Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 16:22:50 -0300
Subject: [FRA:] Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology
From: filipe ceppas <fceppas-AT-terra.com.br>


Thanks for remind me of Bech. I'll look for it. I agree with you totally,
specially about Habermas (& Dubiel's) understanding of Adorno. I'm glad we
see this issue here at the list. I hope we can find more time to say
something about it later. Thanks, Filipe.

> From: Claus Hansen <clausdh-AT-tdcspace.dk>
> Reply-To: frankfurt-school-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 00:00:49 +0200
> To: frankfurt-school-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology
> 
> At 17:54 24-07-03 -0300, you wrote:
>> But, despite all that, the question turns to good sociological works within
>> the actual "theoretical-philosophical predominance" research that are close
>> to Adorno's type of "post-metaphysical" discussion. If I'm not wrong, I
>> think that only one fellow have mentioned a published work since Claus have
>> asked for reference: Ralf Rogowski told us about Alex Demirovic's book,
>> saying that it is the best he knows (are there others not so good but
>> readable?). It would be interesting to have more references (specially
>> translated ones, for those who not read German), be it "empirical" or
>> "theoretical". I know some interesting theoretical works on education, like
>> Christoph Wulf (Introduction aus sciences de l'ducation, Paris: Arnabd
>> Colin, 1995), Rodriguez Rojo (Hacia una Didctica Crtica, Madrid: Ed. La
>> Muralla, 1997), H.J. Heydorn (articles published on Portuguese at
>> Brazilian's reviews) and others. Althought they don't do any empirical
>> research, their work are used by people that does it, althought I think it
>> is really not a big deal.
> 
> I think I mentioned this book once already but the Danish sociologist
> Henning Bech has written a book about Homosexuality and Modernity that
> makes use of Adornian ideas especially the one about 'granting primacy to
> the object'. Also his way of presenting his 'empirical' results are very
> Adornian as there is no systematic in it it could be interpreted more as a
> set of constellations or an example of paratactic writing form where the
> different parts of the book is in no hierarchical order. The 'theoretical'
> part of the book however is not that much influence by Adorno, but it is
> surely worth a read anyway and some of the ideas are really original as
> well. The book is published by Polity Press, 1997 and is called. When Men
> Meet.
> 
> Does anyone know if the books Susan Buck-Morss has released especially the
> ones reconstructing Benjamins Arcades project are empirical?
> 
> 
>> It seems that ask for sociological work from Adorno's perspectiva, be it
>> just "theoretical", is still at stake, because of the most popular
>> aesthetical and philosophical recent published works about Adorno ideas,
>> which are mentioned more often here.
> 
> IMHO I think this is due to the fact that Adorno in the Social Sciences is
> mostly known as the guy who hated jazz, thought that you couldn't write
> poetry after Auschwitz, wrote so it was virtually impossible to know what
> he meant and were utterly pessimistic. The sociological essays he is most
> renowned for is the ones where he criticise empirical social research and
> positivism without providing any alternative. In other words, is he at all
> relevant for sociologists or social scientist in general. To this one must
> add that at the same time the Habermasian understanding of Adorno is also
> prevailing thus contributing to a further misunderstanding of him. So the
> only ones who has really read the important works (e.g. Negative
> Dialectics, Aesthetic Theory) are philosophers and most of them has no real
> interest in the social sciences and especially not in empirical studies so
> they never try to appropriate their ideas for the social sciences.
> 
> And just another quick reply: I think it was Jukka who wrote that
> 
>> 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.
> 
> I don't agree with you on this. Both band 9.1 and 9.2 of Gesammelte
> Schriften is devoted solely to his empirical studies that is Authoritarian
> Personality, Stars Down to Earth, Schuld und Abwehr, Psychological
> Technique of Martin Luther Thomas. It is only band 8 where his strictly
> theoretical sociological essays are collected, they are of course a bit
> philosophical but not more than The Theory of Communicative Action is even
> if it is in a completely different way. Also one should bear in mind that
> most of his essays on music and litterature also are very sociological in
> the sense that they contain reflections on society that are interweaved
> with the analysis of the music or poem in these.
> 
> Claus
> 
> 
> 
>