File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2000/bhaskar.0001, message 6


Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 16:23:18 +0000
From: Colin Wight <Colin.Wight-AT-aber.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: BHA: Adorno on style


Hi Ruth,

A few quick fire millennium responses. And yes you are probably right you
shouldn't have done it.

But as a Prolegomena of my own, let's remember Aristotle's argument that we
should only expect as much clarity as the object allows. (not that I want
to fall on the side of defending RBs prose - well not always anyhow)


>Yes, Adorno goes on and on about the inherent impossibility of a certain
>kind of precision, clarity or transparency -- and the violence that is
>implied by the unselfconscious pursuit thereof.  But this is because, for
>Adorno, thought itself is compromised, in a way that it is not for Bhaskar. 

See Aristotle above. For RB the problem resides not in thought, or simply
the problems expressing such thought, but in the complexity of what thought
attempts to grasp.

>
>[True, there is also the oppposition from Adorno to cognitive operations
>that are simply too easy.  This objection is one of the elements of his
>critique of popular culture and of the culture industry as a whole -- Adorno
>doesn't like jazz, for example, for this reason.  

Adorno doesn't like Jazz becuase it is a cognitive operation that is too
easy!!!!! Obviously never tried to play any...And certainly can't have
listened to much.

>
>In any case, rightly or wrongly Adorno would shudder at a philosophy of
>science in which scientists are thought of as identifying (althethic)
>truths.  

Well, Ruth, I don't think this is RB's concept either. Scientists NEVER
identify alethic truths. Rather we should say alethic truths are what they
ATTEMPT to grasp, but since RB is highly critical of all forms of identity
thinking the grasping can never be that which it attempt to grasp. All
knowledge claims remember are potentially fallible. But the existence of
alethic truths helps explain what scientists do.

He would also be opposed to the account of language and meaning
>encapsulated in the concept of referential detachment. 

Why? I don't follow this.

 And that's not to
>mention the whole notion of a transcendental realism -- which Adorno, I
>suspect, would chalk up to so much pre-Kantian metaphysics!

Probably would, but then so do most positivists and many others.

>
>My point is only that Adorno's views on style *ARE*, for better or for
>worse, related to the content of his critique of idealism in all of its
>forms -- and it matters, I think, that this critique would extend to RB's
>critical realism.  RB, conversely, does not, as I understand him, hold any
>views about thought, language and/or "objects" that preclude the pursuit of
>stylistic clarity.  

Well on this of course - if idealism be the enemy - we can invoke
Aristotle. For Adorno's position can only be that simplicity is a function
only of us (idealism), whereas for RB if the world is complex then its
description will be likewise complex. 

And the Kant issue, well fine words indeed, but how far does he succeed and
still maintain the integrity of the argument? Anyway, in the final analysis
it is not really a matter of style, but whether the ideas could be
communicated in a more "user friendly manner". Now, I think many of RBs
later works could (I say later becuase it seems to me that RTS, PON, PIF,
SRHE, RR are all perfectly clear) be expounded more clearly, but note, this
is not to say that RB could write them any more clearly. Some people, after
all, have a gift (whether socially acquired or not) for clear writing, some
don't. And to say that RB had it in his earlier books does not mean that he
has it now.

Anyway, I have to say, invoking Adorno to critique RB on style is very much
pan calling kettle territory. Adorno a model of clarity is he?

Cheers,
Happy New Year.

P.S. You should all run out and buy Andrew Sayers new book "realism and
social science" (Sage, 2000) it is a great intro to CR and very good for
undergrads for those mad enough (hands up!) to try and teach some CR concepts.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales
Aberystwyth
telephone: +44 (0)1970-621769
fax      : +44 (0)1970-622709
---------------------------------------------------------------------------


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