Date: Sun, 28 Mar 1999 20:53:53 +0300 (EET DST)
From: Fredrik Hertzberg LIT <fhertzbe-AT-ra.abo.fi>
Subject: Re: critical theory?


On Fri, 26 Mar 1999, ken wrote:

> In Negative Dialectics Adorno rejects this possibility when he 
> writes "Dialectics is not a standpoint."  Any kind of 
> operationalizing of negative dialectics would cave the 
> emphatic understanding of reason that Adorno upholds 
> together with instrumental brutality.  ND, in every possible 
> way, is an attempt to think against instrumental reason, to 
> fashion an alternative to the horror of identity thinking.  
> Nonidentity cannot be turned into a principle, at least 
> according to Adorno.  But, what I think might be helpful here is 

If nopnidentity can't be turned into a principle, isn't it anyway a 
practice? Isn't a method always a practice? and instrumental? I have 
great respect for Adorno, but I can't figure this out, i.e. as far as 
negative dialectics is a practice/ method, isn't it positive in a sense? 
isn't identity inescapable=?

fred