Goldmann vs Adorno

[Ralph Dumain]

My newest post on Goldmann's book gets more into what I find troubling 
about Goldmann's argument.  I suppose everyone's viscera reacts 
differently.  My problem here is not with the alleged bloodlessness of 
epistemological and ontological foundations, but the reverse: hosw they can 
tangibly muck up our understanding of the world.

Goldmann, piggybacking on Hegel and early Lukacs, finds his way out of the 
dichotomy various characterized as mechanist-idealist, Kantian, dualist, 
via the fundamental notions of totality, subject-object identity, and the 
collective subject.  It's a neat package, I admit, but I think it's inadequate.

Pending a detailed study, I contest the notion that the essence of what the 
Frankfurters have to offer is the dialectic of enlightenment.  I suspect 
that just the reverse is true, that maybe this work should be put at the 
bottom and not at the top.  The fact that it is most influential arouses my 
greatest suspicions.  But time will tell.  If it is Habermas' starting 
point, so much the better for Habermas to want to contradict it.  But what 
are the implications of being held hostage to the way one was raised even 
while rebelling against it?

At 09:10 AM 5/20/2003 +0000, matthew piscioneri wrote:
>Ralph,
>
>thanks for this extraordinary post. To be honest with you I find the 
>discussion you have reported *banal* (as you characterize it) because it 
>is all too difficult to understand - in a real visceral (sic) - sense. In 
>other words, aren't the concepts here so laden with the consciousness of 
>german Idealism to lack any sort of substantive rhetorical power?
>
>I was thinking about this recently. Did Marx stir the proletariat on the 
>basis of revealing the new material categories of being/history? if he did 
>then the proles then were a lot smarter than I am now. Did revolutionary 
>agents generate philosophy as a material force with which to move the 
>masses by explicating the theory of value? I am in admiration if they did.
>
>>I find this inadequate.  This cannot be as banal as it looks, can it?
>
>My suspicion is that elements of the Frankfurt school's deviation from 
>Marxist dogma was an advance. But I consider their greatest advantage lay 
>in the development of the ir dialectic of enlightenment thesis. again, I 
>consider engagement with this thesis to be the starting point of any 
>critical theory of society. It is - pertinently - Habermas's starting 
>point. Anyway I know you have read Habermas's _Theory and Practice_ so you 
>are au fait with Habermas's position on the relationship between theory 
>and practice which I would go far to say permeates the entire development 
>of his critical theory. so much so that Habermas's programme of discourse 
>ethics IMO is intended as an alternative vehicle for realizing the 
>normative justification for some sort of critical social programme. I may 
>be way off here. Because in _MCCA_ JH clearlydistinguishes between 
>philosophy (morality/ethics) and the production of critical social theory. 
>This division of labour is frustrating I believe.
>
>Anyway, thanks for the rich post.
>
>MattP.