Anything claimed as primary and immediate is always already mediated by thought.
Evidence
Page 535 in a memorable formula: a critique of the philosophy of origins, of prima philosophia. This was what all philosophy to date, including epistemology, had been. As a concept, what is primary and immediate is always mediated, and therefore not primary. No immediacy, and no factuality, in which philosophical thought hopes to escape mediation through itself, will be granted to intellectual reflection except through thought. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 563
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Adorno’s definitional move reverses first philosophy entirely: the ‘first’ is constitutively derivative, so no appeal to immediacy or factuality escapes mediation.
- DEFINE: Defines ‘prima philosophia’ as the philosophy of origins, and the critique of it as arguing mediation precedes any supposed primary given.
- XREF: connects to: Thought always proceeds within inherited paradigms even when breaking with them; There is no purely contemplative stance; everyone is always already engaged — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 80; The perceived object is always surpassed toward the self’s own possibilities — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 605 (+8 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Thought always proceeds within inherited paradigms even when breaking with them; There is no purely contemplative stance; everyone is always already engaged — Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, 80; The perceived object is always surpassed toward the self’s own possibilities — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 605 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Circular self-knowledge is resolved by starting to act immediately.
#complicates(0.81) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1334