there is no reason to believe that phenomena, as a multiplicity already, has any sort of interconnectedness other than that granted by a system. — Metaphysician Undercover

But our disagreement here is just the result of the real ambivalence in his position, which is dialectical: he is both against and for system. — Jamal

he really promotes the need for a proper philosophical system. — Metaphysician Undercover

If one speaks in the newest aesthetic debates of anti-drama and anti-heroes, then negative dialectics, which holds itself distant from all aesthetic themes, could be called an antisystem. With logically consistent means, it attempts to put, in place of the principle of unity and of the hegemony of the supra-ordinated concept, that which would be outside of the bane of such unity. — ND, Prologue

The philosophical system was from the very beginning antinomical. Its very first signs were delimited by its own impossibility; exactly this had condemned, in the earlier history of the modern systems, each to annihilation by the next. The ratio which, in order to push itself through as a system, rooted out virtually all qualitative determinations which it referred to, ended up in irreconcilable contradiction with the objectivity to which it did violence, by pretending to comprehend it. It became all the more removed from this, the more completely it subjugated this to its axioms, finally to the one of identity. The pedantry of all systems, all the way to the architectonic ponderousness of Kant and, in spite of his program, even Hegel, are marks of an a priori conditional failure, documented with incomparable honesty by the rifts of the Kantian system; in Moliere pedantry is already the center-piece of the ontology of the bourgeois Spirit. — ND, Relation to System

All emphatic philosophy had, in contrast to the skeptical kind, which renounced emphasis, one thing in common, that it would be possible only as a system. This has crippled philosophy scarcely less than its empirical currents. Whatever it might be able to appropriately judge is postulated before it arises. System, the form of portrayal of a totality in which nothing remains external, sets the thought in absolute opposition to each of its contents and dissolves the content in thought: idealistically, before any argumentation for idealism. — ND, Idealism as Rage

After second, I realized that he is actually promoting the need for a true philosophical system. — Metaphysician Undercover

1. Philosophy should treat phenomena as interconnected within an organized whole
2. This is possible without system in the traditional sense
3. And this takes what is good about system rather than merely abandoning it dismissively
4. Imposing one's own scheme on the phenomena from the outside is to take what's bad about system---the phenomena should be allowed to speak for themselves — Jamal

The first twist, is that the meaning of "system" has really changed. Now, what "system" refers to in anti-system philosophy, is really systematization. So anti-system, or a-system philosophy, if it's decent philosophy, will demonstrate system in a latent form. The latent system is really quite tricky because it's where the subjective meets the objective.

The point though, is that this systematization type of thinking, which becomes "provincial", and even "cottage" at the end of the lecture, is what true philosophy must strive to avoid. — Metaphysician Undercover

So great is the need for system that today systematization has taken its place unobserved. The explanation is assumed to be that the facts should find their proper place in an organized scheme that has previously been abstracted from the facts themselves.

This need ensures that even bodies of thought that claim to be anti-systematic (Nietzsche), or a-systematic, are latent systems. — p.33

This consists in the fact that, in general nowadays, in the models it applies to reality, philosophy behaves as if the visibility of existing circumstances allowed it to survey all living creatures and subsume them under a unifying concept – this is something it still takes for granted.

I believe that the issue which lies beneath this conundrum is the problem of the relationship between the true and the false. The true, we can never know with absolute certainty, yet we have certainty about the false, as the impossible, beginning with contradiction. This produces a categorical distinction between the false and the true, as the false is "the thing" which is impossible, while the true is the possible, which is not a thing at all, but a multitude of possibility. I believe that this description provides an explanation of Adorno's reference to what is "definite", and to the "concrete expression" in the radio broadcast you quoted — Metaphysician Undercover

from the Hegelian proposal of determining the positive, which is actually fruitless (or impossible), to a more realistic method of determining the negative. Determining the impossible then places the possible into a proper perspective. — Metaphysician Undercover

Here's an interpretation from "Adorno Studies Through a Glass Darkly: Adorno's Inverse Theology" — Metaphysician Undercover

