Erst wenn man die Grenzen sieht, sieht man den grossen Denker. Wenn sie meine Grenzen sehen, haben sie mich verstanden. Ich kann sie nicht sehen. Martin Heidegger 1 Heidegger and Adorno Opening up Grounds for a Dialogue Mario Wenning Concordia University In this paper I want to examine Adorno s critique of Heidegger closely and work out the main differences of these philosophers with regard to their epistemological and stylistic convictions as well as to their analysis of what is often referred to as the modern condition. I shall argue that in spite of the apparent similarities there are fundamental grounds for conflict between their positions. First, I will expose the main program of Heidegger as it is laid out in Being and Time in so far as it is relevant for the discussion (I). In a second step I will sketch the motifs, Adorno develops to criticize fundamental ontology in general and Heidegger s attempt to perform a concrete phenomenological analysis in particular (II). After having clarified their points of disagreement, I shall finally outline the possibility of a fruitful discussion that would bring these thinkers out of a position of polemical attack on the one side and extra-mundane retreat on the other, 1 Cited in: Jean Beaufret: Wege zu Heidegger, Frankfurt (Klostermann) 1976, p. 17.
and show that their divergent standpoints should not be regarded as exclusive of one another (III). Although the discussion will focus mainly on philosophical issues, it is important to keep in mind the socio-political situation that fostered Adorno s criticism of Heidegger in order to understand the impetus for his reading of Heidegger. Historically speaking, Adorno s arguments against fundamental ontology are based on the belief that tendencies, which embodied an unbroken continuity between fascism and postwar Germany, had to be made explicit not just by naming them but by laying bare the cultural conditions that enabled their coming into existence in the first place in order to prevent a new rise of a state of barbarism. However untimely the fears of a form of philosophy bringing about or even expressing subterranean totalitarian conditions might sound to today s readers, they gain importance if one, for example, looks at parallels in Lyotard s criticism of what he refers to as metanarrative, a critique that develops along similar lines as Adorno s criticism of Heidegger. Similar to Adorno, Lyotard criticizes modernity for engaging in legitimating and totalizing discourse. Both want to challenge comprehensive large-scale theories (e.g., the Enlightenment narrative of the emancipation of the rational subject) that in their point of view subsume the particularity of a certain historical condition under general principles. They want to replace this way of totalizing thinking in favor of recognizing the specificity and singularity of events. Whether Adorno s philosophy does not itself fall short of escaping this totalizing discourse and whether Heidegger s work does not suggest different, more sympathetic readings than the one Adorno is favoring are important questions when dealing with Adorno s criticism of Heidegger. The fact that Heidegger also fundamentally opposes central aspects of modernity should make one wonder whether he can be regarded as typical representative of modern as opposed to postmodern thinking. It is essential to put the issue more precise right from the start. In this paper I do not aim to deal with the question whether Adorno was just a precursor of the recently renewed discussion on the question of whether of Heidegger was a Nazi or not, a discussion that mostly confines itself to biographical investigations. 2 Adorno meant his critique to be farther reaching. The concern about the alliance of Heidegger, the person, 2 See for example: Victor Farias : Heidegger und der Nationalsozialismus, Frankfurt am Main 1987. 2
with the National Socialist party did not much interest Adorno. Rather Adorno tried to show that Heidegger s philosophy, or better the form of philosophy itself, embodied the structure that enabled or fostered such an engagement. Many commentators argue that it would be inappropriate to hold Heidegger s philosophy as a whole responsible for Heidegger s political mistakes. 3 On the other hand it is at least highly implausible to think that Heidegger s decisions to join and actively support the National Socialist movement during his rectorship in 1933/34 did result from a total misunderstanding of his own philosophy. Thus it is worth to see whether or not Adorno s remarks open up explanatory powers that throw some light on this relationship. The issue I am concerned with is controversial because the questions it raises cannot be confined to the special case of Heidegger but point to the relationship between philosophy and biography in general. Especially the fact that the climate of today s scientific community can be described as largely adhering to the unquestioned conviction that there is no direct correlation between the content of the work of a philosopher and any practical implications whatsoever makes it interesting to analyze Adorno s arguments more carefully. Adorno s large-scale philosophical attack consisted in arguing that the starting point of fundamental ontology already entailed implicit totalitarian or at least apologetic elements. The hardest part of the analysis will be to extrapolate Adorno s often only implicit arguments against fundamental ontology, since his style is largely polemical, and one often gets the impression that Heidegger is misrepresented beyond recognition. Probably one reason why Heidegger himself never publicly took a stand with regard to Adorno s accusations can be found in the openly polemical style Adorno presented his critique in. It will become clear, however, that Adorno s objections do point to some weak spots in Heidegger s fundamental ontology, although they do not prove the starting point as misguided or internally linked to totalitarian political action. On the other hand Heidegger s work does contain pertinent responses to Adorno s criticism as well as crucial objections to central tenets of Adorno s own philosophical position. To asses whether Adorno s criticism of Heidegger is convincing, it is essential to outline the components of Heidegger s philosophy that are relevant to the discussion even if this exposition is somewhat familiar to the reader. It will provide a backdrop for 3 See especially: Richard Rorty: Philosophy and Social Hope, Penguin Books, London 1999, p. 175-201. 3
