working draft-jan15

329 Pages·2013·1.1 MB·English

by  Fuller, Brian W

Adorno, Hegel, and the Philosophical Origins of Classical Social Theory
Brian W. Fuller
A dissertation submitted to
the Faculty of Graduate Studies
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Graduate Program in Sociology
York University
Toronto, Ontario
December 2013
© Brian W. Fuller, 2013
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Abstract
The central claim of my dissertation is that the work of Theodor Adorno offers a valuable
framework for reevaluating the philosophical heritage of classical social theory. In his
ongoing engagement with the philosophy of German Idealism, and with Hegel in
particular, Adorno’s philosophical, sociological, and cultural critical writings involve a
critical rethinking of the relationship between subject and object, and between individual
and society. I make two primary arguments to substantiate my claim. The first is that
Adorno’s work must be understood within the context of the philosophy of Kant and
Hegel. In particular, I show that Hegel’s critique of Kantian philosophy structures
Adorno’s own understanding of the work of philosophy and of critical social theory. In
the first part of the dissertation, I review the substance of Kantian epistemology, and of
Hegel’s critique (Chapter 2); I then demonstrate that the Adorno’s critical philosophical
procedure is grounded in his reading of Kant and Hegel (Chapter 3). My second primary
argument is that Adorno’s attempt to articulate a critique of classical social theory is
hampered by his own philosophical commitments. Through a juxtaposition of Marx’s
critique of Hegel’s practical philosophy with Adorno’s own critique of Hegel (Chapter 4),
I show that Adorno’s commitment to the negativity of the dialectic entails a conception
of social theory that has not sufficiently addressed the implications of its materialist
transformation. Adorno’s work relies upon a reduction of Hegel that remains
problematic and unacknowledged. Next, I use a reading of Durkheim’s own
philosophical commitments, through the lens of German Idealism, to show that Adorno’s
immanent critique of Durkheim reproduces the aporiae that it seeks to rescue (Chapter
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5). In the conclusion to the thesis (Chapter 6), I employ a discussion of the common
themes and problems of Adorno’s critical-philosophical interpretation of classical social
theory to suggest a reconsideration and renewal of its Hegelian heritage.
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Acknowledgements
As with any large project, I’ve incurred a significant number of intellectual debts during
the conceptualization and writing of this dissertation. Foremost, I’m grateful to Brian
Singer, for support and critical feedback all along the way, for providing a model of
serious scholarship, and for suggesting a more practical route towards the PhD, but not
insisting on it when it became clear that I was intent on pursuing the present course.
Thanks as well to my committee members, Philip Walsh and Rob Albritton, for
encouragement and critical commentary on earlier drafts. Philip additionally encouraged
me to pursue philosophical themes in this depth. Greg Bird and Wendy Thompson Taiwo
provided support during occasional moments of intellectual despair, as did my
colleagues at Clarkson University and Buffalo State College – in particular Bill Vitek,
Staci Newmahr, and Allen Shelton. Looking further back, I’d like to acknowledge my
debt to the late Richard V. Ericson, who shepherded my transition into sociology with
significant grace, generosity, analytical acumen; and to Tom Kemple, who energetically
introduced me to the world of critical social theory, and who inspired me to pursue it
further. My greatest appreciation and gratitude go to my partner Aimee, without whom
this work would have been neither possible nor rewarding.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction: Adorno on the philosophical and the sociological...................1
1. Introduction to the problematic............................................................................1
1.1 From philosophy to sociology: the context of German idealism.................5
1.2 Caveats and limitations...............................................................................8
2. The plan of the work.............................................................................................11
3. Review of the relevant literature..........................................................................13
3.1 From philosophy to sociology....................................................................13
3.2 The literature on Adorno..........................................................................29
Chapter 2 The philosophical context: German idealism.............................................33
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................33
2. Kant......................................................................................................................39
3. Hegel’s critique of Kant’s theoretical philosophy................................................46
3.1 “Speculation”.............................................................................................54
3.2 The “Absolute”..........................................................................................58
3.3 The “I” and the “Concept”.........................................................................61
3.4 “Spirit”.......................................................................................................65
3.5 “Experience”..............................................................................................70