Is philosophy without system possible? And Negative Dialectics is meant to answer in the affirmative, but also without arbitrarity -- where philosophy has a proper authority. — Moliere

Today it has become much easier to assert that systematic philosophizing has become impossible – and, in consequence, we must renounce attempts to secure everything that has given the concept of system such enormous emphasis. And I place such great value on this because I believe that you will understand my approach to philosophy only if you see it in its relation to the idea of system and not simply as a random body of thought indifferent to system. — p.35

it is my belief that an a-systematic or anti-systematic form of thought can compete with the system nowadays only if it feels this need itself and – if I may anticipate this programmatic point – if it is also capable of absorbing into itself something of the energy that was formerly stored up in the great philosophical systems. — p.36

Paradoxically, then, we might speak in Heidegger’s case of an irrational system of philosophy. It combines, we might say, the claim to totality or, as he himself says in a number of places, at least of Being and Time, it combines the claim to totality with the renunciation of comprehension. Incidentally, you can already find this curious coupling implied in Kant, since Kant expressly defends the idea of a system of transcendental idealism and had formed the plan of supplementing the three Critiques with a positive system of this sort, while at the same time rejecting the idea of comprehending the objects ‘from within’ as intellectualistic and Leibnizian – even though the reality is that, if philosophy had succeeded in conceptualizing everything that exists without leaving a remainder, it would necessarily have comprehended the phenomena it had subsumed. But this is just one of the many questions that remain unresolved – magnificently unresolved, we must add – in Kant. — p.38

the path on which system becomes secularized into a latent force which ties disparate insights to one another (replacing any architectonic organization) – this path in fact seems to me to be the only road still open to philosophy. — p.38

This is along the lines of what we may say of theology, since in this latter case the process of secularization released the idea of the system as the idea of a coherent, meaningful world.

My postulate would then be that the power of the system – what at one time was the unifying power of a structure of thought as a whole – had to be transformed into the criticism of individual detail, of individual phenomena. — p.40

That, then, would be the programme I want to put before you here. And this programme may well come closest to something that Nietzsche had in mind. Thinking would be a form of thinking that is not itself a system, but one in which system and the systematic impulse are consumed; a form of thinking that in its analysis of individual phenomena demonstrates the power that for- merly aspired to build systems. By this I mean the power that is liberated by blasting open individual phenomena through the insistent power of thought. This power is the same power that once animated the system, since it is the force which enabled individual phenomena, non-identical with their own concepts as they are, to become more than themselves. This means that something of the system can still be salvaged in philosophy, namely the idea that phenomena are objectively interconnected – and not merely by virtue of a classification imposed on them by the knowing subject. — p.40

You will all want to say: Aren’t you being rather naïve in expecting philosophy to deliver something of which it is no longer capable? In the age of the great systems – in modern times, let us say, from Descartes to Hegel – the world possessed a certain visibility. — p.41

the traditional conception of philosophy can only be validated if thinking behaves as though it still inhabited the traditional society in which philosophy was able to function.

The falseness he has in mind is that which presents itself as one thing but which really isn't, e.g., freedom (which in modern society isn't freedom in the full sense) or happiness (which merely attempts to compensate for alienation) or glory (which actually stands for violence and domination). — Jamal

In short, on the one hand this philosophy presented itself as a gigantic analytical proposition, but on the other hand it claimed simultaneously to be the synthetic proposition par excellence. In other words, it claimed that this analytical proposition captured in the mind that which is not itself mind, and identified with it. It is precisely this twofold claim, the assertion that something can simultaneously be both a synthetic and an analytical proposition, that marks the point at which I believe we have to go beyond Hegel ... It is here that critical thinking and Hegel have to part company. — p.27

Yes, at any rate, utopia is essentially in the determined negation, in the determined negation of that which merely is, and by concretizing itself as something false, it always points at the same time to what should be.

