Study On Adorno's "Negative Dialectics

In the era of Adorno,Western philosophy has transformed to the period of modern philosophy,and most of the schools of modern western philosophy after Marx have continued Marx’s criticism of Hegel’s philosophy.Among them,the Frankfurt School,which has an important influence,has opened the doubt and criticism of Hegel’s rational philosophy and capitalist ideology from the perspective of "enlightening rationality" and "cultural industry".Adorno believes that this is not enough.He continued to dig deep into the root of the phenomenon of "materialization" and "alienation" in capitalist society.Finally,Adorno came to the conclusion from the perspective of philosophy that the rational "identity" thinking pursued by western traditional philosophy for more than 2000 years is actually an illusion.It can be said that Adorno’s "negative Dialectics" is the philosophical expression of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School.Therefore,comparing and distinguishing his negative dialectics with Marx’s theory is of great theoretical and practical significance for us to deeply understand the soul and essence of Marxism and to learn from or isolate all kinds of foreign Marxist thoughts.In addition to the introduction,this paper is divided into three parts.The first part mainly deals with the connotation,denotation and source of the three concepts of "dialectics","negation" and "dialectics of negation".In the first part,this paper combs and investigates the historical evolution of the concept of "dialectics".Then,it makes a philosophical study of the concept of "negation" in dialectics.Finally,the theoretical source of Adorno’s "negative dialectics" is analyzed and considered,and a conclusion is drawn.In the historical investigation of Dialectics,the author focuses on the dialectic thought in ancient Greece and the dialectic theory of Kant and Hegel in modern times.after carding and analysis,it is found that the evolution of dialectic form in ancient Greece can be divided into four dimensions.That is,the simple dialectic thought of early ancient Greece,Socratic dialectics in the form of "interrogation",Plato dialectics in the sense of idea ontology and Aristotelian dialectics in the sense of formal logic.In modern times,Kant realized the "Copernicus" revolution of dialectics.he regarded dialectics as the logic of illusion and the antinomy of pure reason in using intellectual categories to grasp the world as a whole.and think that this is a natural tendency and inevitable trend of reason.Kant’s dialectics is revealed in the criticism of pure reason,he creatively puts forward a kind of "critical" philosophy which transcends both rationalism and empiricism,and the essence and core of critical philosophy is to "clarify the premise and draw a boundary" for human reason.This is the first time in the history of human thought to use the word "criticism" in a philosophical sense.On the basis of inheriting the critical factors of Kant’s dialectics,Hegel criticizes that dialectics is a kind of "negative dialectics" and a kind of incomplete tenderness in Kant.Because Kant limited the contradiction caused by people’s use of reason to an inevitable error and illusion in human rational knowledge,Kant did not solve this contradiction,but suspended it,thus showing its negative and incomplete side.However,Hegel made a positive and positive evaluation of dialectics.Hegel believes that the essence of dialectics is contradiction,and the whole world is contradictory,which is not the mistake of human rational cognition,but the source of truth.The opposition between the two sides of the contradiction can be unified,and the opposition between the main topic and the anti-topic can lead to the combination of the topic,and on this basis,thinking and existence will be unified.Then,this paper makes a philosophical study on the concept of "negativity" in dialectics.In fact,the role of "negativity" in dialectics is a kind of transcendental spirit,and the earliest historical origin of this transcendental spirit comes from the "Nuss"(Nous)spirit of the ancient Greek philosopher Alaxagora,which has the characteristics of initiative,creativity and transcendence in the perceptual world.After a long period of silence,Hegel revived the spirit of "Nuss".In his dialectics,"negativity" works as an intermediary,and this intermediary actually negates itself and has a higher level of concept and richer content than the antecedent,that is,Hegel’s socalled self-"sublation".Marx after Hegel retained the core of Hegel’s dialectics,"selfnegation",but was dissatisfied with the theoretical premise of Hegel’s dialectics,and changed its theoretical premise into a paradigm transformation.that is,from the speculative conceptual world to the real life world.As a result,Marx’s dialectics is transformed into self-negation with practice as the theoretical premise.Nearly a hundred years later,Adorno,a western Marxist,re-emphasized the essential factor "negativity" in Marx’s dialectics and radically put forward the dialectical theory of absolute negation.He believes that most of the philosophical thoughts in the