evaluating Adorno s charges in a later section of the text. I shall confine myself to focus my attention on Being and Time when reconstructing Heidegger s philosophical program, first, because it is his most condensed and rich text for an analysis of his philosophical program, and furthermore because Adorno seems to base his criticism for a large part on this work. (I) Heidegger writes in the opening passage of Being and Time: Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word being (seiend)? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning of Being (die Frage nach dem Sinn von Sein). (Heidegger, 1979: 1) 4 Heidegger s philosophy can be read as an endeavor to recollect (wiederholen) the question of Being. His diagnosis that the question is essential because of its historical role as well as its ontological primacy, and that we have forgotten about the question has to be taken as basic premises without which it is not possible to understand the motivation of the Heideggerian analysis. Heidegger takes as the vantage point of this endeavor to recollect the question of Being an analysis of Dasein. Dasein, which literally translated means being there, refers to the kind of being we (humans) are. Heidegger s analysis focuses on the way different aspects of Dasein s existence become visible in what he refers to as its everydayness (Alltäglichkeit). Dasein is an entity in the world. One might think that any assertion about this entity would remain ontic, because it is concerned with just another entity in the world. This, however, is misleading unless we look at what distinguishes Dasein from other beings in the world such as tables or stones. Dasein, or rather its way of always inhibiting meaning structures, is crucial to open up an understanding of the question of the meaning of Being because Dasein is essentially self-interpreting. In being so it lays out its own possibilities. In reflecting about our past, present and future situation, and here reflecting is not meant to be limited to cognitive reflection, we also alter our own possibilities: our horizon of expectations changes. Secondly Dasein is supposed to have a 4 References are to the pagination of the fifteenth German edition of Sein und Zeit (Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1979). All translations are my own unless not indicated otherwise. 4
preconceptual understanding of the kind of being it is. These two features, the laying out of one s own possibilities and preconceptual self-understanding, go hand in hand. With explicating Dasein s pretheoretical, i.e., preontological, understanding that exemplifies itself in the hermeneutic practices of everyday existence, Heidegger sets out to unravel the question of Being by way of what he calls a concrete phenomenological analysis, an analysis that in Husserl s words, lets the phenomena show themselves. Heidegger wants to do justice to the often obliterated complexity of our existence that, as he argues, should be looked at as irreducibly practical. Dasein s understanding of the kind of being it is can be uncovered, Heidegger believes, first by performing a destruction of the history of ontology, a history that often misunderstood and covered up the question, 5 and secondly by analyzing Dasein s structural components, i.e., its existentialia. The term existentialia has aroused much debate largely due to Heidegger s inconsistence in applying it. On the one hand he seems to be claiming that existentialia are ultimately historical but on the other hand he regards them to be unchanging because they establish the possibility by which certain specific historical emanations of them can show themselves. The fear of death for example shows itself differently according to historically distinct societies. While one society might express the fear in addressing the fear through certain rites that accompany the passing away of relatives, another society might express this fear through attempting to blend out the presence of death from everyday life. These are two forms of expressing one and the same existentialia. I will take seriously Heidegger s claim that he uses the term existentialia in an important sense analogously to the traditional concept of categories as specifying a character oriented devise to classify entities. The only important difference seems to be that categories refer to things while existentialia refer to Dasein s existence. On the other hand Heidegger would not agree to the judgment that there is no real difference between the traditional concept of categories and his notion of existentialia. Behind his attempt to deconstruct the history of ontology seems to be a deep dislike of the traditional Aristotelian notion of categories. Aristotle, according to Heidegger, looked at Dasein as just another entity in 5 The destruction of the history of ontology was supposed to be carried out in the second volume of Being and Time. While Heidegger never carried out this plan his remarks in Being and Time as well as in subsequent works show what importance he attributed to it. 5
