Iain Macdonald

Against Hegelian idealism and certain strands of Marxism, Adorno defends subjective, somatic, and affective experience, not as immediately true, but as a historically mediated reflection of objective social forces. Such experiences are historically caused, but they are also "primary" insofar as theory must presuppose them in order to gain critical traction. The article first looks at Adorno's criticisms of Hegel's mistrust of individuality and Lukács' privileging of objective economic analysis. Subsequently, through readings of Huysmans' _Against Nature_ and Benjamin's _Berlin Childhood_, the article then shows how primary experience can fail or succeed, according to how it is taken up by critique: decadence fetishizes sensation and stalls in false alternatives, while Benjamin reveals how everyday images preserve missed historical potentials. The aim of the article is to show how primary experience functions as a fragile presupposition for critique and progress.

This essay explores notions of alienation and estrangement, contrasting Kafka’s _The Trial_ with the classical accounts offered by Hegel and Marx. A sense of impossibility emerges in Kafka’s work that is new and at the same time tragic. We are estranged from the very conditions of recognizing the conflicting forces that define experience—that is, estranged from the possibility of reconciliation that is clearly necessary, but in no way experienced as real, in spite of the inextinguishable hope that such reconciliation may nevertheless be possible. “Oh, [there is] plenty of hope, an infinite amount of hope—but not for us,” as Kafka famously put it. References are made to Adorno’s and Benjamin’s writings on Kafka. The references to tragic ambiguity, initially presented in relation to the work of Vernant and Naquet, are buttressed philosophically by a reflection on the peculiar modality of the “unreal possibility” of overcoming estrangement.

_Adorno and Heidegger_ explores the conflictual history of two important traditions of twentieth-century European thought: the critical theory of Theodor W. Adorno and the ontology of Martin Heidegger. As is well known, there has been little productive engagement between these two schools of thought, in large measure due to Adorno's sustained and unanswered critique of Heidegger. Stemming from this critique, numerous political and philosophical barriers have kept these traditions separate, such that they have rarely been submitted to scrutiny, let alone questioned. The essays making up this collection are fresh and original attempts at coming to terms with the nuances and difficulties that these two towering figures have bequeathed to the history of European thought. The volume's authors deal with a variety of issues ranging from epistemology to esthetics, to ethics, to intellectual history and modernity, providing the reader with detailed insight into a thorny debate in the history of recent European thought.

In what follows, I present my replies to Nicholas Walker, Taylor Carman, and Peter Gordon's reflections on my What Would Be Different? Figures of Possibility in Adorno. I begin by summarizing what is at stake in the book. My reply to Nicholas Walker and Taylor Carman focusses on Adorno's criticisms of Heidegger, who claims that the history of metaphysics has blocked our access to an “other beginning” for thinking. This prepares the ground for a comparison of Adorno's and Heidegger's notions of what I call “blocked possibility.” My reply to Peter Gordon clarifies the relation of “blocked possibility” to actuality and, more specifically, to the actuality of happiness in Adorno's writings.

Adorno's remarks on the philosophy of history are scattered throughout his works. Perhaps the most important passages are to be found in Negative Dialectics and the 1964–1965 lectures on History and Freedom, as well as in texts such as Dialectic of Enlightenment and the essays on “The Idea of Natural‐History,” “Progress,” and “The Meaning of Working through the Past.” However, these works do not constitute anything like a complete theory. Nevertheless, many themes and references recur in Adorno's writings, allowing for a selectively thematic reconstruction of the most central lines of argument. The present text brings together a few concepts and problems from Adorno's readings of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, mainly, in order to provide the reader with a general picture of what is at issue.

According to a longstanding metaphysical tradition, actuality is prior and in some ways superior to possibility. From Aristotle to Hegel, the exceptions to this fundamental belief are fairly rare; but there is a marked trend in post-Hegelian thought to undermine this traditional priority, with Theodor W. Adorno representing an important line of attack. Here, the guiding question is: how does Adorno take issue with Hegel's version of the thesis on the subordination of possibility to actuality? Indeed, certain key aspects of Adorno's utopianism can only be understood as a reaction to Hegel's theory of actuality. Specifically, Adorno defends a type of possibility that has no place in Hegel's system and so, in essence, sketches a revised dialectical theory of modality.

