Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 09:29:15 -0800 (PST)
From: Michael Parkhurst <d1mp-AT-odin.cc.pdx.edu>
Subject: Re: General Question


On Sat, 25 Jan 1997, J.L. Nicholas wrote:

> >the end itself. In other words, reason IS critical, criticism IS
> >rational.
> 
>         This needs to be shown- i.e. that reason is critical and criticism
> is rational.  This is very Kantian of the "What is Enlightenement" and
> sounds like a quote from Karl Popper's _Conjectures and Refutations_.  But
> there are other traditions in which, I would think, criticism is not
> rationality- particularly if we are talking about criticism of a tradition.


The best analysis I know of the *inherently* critical character of 
thought is (surprise) *Negative Dialectics*, particularly the first 30 or 
40 pages.

I expanded on this in a (rather unsatisfactory & incomplete) article in 
_Rethinking Marxism_ a couple issues back.  Essentially, Adorno argues 
throughout his career that reason (and more concretely, any 
thinking subject) has a kind of mission or vocation -- that it is 
necessarily critical.  Adorno derives this in good Hegelian fashion -- 
thought is negativity.

And this also opens the link between theory and the somatic moment:  
suffering and reason have [for lack of a more inspired term this morning] 
parellel missions -- because both physical 'woe' and thought are driven 
to 'move' by negation. 

This is (incidentally) what Habermas seems to entirely miss about Adorno 
& Horkheimer.  They write _Dialectic of Enlightenment_ not because they 
have given up on enlightenment, but because (and this is eloquent enough 
in their own introduction) enlightenment must criticize itself.  They 
don't do that from some irrational standpoint 'outside' enlightenment, as 
Habermas seems to think (personally, I think any Nietzschean resonance in 
a text just sets Habermas off, and that's at base what spurs his 
astonishing misreadings of Adorno), but precisely as *partisans* of 
enlightenment.

I can try to clarify any of this that's not well-developed or murky, if 
there's any curiosity to start a thread that's not focussed so intently 
on Habermas.

--Mike Parkhurst 
  Portland, Oregon