Date: Mon, 28 Jul 2003 13:40:20 -0300
Subject: Re: [FRA:] Re: Adorno and Empirical Sociology
From: filipe ceppas <fceppas-AT-terra.com.br>


Dear Jukka,

I'll certainly find some problems with translation, because I usualy read
Adorno in Portuguese and French, but I hope you can recognize above the
words usually ascribed to Adorno's concepts in English... Let me tell you
first that as you know, I find your concern with "exemplariness" important,
as you say:

> The example of critical theory might clarify on what
> kind of problems it is possible to stumble across while trying to
> carry out cross-scientific or interdisciplinary research

I agree with you that the legitimacy of some texts and interpretative
strategies changes as the fashion goes. And it seems that we all agree that
Critical Theory is itself still an example of a cross-scientific and
interdisciplinary program, but somewhat an open case for an empirical
sociological perspective, as we can see here at the list. Beyond the borders
and the boundaries, there are just philosophical debate, in which IMO
everybody "can" participate, but it is mandatory for social scientists.  And
I think that it is Adorno's point of view too. The significance of
philosophy on culture (that is, the self-enlightening posibilities of
action, thinking, and culture production and consumption) is a question
Adorno deals with on a lot of ocasions, from diferent perspectives, like on
Eingriffe's texts for instance. A question that is in need of contextual
clarifications beyond the DoE jargon (something I try to do on my research
on teaching philosophy). As a mater of fact, may we can say that this
hypothetical "unborderness" (?) nature of philosophy is a central issue for
the dialetics of enlightment. But the important question here is the critic
of specialization, which goes with every Adorno's tips for philosophical
reflections on knowledge and science at XX century (a problem which is
crucial to think about school curriculum and the place of philosophy at high
school level). It is just impossible to deal with the problem of meaning of
specialization if we don't look back for philosophical metaphysical
tradition and its ruins, as an unsuitable but necessary source of ideals to
confront the feeble desire for social relevance of knowledge production and
consumption as a part of  'culture-industrial-administred world' faced with
catastrophe... [I'm sorry for the German phrase, but I'm trying to be
brief...] Maybe this "old rethoric" makes more sense from Third World
perspective than on richer academic ambiences, because of the poverty as an
aceptable reality we have to face everyday, and because of the colonialized
vices of our intelectual scene.

> However, I'm not sure what
> 'post-metaphysical' means in "Adorno's type of "post-metaphysical"
> discussion". Perhaps you will clarify that, Felipe?

In almost every Adorno text we find Kant or german idealism being discussed,
or mentioned at least, in a way that its "truth ambition" is seriously
considered. But, at the same time, Adorno recognize its problematic nature.
The plead for subject-object dialetics is intertwined with at least two
related and dificult questions: the problematic nature of totality (the
totality is the non-truth) and the chalenge of the 'Sachhaltige', as the
non-identitical, which is a crucial concept of Adorno's Negative Dialetics.
What does it means for the sociologists' mandatory philosophical debate? I
think that Claus has show us an interesting way to think about it. He remind
us the Benjamin and Kracauer 'method' of 'constelations' for the
presentation of philosophical thinking, if not as a scientific research. And
as far as philosophical thinking is concerned, we find at Adorno another
concept, Hegel's mediation (Vermittlung), that is crucial for the appraisal
of all philosophical atempts to run away from the dificult situation where
we lost any appeal to a stable or non-historical truth; confronting it with
the relativistic, the positivistic, and the existencial-subjectivistic
alternatives, and even with the Diamat kind of crude materialism. I think
that it is reason enough to pay atention of Adorno's contribution to the
post-metaphysical debate. It denies, at the same step, the "fully
nonirritating game that postmodernism claimed itself to represent, the game
it intended as the prelude for the ascent of posthistory", as Tiedemann put
it ‹"Concept, Image, Name: On Adorno's Utopia of Knowledge", in Huhn &
Zuidervaart (eds.) The Semblance of Subjectivity, Cambridge: The MIT Press,
1997, p.125‹. 

I would start from here. Let me know if this makes sense for you.

Best wishes, Filipe C.