Philosophy and Sociology: 1960

353 Pages·2022·1.319 MB·English

by  Theodor W. Adorno, Dirk Braunstein (editor)

PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIOLOGY

PHILOSOPHY AND
SOCIOLOGY
1960
Theodor W. Adorno
Edited by Dirk Braunstein
Translated by Nicholas Walker
polity
Originally published in German as Nachgelassene Schriften. Abteilung IV,
Band 6: Philosophie und Soziologie. Herausgegeben von Dirk Braunstein ©
Suhrkamp Verlag Berlin 2011
This English edition © Polity Press, 2022
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.
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CONTENTS
Overview vi
Lectures 1
Adorno’s Notes for the Lectures 209
Editor’s Afterword 253
Editor’s Notes 257
Index 334
OVERVIEW
LECTURE 1 1
Are philosophy and sociology mutually incompatible? –
Controversy with König and Schelsky (I) – Kant’s influence on
phenomenology and ontology – The origins of sociology in
Saint-Simon – Psychology in Kant – Against ‘purity’
LECTURE 2 13
Resistance to philosophy on the part of sociology – Comte’s
‘law of the three stages’ (I) – The origins of sociology in
France – Order and progress in Comte – The claim to priority
on the part of sociology – Freedom of conscience and national
sovereignty – Comte’s conception of institutions – Driven
towards dialectics – The concept of positivism – First nature
and second nature – Political content of Comte’s argument
LECTURE 3 25
Social Darwinism – Emphasis on subjectivity – Demand for
systematic immanence in thought – The question of the utility
of science – ‘Sociological schizophrenia’ – Priority of the social
system (I) – Social compulsion – Sociology and philosophy as
a dynamic unity
overview vii
LECTURE 4 36
Comte’s demotion of philosophy – The appeal of positivism
– Comte’s nominalism – ‘The law of three stages’ (II) – The
pretensions of speculative thought – Controversy with König
and Schelsky (II) – Against the demand for intelligibility –
Ordinary language and logic
LECTURE 5 48
‘Chosisme’ (I) – Sociology addresses the constituted –
Durkheim’s critique of ‘Ideas’ in Comte – Durkheim’s critique of
Comte’s concept of progress (I) – Durkheim’s critique of Comte’s
‘law of the three stages’ – ‘Collective spirit’ as explanation of
social phenomena – ‘Chosisme’ (II) – Reification of society
LECTURE 6 58
Concepts and observation – Critical generosity – The category
of ‘meaning’ – Priority of the social system (II) – ‘Chosisme’ (III)
– The concept of ‘understanding’ – Theory of the unintelligible
LECTURE 7 69
Objective tendency – Mediation between social and individual
domains – ‘Chosisme’ (IV) – Durkheim’s critique of Comte’s
concept of progress (II) – The dialectic of progress – The
violence of progress – The irrationality of rationality –
Different modes of mediation in philosophy and sociology
LECTURE 8 81
A pause in the argument – Concepts of ‘philosophy’ and
‘sociology’ operating at different levels – ‘Hyphen-sociologies’
– Sociology as a recent discipline – Sociology and empirical
social research – Max Weber’s definition of sociology –
Philosophy and facticity – The provincial situation of Germany
LECTURE 9 93
Transition to the theory of ideology – Space and time in
Durkheim – On the mediation of mind and society – Concept
of truth – The conceptual moment in exchange – The ‘natural
character’ of the productive process is illusory – Concept of
ideology presupposes an understanding of totality – Theory of
ideology is philosophical rather than sociological
viii overview
LECTURE 10 104
Truth not presentable in isolated theses – Historical
development of the concept of ideology (I) – Forces of
production and relations of production – Problems of
constitution as social problems – Subjectivity in positivism
(I) – Difference between Kant and Hume – Subjectivity in
positivism (II) – Atomistic character of statistics – Relationship
between truth and consciousness – Analysis of motivation
LECTURE 11 116
Theory of ideology behind the controversy between
philosophy and sociology – Historical character of the
mind – On the concept of total ideology – Against the
all-encompassing suspicion of ideology – Danger of apologetic
thought – Changing function of theories of ideologies (I)
LECTURE 12 128
Changing function of theories of ideology (II) – Slower
transformation in the superstructure; ‘cultural lag’ –
Apologetic tendencies of civil society – The truth moment of
empirical sociology – Organized science and the independence
of thought – The possibility of a theory of contemporary
society (I) – The irrational character of capitalist society
LECTURE 13 140
The possibility of a theory of contemporary society (II) –
Nominalism incompatible with theory formation – ‘Political
distribution’ instead of market society – Social ‘cement’ –
‘Diamat’ – Dialectic not a method – Demand for intellectual
freedom
LECTURE 14 151
Historical development of the concept of ideology (II) –
Bacon’s theory of idols – Critique of language – Theory of
ideology not a psychology of ‘interests’ – The primal history of
modernity – Making a fetish of history – More ideology or less
overview ix
LECTURE 15 162
The dissolution of ideologies (I) – Technologies and mass
media – Class consciousness – The ‘sceptical generation’ and
technological illusion – Scepticism as an attitude (I)
LECTURE 16 173
Scepticism as an attitude (II) – Different kinds of ideology
– Legitimating ideologies – Complementary ideologies
– Meaninglessness as meaning – Controversy with Benjamin –
Danger of oversimplifying the concept of ideology (I) – Danger
of oversimplifying the concept of ideology (II)
LECTURE 17 185
Theoretical typologies in the social sciences – The ideology
of concealment – Concepts created through their extremes
– The dissolution of ideologies (II) – Priority of the genetic
moment in the concept of ideology – Against the dichotomy
of genesis and validity – On mediation – Truth as historical
(I); the history in truth – Truth as historical (II); the genetic
implications for meaning
LECTURE 18 197
Against Mannheim’s account of genesis and validity – the
genetic aspect of the mind as critical aspect – Against the idea
that ‘what has come to be’ cannot be true – Example: logic in
the development of music – Historical mediation of Plato and
Aristotle