Date: 	Tue, 28 Jan 1997 20:52:41 -0500
From: Kenneth MacKendrick <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: a & h and d of e




> 
> On Mon, 27 Jan 1997, Kenneth MacKendrick wrote:
> 
> >      i've got three questions, stemming from my dis-satisfaction with 
Habermas's 
> > reading of a and h in d and e:
> > 
> > 1.  what gives adorno and horkheimer the "legitimacy" (for lack of a better term) 
to pronounce reality as unreconciled (this harkens back to my comment about the 
> > "magical dialectical wand.")

> Now, you need *evidence* that reality is 'unreconciled'?  REALLY?  As 
> another list-member suggested, if this isn't an antagonistic reality, 
> then I never want to see what *would* qualify.
> 
I'm wondering if the concept is inherently theological.  Does the idea of 
reconciliation beg a theology of genesis and apocalypse (even though adorno 
would surely reject this telos as nonsense).  To say that reality is unreconciled 
implies an objective insight into reconcilation (to name = to transcend).  I'm worried 
here about ideological christian baggage.  Reality certainly is antagonistic 
(descrpitively) - but to say "unreconclied" seems problematic.
> 

> 
> > 3. what kind of problems does a universalist argument for subjective 
atomization  raise for the idea of understanding.
> > i have ideas about answers/questions to each of these but i'm curious to see if 
> > others have  run into similar questions.

> 
> I'm not at all sure that Adorno/Horkheimer have anything approaching a 
> 'universalist' argument in this vein.  Adorno particularly is intensely 
> aware of the fact that insight is something of a privilege under 
> prevailing conditions (I don't have _Minima Moralia_ with me just now, or 
> I could give you some cites to chew on).
> 
My reading of h/a is universalist.  They are squarely in the enlightenment tradition 
- freedom, universality, truth etc.  They try to demonstrate, however, how the 
dialectic is wearing thin in late capitalism.  I perceive adorno's thrust to be a focus 
on the particular without losing sight of the whole.
ken