Honest thought today demands being simultaneously inside and outside its object

Evidence

But how much more difficult has it become to conform to such morality now that it is no longer possible to convince oneself of the identity of subject and object, the ultimate assumption of which still enabled Hegel to conceal the antagonistic demands of observation and interpretation. Nothing less is asked of the thinker today than that he should be at every moment both within things and outside them – Münchhausen pulling himself out of the bog by his pig-tail becomes the pattern of knowledge which wishes to be more than either verification or speculation. And then the salaried philosophers come along and reproach us with having no definite point of view. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 85

Categorization

• QUESTION: The Münchhausen image is odd: it suggests self-extrication that is absurd and impossible; Adorno leaves the impossible demand hanging.
• SEED: An essay on what it means to hold no ‘point of view’ honestly versus being accused of having none.
• XREF: connects to: Thought requires deliberate self-distancing because reality resists being understood directly; Consciousness and world are simultaneous in authentic reflection. — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 235; Thinking must hold dialectic and its opposite together at once — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 170 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Consciousness and world are simultaneous in authentic reflection. #corroborates (0.85) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 235
• Thinking must hold dialectic and its opposite together at once #expands (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 170
• Thought requires deliberate self-distancing because reality resists being understood directly #corroborates (0.75)
• Knowing aims to coincide with being yet is structured as not being it #qualifies (0.72)