Vs: Goldmann vs Adorno

[Rauno Huttunen]

Goldmann's book is very interesting. Interesting connection between Lukacs and Heidegger but in very general level. We need more profound work on that subject. She knows very well Lukacs, but her knowledge on Hegel, Marx, Heidegger and Adorno are very limited. To speak Marx "dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and from where" without references does mean nothing. I very much argreed Goldmann's Adrono critique, but not on those premises.

Rauno Huttunen


>>> rdumain@igc.org 05/20 3:25  >>>

Following our recent discussion I decided to re-read Lucien Goldmann's 
LUKACS AND HEIDEGGER: TOWARDS A NEW PHILOSOPHY (London: Routledge & Kegan 
Paul, 1979).  I may have more to say about the book as a whole later, but 
now I am concerned with a section towards the end where Goldmann criticizes 
Adorno (pp. 91-97). 

Finally:

quote:

If one does not accept Adorno's 'critical consciousness', which judges and 
scans reality from on high, or the individual relation to global history as 
Lukacs currently conceives it, if one wishes to maintain, no longer the 
idea of the revolutionary proletariat, but the requirements of Marx's 
dialectical thought (which always demands that one know who is speaking and 
from where), of the subject-object totality, then the basic question arises 
of knowing who is, now, the subject of speech and action. It is necessary 
to know in the name of what and from where we are speaking today, if we 
believe that there are only valid works and actions to the extent that they 
are placed within a universe created by men and are attached to specific 
groups.

There are situations in which one cannot give an answer because the group, 
from which speech and action comes, is not yet manifest. In these 
situations, on the basis of a modified tradition, individuals speak by 
formulating perspectives and positions for which the group, the true 
subject, if it is not yet there, is in gestation or waiting to be 
elaborated. And very probably, these positions will be modified when the 
group becomes manifest.

end quote

I find this inadequate.  This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it?