Philosophy’s own conceptual method blocks access to the non-conceptual objects it seeks

Evidence

Thus in philosophy we are obliged to make use of concepts in order to talk about concepts. And this means that what we are concerned with in philosophy – namely, the non-conceptual, that which the concepts refer to–isexcludedfromphilosophyfromtheoutset.Thusbyvirtueof itsown methodology philosophy bars its own way to what it wishes to achieve, namely, to be in a position to judge matters that are not itself, that are not concepts. And I would like to suggest quite simply as a programme … that philosophy should reflect conceptually on this process in which it deals only with concepts and, by raising it to the level of the concept, should revise it and reverse it again, in so far as this can be achieved with conceptual methods. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1592

Categorization

• DEFINE: Spells out the self-reflexive ‘turn’ Adorno calls for: conceptual reflection on concept-use as philosophy’s programmatic task.
• XREF: connects to: Concepts are tools for dominating nature, not for understanding it — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 52; Classical philosophical intuition was the result of methodic analysis, not mysticism — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 494; Modern philosophy voluntarily shrinks itself to avoid touching established reality — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 648 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The non-identical can only be approached through concepts without being subsumed #expands (0.85) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1242
• Subject and object letting-go of fixed positions liberates previously imprisoned philosophical energy #responds-to (0.75)
• Pure knowledge without a viewpoint is self-contradictory #corroborates (0.72) — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 836