social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in adorno's critical theory

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This article was downloaded by: [Simon Fraser University] On: 10 November 2014, At: 15:04 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Journal of Power Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpow20 Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in Adorno’s critical theory Duncan Russell a a University College Dublin , Dublin, Ireland Published online: 19 Mar 2010. To cite this article: Duncan Russell (2010) Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in Adorno’s critical theory, Journal of Power, 3:1, 111-126 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17540291003630403 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms- and-conditions

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Page 1: Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in Adorno's critical theory

This article was downloaded by: [Simon Fraser University]On: 10 November 2014, At: 15:04Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of PowerPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rpow20

Social hierarchy and the reduction ofexperience in Adorno’s critical theoryDuncan Russell aa University College Dublin , Dublin, IrelandPublished online: 19 Mar 2010.

To cite this article: Duncan Russell (2010) Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience inAdorno’s critical theory, Journal of Power, 3:1, 111-126

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17540291003630403

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the“Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as tothe accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinionsand views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Contentshould not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sourcesof information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims,proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Anysubstantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing,systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms &Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Page 2: Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in Adorno's critical theory

Journal of PowerVol. 3, No. 1, April 2010, 111–126

ISSN 1754-0291 print/ISSN 1754-0305 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/17540291003630403http://www.informaworld.com

Social hierarchy and the reduction of experience in Adorno’s critical theory

Duncan Russell*

University College Dublin, Dublin, IrelandTaylor and FrancisRPOW_A_463549.sgm10.1080/17540291003630403Journal of Power1754-0291 (print)/1754-0305 (online)Original Article2010Taylor & Francis310000002010DuncanRussell

In this article, I describe Theodor W. Adorno’s distinctive critique of pre-capitalistsociety. Adorno claims that a hierarchically structured society serves to limit thecapacity for experience of members of that society in a tendentious and politicallyconservative way. In particular, Adorno argues that the systems of ancient andearly modern philosophy internalise the social structure of a hierarchical society. Ishow that this account has an interesting intellectual pedigree in texts by AugusteComte and John Dewey, by which, as I claim, Adorno was influenced. Finally, Idetermine the connection between the theory of hierarchical society and Adorno’scritique of contemporary society.

Keywords: Adorno; experience; hierarchy; labour; mediation

Introduction

We are accustomed to view Adorno’s critical theory as an attack upon the social insti-tution of commodity exchange and its alleged tendency to reduce the quality or scopeof our experience. As is well known, Adorno is influenced by the formidable critiquesof capitalism offered by Marx and later by Lukács. In this paper, I wish to point outthat he also offers a distinctive critique of pre-capitalist society. Adorno’s criticism(1990, p. 191) of Lukács’s allegedly idealised and nostalgic vision of pre-capitalistsociety should, in fact, alert us to this. It is an element of Adorno’s work that hasreceived little attention in the literature.1 In his critique, Adorno claims that societiesstructured hierarchically produce cultural forms which condition the intellectual expe-rience of members of those societies. Moreover, according to Adorno, those formsfalsely naturalise hierarchical organisation, such that the capacity of individuals toexperience their subjection as such is compromised. We shall explore how Adornobelieves this reduction of experience comes about, and which social theorists he drawsupon to elucidate his theory.

After the preliminary exposition is complete, I draw attention to a close parallelbetween Adorno’s construction of a hierarchical society and those of Auguste Comteand John Dewey. In particular, we examine their similar interpretations of classicaland early modern philosophy in the light of social power structures. I note the familylikeness between the three accounts in order to offer an analysis and assessment of thiskind of theory.

In the final part of the paper, I explore the connections between the critique of hier-archy and the more famous critique of exchange society found in Adorno’s cultural

*Email: [email protected]

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criticism. I maintain that the theory of hierarchy assumes an unexpectedly central rolein his elucidation of the social mediation of consciousness in modernity. WhereAdorno attributes the alleged abstraction of modern subjective experience to the struc-ture of exchange society, he also seeks to elucidate a hidden, ‘sedimented’ content inabstract subjectivity; and this content is determined by social power structures.Indeed, it is this element of his analysis, I shall argue, that renders Adorno’s positionunique among Marxist critics of experience. Again, I offer an assessment of theposition, as I see it, and point out some possible problems with the approach.

Labour and the mediation of experience

As is consistent with the Marxist heritage of his thought, Adorno assumes a close rela-tionship between our experiences (and, more strongly, the forms of our experience)and the labour in which we must engage in order to survive. In one striking formula-tion, Adorno claims that analytic thinking about objects occurs by way of analogy withpreviously experienced object-manipulation. Thinking is ‘an imitation of physicalaction mediated by the imagination’ (Adorno 1993, p. 25). Intuitively, this seemscorrect, for surely individuals can learn and theorise successfully only on the basis ofpractice and experiment. I shall call this the thesis of experiential mediation bypersonal activity.

However, and again consistently with his Marxism, Adorno tends to apply theabove idea on a very large scale. The individual’s intuition of what is rational and rightis understood to be conditioned by the labour process of society as a whole, insofar asthat process has been experienced as efficacious and productive:

[W]hen consciousness reflects upon itself, it necessarily arrives at a concept of rational-ity that corresponds to the rationality of the labour process. I have in mind here thequalities of the division of labour and the planned processing of materials given in nature.(Adorno 2001a, p. 172)

I shall call this the thesis of experiential mediation by social labour. It is a rathergeneral thesis, which is consistent with Adorno’s well-known critique of commodityexchange in the modern era. It is also consistent with the theory I shall now elucidate.The idea that the individual’s experience is mediated by the whole web of differentlabour processes that constitute social labour at large will surely be more controversialthan the idea that it is mediated by her own activities alone. This is simply because itis empirically doubtful that the individual has direct contact with the wider socialcontext. On the other hand, it is easy to see the kind of phenomena that the thesis seeksto explain: for example, that members of a hunter–gatherer society will often figureideas in terms of chase and capture, and develop myths that extol the virtues of curi-osity, spontaneity and courage; or that an agricultural society requires careful knowl-edge of climate and seasonal change, as well as heavy labour which are reflected incyclical myths superstitiously delineating human fate.

