat

An interesting question, PC. Maybe you could start a dedicated discussion topic.

An interesting question, PC. Maybe you could start a dedicated discussion topic. — Jamal

I would certainly love to do that, but I can hardly cope with one topic at the moment. I could, I suppose, start the thread, but then I would be under the compulsion to defend it, or rather to deflect it to where I would think it should go. It would be quite irresponsible of me if I didn't, and as I have many irresponsibilities already, I wouldn't want to add another. And so I have to decline. Besides, I think that it constellates well with other thoughts expressed in this topic. Nevertheless, the topic is philosophical responsibility, the ethics of philosophical thought that is, is it some vacuous or idle claim, or something else, something more.

Yep. Being critical or negative is a necessity, not just an evasion of philosophical responsibilities. — Jamal

Still, and on another note, here, you described roughly how could one make an (affirmative) ontology out of negative dialectics, if they wanted to. In a similar manner, one could make an epistemology, by founding all knowledge on the non-conceptual, making it transcendental ala Kant, the necessary condition of all knowledge and experience: it's because thought and its object never coincide exactly, that there is knowledege and experience. A religion can also be founded on the non-conceptual, revering it as god, with I dunno, Adorno as its prophet. Last but not least, a theory of consciousness, having (secularized) soul as its precursor or Ur-image. It's all there for the taking, or rather for the plucking, or rather for the defiling. This would confirm an on-going suspincion, that very little in this world, if anything at all, is sacred.

But then of course you'd have Adorno spinning in his grave, facepalming: It's incredible, those idiots did it again, they managed to reify negative dialectics! Just look at what they did to my song. But I can't be accused of not trying, I did my best, although clearly, my best wasn't good enough. It never is.

If you're interested, there's a book of his 1965 lectures on metaphysics, which seems to be mainly about Aristotle: Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. — Jamal

I made it through the majority of the lectures. There is very good background material here. He develops the concept of mediation, which he claims is derived from Aristotle. Aristotle he claims has a metaphysics of mediation. Matter has priority in the sense of its proximity to the individual subject, but form has priority in the temporal sense. Adorno sees each, matter and form, as mediated by the other.

After this, he goes on to discuss the need for contemporary metaphysics. The temporal conditions, dictate metaphysical needs, so the metaphysics of today needs to be completely different from the historic. This is the part I am reading now.

made it through the majority of the lectures. There is very good background material here. He develops the concept of mediation, which he claims is derived from Aristotle. Aristotle he claims has a metaphysics of mediation. Matter has priority in the sense of its proximity to the individual subject, but form has priority in the temporal sense. Adorno sees each, matter and form, as mediated by the other. — Metaphysician Undercover

Wow, good work!

After this, he goes on to discuss the need for contemporary metaphysics. The temporal conditions, dictate metaphysical needs, so the metaphysics of today needs to be completely different from the historic. This is the part I am reading now. — Metaphysician Undercover

I think this is also how he ends ND so there will be similarities. If I'm not mistaken, the idea is that traditional metaphysics has been shown to be ridiculous and entirely unjustified, with the degeneration of one of the most enlightened and philosophical parts of the world into a genocidal war machine. The very idea that everything fits together harmoniously has to be thrown out.

What I'm not quite clear about is what he thinks a contemporary metaphysics should be like.

I'm curious: as someone who is more familiar with Aristotle than me, how would you evaluate Adorno's interpretations?

I'm curious: as someone who is more familiar with Aristotle than me, how would you evaluate Adorno's interpretations? — Jamal

I'd say he's well above average in his interpretation of Aristotle. Relative to the way that I understand Aristotle though, I think that he doesn't quite grasp the reasons why form is assigned priority by Aristotle. The reason for the priority of form is given by the cosmological argument. It shows why actuality (form) must be prior to potentiality (matter) in an absolute way. Now Adorno grasps this priority as stipulated, but interprets "form" in this context as a type, universal, whereas I interpret this sense of "form" to be the form of the individual, the particular. So Adorno ends up imposing his concept of mediation on Aristotle, and says that motion is eternal in Aristotle, as the continuous interaction of matter and form.

My interpretation justifies the priority of the One as the particular, in the sense of an individual unity. And, the particular form of the individual, as immaterial, is prior to the material existence (composition of matter and form) of the individual. Aristotle distinguishes "one" as a unity, from "one" as a mathematical ideal. So I interpret Aristotle as proposing a duality of form, the form of the particular, and form as the type, the universal, or human concept, formula. This duality of form is a somewhat unconventional interpretation though.

Anyway, Adorno goes on to discuss Aristotle's divine unmoved mover, as analogous to the one God of monotheism. But there is ambiguity in Aristotle's Metaphysics, because each orbit of the planets is said to involve a distinct unmoved mover. And ultimately, if we extend Aristotle's metaphysics the way that I do, there must be an unmoved mover (eternal Form or actuality) for each and every object, as a distinct particular with its own identity.

What I'm not quite clear about is what he thinks a contemporary metaphysics should be like. — Jamal

I'm reading that part now, and I'll report back. But it seems to be basically negative dialectics.

But it seems to be basically negative dialectics. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, and the question that raises is in what sense negative dialectics is metaphysics. I imagine his answer will parallel his attitude to philosophical system.