Yesterday you quoted Spinoza in our discussion with the passage, “Verum index sui et falsi.” I have varied this a little in the sense of the dialectical principle of the determined negation and have said, “Falsum—the false thing—index sui et veri.” That means that the true thing determines itself via the false thing, or via that which makes itself falsely known. And insofar as we are not allowed to cast the picture of utopia, insofar as we do not know what the correct thing would be, we know exactly, to be sure, what the false thing is.

That is actually the only form in which utopia is given to us at all. But what I mean to say here—and perhaps we should talk about this, Ernst—this matter also has a very confounding aspect, for something terrible happens due to the fact that we are forbidden to cast a picture. To be precise, among that which should be definite, one imagines it to begin with as less definite the more it is stated only as something negative. But then—and this is probably even more frightening—the commandment against a concrete expression of utopia tends to defame the utopian consciousness and to engulf it. What is really important, however, is the will that it is different. — http://www.autodidactproject.org/quote/adorno_bloch_utopia1.html

Hmm, parts and whole, in relation. Doesn't this amount to "a system"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Hegel's teleology has deep roots in Indo-european culture. Christianity has threads of it running through its whole history. Unrevised Marxism is basically these same psychological forces shed of Christian paraphernalia. Adorno witnessed firsthand the powerful effects of these forces, but somehow remained immune to them. This allowed him to become a bridge out of the lunacy. — frank

nice, reason might be subject to a critique paralleling that of faith I gave elsewhere. it would be interesting to follow through on that - although it might be restricted to faith in reason... I'll have to give it some thought. — Banno

The critique I am keeping in mind, incidentally, is that of Habermas, who said Adorno was stuck in the philosophy of consciousness, having failed to take the linguistic turn. I've seen some defences of Adorno against that charge, but I can see his point. — Jamal

Adorno appears to either misunderstand the nature of modern logic or to be talking about something quite different. I'll go with the latter. Recent advances in formal logic - you mention relevant logic - take a step back form the neatness of Fregean premisses, while maintaining formal clarity. His interest is perhaps in the interpretation that occurs before logic commences. — Banno

No. This is just dialectics. — frank

This is incorrect, but I'm not interested in debating it — frank

You'd need to spend some time contemplating Hegel. — frank

Clearly Adorno believes that Hegel’s theory possesses some of the essential elements, but that the system within which the elements are located—with its idealist teleology—actually threatens to undermine their ability to explain experience, contrary to what seemed to have been promised in the introduction to the Phenomenology. As he sees it, Hegel oscillates “between the most profound insight and the collapse of that insight” (ND 161/160). What that really means, for Adorno, is that Hegel may indeed have a potent arsenal of philosophical concepts and insights. However, the reality of Hegel’s texts is that these concepts and insights are ultimately subordinated to the needs of Hegel’s architectonic. Hegel strives to assemble the encyclopaedia of con-cepts in a logical and quasi-deductive system. But by so doing, Adorno argues, he actually undermines the negativity—the insight into the moment of nonidentity—in his philosophy. — Brian OConnor, Adornos Negative Dialectic

That the dialectic, in a sense, does a violence to the concepts of Being and Nothingness in their equation and sublation, and that this pattern is one of thought -- that the positing will bring about another positing, and these things together form a moment -- these are things I've tried to find ways to say and so it's something of a relief to see a Big Cheese say similar things to my sympathies. Makes me think maybe I got something out of the reading after all, while the suspicion the entire time was that it was nothing but my own imagination. — Moliere

A reaction: I'm struck by how this rejection of positivity parallels the criticism of faith I have been outlining in that thread.

There are also some interesting relations to logical pluralism in the rejection of a single totalising framework and sensitivity context. — Banno

Anyway, I'll try to hold off the criticism until the designated time slot, and enjoy the reading. I find the material well written and very interesting. — Metaphysician Undercover

Play it at my funeral. — Hanover

I think when he says "contents" he's talking about real events that stand as examples of concepts. Like with music, the score is the concept (or form), and a performance is the content. He said it's a mistake to fail to see the way the performance is its own entity, each moment arising out of the history of the performance, and propelled onward from there. The score is literally nothing in the absence of the performance (and vice versa).