How, then, does Adorno understand a hierarchical society, in particular, to mediateexperience? We can get a good sense of Adorno’s idea of a hierarchical society andits historical significance from the opening chapters of Dialectic of Enlightenment.Here, Adorno and Horkheimer see pre-capitalist society in terms of two differentphases. The earliest phase is characterised by a nomadic lifestyle. Labour is relativelyundivided, and no exaggerated power structures yet exist. The nomads have a strong

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capacity to experience the qualitative specificity of the natural world, a capacity thatmanifests itself in their mimetic magical practices and myths about local, chthonicdeities. However, at a given period, the more warlike tribes subjugated and enslavedtheir counterparts, setting themselves up as overlords. This colonial activity broughtan end to nomadism, as the new mode of production was an agricultural one. Thevanquished were set to work on the land as manual labour, while the conquerorsplanned and directed their efforts (Adorno and Horkheimer 1997, pp. 13–14).

Just as the ruling class was the exclusive bearer of technical knowledge, so it alsoacquired a priestly role, becoming the dispenser of a newly organised religion. Intel-lectual labour, divorced from manual labour, facilitated less acute experience of thenatural world than had existed previously; furthermore, the ruling class derided anddespised the nature-based religion of the old way of life. Mimetic magic was nowtaboo, and the old chthonic myths were subsumed into a systematic theogony (Adornoand Horkheimer 1997, p. 20). Adorno and Horkheimer offer an extensive interpreta-tion of Homer’s Odyssey in terms of this historical phenomenon. Odysseus acts as arepresentative of the dominant class, who overcomes a series of nature deities (theSirens, the Cyclops, etc.), which, in the epic, are reduced to forces of dissolution andchaos (Adorno and Horkheimer 1997, p. 43). The new religion serves to promote theexistent hierarchy, and to naturalise control of nature and domination of persons.

Adorno extends this analysis of mythology to cover the central concepts of episte-mology and moral philosophy (space, time, causality and value) – the concepts thatconsciousness arrives at through reflection upon itself – as being determinately condi-tioned by experience of social hierarchy. His claims include: notions of space areconditioned by the distribution of property in society; notions of time are conditionedby social customs of property inheritance; and notions of value are conditioned byexperience of wealth and social power. These kinds of claim are illustrated by thefollowing citations:

[T]he schema of causality was […] a copy of the simple generational relation […].Peculiar to causality is a feudal aspect [.] (Adorno 1990, p. 267)

Historically, the notion of time is itself formed on the basis of the order of ownership.(Adorno 2000, p. 79)

Since Homer, Greek linguistic usage has intertwined the concepts of goodness andwealth. […] Fixed property was a means of differentiation from nomadic disorder,against which all norms were directed; to be good and to have goods coincided from thebeginning. (Adorno 2000, pp. 184–185)

Adorno believes that epistemological concepts serve to reiterate the imperatives tocontrol nature and impose social order that he had found in the Homeric epic – a pointwhich becomes even clearer in our analysis of his metaphysics (discussed below).

The influence of Durkheim and Nietzsche

Adorno attributes to Durkheim and his followers the idea that labour relations conditionthe categories of experience (2001a, p. 226).2 However, Adorno’s emphasis on inher-itance and his references to feudalism suggest that he has a rather different idea of soci-ety than we find in Durkheim’s analyses of a hunter–gatherer society. Furthermore,there is a distinctly Nietzschean tinge to Adorno’s analysis, rather alien to Durkheim.

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In The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim traces all intellectual andcultural forms back to the practice of totemism in tribal societies. The totem is typi-cally an animal or plant species, used by the group to symbolise itself. The groupmembers suddenly feel themselves to be united by this emblem. They feel moresecure and more confident, and, indeed, their efficacy is truly improved, since thegroup coheres more strongly and can organise itself more easily. However, these posi-tive qualities are naively attributed by the group members to the totemic species itself,rather than to their act of socialisation, thus giving rise to animistic religion(Durkheim 2001, pp. 76ff.).

The totem is also the first general social concept and its reference is fullycommunicable within the group. Even though it is general in its referent, it doesnot constitute an empty concept. It refers to the new efficacy of the group structureand the mysterious feeling of well-being that socialisation provides. This ‘totemicprinciple’ has found a name among the native people of the South Seas region:mana. It has a rather vague meaning, being a hypostatised impersonal potency inwhich the group, their emblem and the referent animal species are all thought toparticipate. It is, at the same time, a substance, a quality and an activity that runsthrough the world-order. For speakers of the Oceanic languages, it is mana thatallows a person to act upon the world; therefore, esteemed, wealthy and powerfulpersons are said to have mana (see also, Mauss 2001, p. 134). The potency ofmana has aspects of both moral and physical discourse, because it is an undifferen-tiated category signifying the feeling of group unity and the physical effects suchunity can bring about.

Because it has a true referent, the proto-concept of mana has, for Durkheim, thecapacity to ground all the more sophisticated concepts of more differentiated societ-ies, from those of religion to those of modern science. However, in totemic societiesall concepts remain tied closely to the existing labour process, as it is articulatedthrough the totem. For example, the ownership of different totems structuresmarriage rights between the different segments of the tribe, and also the structure ofencampment. Durkheim argues that the fourfold structure of the camp gives rise tothe fourfold classification of north, south, east and west. Similarly, for Durkheim, thenotion of time corresponds to the particular ‘rhythm of collective activity’, i.e. to theintervals of harvesting the totemic species (Durkheim 2001, p. 12). This close rela-tion between categories and labour gives primitive thought the characteristicallyimagistic expression of mythology.