When Adorno refers to the concept of maturity (Mündigkeit), he generally means having the courage and the ability to use one’s own understanding independently of dominant heteronomous patterns of thought. This Kantian-sounding claim is essentially an exhortation: maturity demands self-liberation from heteronomy, i.e. autonomy. The problem, however, is that in spite of Adorno’s general endorsement of Kant’s definition of maturity, he ultimately rejects the corresponding Kantian definition of autonomy. Yet Adorno does not simply discard the Kantian concept of autonomy. On the contrary, he will try to correct it by returning to it what it lacks, namely, intimacy or ‘live contact with the warmth of things’. In this gesture, he aims to restore to autonomy its ethical substance or lived ethical context, not as a mere supplement to the purity of duty, but rather as necessary to the very process of becoming mature. This article examines Adorno’s concept of maturity in the context of the dialectical relationship between autonomy and intimacy

In the final lines of the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel makes the complex claim that the contingency of history and the science of knowing in the sphere of appearance together constitute a “conceptual history” (begriffene Geschichte, a ‘conceptually comprehended’ history). What is this suggestive but frustratingly obscure formula meant to convey? The question is vexing, not least because the Phenomenology itself is neither a philosophy of history nor a philosophical history in any traditional sense; it rather takes the form of a quasi-historical narrative that picks up on the difficult problem of philosophy’s relation to history. For this reason, the attempt to understand what Hegel might mean by the term may be helped along by a critical analysis of selected aspects of his philosophy of history. The limits of the question therefore go beyond the specific project of the Phenomenology, though answering the question will involve returning to one of the central themes of that book, namely, the concept of experience (Erfahrung). The aim here is not so much to evaluate Hegel’s theory of world history as it is to gain a better understanding of how in general he understands historical knowledge in relation to philosophical knowledge of the absolute—a central concern throughout his career.

ABSTRACT: Jean-Michel Salanskis’ La gauche et l’égalité surveys a number of well-known principles of leftist thought in order to criticize certain illusions to which it falls prey, but also in order to renew its most essential motivation: the search for equality. However, in so doing, Salanskis deploys an ambiguous and problematic notion of possibility that threatens the coherence of his project. The present study analyzes aspects of Salanskis’ book, taking possibility as a guiding thread, and proposes adjustments that may help to avoid certain classic pitfalls in the history of dialectical thinking.

Hegel's concepts of force and power (absolute power, absolute force, infinite power, the power of the negative, the power of the Concept, etc.), scattered throughout the works, are doubled by other passages where Hegel speaks of various forms of impotence or powerlessness (Ohnmacht). What is powerlessness? In effect, for Hegel, powerlessness generally designates a defect or a deficiency, or a kind of laziness or contingent immaturity that prevents the Concept from fully realizing itself, even though its power is, on another level, absolute. Powerlessness (Ohnmacht) is a lack of power (Macht). But how is absolute power related to a relative lack of power? If power is absolute, then why is it that a little power isn’t always enough? Or alternatively, why does powerlessness have a role to play at all in a system where the power of the Concept determines everything inexorably? How do these two terms relate to each other in Hegel’s thought, especially in the context of the Subjective Logic?

Certaines lectures récentes de Hegel ont mis l’accent sur la dimension sociale de la philosophie de Hegel afin de parer les exagérations et les méprises courantes concernant son idéalisme. Robert Brandom, par exemple, a relevé des «thèmes pragmatiques dans l’idéalisme de Hegel». Mais une question d’ordre général se pose: cette stratégie déflationniste rend-elle réellement justice à la pensée de Hegel? Qu’advient-il des conditions logiques requises pour la connaissance et l’action, auxquelles Hegel attache beaucoup d’importance, et comment ces conditions cadrent-elles avec les dimensions naturelles et sociales de l’expérience? En tablant sur des passages de l’Encyclopédie et d’autres textes, le présent article argumente en faveur d’un transcendantalisme modeste chez Hegel, afin d’éviter la rectification exagérée qui consiste à réduire le concept du concept chez Hegel à un réseau de pratiques sociales

This paper addresses the question of normativity in Hegel by examining the role of ‘undialectical’ resistance to dialectical development. Beginning with a general overview of dialectical normativity and what it might mean to be ‘undialectical,’ the focus then shifts to a privileged example in Hegel’s writings: Sophocles’ Antigone. The central claim of the paper is the following: The very contradictions that fuel dialectical normativity can also trap individuals within an obsolete actuality, without immediate hope of escape. Indeed, the irreducible dependence of dialectical thinking upon the actions and decisions of individual consciousness expose it to the threat of continual stasis or regression. This ineliminable possibility of failure is what is here called the ‘undialectical’ moment of the dialectic, which Hegel understands rather as a negative condition of possibility of freedom and rationality