That would relate to the mind as when people think of mind as a domain or vault of some kind. They're separating mind from the living flow of events that are the content of the concept of mind. — frank

See I'm practising my negative (critical) thinking, to see how it goes. — Metaphysician Undercover

When he talks about "confronting concepts with their objects and, conversely, objects with their concepts", isn't this exactly the type of identity philosophy which he claims to be rejecting? — Metaphysician Undercover

It almost looks like he's chosen the evaluative descriptor, "negative," as a nay-saying gesture, which an uncharitable person might think is hardly better than the yay-saying he criticizes (or thinks is stupid). — Jamal

... are no longer measured against their contents, but instead are taken in isolation, so that people take up attitudes to them without bothering to inquire further into the truth content of what they refer to. For example, if we take the concept ‘positive’, which is essentially a concept expressing a relation, we see that it has no validity on its own but only in relation to something that is to be affirmed or negated. Then we find that simply because of the emotional values that it has acquired, that have accumulated around the word, the term is wrenched out of the context in which it has validity and is turned into an independent and absolute thing, the measure of all things. — p.23

Its principal cause is undoubtedly the irrevocable loss of absolutely binding uniform categories. This means that the less the mind possesses predetermined so-called substantial, unquestioned meanings, the more it tends to compensate for this by literally fetishizing concepts of its own devising which possess nothing that transcends consciousness. In short it makes absolutes of things it has created. And it achieves this by tearing them from their context and then ceasing to think of them further. — p.24

Identity thinking (epistemology)
    ↓
Hypostasization (ontology)
    ↓
Reification (sociology, politics, etc)

But I believe that, if you wish to grasp what I am aiming at but am forced to explain to you in stages, you should be clear in your minds from the outset that we are not speaking here about negativity as a universal, abstract principle of the kind that I was initially forced to develop – or not to develop, but that I placed at the start of my argument because I had to start somewhere, even if I do not believe in an absolute beginning. Instead, the negativity I am speaking about contains a pointer to what Hegel calls determinate negation. In other words, negativity of this kind is made concrete and goes beyond mere standpoint philosophy by confronting concepts with their objects and, conversely, objects with their concepts. — p.25

‘Well, if he has got a negative principle or if he thinks negativity is such an important matter then he ought really to say nothing at all’ — p.26

... there is perhaps a so-called positive motive force of thought ... — p.26

But I believe that precisely this aspect of positivity, which acts as a corollary to negativity, is conjoined with the principle of negativity because it resists being fixed once and for all in an abstract, static manner.

If it is true that every philosophy that can have any claims at all to the truth lives from the ancient fires, i.e. it secularizes not just philosophy, but also theology, then we have identified here, or so I believe, an outstanding point in the secularization process. It is the fact that the prohibition on graven images that occupies a position of central importance in the religions that believe in salvation, that this prohibition extends into the ideas and the most sublime ramifications of thought.

Hence, to make this quite clear, the issue is not to deny the existence of a certain fixed point, it is not even to deny the existence of some fixed element in thought; we shall in due course, I hope, come to discuss the meaning of such a fixed element in dialectical logic in very concrete terms. But the fixed, positive point, just like negation, is an aspect – and not something that can be anticipated, placed at the beginning of everything. — p.26

You may well ask me about what I said earlier on: if you admit that the positive, like the negative, is no more than an aspect, and that neither may be regarded as an absolute – why then do I privilege the concept of negativity so emphatically?

So, to pay respect for the difference you point out, what I see is a trick of rhetoric. He apprehends Hegel as hugely powerful in influencing the minds of men, and he has a desire to tap into that power, perhaps having political objectives. To support this end, he has mentioned some work of the younger Hegel, which is somewhat inconsistent with the older Hegel, and with reference to this, he claims everything he says is "contained" (in a qualified sense) in Hegel.

