Adorno refuses to reduce existing reality to mere positivity

Evidence

Referring to the ban on images, which ‘occupies a position of central importance in the religions that believe in salvation’, Adorno argues that to ‘speak directly of the ultimate things’ is no longer possible: ‘The impotent word that calls them by name weakens them. Both naiveté and a defiant casualness in expressing metaphysical ideas reveal their lack of grounding’. The positivity of what is given is only ‘an aspect’ of it, one which ‘cannot be reduced’ to things as they are. Otherwise, Hegel’s statement that ‘[w]hat is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational’ would simply be a call ‘to capitulate beforereality’,16whiletheestablishmentof positivitywouldbethelastpossible act of any theory. If this were the case, Adorno notes, one would effectively have to ‘chose between theology’, that is, between the idea that what exists is more than itself, ‘and tautology’, or the idea that what exists is all that there is. ‘In this case’, Adorno admits, ‘I would prefer theology’, even though this choice would mean abandoning the knowledge that no non-identical has a 9 Letter from Adorno to Mann, 1 December 1952 (Adorno and Mann 2006, p. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1487

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s immanent critique and negative dialectics; ties to the book’s thesis rescuing Adorno from the ‘pessimistic cul-de-sac’ reading. — connects to: Adorno’s refusal of postmodernism stems from his commitment to social justice and truth — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 27; Adorno rejected both positivism and abstract individualism while insisting on nonidentity. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 268; Adorno refused to normalize capitalism’s transactional corruption of trust. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 905 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno defines thinking as the refusal to bow to the immediately given #expands (0.85) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 255
• Adorno faulted Hegel for treating the bourgeois individual as an irreducible reality #expands (0.75) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 834