[FRA:] Jarvis: Adorno: A Critical Introduction (2)

[Ralph Dumain]

I've been told this is the best intro to Adorno:

Jarvis, Simon. Adorno: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity 
Press; New York; Routledge, 1998.

Looks like it could be.  Jumped into it on 3 November.  Didn't begin 
at the beginning, but started in at chapter 6: Negative Dialectic as 
Metacritique.  Then reading Chapter 7:  Constellations: Thinking the 
Non-Identical.  Remarkably clear, given what it is.  It would still 
be a ballbreaker to some extent for the novice, as fully grasping 
Adorno demands a prior understanding of Kant and Hegel, but the 
writing is as clear as it can be. Adorno's view of philosophy is most 
fully explained in Negative Dialectics. I still don't have a clear 
understanding of "constellation", though at least I sort of get 
Jarvis' clarification of the distinction between Benjamin and Adorno 
on use of the concept.  Chapter 8 was in a sense the climax of the 
explication of Adorno's philosophy: "Materialism and Metaphysics".  I 
won't attempt to review these chapters systematically, but I'll 
highlight some key points.

Chapter 6

Adorno's engagement with German philosophy is driven by his take on 
Kant and Hegel and their mutual criticism. Kant's separation of 
concept and intuition, form and content, et al is seen by Adorno as 
non-viable. These contradictions are driven by social antagonisms. 
"This account of Kant owes much to Hegel's earlier and more 
systematic reading of the aporias of the critical philosophy. But, 
secondly, Adorno also criticizes Hegel's specualtive identifications 
of the terms separated by Kant."  (152)

Adorno rejects the notion of philosophy as grounding the other 
departments of knowledge. Philosophy cannot appropriate other 
disciplines. But also, Adorno aims "stringently to transcend the 
official separation of pure philosophy and the substantive subject 
matter." I didn't know the word "metacritique" originates with Hamann. (154)

While Kant's critical philosophy attempted to specify the conditions 
for the possibility of knowledge (not knowledge), Adorno's 
metacritique critiques critique and poses the question, "what are 
such a transcendental inquiry's own conditions of possibility?" (155)

In analyzing the failures of Kant's concept of experience, Adorno 
asserts that not only is experience without concepts blind, but 
wouldn't be experience at all. Adorno criticizes not only pure 
reason, but pure understanding and pure sensibility. (159)

For Kant, the separation of concept and intuition, and of 
understanding and sensibility, had an epistemological, not 
ontological, status. Adorno sees this as unworkable, again, 
questioning the notions of pure understanding and pure sensibility. (162)

Chapter 7

I still do not understand the concept of constellation.  Language 
appears to be central to this. Language is said to have a double 
character. unlike purely formal (mathematical) concepts and unlike 
pure pictorial representation. Language has both classificatory and 
mimetic elements.  The definition of terms and fixed use of language 
is the antithesis of Adorno's method. (177-8)  I do not understand 
the sense in which language is mimetic.

Adorno's criticism of Kantian ethics includes a caveat: he doesn't 
wish to reject formalism by way of a regression to arbitrary, 
tradition-bound, pre-rational and particularistic ethics. While 
universalism is still progressive, Kant's insistence of moral 
autonomy and the suppression of heteronymy is in fact a capitulation 
to heteronymy.  The absolluytely free and absolutely unfree are kept 
in separation. For Kant, there is no freedom without compulsion. (186-7)

Regarding theory and practice, Adorno is suspicious of the primacy of 
practice, which he views as production for production's sake, 
effectively surrendering practice. This is contrary to Marx's intent. (188-9)

TO BE CONTINUED