The principle of identity is fundamentally a principle of thought itself

Evidence

‘In other words, one could say that the principle of identity is a principle of thought itself’, Adorno claims in Philosophische Terminologie (Philosophical Terminology), a lecture course held in the summer semester of 1962 and winter semester of 1962–3. He continues: ‘I would not hesitate to say that every principle, every tenet which can be appealed to, under which all variety is subsumed, or from which all variety can be derived, is necessarily a principle of thought. The recourse to a first (and the stem principium means first), the reduction to an all-inclusive unity, is always the recourse or reduction to thought’. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1230

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies Adorno’s identification of the first principle with thought itself — principium as first, and the all-inclusive unity as necessarily conceptual.
• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s Against Epistemology and his metacritique of the first principle — the theme of demystification through identification. — connects to: Non-identical thinking requires resisting the identity principle that flattens qualitative difference. — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1246