File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_2003/bhaskar.0312, message 73


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'.



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