As we saw above, Durkheim’s ideas appealed to Adorno. In the opening chapterof Dialectic of Enlightenment, the idea of mana comes up several times. However, inthe same place, Adorno and Horkheimer criticise the rather utopian qualities thatDurkheim attributes to the collective conscience:

[T]he social character of categories of thought is not, as Durkheim asserts, an expressionof social solidarity, but evidence of the inscrutable unity of society and domination.(1997, p. 21)

To an extent, this is rather unfair, for Durkheim was well aware that the concept ofmana and its derivatives implied social inequalities and entailed power:

[T]he idea of force openly bears the mark of its origin. Indeed, it implies an idea of powerthat includes mastery, domination and their correlatives, dependence and subordination.[…] So everything would indicate that the first powers the human mind could imagine

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are those that societies established as they became organised. It is in their image that thepowers of the physical world were conceived. (2001, pp. 271–272)

On the other hand, there is little to connect this violent picture with that of spontane-ous mutual cooperation conveyed above. It is for this reason that I would suggest thatAdorno supplements Durkheim’s account with Nietzsche’s more forthright anddynamic account of power in society. Adorno’s construction of a hierarchical societyis almost certainly influenced by Nietzsche. We saw above how Adorno pointed outthe etymological roots of value words in terms for wealth and social power. This isreminiscent of The Genealogy of Morals, where Nietzsche states:

The judgement ‘good’ does not derive from those to whom ‘goodness’ is shown! Rather,the ‘good’ themselves – that is, the noble, the powerful, the superior, and the high-minded– were the ones who felt themselves and their actions to be good. (1998, p. 12)

Nietzsche argues that language itself is an expression of power relations, for it is the‘right of the masters to confer names’ (1998, p. 13). Nietzsche argues that society isessentially a structure of power relations, wherein the constant, violent interaction ofhostile individuals tends to discourage wilful behaviour and encourage a generallycautious and pedantic attitude. In an earlier age of society, the dominant individualsdoled out punishments, not to deter people from harmful behaviour or from a sense ofjustice, but simply because certain actions had happened to make them angry. Thepunishment was a way of taking this anger out upon the miscreant. Nietzsche figuresthis as a kind of natural exchange. The disparity of power between individuals insti-tutes this primordial kind of exchange because the powerless person can in no wayrescind on the ‘deal’. Nietzsche argues that, throughout history, the mass of peoplewith less power suffered an enormity of violent and painful punishments for any kindof obtrusive, wilful behaviour. In the modern period, they came to internalise punish-ment itself as a ‘bad conscience’, constraining their own will at all costs, rather thanrisk further torture. People started to imagine themselves in a state of permanent debtto society, to the good (Nietzsche 1998, p. 46).

The combination of elements from Durkheim and Nietzsche cannot but strike thereader as a strange one. Durkheim tends to describe society in terms of harmony,while Nietzsche always envisages it as strife. Durkheim’s theory of early society is notbased upon domination, while Nietzsche’s theory of power does not make any refer-ence to social labour. While I believe that Adorno’s account of a hierarchical societyis potentially problematic, I would argue that Adorno has not assimilated the theoriesby mistake, nor have I misinterpreted his references to the two thinkers. Adorno’sevident purpose was to articulate how society has become a totality, oppressive toindividuals within that society. A hierarchy that is objectively harmful to individualspersists unchecked because it has managed to naturalise itself in the minds of subjectsthrough certain theoretical and practical categories of understanding. We will under-stand this more clearly in the following section, where we examine two theories thatare identical in form to Adorno’s own: those of Auguste Comte and John Dewey.

Comte and Dewey

The two texts I wish to discuss are Comte’s Positive Philosophy and the first ofDewey’s lectures that were published under the title, Reconstruction in Philosophy. Itis very likely that Dewey was influenced by Comte, for, apart from any general

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similarity in content, Dewey makes direct reference to Comte’s book.3 Let us beginwith Comte.

Like Adorno, Comte constructs the pre-modern phase of society (he calls it ‘thetheological phase’) in a number of steps. He, too, begins with what I have called thethesis of experiential mediation by personal activity:

The only way that he [early man] can explain any phenomena is by likening them, asmuch as possible, to his own acts – the only ones whose mode of production he cansuppose himself, by the accompanying sensations, to understand. (Comte 1893, p. 132)

For Comte, this gives rise to a characteristically mythological world-view, in whicheven inanimate beings are regarded as living a life analogous to the human one.

However, Comte wishes to show not simply that labour is the vehicle of the under-standing, but also that it can limit the understanding. In the second step, he argues thatthe theological phase assumes an oppressive form, which inhibits full experience. Hemaintains that the archaic labour process was marked by the following social struc-ture. For Comte, early man is highly militarised, with tribe habitually warring againsttribe. He argues that ‘the necessary basis of the military régime has everywhere beenthe individual slavery of the producing class, by which warriors were allowed the fulland free development of their activity’ (Comte 1893, p. 145). In other words, heargues that the activity of war has a functional precondition: the division of labourbetween a warrior class and a slave class.

Because experience is mediated by habitual activity, then, this division of labourbetween dominant and oppressed classes becomes naturalised in the world-view of allindividuals. According to Comte, ‘no military system could arise and endure withoutthe countenance of the theological spirit, which must secure for it the complete andpermanent subordination essential to its existence’ (1893, pp. 146–147). In fact,Comte gives a second reason why the group’s ‘theology’ becomes a source of oppres-sion. He argues that bearers of the theology form a separate ‘speculative class’ overand above the other social classes. Again, he states that an intellectual class is func-tionally indispensable to the military project, in order to organise relations betweenthe warriors and the slaves (Comte 1893, p.138).

