Thinking must hold dialectic and its opposite together at once
Evidence
The very grandeur of logical deductions may inadvertently take on a provincial quality. Benjamin’s writings are an attempt in ever new ways to make philosophically fruitful what has not yet been foreclosed by great intentions. The task he bequeathed was not to abandon such an attempt to the estranging enigmas of thought alone, but to bring the intentionless within the realm of concepts: the obligation to think at the same time dialectically and undialectically. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 170
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: The bequest of ‘thinking dialectically and undialectically’ is the chapter’s methodological core — a self-reflexive mandate for an advanced reader of Adorno.
- DEFINE: Defines Adorno and Benjamin’s program: bringing the intentionless (the unassimilated, opaque) into concepts without foreclosing it.
- XREF: connects to: Honest thought today demands being simultaneously inside and outside its object — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 85; Dialectical logic must eliminate all remaining traces of deductive systems; Dialectical prose demands every proposition be equally close to the centre — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 83 (+25 more)
Broader Connections
- Philosophical propositions dialectically preserve, suppress, and present their cancelled form
#exemplifies(0.85) - Subjectivity and objectivity form a dialectical unity in knowledge
#exemplifies(0.84) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 83 - True thinking requires an internal dialogue among conflicting viewpoints.
#expands(0.82) — Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life An Antidote to Chaos, 727 - Dialectics attend to what is not immediately visible, whereas immediacy erases contradiction
#expands(0.80) — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 326 - Dialectical thinking contradicts vulgar common sense’s demand for certainties.
#expands(0.78) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1549