Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2003 13:32:05 -0300
Subject: Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology
From: filipe ceppas <fceppas-AT-terra.com.br>



> However, theoretically
> Adorno may still have something important to say?

I think that if we want to talk about sociological theory and methodology
from the point of view of some basic philosophical questions ‹e.g related to
basic concepts like object-subject dualism, truth, totality, sense
data-concept dualism, exchange value as structured basis of symbolical life,
etc.‹, Adorno's philosophical reflections could be usefull as any other one
I know. Specially if we are aware of the still open nature of some
"classical big epistemological problems" settled by people like Kant and
Hegel, which Adorno is willing to relate to empirical fragments colected
almost by chance (?), over and over again (maybe it would be worth bring the
Benjamin "extraterritorial" method to the discusion, because of its
importance vis a vis the totality chalenge Claus told us about. Minima
Moralia would be a nice issue here). We have other good ways to look at it.
But I don't think it is fair to not aknowledge the strenght and actuality of
Adorno's way of rethink anew those old fashion and inconvennient
metaphysical anguish.

> (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.)

What is Adorno's metacrictics if not some metatheoretical reflection about
this kind of question, necessarily related to the problematic nature of
mainstream scientific hypothesis conceptions and classical concepts of
truth? I don't know too many XX century philosophers *still* capable to help
us on that matter, if we still care about a materialistic-utopian chalenge
of society AND specially if we recognize the importance of the prismatic
(interdisciplinary) range of obnoxious clues of ideas that Adorno makes
sense of, from Plato to Chaplin, Schoenberg or Kafka. It seems that we are
so confortable nowadays with the "post-modern" (post-linguistic turn and
post-structuralist) way of relate everything with no matter what, that we
forget to look for the strenghness of Adorno's original insights about this
un-enlightening ruins of the "mathesis universalis".

> 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? 

Well, I think that the first thing that pops up from your question is the
social nature of a "specialized science" from "(post)industrial society
AND/OR (?) (still) late state capitalism" point of view. So, "what ideas are
there for..." in this miserable world (to put it bluntly. something we could
rephrase more sophisticated with nature-culture-enlightment questions) As I
said, this question MUST be discussed outside the borders of specialized
science, and in order to join the discussion we may have to aknowledge the
philosophical problems that Adorno is willing to "clarify" (we can do it
without Adorno's help, but we can't do it without some philosophical help).
Let me know if this could be a starting point to answer your question below.

> 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
> 
>