NEGATIVE DIALECTICS (1)

[Eric Oberle]

Dear list members:

I have seen many an Adorno discussion falter on discussions of translation,
as one can easily come to see the (English) text as so problematic that
there is no sense in continuing to read it.  As I see it, the Ashton
translation of Negative Dialectics is not so bad, if one is willing to
allow that Ashton seems to have little sense for specialized philosophical
vocabulary.  If one crosses out 'visuality' and writes 'apperception' or
'intuition' (depending on which Kant translation you have), if one
substitutes 'exchange' whenever one sees 'barter', 'Sache' when one sees
'thing', 'mediated' when one sees 'transmitted', 'immediate' when one sees
'direct', 'determinant/Bestimmt' when one sees 'defined'--in this case--the
translation becomes a LOT better.  Ashton's sense of german as a language
is in my opinion pretty good.  He untangles some of the nastiest sentences
quite well; and though he does tend to break up some of the more important
long ones, he doesn't do this too much.  Whenever one suspects a
philosophical term, and unfortunately, often when one does not, it is best
to go back to the german and simply correct the term in question.  I'm not
saying here that there are not many problems with Ashton's
translation--there are--but it generally isn't so bad that every sentence
must be doubted.  Often, indeed, one is dealing with issues that escape
even the best german.  The sentence that has been under discussion:

"Was einst, gegen=FCber dem Schein der Sinne und jeglicher nach au=DFen
gewandten Erfahrung, als das schlechthin Unnaive sich f=FChlte, ist
seinerseits, objektiv, so naiv geworden, wie Goethe schon vor
hundertf=FCnfzig Jahren die k=FCmmerlichen Kandidaten empfand, die subjectiv=
 an
der Spekulation sich g=FCtlich taten."

is in certain senses just barely readible German.  The peculiar placement
of the words 'objectiv' and 'subjectiv' is a favorite Adorno trick that
threatens to upset the logic of the normal sentence with a different rhythm
based upon the adverbial contrast 'subjectively/objectively' that cannot be
anchored to any clear nominal-verbal pair.  In other words, it is hard to
say what 'is objective' or what  is 'doing what subjectively', and the
reading of the sentence that sees this contrast as the basis of the
sentence (a naivete which was once subjective is now objective) cuts
against the other reading that sees the adverbs as free-floating
(objectively, something has become naive; subjectively it was long ago  OR
today's objective form of the old subjective speculation is less aware of
itself than the old subjectivists.)  I'm thus not sure who could render
this sentence adequately, because the decision to render it becomes a
decision of rendering a sentence that in many ways has too many meanings.
The following sentence approximates some of the uncertainty at least,
though it too is rather inelegant:

"That which once, in comparison to sensory appearance and to every
outwardly-directed experience,  felt itself as the utterly unnaive, has,
objectively, become as naive as Goethe felt those miserable [doctoral]
candidates of 150 years ago, who, subjectively, tried to make themselves
rich in speculation.  "

As for who is being referred to, I do not know either, though we can be
sure it is not Hegelians--1819 would be a bit early for such, and Adorno's
description of naive empiricism and lazy subjectivism doesn't fit any of
them.  More likely were dealing with Fichteans, i.e. subjective idealists,
rather than objective idealists like Hegel.  One could guess that perhaps
one is dealing with religious-oriented subjectivism of the Schelling or
even the Herderian type.  Some years ago, I searched Goethe's Dichtung und
Wahrheit for this reference, but in vain.

This sentence and the one following it are actually worth the effort of
trying to achieve some more historical specificity, however, for the
general gesture of these sentences is one of thought moving outward, from
the paradigm of self-reflection into the world, and the historical
referents that Adorno uses to think about this movement is far from
irrelevant.  The question of why thought must venture out into the world,
and when this became necessary, is suggested in the following sentences,
where metaphors of the 'world' growing larger than that which can be
containe in, or covered by, a concept.   That philosophy has to become more
worldy, less scholastic, while still maintaining its scholarly inheritance
is for Adorno a consequence of Kant's 'copernican revolution', but how that
formulation is connected to a larger question of world history--that is a
real question.

Such then are some reflections at the moment of Adorno's Anfang...

yours respectfully,

Eric Oberle

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Eric Oberle
Department of History,                 Friedberger Landstrasse 81
Stanford University                      D-60318 Frankfurt/Main    Germany

eoberle@leland.stanford.edu        011 (49) (69) 59 73 01 5
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