Before commenting on this theory, let us examine Dewey’s treatment of the socialhierarchy and experience. First, Dewey conjures up a picture of the cultural life of tribalpeoples. He suggests that people do not remember their experiences in order to analysethem intellectually, but only for entertainment, to escape present tedium by evokingthe thrills of yesterday. He argues that the most ‘primitive’ mythological culture tendsto emphasise imagination, drama and emotional intensity at the expense of analyticrigour (Dewey 2004, p. 2). However, society then develops from this initial phase. The‘casual and transitory’ recollections of personal dramas are displaced by the institu-tionalised re-creation of ‘socially generalised’ experience (Dewey 2004, p. 5). The ideais that some experiences are so recurrent that they concern the group as a whole, anda cultural tradition concerning these experiences gradually develops:

Tradition thus formed becomes a kind of norm to which individual fancy and suggestionconform. […] A communal way of conceiving life grows up into which individuals areinducted by education. (Dewey 2004, p. 5)

Dewey clearly conceives of this socio-cultural tradition as having an autonomousexistence, by contrast with the individual’s spontaneous and self-centred myth-making

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of the earlier period. Furthermore, like Comte, he heightens this impression byconnecting the development of the tradition with social stratification. Dewey claimsthat such traditions are often forced upon peoples by colonial powers seeking tomaintain a strong, centralised authority (2004, pp. 5–6).

So, in both cases, then, it is initially posited that the individual’s experience oflife’s activities forms the content of experience and the basis of analytic thought. Thenit is argued that social experience plays a particularly important role in determiningexperience. Society, here, is characterised principally in terms of a hierarchical powerstructure, perhaps functionally useful, but imposed upon individuals. Finally, it isinferred that hierarchy becomes a central category of intellectual experience, effec-tively naturalising that social form. This is essentially the account that I have ascribedto Adorno.

However, I would argue that there is a flaw in this argument. The thesis of expe-riential mediation by personal activity requires that those actions are undertakenconsciously and purposively. The subject only takes aspects of her concrete activityas models for objective experience, because she has experienced that activity as effec-tual, and because she thus feels some identity with them. In other words, the subjectmust see the reason in the activity. However, this cannot be the case in terms of thesocial hierarchy, which is likely to be experienced by the individual subject as alienand oppressive. Therefore, the social hierarchy need not acquire special experientialsignificance for the individual.

The problem can be most clearly seen in Dewey’s exposition, because (likeAdorno) he actually distinguishes two phases, in order to articulate the developmentof a hierarchical society. In the initial phase, intellectual life is defined by objects ofpersonal experience and the individual’s whimsy. In the second phase, it is definedexclusively by social experience. I would argue, however, that this distinction is anarbitrary one. How can life in the earliest phase be devoid of social experience?Dewey, himself, illustrates tribal culture with social occurrences:

The triumph of battle is even more poignant in the memorial war dance than at themoment of victory; the conscious and truly human experience of the chase comes whenit is talked over and re-enacted by the campfire. (2004, p. 2)

If the individual was always a member of society, there is no reason why his or herexperience should not always have been of ‘socially generalised’ interest. Indeed, thepre-eminent source of colour in our experiences is surely the social significance theyhave; this is already implied by Dewey’s frequent use of the word ‘drama’. Conversely,if people are really more desirous of fantasy than a close record of social life in culturalobjects, there is no reason why culture would develop in this direction. Social experi-ence imposed entirely from above need not gain general approval at all.

This line of fracture in the theories of Comte and Dewey also exists in Adorno’stheory of hierarchical society. It is evidenced by the schism between Durkheimianand Nietzschean elements in his construction. In the first instance, Adorno wants toargue that people live and work together within a social labour process, which itselfdefines the experiences and experiential forms of those people. This harmoniouspicture is taken from Durkheim. At the same time, however, he wishes to show thatthis social totality has attained a degree of autonomy from its individual members, towhom it is coercive and harmful. The element of coercion is borrowed fromNietzsche.

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Hierarchy and philosophy

Adorno does not cite Comte or Dewey in his constructions of a hierarchical society;as we have seen, he commonly chooses to cite Durkheim and Nietzsche. Yet there isconvincing evidence that Adorno was directly influenced by the former thinkers. Thisis to be found in the context of philosophical criticism. Comte, Dewey and Adornomake similar criticisms of ancient and early modern philosophy, in which it is claimedthat concepts borrowed from the social hierarchy have been illegitimately internalisedin philosophical systems.

Comte argued that Ancient Greek philosophy displayed the earliest stirrings ofevolution from the dogmatic, ‘theological’ intellectual disposition of early man to the‘positivist’, scientific viewpoint of today:

Before astronomical study had begun to disclose the existence of natural laws, the humanmind, eager to escape from the exclusively theological régime, was searching amongrudimentary mathematical conceptions for universal ideas of order and fitness, which,confused and illusory as they were, were a genuine first presentiment of the subjectionof all phenomena to natural laws. (1893, pp. 203–204)

However, according to Comte, the Greek mind failed to produce real scientific insight.True, ancient philosophy posited a sphere of nature, in contrast to the divine; it presup-posed the right of private judgement, free from sacerdotal influence; and it proposeda doctrine of equality, in opposition to the old hierarchy. But these doctrines were onlydogmatic negations of the theological order, rather than substantive truths. To thisextent, philosophical reason was an ‘organ of intellectual and moral anarchy’ (Comte1893, p. 204). Thus, for Comte, ancient philosophy was an ineffective source ofrenewal, which left the old hierarchy intact.

