I’m currently finishing my PhD on Adorno, and I’ve always found it quite sad how much of an alienating figure he can be on the left. He is commonly disregarded - often in other fields that philosophy - out of hand, on a surface level engagement with his cultural critiques. These often see him as on overly totalising or cynical thinker. However, most these critics don’t engage with his philosophical methodology, which is fascinating. It was based around trying to synthesise Marxism with what - at the time - was institutionalised philosophical doctrines. The negative dialectic is essentially an effort to try reconcile Ontology with dialectical materialism (with a little bit of Kantian epistemology thrown in the pot). Ie. Adorno - along with the whole Frankfurt school (who I don’t want to downplay, but he wrote the most rigorous text of the bunch) - paved the way for trying to create a truly Marxist philosophical foundation; a truly emancipatory philosophy. His efforts in this have been superceded, in some sense, by many of the French thinkers of the 60-70s, but I think it’s a damn shame how little credit he gets for what - at his time - was a hurculean task of synthesising philosophy with left wing politics.
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself in my Adorno stanning, but the crux of my post is this: would anyone be interested in partaking in a reading group on Adorno? Weekly, fortnightly, monthly, whatever works. I’ve dedicated the last bloody 5 years of my life to this guy, and the least I feel I could do with that knowledge is share it with likeminded comrades online and try help people understand this truly amazing (yet difficult) thinker. If there is takers, I’m thinking we will begin with Dialectic of Enlightenment. He co wrote this with Max Horkheimer early(ish) in his career, and it is the best introduction to Adorno, and the thought of the Frankfurt school as a whole. Anyway, let me know what you think comrades! I love you all.
someone said negative dialectic, instantly upvoted without reading the rest
I'll sign up. There's PDFs of that book. Just scanning it, it looks like a medium-hard read.
I've read some Lacan but I realized there's a ceiling to how much I can get out of this material learning on my own. What are you envisioning? I could make like a weekly chapter time commitment. /c/philosophy? Discord?
It is definitely not an easy read (none of Adorno is, he’s pretty unforgiving in assuming prior knowledge in what his discussing), which is why I’d love to help people through it. As a basis for going into Adorno an understandings of Marx, Kant, Hegel and Frued are good, but not essential! I hope I’ll be able to contextualise that. I’d be down for a scheduled thread here, where I could prepare questions/ quotes etc and then have people reply over time to respond or post questions. Also down for something more transient on discord. One down side of post grad is you live in a cave for years and lose touch, so I’m a bit of a Luddite and will need to learn ha. I guess we’ll gauge a few days for interest to find best platform/ regularity. Also, the Jephcott translation of the text which came out recently is def the best to work off of. Probably the easiest and clearest to read. Should be accessible here: https://aaaaarg.fail/upload/max-horkheimer-the-dialectic-of-enlightenment-philosophical-fragments-translated-by-edmund-jephcott-1.pdf
I don't know anything about discord either. another option is like one comprehensive sesh to wrap up the material. I don't know, we'll figure it out.
longer discussions are probably better on here, especially with everyone in different time zones and all that. maybe a channel on discord or matrix for quick Q&A type stuff (I know there's always small stuff that trips me up when I'm reading stuff like this but I never have anyone on hand to ask that kind of thing of and so I have to push through it the hard way all the time :/).
The negative dialectic is essentially an effort to try reconcile Ontology with dialectical materialism (with a little bit of Kantian epistemology thrown in the pot)
How do people even make sense of philosophy?
What are the essential texts from the Frankfurt school and other Marxist philosophers of that period? I find those thinkers interesting, but have only really done Wikipedia research so far. I did read the One-Dimensional Man but found it a little difficult.
Hey sorry for the late reply, been very busy lately!
As far as the F.S. goes, Marcuse is a good start. Its worth noting that predominantly the F.S. thinker's were very concerned with the crises of the 20th century (emergent fascism, holocaust, war, etc.) as as such their theories were very concerned with dissecting these. Hence a strong drive to conceptualise and diagnose ideology, social deception, and so on. It's probably best to know your Kant, Hegel and Heidegger going into the F.S., as they engage with these three a lot. Essentially, they are responding to German Idealism (something Heidegger was also responding to, but they critique his method and findings.) Oh, also it is essential to have read your Marx, as they are explicitly trying to further his theory: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and Capital I would say being the most relevant works, for their discussions of alienation, reification, commodity fetishism, the commodity form and exchange value.
For readings on the F.S (and adjacents), heres a few goods starts: -Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction -Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilization -Horkheimer - Age of Reason, Dialectic of Enlightenment (w/ Adorno) -Adorno - Dialectic of Enlightenment (w/ Horky), The Jargon of Authenticity, Negative Dialectics, Minima Memoria, Aesthetics
Unfortunately, I don't know my Lukács, Pollock or Fromm well enough, and I am not a fan of Habermas, so don't really wan't to recommend him, hah. However, The Theory of Communicative Action is probably his biggest book if you want to check him out.
Alternatively, there is a GREAT companion textbook Sage published with a huge amount of articles my contemporary scholars on the F.S., aiming to articulate their theories in a accessible way, and in consideration of social/mistorial progress since their time. I will link it below:
https://aaaaarg.fail/upload/beverley-best-the-sage-handbook-of-frankfurt-school-critical-theory-1.pdf
I wold totally recommend this as a starting point! It has enough content to get you informed with all the members of the school, and to also consider how their theories hold up/ are challenged by contemporary developments.
I'm interested but I already have so much on my list of stuff to read. I really like the idea though
Hello all! Sorry for the late response, I’ve been crazy busy lately editing my thesis.
I’m Encouraged by the response to this! I’m definitely down to lead this reading group, but will have to wait till decemberish when all my uni work is done. It’s really got ahead of me.
So I will post more about this then once I’m done! I will prob start just slinging out analysis/ discussion on the chapters once a fortnight/month people can feel free to join discussion on, and I’ll try help lead the discussion.
So until then all the best. And I’d anyone is feeling particularly inspired, feel free to start ch.1 “the concept of enlightenment” and dm me any questions. (I linked the PDF in a prev comment) Herein Adorno and Horkheimer begin the central argument of their thesis: the dogmatic structures of ‘reason’ that we start judging social progress by under the progress of enlightenment do little else than replace our pre ‘enlightenment’ epistemology with dogma from the social totality that validates the current state of affairs as some a priori principle. That is, If u replace pre-enlightenment ‘myth’ dogma with ‘reason’, ur just creating another dogmatic structure that shapes how one perceived the world yo. In the words of zizek: it’s pure ideology
All the best comrades, I’ll speak to you in a few weeks with my dissesction of chapter one
I actually would be interested, because I've only read theory dunking on him
