Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 11:47:52 +0300 (EEST)
From: j laari <jlaari-AT-cc.jyu.fi>
Subject: Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology


Greetings!

Basically, I agree with Neil McLaughlin's scepticism of Adorno's
methodological worth for empirical research. However, theoretically
Adorno may still have something important to say?

Also, I don't find (in the contemporary sociologal theory) such a
wide-ranging unanimity on the concepts and theories of cultur (and
mass-media - IF they are essentially related) that we could say we
have reached such a definite theoretical conception of culture that we
could hastily dismiss certain previous conceptions. On the contrary, I
think. There's not much commonly accepted 'truths' in sociology after
the triple blow of logical (positivism and) empiricism,
marxism-leninism, and postmodernism on the sociological reason after
the WW2.

(Oh, by the way, by 'theoretical' I don't mean the same as
'hypothetical' or somesuch as is common in contemporary human/social
research; I stick to classical scientific sense of 'theorein' as
'self-conscious articulate consideration, examination and
observation', to put it bluntly. That way unfruitful opposition of
'theoretical' and 'empirical' is avoided.)

Besides, two non-sociological conceptions of culture have made impacts
also on sociology: on the one hand the (social) anthropological
conception of culture either as a totality of the life of community or
as a way of life of it, and on the other hand (coming from cultural
studies, I guess), the linguistic or semiotic conception of culture as
signification or as significatory practice. They both dismiss
sociological emphasis on the genuine specificity of modern society -
they generalize in such a manner that we could say they present
conception 'culture is everything'. Also, I'm not very happy with such
sociological conceptions of culture that restrict culture to either
mass media or consuming only, not to mention efforts to fuse culture
and knowledge. That also would be quite unanalytic. Basically, I don't
find any predominant or ruling sociological conception of culture.

Now, and back to the theme, what should one think about all that from
the social theoretical perspective? I.e. how does the problems of one
specialized science relate to cross-scientific thinking like critical
theory? I think there are lots of crucial issues that could be
clarified and discussed in order to gain insight into Adorno's views
on sociology. For instance, one could wonder the writings in
"Gesammelte Schriften" that are put together as his "sociological
writings", because from the perspective of post-WW2 empiricism
Adorno's sociology is partly non-sociological (mostly philosophical?).
Should that view be accepted, or should it be denied? Either way, what
will be the consequences? I think these are quite serious issues.

Sincerely, Jukka L