Dewey elaborated on this formulation. As we saw, he argued that the cultural unityof early societies was, to a great extent, imposed upon them by colonial powers. Thus,the guardians and dispensers of myth and religious doctrine belonged to the ruling class.In opposition to this body of ‘official’ knowledge, however, there developed a largebody of practical, matter-of-fact knowledge, belonging to the workers and craftsmenof the producing class. Finally, according to Dewey, the latter grew so much in sizeand scope that it came into manifest conflict with the former. As in Comte, this conflictis first to be seen in Greek philosophy, where the claims of practical knowledge, asagainst official doctrine, were put by the Sophists:

The fact that the sophists had a bad name given them by Plato and Aristotle, a name theyhave never been able to shake off, is evidence that with the sophists the strife betweenthe two types of belief was the emphatic thing, and that the conflict had a disconcertingeffect upon the traditional system of religious beliefs and the moral code of conductbound up with it. (Dewey 2004, p. 8)

Here, Dewey conceives Plato and Aristotle as forces of conservatism. Although hecredits them with taking the conflict between tradition and the new ideas seriously, hebelieves that they essentially intended to resolve this conflict in favour of the oldguard. ‘[T]hat which had rested on custom was to be restored’; Plato and Aristotlewanted their metaphysics to ‘substitute for custom as the source and guarantor ofhigher moral and social values’ (Dewey 2004, p. 10). Indeed, Dewey traces this histor-ical dynamic all the way through to the early modern period, where he interprets epis-temology as an attempt to preserve spiritual values in a world increasingly understood

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in purely mechanical terms, an attempt ‘to save life from a degrading materialism’(2004, p. 41).

In this, Dewey does not mean that classical metaphysics necessarily espousedespecially conservative views. Rather, he holds that it transposes socially conditionedmythology into its very structure. For Dewey, this is exemplified by Aristotle’sphilosophy, where the arrangement of the things of the world into graded families andclasses allegedly registers an experience of the social hierarchy, which this metaphys-ics implicitly affirms. ‘The universe is constituted on an aristocratic, one can truly saya feudal, plan’ (Dewey 2004, p. 34).

Like Dewey, Adorno understands the inner structure of ancient philosophy toadhere to a feudal plan. For him, Plato’s doctrine of the Ideas remains closely tied toorthodox religious belief of the ruling class. Its simple opposition between the heav-enly realm of the Ideas and the sphere of earthly experience is ‘a secularisation oftheology’; the Ideas are ‘the gods turned into concepts’ (Adorno 2001b, p. 18). WhileAdorno concedes that Aristotle tried to create an immanent metaphysics that wouldnot appeal to the transcendent in this way, he asserts that this effort was not whollysuccessful:

[Aristotle] criticises the Platonic hypostasis of universal concepts as a duplication of theworld. In this he makes a very strong and legitimate case, based on the argument that allthe attributes of the Ideas are derived from the empirical world, on which they live, ratheras the rulers lived on the work of their servants or slaves. At the same time, however, hethen seeks in his turn to extract an essential being from the sensible, empirical world, andthereby to save it [.] (2001b, p. 20)

The connection made in the passage between Plato’s ideas and the ruling class is, ofcourse, Adorno’s rather than Aristotle’s. Adorno proceeds to argue that Aristotle’sconcept of ousia, the ‘essential being’ of the passage, re-establishes the dichotomousstructure of Platonism, though in a newly internalised way. Aristotle’s hierarchy ofbeing, between gross matter and the prime mover, inscribes anew the order of feudalism(Adorno 2001b, pp. 39, 78).

Another interesting source, in this context, is an uncredited paper, ‘Society’,published collectively under the aegis of the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research. Init, the authors recapitulate Dewey’s interpretation of the conflict between the Sophistsand the Platonists. The authors show how the Sophist, Antiphon, aims at the abolitionof ‘all stipulations of nomos [law], noble birth, social status, traditional cultivation,wealth, and conventional religious belief in favour of the “natural life”’ (FrankfurtInstitute of Social Research 1973, p. 19). In response, Plato sought to synthesise thisimplicitly critical opposition between natural life and social artifice, essentially byarguing that the phenomena of the division of labour and its social distinctions, of lawand state sovereignty, are themselves natural to man. In the view of the authors, Platois thereby acting as an apologist of the status quo.

The influence of Comte and Dewey on Adorno can be perceived in his appropria-tion of some of their characteristic phrases. Like Comte, Adorno believes thatEnlightenment thinkers perceived that the categorical rejection of feudally inspiredideas was likely to be accompanied by the loss of the cohesive social function ofthose ideas, such that progressive thought was ever accompanied by a ‘fear ofanarchy’ (1990, p. 232). Adorno diagnoses an underlying worry in both classicalmetaphysics and modern epistemology that destruction of the old ideas would lead tomoral nihilism, social anarchy and material dissolution. Adorno links the fear of

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anarchy in bourgeois morality with a fear of chaotic nature in bourgeois epistemol-ogy: the worry here was that the new configuration of labour would fail to exploitnature sufficiently well to sustain society (2001c, p. 44). These fears motivated whatAdorno calls philosophy’s ‘saving urge’. Thinkers tried to effect a compromisebetween their progressive insights and the existing social ideologies:

[While philosophical] systems have always been critically disposed towards anythingthey regarded as dogmatic or fixed ideas, they have attempted, on the other hand, torescue, on the basis of thought alone, that to which the dogmatic or fixed ideas referred.(Adorno 2001b, p. 8)

In a clear echo of Dewey’s language, Adorno sees philosophical texts ‘rescuing’ or‘salvaging’ mythological elements in order to bolster their own systems.

Hierarchical society within Adorno’s critical theory

While this account of a hierarchical society and its ideology is neither the mostimportant nor the best-known in the literature, it has been instructive to witness itspersistence and renewal through a chain of influence between rather disparatethinkers. What can we say are the true philosophical implications of the theory? Indifferent ways, Comte, Dewey and Adorno had an interest in the Enlightenment, andeach one used the theory of power to condemn established notions as establishmentnotions. Adorno deplores the air of sublimity and depth that philosophy allegedlygives itself by dispensing with particular experience (2001a, p. 185). Sardonically,he describes how, ‘trembling with hauteur’ (Adorno 1990, p. 138), systematicphilosophy has ceded knowledge of the ‘subaltern’ particular to the special sciences(Adorno 1990, p. 8). Dewey likewise worries about a perceived tendency ‘to throwthe glamour and prestige […] attached to the general notion over the concrete situa-tion and thereby to cover up the defects of the latter and disguise the need of seriousreforms’ (2004, pp. 109–110). In this light, it seems plausible to link the theory ofpower elucidated here with the classic Enlightenment philosophies of Voltaire andLocke.