the world. The metaphysical tradition to which Aristotle belonged applied the categories for things and artifacts also to Dasein s being, and thereby concealed the real ontological structure of Dasein which is essentially self-interpretatory or self-understanding. Furthermore, a certain bias about the abstract models by which categories were developed in the metaphysical tradition goes against Heidegger s conviction that the phenomenologist should work out the things as they show themselves, or in his case ontological structures of Dasein as they ground themselves. I want to propose that despite obvious differences one should be aware that the notion of existentialia is in an important sense similar to the one of categories. I should note that with regard to this point my interpretation of Heidegger is not uncontroversial. What I am proposing in light of the overwhelming textual evidence is that in an important sense Heidegger notion of fundamental ontology has to be read as a sophistication of Kant s transcendental deduction of the forms of understanding. 6 Even though it is problematic to apply the notion of deduction to Heidegger, since it is what he explicitly turns away from by following the phenomenological method, his remarks about the characteristics of existentialia are basically in line with the transcendental character of the forms of understanding Kant set out to describe. They are fundamental in the sense that human existence necessarily presupposes these structural elements. The basic modes of attunement (Befindlichkeit), understanding (Verstehen) and discourse (Rede) are equiprimordial (gleichursprünglich), which means that they can not be derived from each other. Because they pervade each other, one cannot understand one without understanding the others. This is not meant to say that existentialia do always show themselves in the same way. As I have mentioned earlier with the example of fear of death there are historically specific forms of appearance. But the fact that they are necessary for every Dasein to be what it is shows that basically existentialia pervade throughout human history. These necessary components have to be distinguished from existentiell or individual features of Dasein s existence. Heidegger s approach to spell out 6 On the continuity of the transcendental project between Kant and Heidegger see Karl Otto Apel: Sinnkonstitution und Geltungsrechtfertigung. Heidegger und das Problem der Transzendentalphilosophie, in: Forum für Philosophie (eds.): Martin Heidegger: Innen- und Aussenansichten, Frankfurt/M, Suhrkamp 1989. 6
the existentialia is an ontological investigation because it has in mind Dasein s existence in the world in general. The ontic understanding of a certain person is thus extended to an ontological investigation of the constitution of Dasein as such. In Kantian terminology, Heidegger asks for the conditions of possibility of Dasein s existence: What necessary features make us what we are? In doing so Heidegger, as Dreyfus formulates poignantly, tries to make sense of our ability to make sense. 7 The question Heidegger is pursuing can be rephrased in Kantian terminology in the way Karl Otto Apel proposes: What are the conditions of possibility of meaning construction in the world? It is important to keep in mind that this question is closely linked to the promise of answering or at least recollecting the question of Being in a concrete phenomenological way. Heidegger sharply contrasts this approach with traditional epistemological approaches in the history of philosophy that took as their point of departure a disinterested, detangled subject. This picture of philosophical investigation most prominently connected with Descartes and Kant naively presupposed that by way of distancing one s self from everyday phenomena, one would come to know the truth of a mind independent world. The problems of the latter method, Heidegger claims, are not only that it runs into unsolvable contradictions (Descartes mind body dualism, Kant s antinomies), 8 but rather that it overlooks the far more fundamental structure of Dasein s Being-in-the-world (In-der-Welt-sein). 9 Heidegger s inquiry presupposes that the subject is part of its practices and not external to them, as suggested by the methodological ideal of a disinterested subject present throughout the mentalistic paradigm. Dasein s primordial existence is one of engagement with its surrounding. Conscious acts of reflection are not overlooked by Heidegger but are seen as what they are, as forms of practices, not as something privileged. Heidegger introduces the technical term ready-athand (zuhanden) to emphasize that the primordial mode of dealing with entities in the world is one of unproblematic making use of them. He contrasts this mode of primordial 7 Hubert L. Dreyfus: Being-in-the-World. A Commentary on Heidegger s Being and Time Division I, Cambridge 1991. 8 Whether this is an accurate account of Descartes and Kant, especially given the fact that both tried to overcome those dualisms, shall not interest us here since it is irrelevant to the discussion. 9 See Heidegger (1979), pp. 52-62. 7
