NEGATIVE DIALECTICS (1)

[Hector Rottweiller Jr.'s Place]

A comment on Ralph's post and a question on a quote cited: 
> 
> Before I continue, some words of my own on Adorno.  I'll leave the negative
> aspects of my evaluation of him out for the time being.  I think what I find
> most essentially admirable about Adorno is that he has the courage to be
> unabashedly theoretical while being uniquely open and above-board in dashing
> the pretensions of the self-sufficient theoretical intellect.  Indeed, like
> Feuerbach and young Marx, Adorno is acutely aware that philosophy is not
> identical with itself; its explanations cannot be digested merely on the
> basis of its pretensions, on what it is, but it must ultimately be
> understood in terms of what it is not, what is outside of philosophy and
> engenders it.  

	If philosophy isn't identical to itself, then its claims to
primacy -- and I don't know Heideigger too well, but it seems the 
primacy of philosophy was very much on his agenda -- have to be 
disregarded or at least viewed with suspicion.  Philosophy may not be a 
_precondition_ of changing the world, but it would seem to be a 
necessary aspect (would "moment" be the correct term here?) of such
a change, and such philosophy and change would, in turn, need consider 
themselves to avoid collapsing into myth and barbarism.  (OK, so that's
dragging in _DoE_, but doesn't _ND_ continue the same program?)

	Question: is it just me, or does the famous quip about using the 
"strength of the subject to break through the fallacy of constituent 
subjectivity" often seem to be read as a defense of vulgar subjectivism
when it's the exact opposite?

> (2) "Once upon a time, compared with sense perception and every kind of
> external experience, it was felt to be the very opposite of naivete; now it
> has objectively grown as naive in its turn as the seedy scholars speaking on
> subjective isolation seemed to Goethe ..." (3)
> 

	Does anyone know what trends or thinkers he was referring to here?
"Naive" might apply to some of the authentics, but considering the thrashing
they get in _Jargon of Authenticity_, I wonder if he didn't have 
someone/something else in mind.

--
Curtiss Leung
hncl@panix.com