Date: Sat, 16 Aug 1997 23:42:13 -0700 (PDT)
To: bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Re: BHA: Science, theology and witchcraft [Adorno vs Bhaskar]
Cc: frankfurt-school-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU


I very much appreciate the references and explication.

At 04:49 AM 8/16/97 -0400, MSalter1-AT-aol.com wrote:
>RB objects - on supposedly dialectical grounds - to
>Adorno's criticism of attempts to either reduce objectivity to subjectivity
>or vice-versa. RB retorts that subjectivity must "in some sense" be seen as
>"grounded" or "overreached" by objectivity. Adorno's consistent position in
>his Negative Dialectics 1973 and "Subject/Object" and elsewhere is that
>reductionism is the main counter-tendency to dialectics, in that it
>represents an eradication of mediation who consequences are as undialectical
>as undialectical thinking can ever get.

>For RB to object to Adorno's objection to
>reductionism - under the guide of being a better and more radical
>dialectician - is, of itself, to fall back into what amounts to a
>pre-dialectical position. 

I can't go along with this, as a materialist.  (BTW, why does Bhaskar insist
on using the word "realism"?  "Materialism" gives a small clue as to how to
differentiate witchcraft from science.)  I'm also surprised at Adorno; I
thought he knew better.

>2/. Bhaskar's position does not appear to mediate between the equally
>one-sided claims of unmediated (reductionist?) versions of materialism and
>idealism in a manner which is as receptive to the half-truths of the latter
>as it is to those of the former. 

I'll have to check on the alleged shortcomings of Bhaskar re mediation, but
even with mediation, how can you get away with not settling the question of
matter before mind?

>Adorno's line is that the priority of the
>object depends upon the subject recognising the truth that we can at least
>imagine the existence of an object without the continued presence of a
>subjectivity to be conscious of its presence, but we cannot even imagine a
>subjectivity which is not already "consciousness of an object".

>From the standpoint of consciousness, I understand.  But for materialism,
unlike phenomenology (I think), consciousness is not the starting point.

>3/. Here we need to recall Husserl's phenomenological influence upon Adorno,
>(Against Epistemology: A Metacritique. Studies in Husserl and the
>Phenomenological Antinomies, 1994 ) and then contrast it with that of
>Heidegger's influence upon Bhaskar in Plato Etc where Heidegger is described
>as one of the greatest 20th cent philosophers (1994 p.15,).

Odd....

Let me share a not irrelevant (I hope) anecdote.  This morning I read
Benhabib's introduction to Marcuse's HEGEL'S ONTOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF
HISTORICITY.  I'm not really schooled in this stuff, but I was disappointed
in Marcuse and glad to see that Adorno wrote a critical review of Marcuse.
Marcuse was early influenced by Heidegger and Dilthey, through which he read
Hegel.  I am operating on a hunch only, but I think Adorno is deeper and
smarter than all this.

>Ruth's comparison could, perhaps, also draw upon the critique
>of the specifically political appeal that Heidegger's "existential" work had
>during the 1930s, (and again since the late 1970's) and question why the more
>rationalistic and scientific phenomenology of Husserl became eclipsed by
>Heidegger -  for ideological reasons that owed little to either reason or
>science. These are Adorno's incisive questions in his "Jargon of
>Authenticity" as well as in the first part of "Negative Dialectics." 

Adorno was the smartest of the Franks, wasn't he?
Why would Bhaskar go for Heidegger?  But anyway, does it make sense to
compare Bhaskar vs. Adorno through Heidegger vs. Husserl?  This really can't
be what is at stake, can it?

I have another reason for interest in comparing Adorno to Bhaskar, but I'll
save it for another post.



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