Adorno and Genealogy by Emiel Stegeman at University College London for the degree of MPhilStud Philosophical Studies I, Emiel Stegeman, confi rm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where informa- tion has been derived from other sources, I confi rm that this has been indicated as such. 1 Abstract The history of genealogical arguments reveals why they are not philosophically popular today. They are prone to many well-known problems such as the genetic fallacy, the tendency to go globally relativistic and the chance to undermine their own position. Nonetheless, genealogical accounts are championed by the masters of suspicion, whose use of them is vital for their projects. Theodor W. Adorno also clearly relies on them in his critique of society and its ideology. The aim of my thesis is to i) distinguish the diff erent forms of genealogical argument, ii) reconstruct Adorno’s arguments in light of these distinctions, and iii) arrive at an evaluation of the force and interconnectedness of Adorno’s genealogical arguments. Specifi cally, I will argue in Chapter One that we ultimately cannot read Adorno in terms of our contemporary epistemological genealogies. His critique does not undermine our ideological beliefs but it gives us an indication of why they might be false. Chapter Two uses these indications to dig deeper into the historical genealogies of our concepts. There is a non-fallacious form of this genealogy that Adorno holds but its normative power is limited. Chapter Three builds on the naturalist account initiated in Chapter One, and vindicates Adorno’s use of genealogical arguments by showing that his philosophy is not meth- odologically but still ontologically naturalistic: it might be fact-defective but not law-defective. Chapter Four details a third type of genealogy that debunks our forms of consciousness (not mere- ly our beliefs or our concepts) according to their constitutive connection to a form of functioning. Only this functional genealogy makes sense of Adorno’s immanent critique, his quasi-dialethe- ism, the principle of abundance and the seemingly fallacious imputation of function in history. The account of self-refl exivity given there provides an alternative to its ethical interpretation. Acknowledgements I would like to thank all of the UCL Philosophy Department. Special mention goes out to my three supervisors Tom Stern, Han van Wietmarschen and, primarily, Sebastian Gardner for guid- ing me along my path; as well as Amia Srinivasan and Fiona Leigh for inspiration and support; and to my fellow students for two edifying and inspiring years. To all my other supporters: I could not have done it without you. 2 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 2 Introduction 5 Masters of Suspicion 5 Methodological Notes 6 1 — Epistemology 7 Genealogical Debunking Arguments 7 The Sociology Of Knowledge 8 Adorno’s Epistemology 9 Adorno’s Genealogical Debunking Argument? 11 Adorno’s Ideological Critique 13 Enlightenment Naturalism 15 2 — Historical Genealogy 18 Conceptual Critique 19 Genealogy Proper? 20 Genesis Fetishism 21 Illustrative Genesis 23 Conceptuality and Immanent Critique 26 Objections And Limitations 28 3 — Genealogy and Naturalism 31 Methodological Naturalism 31 Ontological Naturalism 35 A Problem of Priority? 37 4 — Functional Genealogy 38 Functional Genealogy 39 The Constitutive Connection 41 Micrology 43 Historical Questions 44 Functioning as Critique 46 Self-Refl exivity 48 Normativity 49 Conclusion 51 Bibliography 52 3 Abbreviations Where possible (and as indicated) multiple translations and the original German have been consulted. AoP Adorno, Theodor W. “The Actuality of Philosophy,” trans. Benjamin Snow, Telos 31 (1977 [1931]): 120-33. AP Adorno, Theodor W. et al. The Authoritarian Personality (London: Norton, 1950). AS Aspects of Sociology, The Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, trans. John Viertel (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972 [1956]). AT Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory, ed. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, trans. and ed. Rob- ert Hullot-Kentor (London: Continuum, 2002 [1970]). CM Adorno, Theodor W. Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords , trans. Henry W. Pickford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998 [1963/1969]). DEa Adorno, Theodor W. and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. John Cumming (London: Verso, 1997 [1944]). DEb “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ , ed. Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002). HTS Adorno, Theodor W. Hegel: Three Studies, trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1993 [1963]). HF Adorno, Theodor W. History and Freedom: Lectures 1964-1965, trans. Rodney Livingstone, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006 [2001]). INH Adorno, Theodor W. “The Idea of a Natural History,” trans. Bob Hullot-Kentor, Telos 60 (1984 [1932]): 111-24. IS Adorno, Theodor W. Introduction to Sociology, trans. Edmund Jephcott, ed. Christoph Gödde (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000 [1993]). IT “Who’s Afraid of the Ivory Tower? A Conversation with Theodor W. Adorno,” in Language Without Soil: Adorno and Late Philosophical Modernity , ed. Gerhard Richter (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010 [1969]), 227-38. IU Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia: An Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge, trans. Louis Wirth and Edward Shils (New York: Harvest, 1936). LND Adorno, Theodor W. Lectures on Negative Dialectics: Fragments of a lecture course 1965/1966, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008 [2003]). AE Adorno, Theodor W. Against Epistemology: A Metacritique , trans. Willis Domingo (Cam- bridge: Polity Press, 2013 [1970]). MM Adorno, Theodor W. Minima Moralia, trans. E. F. N. Jephcott (London: Verso, 2005 [1951]). ND Adorno, Theodor W. Negative Dialectics, trans. E.B. Ashton (London: Routledge, 1973 [1966]). P Adorno, Theodor W. Prisms, trans. Samuel and Sherry Weber (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1967). PD Adorno, Theodor W. et al. The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, trans. Glyn Adey and David Frisby (London: Heinemann, 1976 [1969]). PMP Adorno, Theodor W. Problems of Moral Philosophy, ed. Thomas Schröder, trans. Rodney Liv- ingstone (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000 [1996]). S Adorno, Theodor W. “Society,” trans. Fredric Jameson, Salmagundi 10/11 (1969-70): 144-53. SP Adorno, Theodor W. “Sociology and Psychology I/II,” trans. Irving N. Wohlfarth, New Left Review 46/47 (1967/1968 [1962], [online]. 4 Introduction Introduction t is not at all my intention to score points off Nietzsche since, to tell the truth, of all the so-called I great philosophers I owe him by far the greatest debt - more even than to Hegel. (PMP 172) ll three [Nietzsche, Marx and Freud] begin with suspicion concerning the illusions of con- Asciousness, and then proceed to employ the stratagem of deciphering; all three, however, far from being detractors of “consciousness,” aim at extending it. (Ricoeur 1970, 34) hat Paul Ricoeur later called the “hermeneutics of suspicion” was not Adorno’s thing. W (Habermas 2003) The fi rst generation of the Frankfurt School was born out of the idiosyncratic marriage of Freud and Marx. Among Theodor W. Adorno’s many other infl uences, these two and Nietzsche hold a spe- cial place. The aim of this essay is to place Adorno in the tradition of the ‘school of suspicion’, as Ricoeur calls it (1970, 32). Habermas is suspicious of this move and, perhaps as a result, not nearly enough work has been done to assimilate Adorno’s argument in these terms as has been done for the other three (especially Nietzsche). My approach is to start afresh in attempting to apply various such genealogical strategies to Adorno. Masters of Suspicion What unites Marx, Nietzsche and Freud is their faith in genealogical methods (or genetic or ar- chaeological, I will use these interchangeably). They all trace back an object, concept, belief or value system to some historical origin. Genetic explanations have also been used to vindicate the value of such objects. In fact, this is the traditional motive of genealogies (Geuss 1999, 1-3). But for the masters of suspicion, and for Adorno, the result will be a shameful origin that undermines the ob- ject of critique. The immediate means of this debunking genealogy is destructive but its end (as the second epigraph indicates) is edifying and liberating. On the one hand a genealogy ought to be theo- retically acceptable: it needs a rigorous, non-fallacious argument for why its object is defl ated. This has been the main philosophical interest in genealogies given their tendency to fall far short of this requirement. How can we construct such an argument without committing the genetic fallacy, or its being self-stultifying, or leading to global relativism? While its theoretical acceptability is central, a genealogy should also be refl ectively acceptable. When Nietzsche undermines the value of Christian morality this is not a mere philosophical exercise but is meant to change the consciousness of those who do value it. It ought to be open to the individuals whose concepts, beliefs or values are being undermined to take up the position of the shameful genealogy.1 This does not require its theoretical acceptability, but it is desirable if their new-found standpoint is not itself to be undermined. What it does require is that the genealogy use premises which are open to any agent in the belief or value system it is undermining. Only if it is theoretically robust and refl ectively acceptable can a genealogy hope to have a genuine edifying eff ect. Brandom’s pithy summary of genealogical tendencies as “the revenge of Enlightenment natural- ism on Enlightenment rationalism” (m.s. 3) sets the mood for this essay. Although it must be made 1 In this vein I discuss Adorno as if he writes about our society: the perspective is still largely open to us. 5 Methodological Notes absolutely clear that Adorno is not anti-rationalist,2 he does oppose the form Enlightenment reason has taken. On my interpretation, his strategy for doing so is largely naturalistic. He follows the En- lightenment naturalist programme of explanation in physical terms, continuity between nature and the human realm, and the prohibition on supernatural entities.