West from ancient Greece to modern and modern times are based on identity thinking.Therefore,it is necessary to establish a completely negative dialectics with the heterogeneity experience of "nonidentity" as the theoretical premise.Finally,the author examines the theoretical origin of Adorno’s "negative dialectics".The conclusion is that Schoenberg’s atonal music,the critical theory of the Frankfurt School in the same period,Nietzsche’s metaphysical criticism and motto style,and the western literature and art changing from modern to modern paradigm all have an important influence on Adorno’s thought of negative dialectics.The second part mainly deals with the introduction of the main contents of Adorno’s negative Dialectics.After repeated reading and thinking,the author classifies the main ideas of negative Dialectics into three angles,namely,elucidation and explanation from three aspects: theoretical characteristics,theoretical turn and theoretical outcome.From the perspective of theoretical characteristics,first,Adorno’s "negative dialectics" and the post-modern trend of thought have theoretical similarities,it can be said that the thought of negative dialectics opened the beginning of the post-modern trend of thought.Second: Adorno’s "negative Dialectics" highly exposes and criticizes the foundation of western traditional philosophy from ancient Greece to modern times and more than 2000 years.He deeply realized that "identity" thinking is the foundation and purpose of western traditional philosophy,but the pursuit of this "identity" is a rational illusion.Third,Adorno criticizes not only "identity" in philosophy,but also the representation of "identity" in reality,that is,opposing system,concept and anthropocentrism.From the perspective of theory,Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics has changed to the emphasis on "non-identity","object priority" and "cultural criticism"."non-identity" is a non-conceptual,individual,special heterogeneous thing,and the relationship between these things is a non-central,non-hierarchical,non-enslaved relationship.Adorno believes that if people want to achieve real freedom and liberation,they must give up "identity" and turn to "non-identity".Compared with the domination of the object by the subject in the traditional philosophy,Adorno put forward the principle of "object priority" that the object can exist without relying on the subject.The relationship between the subject and the object is a kind of harmonious but different,different but nonhierarchical relationship of free communication and peaceful coexistence.The theoretical turn of cultural criticism is Adorno’s new thinking of criticizing the capitalist society from a new perspective.Adorno’s thought of "negative dialectics" adopts the attitude of great rejection and exclusion to all the achievements of human civilization,which leads to the logic of disintegration in the end of his theory.The essence of the disintegration logic is to subvert the "identity" thinking logic and establish the "non-identity" thinking logic.So,what will the world look like after it is established on the premise of non-identical heterogeneity experience? Adorno depicts it as a world called "star cluster" from the front.The "star cluster" theory depicts a logical picture of the world based on differences and non-identity.In this logical picture,the western traditional philosophy of identity has been deconstructed and reconstructed in the form of "star cluster" at the same time.This kind of reconstruction is manifested in that neither the subject nor the object has the ability to control each other or eliminate their differences.It is a new partnership with no center,no hierarchy but differences after the elimination of all enslavement relationships.The third part is the focus,difficulty and innovation of this article.It mainly discusses the limitations and contributions of Adorno’s theory of negative dialectics from the perspective of Marx’s dialectics.The main answer is what problem did Adorno solve? How to solve these problems? And to what extent has it made any significant theoretical contribution? Compared with Marx’s dialectics,what are the limitations of Adorno’s "negative dialectics" ? Finally,there is an overall evaluation of Adorno.Is Adorno a Marxist or a non-Marxist? Or revisionists? Or the Terminator of Western Marxism? At present,there are not many achievements of domestic scholars in the comparative study of Adorno and Marx.This paper spends a lot of time to discuss this and get some new viewpoints,which is also the innovation of this article.In the third part,the author first compares Adorno’s negative dialectics with Marx’s dialectics to reveal the limitations of Adorno’s philosophical thought.Its limitations are as follows: first,the focus of the critical object is different;Marx mainly criticizes the political and economic system of the capitalist society,that is,social criticism.Adorno mainly criticizes enlightenment rationality and bourgeois culture and ideology,that is,cultural criticism.Second,the exposition of the relationship between theory and practice is different;Marx’s dialectics