However, this also raises a problem for our understanding of Adorno. AlthoughComte, Dewey and Adorno all held the ambition of liberating experience from soci-etal constraints, it is also true that they held differing conceptions of what constitutestrue experience. In particular, we must differentiate Comte and Dewey, on the onehand, and Adorno, on the other. The positivist and the pragmatist criticised earlyforms of thought from a position of approval (broadly speaking) for modern scientificmethod. For them, the insights provided by science have, to a great extent, blownaway the cobwebs of ancient dogma. For Adorno, however, the dissolution of feudalhierarchy has not led to a free society; neither has the advance of science led to unre-duced experience. Indeed, for Adorno, philosophical positivism and pragmatism mayeven be said to express the reduction of experience typical of modernity. For commen-tators on Adorno, this must raise the question of how the critique of pre-capitalistsociety and that of capitalism relate to one another within his work.

Adorno’s critique of capitalism is a faithfully Marxist one. Marx argued that soci-ety forms a totality to the extent that the labour of individuals is coordinated to meetthe material needs of the collective. Where a complex division of labour exists, no indi-vidual can produce everything necessary for her own survival; instead, she mustexchange the surplus product of her own labour for other useful commodities. The

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practice of commodity exchange also implies the institution of private property. Marxcriticises societies organised in this way, because individuals fail to see that their inter-ests are linked within the overall production process. Individuals work solely with theirown profit in mind. Social production is not organised by collective decision, butoccurs anarchically, regulated by market forces alone (Marx 1978, p. 160). Inexchange society, then, all individuals are at the mercy of the blindly functioning total-ity. Hence, although Marx was particularly outraged by the exploitation of the workingclass under capitalism, he famously refused to blame the capitalists (1995, p. 5). Therelationship was not one of direct domination of the employees by the employers;rather, both groups were simply obeying the coercive laws of the social totality.

Marx coupled his social critique with a critique of consciousness. In the universaldrive for acquisition by exchange, the abstract exchange value of commoditiesbecomes their most important attribute for consciousness, such that people can neitherapprehend commodities as concrete products of social labour nor question existentrelations of social labour. He calls this phenomenon ‘commodity fetishism’. Marxsharpens the point into an epistemological analysis of consciousness under capitalism.Calculation of the relative exchange values of commodities requires abstraction fromall their qualitative determinants. Abstract and unitary categories of space, time andmass are developed to facilitate this, and an increasingly quantitative and calculatingcast of mind emerges (Marx 1995, pp. 44ff.). Adorno was to call this the ‘reificationof consciousness’ – and it is, in fact, in this context that he criticises the scientificallyoriented philosophies of positivism and pragmatism.

Although Adorno was not an uncritical Marxist, he certainly accepted Marx’sclaims that exchange society forms a totality that serves only the exploitation of indi-viduals and the reduction of their capacity for experience. These claims occur in everytext, and often, indeed, on every page. He often figures these ideas in terms of the domi-nation of the ‘universal’ or of a ‘social subject’. For Adorno, the reified cultural formsof capitalism reflect ‘the omnipotence of its [society’s] own coercion’ (1990, p. 316).However, interestingly for our purposes, Adorno does not simply regard the critiqueof hierarchy as superseded, under conditions of modern capitalism. He retains thecritique of hierarchy as part of the critique of capitalism. For example, he states thatour ostensibly ‘formal categories are filled with a sedimented content’ insofar as ‘ideasare being controlled by socially dominant groups in power’ (Adorno 2006, p. 32). Inthe same passage, he argues that ideas are conditioned by both ‘dominant relations andthe dominance of the universal’.

I regard this as a defining characteristic of Adorno’s critical theory, which entersinto the heart of his cultural criticism. As an example of the latter, let us briefly exam-ine his analysis of Kant’s transcendental idealism. In his theoretical philosophy, Kantaimed to describe the structure of knowledge, in terms of a-priori synthetic forms.These latter were to be defined by the fact that, although they could be known to betrue in isolation from any particular experience of the empirical world, they could alsosupply true knowledge of the empirical world. The forms were meant to explainthe validity of pure logical and mathematical deductions. Now, Adorno interprets thea-priori synthetic forms as a reflex of commodity fetishism. Kant’s emphasis onabstract and quantitative categories reflects the social imperative to calculateexchange value. The Kantian account of experience is a correct description of experi-ence under capitalism, but not of experience per se. Adorno speaks of the ‘commoditycharacter’ of Kantian appearances (2001a, p. 115), in which the ‘world of exchange[… creates] a façade of objectivity, a second nature’ (2001a, p. 137). This analysis is

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an extremely familiar one within the corpus of Marxist Kant commentary, and thus faris quite unoriginal.

Over and above a simple description of the forms, Kant had also aimed to providean objective deduction of their validity for all possible experience. He sought to dothis by showing that the synthetic unity of apperception (the idea that I can unify allmy experiences under the ‘I think’) is, in fact, a function of the application of the cate-gories to the manifold of sensuous experience (see Guyer 2007, pp. 82–83). Adornoresponded to this element in Kant’s work in a slightly different way. He interpretsKant’s attempted deduction of the categories in terms not of exchange, but of theconcrete social labour process. Adorno’s point is that the synthetic unity of apperceptioncannot be regarded, as Kant believes, as the logical identity of a subjective judgementwith itself. Experience is something that has to be produced: the transcendental subjectmust combine the chaotic manifold, it must be able to accompany all my representations(Adorno 2001c, p. 94):

[T]he structure of the Critique of Pure Reason should be thought of in terms of variousmaterials falling into a machine where they are then processed; and that what thenemerges as the result of this processing is my knowledge. (Adorno 2001a, p. 129)

As we have seen, when the philosopher reflects upon experience, for Adorno, theconcept of rationality they construct will draw upon the experience of the social labourprocess. In Kant, this is expressed by the chapter on the schematism, where the epis-temologist seeks to show how time (the form of the subject’s inner sense) mediatesbetween the logical categories, on the one hand, and sense stimulation, on the other.In the temporality of the schemata, Adorno finds suppressed reference to historicalsocial labour (2001a, pp. 134, 167, 1990, pp. 54, 333).

