Non-Contradictoriness Not Hypostasizable:
A very complex read.
I’m having some difficulty with this section. It seems fraught with problems and I think the problems stem from an attempt to support this principle you call “reciprocal dependency”. At first glance, I don’t see how this could be an acceptable principle because in the case of logical priority it will inevitably lead to a vicious circle of logic, and in the case of physical causation it will produce an infinite regress, if maintained. Furthermore, by the end of the section it is a little unclear as to whether Adorno intends to stay true to that principle anyway.
The issue is the relation between the subjective and the objective, and the proposed reciprocal dependence, which would appear to be a sort of paradox. The subjectivity of thinking depends on the objectivity provided by society, and vise versa. So the problem is described as follows:
But the matter-at-hand is not to be explained according to a hierarchical ordering schemata, called up from outside. Otherwise the explanatory attempt presupposes the explanation, which it first needs to find; presupposing non contradictoriness, the subjective thought-principle, as inherent to what is thought, to the object.
What I disagree with here is the way that he characterizes the “hierarchical ordering schemata” which is produced from the “subjective thought-principle”, as being “called up from outside”. He just rejected the transcendental subject in the last section, and portrayed the subject as attached to its matter. So the ordering schemata is not being called up from outside the object, if called up by the subjective thought-principle, but it inheres within the subject. And this implies that it is inherent to the object secondarily, when “object” is defined by the “objectivity of cognition” the facticity of society, due to the subject/object relation.
What is presupposed by the subjective, is not the explanation itself, but that there is an explanation. This constitutes the desire for an explanation which serves as the motivation for subjective thought. The true “object” of the subjective thought therefore is that goal, and that goal is defined by non contradictoriness. So the object, as goal, what Plato called “the good”, is inherent to the subjective thought-principle, but the issue is that it is not necessary. There is no particular goal which is necessary as object of thought, to the subjective thinking.
So it is only by associating “object” with facticity, the “objectivity pf cognition” which is proper to society, that the subjective thought-principle is said to inhere within the object. Notice that the subject is the medium between the two senses of “object”, the subjective goal, and the objectivity of cognition.
The issue may be a common equivocation with the term “objectivity”. Objectivity is assigned by Adorno to society, through “facticity”, but this does not equate with “of the object”, because it is described as the “objectivity of cognition”. “Cognition” itself is not necessarily an object of thought , and if we are to assign “cognition” to cognition, as an “object” it would have to be in the sense of a subjective goal, a good, an end, to cognize cognition. But the “object”, as goal inheres within the subjective aspect. Therefore the object (goal) of subjective thinking may be to understand thought and cognition, but as such an “object”, it is this desire, or goal, which presupposes that this is the thing to be understood.
So there is confusion between “the object” which inheres within the subjective thought-principle, as the goal, the desire for an explanation, and “the object” of the supposed facticity, which supports “objectivity of cognition” which I would say is ideology. There is an experienced interdependency between “the object”, as the goal which is “explanation”, and the subjective thought. However, “the object” of the “objectivity of cognition”, which is the facticity of ideology, is not necessarily consistent with “the object” as the goal of explanation, therefore the interdependency cannot be extended in that way.
That becomes evident in the confusion of the following statement:
Thought need not remain content with its own juridicality [Gesetzlichkeit]; it has the capacity to think against itself, without sacrificing itself; were a definition of dialectics possible, this might be one worth suggesting.
This is quite ambiguous. If we allow “thought” to be the property of the “objectivity of cognition”, the multitude of thinkers which constitutes “society”, then it is very evident that thought thinks against itself, as one person thinks in a way contrary to another. But if “thought” is an individuated property of one thinking subject, then we have a completely different meaning. This would describe how, in decision making an individual weighs two opposing propositions at the very same time. Considering opposing propositions appears like ot is thinking against itself. But this is not a paradox at all, “to think against itself”, it is simply what thinking is, to consider opposing principles at the very same time, to weigh them in decision making.
Now, that principle of interdependency is applied:
What is seemingly unbearable about this, that subjectivity would presuppose the factical, but objectivity the subject, is unbearable only to such delusion, to the hypostasis of the relationship of cause and effect, of the subjective principle which the experience of the object does not mesh with.
As described at the beginning of the paragraph, dialectics has made the object of thought, thought itself. This allows the thought which is the analysis of thought to run tangential to thought analyzed as object, thereby avoiding the rules of thought. It is those rules, logic, which make interdependency appear as unbearable, but this is delusional. It is delusional because it is based in the appearance that the thinking of the subject does not mesh with the object (the objective rules), forcing the appearance that the thinking subject must conform to the rule of logic, and the rule of logic makes interdependency unbearable. And this is because the desire to understand thought, which makes thought the object of thought, is by no means necessary, nor is following the rules of logic necessary.
That is an extremely difficult paragraph. I understand it in the way I described above. The object of the subjective thinking is the goal, the good. So I can draw an analogy with Aristotle’s distinction between apparent good and real good. The one is associated with subjective thought, the other with the objectivity of cognition (or God sometimes). The latter consists of ethical rules, or in this case logical rules, which the former is not necessarily bound by. To adhere to rules is a choice, and in the case of real vs apparent good, it is only when the two are consistent, that necessity is produced.
The thinking of the subject does not mesh with the object unless the real good and apparent good are one and the same. This is what supports logical necessity, as the above mentioned “desire for an explanation” would be consistent with the ideological rules of the objectivity of cognition. The subject however is between these two senses of “object” and has a different relation with each, therefore the mention of “two kinds of truth to be maintained next to each other, the dialectical one inside society and one indifferent towards it”. Here, “indifferent towards it” signifies the arbitrariness which I described as the lack of necessity.
This produces the requirement for the footnote on different senses of “identity” and the evolution of usage. Whether the principle of interdependency can actually be supported, and is not just a ruse of subjectivity, in its attempt to escape the ultimate preponderance of the object, I haven’t figured out yet.