4. Hegel’s critique of empiricism and the Wissenschaftlich task of philosophy......73
5. Conclusion: the German idealist heritage............................................................78
Chapter 3 Adorno’s critique of philosophical reason: Engaging German idealism....84
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................84
2. Adorno’s critique of Kant’s philosophy...............................................................88
2.1 The fetish of the transcendental (i.e., the fallacy of constitutive
subjectivity).....................................................................................................91
2.2 The “deepest thing in Kant:” the experience of the block.......................102
2.3 From the block to the nonidentical.........................................................105
3. Reading Adorno reading Hegel..........................................................................109
3.1 Dialectic and speculation.........................................................................114
3.2 The “compulsory substantiality” of subject and object...........................124
3.3 Mediation and foundationlessness..........................................................132
3.4 The judgment of the particular...............................................................140
4. The negation of idealism through geistig experience.........................................144
4.1 Geistig experience against mere “science”..............................................146
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4.2 The experience of objectivity...................................................................162
5. Conclusion: Adorno between Kant and Hegel...................................................164
Chapter 4 Knowledge, objectivity and sociality: Hegel, Marx, Adorno.....................169
1. Introduction........................................................................................................169
2. Hegel’s Realphilosophie, the Doppelsatz, and the immanence of thought........174
2.1 The project of the Philosophy of Right....................................................178
2.2 Reading the Doppelsatz..........................................................................183
2.3 The logic of the state...............................................................................190
3. Marx’s critique of philosophy through the critique of Hegel.............................198
3.1 The critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right............................................199
3.2 The appropriation of Hegelian idealism.................................................215
4. Adorno’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of history............................................225
4.1 The neglect of the particular...................................................................228
4.2 Siding with the universal........................................................................234
4.3 Adorno with and beyond Marx...............................................................240
5. Conclusion..........................................................................................................246
Chapter 5 Experiencing social objectivity: Adorno’s critique of Durkheim..............252
1. Introduction.......................................................................................................252
2. Durkheim’s sociological project.........................................................................255
2.1 Durkheim on the individual and the collective.......................................258
2.2 Durkheim’s epistemological argument: rethinking Kant.......................263
3. Adorno’s critique of Durkheim...........................................................................271
3.1 Adorno and the Kantian Durkheim.........................................................272
3.3 Durkheim as Hegelian............................................................................284
4. Conclusion: the immanent critique of Durkheim..............................................301
Chapter 6 From Adorno to Hegel: the sociological and the philosophical.................311
1. The Hegelian heritage.........................................................................................312
2. From Geist to society..........................................................................................313
3 From philosophy to sociology?............................................................................315
3.1 The empirical...........................................................................................317
3.2 The universal and the objective..............................................................320
4. From speculation to experience........................................................................323
References..................................................................................................................326
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Abbreviations.........................................................................................................326
Works cited............................................................................................................329
1
Chapter 1 Introduction: Adorno on the philosophical and the
sociological
Sociology as organized Wissenschaft is the outcome of
objective societal power and its objective spirit —
anathema to individuals, because that power is not so
easily determined as the opinions, forms of reaction, and
ways of behaving of the socialized individuals; at best
these index the word society (NSO 241).
Dialectic is the self-consciousness of the objective
context of delusion, not that which has already escaped
(ND 398/406).