This double-aspect interpretation is, to my knowledge, unique to Adorno, and it isthis that underlies his claim to find a ‘sedimented’ historical content in ostensiblyformal and abstract cultural forms. One can break down Adorno’s interpretationof Kant’s practical philosophy in precisely the same way. The moral law, which is ana-priori synthetic proposition, is a reflex of commodity exchange. The formalism ofthe law is traced to the need for calculable legal rights and responsibilities within thecapitalist mode of production. Yet, Adorno interprets Kant’s deduction of our capacityto follow the moral law in terms of concrete social labour.4 He shows that Kant’smoral concepts are appropriated from the social sphere of legal sovereignty: law,reverence and duty (Adorno 1990, p. 232). More than this, in Adorno’s interpretation,Kant’s moral concepts derive from an experience of a specifically feudal hierarchy.The idea of the will incorporates ‘a historic sediment of power which the will oughtto resist’ (Adorno 1990, p. 242). The moral law represents the ‘internalisation ofrepression’, ‘dominion’ and ‘archaic taboos’ (Adorno 1990, pp. 271–273). Unmistak-ably gesturing towards Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, Adorno claims that the ideaof reverence for the law registers a moment of historical oppression (2001c, p. 83).

In fact, there is evidence that Adorno sees reference to specifically pre-capitalistsocial labour structures in Kant’s theoretical philosophy, too. Adorno implies thatKant’s strong dualism, in contrast to the later monism of objective idealism, showsthat he retained an intuition of the structure of concrete labour (i.e. the dualismbetween human labour and natural raw materials), which a later, more reified,consciousness would forget (1990, p. 178). But this raises the question why Kant’sdescription of experience in terms of reified logical and mathematical categories

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should contain any reference to pre-capitalist hierarchy. The whole point of the theoryof commodity fetishism was to show that qualitative intuition of concrete sociallabour has been lost. It seems contradictory to suggest that self-experience in the ageof commodity exchange is, at the same time, being qualitatively conditioned by expe-rience of the social hierarchy. Furthermore, the postulated transition from a hierarchi-cal society to a capitalist society is a convincing one precisely because the unleashedaction of the market served fatally to undermine the bases of power of the traditionalaristocracy. It is contrary to this dynamic to assume that the hidden content of reifiedsubjectivity is a thoroughly conservative deference to authority.

The problem with Adorno’s argument can be summarised by means of a contrastwith Lukács’ earlier dialectical critique of epistemology. Like Adorno, Lukács hadclaimed that Kantian philosophy was unduly formalist and prone to antinomy becausethe mode of experience it described was conditioned by commodity exchange, ratherthan by concrete social labour. Lukács understood the so-called ‘bourgeois antino-mies’ to point to the concrete labour process of society. For him, they could not beresolved theoretically, but only by revolutionary action on the part of the productiveclass (i.e. the proletariat) (Lukács 1971, p. 148). Whether or not one upholds thecritique of commodity fetishism or dialectical method at large, the link that Lukácsforges between epistemology and society is certainly clear: epistemological formalismfails to grasp qualitative content in the same way that relations of exchange do notdetermine production. In other words, the epistemological and social problems aretruly isomorphic, in that both resolve into a basic dichotomy of form and content.Adorno’s point, however, is different: epistemological formalism is a medium ofsocial coercion in the same way that formally equal exchange relationships are, inreality, very unequal. There is a clear slippage here. Where, in Lukács’s argument,absence of content surely does imply formalism, and vice versa, in Adorno’s argu-ment, the absence of content does not necessarily imply the presence of social poweror coercion. It remains sheer assertion that the antinomies make this reference.

To take another short example of Adorno’s criticism, we may look at his interpre-tation of the concept of authenticity (famously appropriated by existentialist philoso-phy). Adorno wishes to claim that the notion of authenticity is so abstract as to be entirelymeaningless, but, on the other hand, that it makes obscure reference to social power.

Adorno argues that, in a hierarchical society, ‘authenticity’ signified being blue-blooded or highborn. It was a concept, which served to naturalise the aristocracy’sright to rule. ‘This notion […] is always linked with social legitimism. All ruling strataclaim to be its oldest settlers, autochthonous’ (Adorno 2000, p. 155). But the ruler ofa hierarchical society truly is authentic, not insofar as he contingently holds this posi-tion among others, but in that his rule actually holds together and organises the group.This serves to differentiate the ancient sense of authenticity from the modern.Although the bourgeoisie, as a ruling class, retained the notion of authenticity, thebourgeois individual’s dominant social position is arbitrary and insecure – the productof fluctuating market forces (Adorno 2000, p. 152). Now, authenticity expresses ahopeless attempt to formulate virtue in a world where traditional values have beenerased by exchange: be authentic, no matter what else you might happen to be. ‘[F]orall its aristocratic trimmings, ritual falls into the late-bourgeois habit of hypostatisinga performance in itself meaningless as meaning’ (Adorno 2000, p. 189).

Now, one might, with Adorno, undertake a dialectical critique of the abstract ideaof genuineness on the grounds that, in order to be genuine, a thing also requires astable identity. But such a critique cannot imply the requirement of being powerful or

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socially legitimate. (Neither would a critique of the idea of rulership imply the needto be authentic, although it is, of course, easy to imagine that the word ‘authentic’once signified high birth.) And because there is no internal link between the twomeanings, there is no reason, on the face of it, why the usage should have developedin this way. Indeed, Adorno’s dismissive reference to ‘aristocratic trimmings’ alreadysuggests how tenuous the link is.

