Adorno's "Against Epistemology"

[MSalter1@aol.com]

In a message dated 08/07/97 02:06:00 GMT, you write:

<< In re Adorno's closet masterpiece, I have to disagree with the previous
 postings which write off Gegen Erkenntnistheorie as a superficial critique
 of Husserl. This just ain't so >>

I'm not aware of any attempt by myself or other contributors to "write off"
this critique (indeed I think I said that I have made extensive use of it in
my own immanent critique of how phenomenology operates with the legal field).
The criticism is that his critique does not always respect its own imperative
towards immanence and mediation, and - on ocassions - if overly reductive
from the field of theory to immediate politics, a tendency clear in your own
response. My criticism of AE is immanent not transcendent, dialectical not
totalising, concerned with the details of application and empirical
sensitivity of application. To treat it as a "write off" is to violate its
non-identity in defence of Adorno - ironic no?
The major problem with Adorno is that so much of his method presupposes
empirical findings about the overall character of advanced consumer
capitalism, that his own micrological/experiential approach cannot really get
to grips with, with the result that a simplistic "the whole is false",
operates to prejudge the particulars, and thus become an instance of identity
thinking (inverting but not overcoming that of Hegel?)

Michael Salter


Michael