Adorno openly admitted the aporia of strictly adhering to versus weakening economic categories

Evidence

A number of critics of the Adornian understanding of economy might have been able to save themselves the trouble of proving that the authors of Dialectic of Enlightenment were unable to unambiguously define their economic categories. After all, Adorno himself openly admits here that they have ‘not mastered’ the dilemma of ‘either strictly adhering’ to the categories of political economy or ‘weakening the theoretical skeleton’. This dilemma gave rise to doubts about ‘whether what is demanded can be accomplished at all’, while also demarcating, in the words of Hans-Georg Backhaus, ‘a limit in the state of knowledge, not only with regards to economics in the narrower sense, but also with regards to social theory in general’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 899

Categorization

• DEFINE: The ‘strict adherence vs. weakening the skeleton’ dilemma is a key formulation of the immanent-critique problem in Adorno’s economic thought.
• XREF: Backhaus’s ‘state of knowledge’ framing connects to the broader Neue Marx-Lektüre debate about value theory and the critique of political economy. — connects to: Disagreement with Pollock forced Adorno to retain economic critique — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 586; Adorno held that economic primacy existed always but varied in strength — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1177; Adorno refused to treat economic primacy as a static anthropological constant — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1178 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno held that economic primacy existed always but varied in strength #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1177
• Adorno prioritized critique of dead-end economic theory over new economic research #expands (0.75) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 505
• Adorno refused to treat economic primacy as a static anthropological constant #expands (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1178