{"id":425,"date":"2019-10-27T18:06:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-27T22:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/?p=425"},"modified":"2019-10-27T18:06:40","modified_gmt":"2019-10-27T22:06:40","slug":"bernard-e-harcourt-concluding-thoughts-on-critique-2-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-concluding-thoughts-on-critique-2-13\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Concluding Thoughts on Critique 2\/13"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the end, there is a fundamental clash between these two early texts by Horkheimer and Adorno, which reveals dramatically different sensibilities. Horkheimer\u2019s text aims for a perfectly rational society, organized reasonably around economic production. The goal is \u201cthe rational state of society.\u201d (216-217) Adorno\u2019s text, by contrast, does not have faith in the possibility of a fully rational society, and starts from the proposition that we need to give up on the very project of \u201cphilosophy\u2019s pretensions to totality.\u201d (Telos <\/em>25\/Chapter at 120) The point for Adorno is not that the \u201ccurrent\u201d state of society is \u201cbarbaric\u201d but can be rendered rational, as Horkheimer writes. It is instead that philosophy is now past\u00a0<\/em>the ambition to render the world fully rational.<\/p>\n

These differences produce two very different critical projects and methods. Horkheimer aims for a total theory of society. By contrast, Adorno looks for mid-level concepts and interpretations that can solve punctual problems. Mid-level in the sense that the conceptual tools lie somewhere between the minute factual analyses of the Vienna Circle and of positivism (which Adorno views as too small or low level) and the too large, systemic, comprehensive analyses of earlier philosophical approaches such as German Idealism. So for instance, in the case of class analysis (36\/131), sociological approaches operate at too minute or small-bore a level, deconstructing class too much, and thereby losing the traction of the category. As a result, Adorno offers not a systematic theory of society, but rather experiments and essays in search of problem solving at the mid-level. Adorno extolls experimentation as a way of doing philosophy (38\/133) \u2013 at times sounding almost Nietzschean when he writes about interpretation \u201cwithout ever possessing a sure key to interpretation.\u201d (31\/126)<\/p>\n

The only thing that these two texts have in common is Marx. In Horkheimer\u2019s text, Marx is pervasive. I would say that his is a thoroughly Marxist text. Horkheimer explicitly follows Marx and Engels on a number of points. First, he expressly adopts Marx and Engels\u2019s thesis that the proletariat is best situated to perceive the contradiction between capitalist modes of production and a just society.<\/a>[1]\u00a0<\/sup>Second, he specifically embraces the \u201cMarxist categories of class, exploitation, surplus value, profit, pauperization, and breakdown,\u201d as well as \u201ccommodity, value, and money.\u201d<\/a>[2]\u00a0<\/sup>Horkheimer implicitly follows Marx and Engels with regard to social classes, modes of production, and their philosophy of history<\/a>[3]<\/sup>; and in believing that the objective of critical theorists form \u201ca dynamic unity with the oppressed class.\u201d<\/a>[4]\u00a0<\/sup>Or even more, that the thinking of critical theorists must \u201cserve\u201d the oppressed class.<\/a>[5]\u00a0<\/sup>And that a capitalist economy of commodity exchange \u201cmust necessarily lead to a heightening of those social tensions which in the present historical era lead in turn to wars and revolutions.\u201d<\/a>[6]<\/sup><\/p>\n

By contrast, Adorno only shows his hand, as Marxist, in the examples he uses: almost as a signaling mechanism, when he uses, as his first example, \u201cthe commodity structure\u201d (33), or when he discusses the category of “class.” There, it is clear that he follows Marx, even though his philosophical method is hardly Marxist. It is more of a small-bore empiricism, aimed at getting interpretations that unlock puzzles. It is closer to Clifford Geertz than to Marx. Geertz had proposed that an interpretation is \u201cbetter\u201d than another when it serves to shed light on other situations. What recommends an interpretation, Geertz wrote, \u201cis the further figures that issue from them: their capacity to lead on to extended accounts which, intersecting other accounts of other matters, widen their implications and deepen their hold.\u201d<\/a>[7] That captures well Adorno\u2019s approach in 1931.<\/p>\n