emphasizes the unity of theory and practice.In Adorno,theory itself becomes the highest practice.Third,due to the lack of practical dimension,Adorno is unable to see the "human dimension" reconstructed by Marx’s dialectics through "practice" and when criticizing the abstract theory of modern society,it is divorced from the dependent force of Marxism-the working people.Fourth,the lack of "historical" dimension leads to the theoretical dilemma without collective subject and the disappearance of the field of material production.Fifth,human liberation and individual liberation;human liberation,in the final analysis,is the liberation of human society or the liberation of individuals? What Marx emphasizes is the liberation of the whole mankind,and the "realistic individual" participates in the social struggle as a member of the class.Adorno emphasizes the liberation of individual atoms in society.Sixth,revolutionary practice and thinking criticism;Marx’s dialectics emphasizes the combination of theory and practice,and puts forward that the purpose of theory is to change the world,while Adorno’s negative Dialectics emphasizes ideological criticism and does not advocate practice.it is an abstract theoretical criticism separated from practice.Seventh,liberation and redemption;Marx clearly regarded the bourgeoisie as the object of revolution,and he wanted to change the world,and the way to change was for the proletariat to smash the old world and build a new world through revolution.Compared with Marxist philosophy,Adorno’s "negative Dialectics" seems to be radical and thorough on the surface,but it has lost the element of revolutionary practice and can only be expressed as a kind of aesthetic redemption.This kind of redemption is more precisely a kind of aesthetic revolution or ideological revolution.Eighth,labor exploitation and spiritual enslavement;Marx exposed the secret of capitalists exploiting workers through the theory of surplus value,which is realized through the exploitation of workers’ surplus labor,and its essence is naked exploitation and oppression.On the other hand,the critical identity thinking mode of "negative dialectics" has penetrated into every corner of the capitalist society and is comprehensively reflected in everyone’s behavior and thought.for this reason,the primary task of "negative dialectics" is to criticize and deconstruct the spiritual enslavement and domination of the masses caused by this kind of identity thinking.Compared with Marx’s dialectics,Adorno’s "negative dialectics" not only has its limitation of deviation,but also has its similar contribution.His contributions are reflected in: first,Adorno reveals the essence of "identity" of capitalist society from a new perspective of cultural criticism according to his insight into monopoly capitalist society.It is the continuation and expansion of Marx’s criticism of political economy in liberal capitalist society,which should be a new theoretical contribution.Second,it gives a new explanation on the relationship between "subject" and "object".Adorno believes that the fundamental problem of enlightenment and its modern epistemology is to one-sidedly elevate "subject" to "first principle",but it is actually abstract and the product of idealism.In fact,the subject is also a kind of object,because the relationship between the subject and the object is always mediating,distinguishing and communicating with each other.Modern people mistakenly regard themselves as subjects,but in fact they are only controlled objects in this society.this new understanding of the relationship between subject and object breaks through the traditional subject-object frame model of Marxist philosophy.Third,it deconstructs the misinterpretation of dialectics in the Marxist textbooks of the second International and Soviet models;Adorno points out that the Marxist philosophy textbooks of the traditional Soviet model have degenerated into dogmas and become a fixed standpoint,thus losing their negativity and revolutionism,and it still belongs to the dialectics of "identity".This is a kind of brand-new criticism and transcendence to the traditional textbook philosophy.Fourth,it lays the groundwork and preparation for the transformation from modern philosophy to post-modern philosophy.What postmodernist philosophy has in common is that most of them are anti-essentialism,anti-rationalism,anti-fundamentalism and anti-centralism.this is closely related and similar to Adorno’s theory of rejecting,rejecting and deconstructing all human civilization achievements with thoroughly negative logic.Adorno made a great theoretical contribution to the paradigm transformation from modern to post-modern philosophy.The last section of the third part focuses on how to evaluate Adorno.First of all,it is certain that Adorno is a Marxist,but his theory and practice are different from Marx,so it is okay to evaluate him with revised Marxists.As for whether Adorno is a Terminator of Western Marxism,the author is more inclined to judge the simplified understanding that Western Marxism has ended by the change of Adorno’s academic purpose or the change of a single particle.