1. Introduction to the problematic
This thesis uses the philosophical and sociological writings of Theodor W. Adorno as a
framework for interpreting the philosophical origins and nature of a distinctively
sociological mode of thought. My conceit is that Adorno’s broad interests and objects of
critique—spanning philosophy, literary and cultural criticism, musical theory, and
sociology—provide a unique opportunity to explore and better comprehend the
conceptual transition between philosophy and sociology.1 While not a “typical”
sociologist, Adorno was invested in sociological ideas and debates, partly as a result of
pragmatic considerations, but more importantly because his critical-materialist
perspective demanded a constant attention to the totality of society. Adorno’s struggles
to articulate his version of “nonidentity thinking” often included discussions of
sociological concepts and thinkers; while his more properly sociological efforts relied
heavily on his interpretation of philosophical notions. As Bernstein (2006, 107) has
1 I mean here that the narrative that I have crafted here, partly as a result of its anachronism, is
better understood as a conceptual history, rather than as a primarily historical account of
persons, ideas, and texts. In this way, I envision it falling somewhere between a Hegelian
perspective on the history of concepts, and Adorno’s own configurational approach. On the notion
of conceptual history, the origins of which have been variously attributed to Hegel and to Dilthey,
see, e.g., Koselleck (2002); on Hegel’s history of philosophical concepts, see Macdonald (2006);
for more on Adorno’s configurations and constellations, see, in particular, Benzer (2011b); Jarvis
(1998); Paddison (1993).
2
articulated, straightforwardly, “Adorno’s conception of dialectic welds together
philosophical and sociological elements.”
Rather than claiming that Adorno is uniquely situated to shed light on this topic
simply by virtue of his professional activity as both a philosopher and a sociologist, I
believe that his significance stems from his understanding of the essential tasks of a
contemporary critical thought. Adorno was famously skeptical about the project of
Enlightenment reason, arguing, in a series of works, that it constituted a form of thought
which was incapable of achieving the fundamentally new, but rather merely passively
reproduced existing conditions. This form of “identity thinking,” stemming as it does
from the foundations of Western culture, broadly permeates the forms of contemporary
art and science alike. In this sense, Adorno’s critique of “positivist” modes of sociological
thought and research, and of philosophical trends such as phenomenology and
“fundamental ontology,” share significant commonalities.
Adorno looked above all to the philosophy of German Idealism as a source of
inspiration for his endeavors to articulate a “negative dialectic,” and his work is
incomprehensible without a grasp of this background and his engagement with it. While
Adorno’s relationship to German Idealism has been mined significantly in the last
decades, this has primarily only been with reference to his philosophical and aesthetic
work. Adorno’s own version of sociological research, as well as his understanding of the
nature of society and of sociology, has more often been neglected—as least within the
English language literature. As a result of this neglect, the implications of Adorno’s
philosophical education for his own sociology and theory of society have yet to be
seriously investigated.
3
Additionally, the relationship between the dominant themes of German idealist
philosophy and “classical” social theory has been significantly neglected. Despite the
extraordinary significance of the work of Kant and Hegel to major contemporary
philosophical positions, there has been very little literature from the perspective of
sociology. When combined with the fact that philosophical and epistemological concerns
are central to sociology and social research, this gap becomes even more significant. One
reason for this neglect may be the difficulty of the relevant texts, along with the rise of
the analytic philosophical perspective. However, many problems and themes from the
German idealist era continue to haunt philosophy, as the recent resurgence of interest in
Hegel has indicated.
My perspective here focuses largely on the epistemological shift that occurs in
Hegel’s critique of Kantian theoretical philosophy. After Kant’s “Copernican” turn—
which significantly revised the Cartesian conception of the subject—Hegel’s admiration
for, and trenchant critique of, Kant’s version of “transcendental idealism” attempted to
understand both subjectivity and objectivity in relationship to an “absolute.” Although
Hegel’s doctrine of “absolute idealism” is still being interpreted in diverse ways, its
influence has been enormous.2 His reinterpretation of the Kantian subject within the
absolute involves an attention to social-historical dynamics; but the systematic character
of his work, along with his prose style, make interpretation and appropriation difficult.
The plan for the present work is to tease out the relationships between the critical
philosophical, the epistemological, and the sociological thought of Adorno, by looking at
his critique of idealism (idealistic philosophy), of Kant and Hegel in particular, and his
2 Pippin (1989, 3) begins his first book on Hegel by noting the irony that “Hegel seems to be in the
impossible position of being both extraordinarily influential and almost completely inaccessible.”