However, there is one concept in Adorno’s canon, which promises to redeem histhesis of content internalised in formal ideas. This is the motif of the ‘saving urge’,which Adorno borrowed from Dewey. As we saw, Adorno believed that Enlighten-ment thinkers wished to rid society of traditional dogma that was taken merely uponauthority, but also feared, perhaps unconsciously, that the undermining of existentauthorities would lead to nihilism, anarchy and dissolution. The repressed contentsthat Adorno finds in their thought can be put down to a muted appeal to the old wayto life to give its sanction to the new. If Kant could no longer believe that everythingis for the best in this best of all possible worlds, he gratefully conceded that, in thelittle world of the subject, goodness remains guaranteed. If the modern existentialistis painfully aware of the arbitrariness and absurdity of her life, she still hopes to provethat she is authentically herself. This is a believable basis for philosophical criticism,and one that Adorno certainly intends, where he talks of Kant’s salvaging activity. Wemust emphasise, however, that it does not justify the strong conclusion that a-priorisynthetic forms themselves contain a sedimented content: it is not logic or mathemat-ics that makes reference to feudal domination, but only Kant’s deduction of thecategories. In line with Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, we must concede thatthe forms are quite empty and abstract.

This leaves two possible interpretations that could be accorded to the negativedialectic, as I have formulated it. One is the more interesting, but probably flawed; theother more plausible, but altogether less ambitious. Firstly, we could claim that logicand mathematics, as we make use of them every day in our disciplined and technolog-ical lives, are implicated by the evils of the commodity exchange in which they hadtheir origin. In other words, by using logic and maths, we determinately mistake theobject world in just the same way as the ancients mistakenly believed that the universehad a hierarchical structure. Adorno certainly seems to make this potentially devastat-ing criticism in many places, as we have seen. To my understanding, however, theanalogy between commodity fetishism and experiential mediation by hierarchy uponwhich this criticism depends is a mistaken one. In fact, the idea of commodity fetish-ism actually precludes the possibility of a hidden content derived from social power.

We might try to recuperate this element by another interpretation. Here, we wouldhighlight the more psychological elements in Adorno’s historical interpretation ofconsciousness. Because people (primarily intellectuals) often found capitalism bitterand Enlightenment ideas dry, they everywhere embroidered their otherwise reifiedexperience with motifs borrowed from an earlier phase of social history. Likely as thismay be, it cannot be regarded as a very central criticism of capitalist society as such.Moreover, on this interpretation, the real motivation for Adorno’s dialectical methodis foregone.

Conclusion

In this paper, I have described Adorno’s account of a hierarchical society and its ideo-logical reduction of experience, an account that I claimed was influenced by those of

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Comte and Dewey. Although I have pointed out certain tensions in its formulation, thetheory is a strong one, with great critical force. It is evidenced by the historicallypervasive myth of divine right. In the latter stages of the essay, I have maintained thatthe theory is not simply a footnote to Adorno’s Marxist critique of modernity, but thatit is imported into the latter as an essential component. For Adorno, the abstract formsof subjectivity conditioned by experience of commodity exchange also register asedimented content derived from experience of hierarchy. I have commented that thiscombination of the critique of experiential mediation by hierarchy and that ofmediation by exchange is a problematic one, because the ground of the former is thatexperience is too closely determined by concrete social labour structures, while theground of the latter is that experience is too little determined by them.

What led Adorno to associate commodity exchange and social power so deeply?It cannot only have been sympathy with the plight of the proletariat, since other Marxists,such as Lukács, presumably felt this too. Perhaps it was a growing apprehension, atthe time of Frankfurt School Critical Theory, of the problem of bureaucracy. The liberalera of independent entrepreneurship had ended, and the global economy was increas-ingly driven by great corporations and (sometimes totalitarian) state administrations.Critics began increasingly to appropriate Weber’s critique of bureaucratic hierarchies,as much as Marx’s critique of the market. Adorno certainly participated in this trend,though, interestingly, he departed from Weber’s original conception of bureaucracy asa hierarchical chain of command:

Max Weber was still in a position to restrict his thought essentially to administration inthe narrow sense, i.e., to bureaucratic hierarchies. […] Meanwhile, this tendency has leftthis far behind and achieved total development; this it has done by no means only ineconomic monopolies. The increase in the quantity of administrative apparatus hasbrought about a new quality. Mechanisms conceived according to a liberalistic model areno longer roofed over or interpenetrated by administration; they have rather assumed theupper hand towards spheres of freedom to such a degree that the latter appear only to betolerated. (1978, p. 96)

In his dark vision, Adorno re-imagines bureaucracy as a social totality. It is as if, forhim, the immanent tendency of a society structured by commodity exchange had beento produce a condition of total domination. In this context, Adorno pictures thegovernment minister and managing director weighed down by the same administra-tive duties as the secretary and sales assistant (2000, p. 128, 2006, p. 70). But it isworth pointing out that Adorno’s concept of ‘total bureaucracy’ is subject to the verysame difficulty as the thesis of formal categories filled with sedimented content.Bureaucracy is a structure of domination, requiring an overall leader to function. It isimpossible to imagine how the postulated total bureaucracy, lacking such a figure,could dominate at all.

Notes1. Honneth (1991, p. 49) emphasises the importance of the critique, though he devotes little

space to exposition, as I shall do here.2. Adorno here explains the theory, providing a dialectical critique. Notwithstanding this

critique, he makes use of the theory himself, as we can see.3. In fact, Dewey mis-ascribes a line of Adam Smith to Comte, which Comte, himself, had

quoted in the relevant section of The Positive Philosophy (Comte 1893, p. 132, Dewey2004, p. 6).

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4. Although Kant, himself, stressed the difference between theoretical and practical reason,such that the latter does not require an objective deduction, Adorno saw the two as isomor-phic. As the theoretical categories must be able to cohere with the manifold, so the practicalimperative must be able to govern our actions.

Notes on contributorDuncan Russell is currently completing his Ph.D. on Theodor W. Adorno at University CollegeDublin, where he is an Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences scholar.

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