The differences produce a sharp distinction on the question of praxis. For Horkheimer, especially in this 1937 text, there is a strong \u201cvanguard\u201d role for the intellectual (this would change after the war). Here, Horkheimer argues that the proletariat, although in the best position to understand the contradictions of capitalism, cannot see its own interests, and thus that critical intellectuals need to show the proletariat the proper way forward. The proletariat, Horkheimer writes, is prevented from seeing because of ideological interference: \u201cthis awareness is prevented from becoming a social force by the differentiation of social structure which is still imposed on the proletariat from above and by the opposition between personal class interests which is transcended only at very special moments.\u201d<\/a>[8]\u00a0<\/sup>The result is that the proletariat does not achieve \u201ccorrect knowledge\u201d: \u201cEven to the proletariat the world superficially seems quite different than it really is.\u201d<\/a>[9]\u00a0<\/sup>This then imposes an obligation on the critical theorist to become \u201ca critical, promotive factor in the development of the masses.\u201d<\/a>[10]\u00a0<\/sup>The critical theorist, on Horkheimer\u2019s view, has a vanguard role, and \u201ccan find himself in opposition to views prevailing even among the proletariat.\u201d<\/a>[11]\u00a0<\/sup>Horkheimer embraces almost a Leninist ideal: \u201cThe theoretician whose business it is to hasten developments which will lead to a society without injustice can find himself in opposition to views prevailing even among the proletariat.\u201d<\/a>[12]\u00a0<\/sup>Critical intellectuals thus can play a pivotal role in helping the masses recognize and activate their interests. They are the ones who can pierce the veil of false consciousness. They have a \u201creal function,\u201d Horkheimer writes, to facilitate \u201cthe historical process of proletarian emancipation.\u201d<\/a>[13]<\/sup><\/p>\n

By contrast, Adorno is more sparing in his remarks about praxis. There is really only one passage, on page 34\/129, where Adorno writes:<\/p>\n

When Marx reproached the philosophers, saying that they had only variously interpreted the world, and contraposed to them that the point was to change it, then the sentence receives its legitimacy not only out of political praxis, but also out of philosophic theory. Only in the annihilation of the question is the authenticity of philosophic interpretation first successfully proven, and mere thought by itself cannot accomplish this [authenticity]: therefore the annihilation of the question compels praxis. It is superfluous to separate out explicitly a conception of pragmatism, in which theory and praxis entwine with each other as they do in the dialectic.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, for Adorno, at least in 1931 (and this too would change after the war), it is only out of the solution to the riddle of social problems that there emerges praxis. Out of theory, comes praxis\u2014almost directly. Correct theory enlightens and produces action.<\/p>\n

Neither of these models of theory and praxis seem convincing today\u2014but I would argue, and I do in my forthcoming book Critique & Praxis<\/em>, that they can serve as a springboard to develop a better and more effectual approach to address our contemporary political crises.<\/p>\n

Notes<\/h1>\n

<\/a>[1] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 213.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[2] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 218, 225.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[3] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 234.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[4] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 215.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[5] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 215.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[6] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 226.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[7] Clifford Geertz, After The Fact: Two Countries, Four Decades, One Anthropologist<\/em>(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), 19.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[8] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 214.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[9] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 213, 214.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[10] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 214.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[11] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 221.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[12] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory,\u201d 221.<\/p>\n

<\/a>[13] Horkheimer, \u201cTraditional and Critical Theory, 215.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt In the end, there is a fundamental clash between these two early texts by Horkheimer and Adorno, which reveals dramatically different sensibilities. Horkheimer\u2019s text aims for a perfectly rational society, organized reasonably around economic production. The… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51803],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts-2-13"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/critique1313\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}