Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 09:53:33 +0000 From: Mervyn Hartwig <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth Hi Howard, That it can't be taken with *total* literalness (the emphasis is in Jarvis) does not mean that there's not a sense in which it's true, as Jarvis goes on to suggest. Seems to me that, like Bhaskar, Adorno understands that there is that within human being (a pulse of freedom) which is capable of recognizing that the social world is indeed inverted and in that sense false to the core along with all its real appearances of 'a fair day's wage for a fair day's work', etc., and leaving it behind. Put another way, the *capitalist* world (or more broadly, class or master-slave-type society--Bhaskar's demi-real) is indeed literally false, but it isn't everything. It is sustained by and can exist only because of the unalienated energy and creativity of ordinary people. Jarvis references the German original for the quote; do you know where it appears in the English translation? (My quote was from Minima Moralia p. 50, cited by Arthur). Mervyn Howard Engelskirchen <howarde-AT-twcny.rr.com> writes >Hi Mervyn, > >Simon Jarvis at p 213 of Adorno: A Critical Introduction comments that >Adorno's assertion that the world as it exists is "false to its innermost >core," cannot be taken literally: "because if taken with total literalness >they are not thinkable. In the very act of thinking such a claim we provide >ourselves with evidence of the extent to which it is untrue." > >Howard > > > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mervyn Hartwig" <mh-AT-jaspere7.demon.co.uk> >To: <bhaskar-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU> >Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:24 PM >Subject: Re: BHA: Re: Re: capitalist social structures are false, Ruth > > >> Of course it's real (what isn't?), but it's also false, like a mirage, >> and that's an important distinction. Perhaps I got you wrong, but you >> seemed to be supporting the view that only beliefs/ propositions can be >> false. I took Phil to be basically agreeing with Adorno (inverting >> Hegel) that 'the [capitalist] whole is the false'. --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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