The trickery is this. He implies that he and the thoughts he presents, originate from, or have been greatly influenced by ("contained") by Hegel, suggesting that he is Hegelian. In reality, he is not, but he knows that Hegel is understood as a powerful authority, and he desires to gain support for his project by appearing to be consistent with Hegel — Metaphysician Undercover

The lecture is concluded by assertions that he adheres firmly to Hegelian principles — Metaphysician Undercover

I believe furthermore that at present a true philosophical critique of the hypostasis of mind is fully justified because this hypostasis is proving irresistible to philosophy, which after all operates in the medium of the intellect, which thrives exclusively and at all times in the mind.

The situation today is one that secretly everyone finds deeply dubious, but it is also one that is so overpowering that people feel they can do nothing about it, and perhaps they can in fact do nothing about it. Nowadays – in contrast to what Hegel criticized as abstract subjectivity or abstract negativity – what predominates in the general public is an ideal of abstract positivity ... — p.17

Now, when I speak of ‘negative dialectics’ not the least important reason for doing so is my desire to dissociate myself from this fetishization of the positive ... — p.18

The fact is that what we might call the secret or the point of his philosophy is that the quintessence of all the negations it contains – not just the sum of negations but the process that they constitute – is supposed to culminate in a positive sense, namely in the famous dialectical proposition with which you are all familiar that ‘what is actual is rational’. It is precisely this point, the positive nature of the dialectic as a whole, the fact that we can recognize the totality as rational rightdown into the irrationality of its individual components, the fact that we can declare the totality to be meaningful – that is what seems tome to have become untenable. — p.19

I do not know whether the principle that no poem can be written after Auschwitz can be sustained. But the idea that we can say of the world as a whole in all seriousness that it has a meaning now that we have experienced Auschwitz, and witnessed a world in which that was possible and that threatens to repeat itself in another guise or a similar one – I remind you of Vietnam – to assert such an idea would seem to me to be a piece of cynical frivolity that is simply indefensible to what we might call the pre-philosophical mind. A philosophy that blinds itself to this fact and that in its overweening arrogance fails to absorb this reality and continues to insist that there is a meaning despite everything – this seems to me more than we can reasonably expect anyone who has not been made stupid by philosophy to tolerate (since as a matter of fact, alongside its other functions, philosophy is capable of making people stupid).

... neither Timur nor Genghis Khan nor the British colonial administration of India deliberately burst the lungs of millions of human beings with poison gas ...

One cannot bring Auschwitz into analogy with the destruction of the Greek city-states in terms of a mere gradual increase of horror, regarding which one preserves one’s peace of mind. Certainly, the martyrdom and degradation suffered by those in the cattle-cars, completely without precedent, casts a harsh, deathly light on the most distant past, in whose obtuse and unplanned violence the scientifically organized kind was already teleologically at work. The identity lies in the non-identity, in what has not yet been, which denounces what has been. The statement that it’s always been the same, is untrue in its immediacy, true only through the dynamic of the totality. Whoever allows the cognition of the increase of horror to escape them, does not merely fall prey to cold-hearted contemplation, but fails to recognize, along with the specific difference of what is newest from what has gone before, simultaneously the true identity of the whole, of horror without end. — Minima Moralia, 149

Perhaps, to be more precise, with the sole difference that critical theory really signifies only the subjective side of thought, that is to say, theory, while negative dialectics signifi es not only that aspect of thought but also the reality that is affected by it. In other words, it encapsulates not just a process of thought but also, and this is good Hegel, a process affecting things. This critical character of dialectics has to be dissected into a series of elements. The first of these is the one I attempted to explain last time – as you will perhaps recollect – namely the relation of concept to thing. — p.20

Do not forget that the very fact that thinking takes place in concepts ensures that the faculty that produces concepts, namely mind, is manoeuvred into a kind of position of priority from the very outset; and that if you concede even an inch to this priority of spirit – whether in the shape of the ‘givens’ that present themselves to the mind in the form of sense data or in the shape of categories – if you concede even an inch to this principle, then there is in fact no escape from it. — p.21

I'm still in "absorb" mode — Moliere

No. — frank

Are we on the same page there? — frank