engagement with the traditional picture of entities as present-at-hand (vorhanden), as existing objectively and independent of human activities somewhere out there in reality waiting to be uncovered by philosophers. As soon as one starts with a disinterested skeptical mind and a representationalist account of entity-mind relationship, Heidegger s claim goes, one is bound to end up with forms of solipsism because one has problems to consistently get back the richness and everyday certainty we share about the world we live in. Heidegger s justification to generate a somewhat esoteric terminology can be read as not wanting to fall into traditional terminology. This terminology is the origin of our philosophical problems. He writes: Subject and Object are not the same as Dasein and World. (Ibid. 60) Because Heidegger is convinced that the philosophical language which has been handed down since the origins of western ontology in Greek philosophy is so much entangled with the subject-object dichotomy and that the realm of ontology he explores is far more difficult than that which was presented to the Greeks [...] we lack not only most of the words but, above all, the grammar (Ibid. 39) that is necessary to overcome the mentalistic paradigm. He extends the boundaries of the German language to make room for the expression of the primordial phenomenon of Dasein s hermeneutic practices. Heidegger does distinguish his endeavor from the positive social sciences such as anthropology or psychology, because he believes that these, unaware of unquestioned naïve ontological presuppositions, don t investigate deep enough but remain entangled with certain individual features of Dasein and thus within a form of ontic analysis. Analysis, as it is normally understood in the scientific realm, tries to split up parts from a complex whole to look at them individually. Heidegger, on the other hand, tries to analyze the ontological presuppositions of such an analysis. Heidegger stresses that the fundamental ontological structure of Dasein has to be understood as a whole. Such a holistic understanding will not be possible unless the various aspects of the structure are analyzed in detail, even though each aspect cannot be understood properly without a grasp of the other aspects and of the whole to which it belongs. Each analysis of particular aspects of Dasein s ontological structure sheds new light on the other aspects and on the whole of this structure, and each global analysis of the whole enables us to understand better the particular aspects. The architecture of Being and Time mirrors this 8
principle. The analysis of Division 1 starts with a grasp of the whole (chapter 2), then proceeds to discuss three aspects of Being-in-the-world (chapter 3-5) and ends with rediscovering the whole of Dasein on a deeper level, namely, as care (chapter 6). This wholeness of Dasein becomes visible when Dasein faces its ultimate temporality authentically in looking eye to eye with death. The temporal horizon of Dasein as the guiding thread (Leitfaden) of Heidegger s analysis is important to keep in mind because it opens up a possible response Heidegger could make against some of the arguments Adorno tries to employ against him. Before that let us first compare their divergent programs and turn to Adorno s critique of Heidegger. (II) There have been a variety of attempts to show points of convergence in the thinking of Heidegger and Adorno. 10 Hermann Mörchen was the first one who tried to systematically compare and foster a discussion between Heidegger and Adorno. His undoubtedly insightful large scale study has the disadvantage that it has a strong bias in favor of Heidegger s position and does not take Adorno s seriously enough. The conviction that the similarities between Heidegger and Adorno are far more important and overwhelming than their actual differences is at first sight convincing once one lifts the polemical veil of Adorno s attempts to forcefully distinguish himself from Heidegger. Adorno and Heidegger s critique of purposive (technical) rationality and modern epistemology, their attempts to base aesthetics on a notion of truth rather than beauty and their shared emphasis on temporality, to name just a few, indeed show remarkable similarities. 11 If 10 See: Hermann Mörchen: Adorno und Heidegger. Untersuchung einer philosophischen Kommunikationsverweigerung, Stuttgart 1981, S. 483 ff. 11 Bubner for example writes: Especially since the publication of Adorno s early work it became increasingly obvious that he stood closer to his opponent Heidegger than he liked to believe. The rescue of the non-identical, which is constantly oppressed by the identifying system, shows large parallels to Heidegger s concept of Being, that have been forgotten within the history of metaphysics and its prolongation in the modern technical age. Rüdiger Bubner: Adornos Negative Dialektik, in: Friedeburg/Habermas (Eds.) Adorno-Konferenz 1983, Frankfurt am Main 1983 p.36. See also: Hermann Mörchen: Macht und Herrschaft im Denken von Heidegger und Adorno: Stuttgart 1980. 9
one considers, however, not just the amount of effort Adorno dedicated to criticize and distance himself from Heidegger s fundamental ontology, this comparative approach might cover up actual points of divergence. Therefore one should closely focus on extracting the arguments Adorno puts forth behind his overtly polemical rhetoric to see what is behind this critique. Adorno s critique of Heidegger, although it is a continuous motif throughout his work, can best be extrapolated out of his Negativ Dialectics and his Jargon of Authenticity because it is in these works that he explicitly uses Heidegger s philosophy as a spring board to criticize fundamental ontology and to develop his notion of what he regards as a superior alternative. I propose to analyze and discuss the individual moments of Adorno s critique separately under the main motif Critical Dialectics versus Fundamental Ontology, and the minor motifs The Danger of Pseudoconcreteness and The Charge of Irrationalism. In a last step I want to compare Adorno and Heidegger s divergent attitudes towards modernity, which seem to stand behind much of the differences between them, to present an outlook that would bring them into discussion. Critical Dialectics versus Fundamental Ontology Although both Adorno and Heidegger criticize traditional epistemology, their motivations for doing so are radically divergent. Heidegger s approach can be interpreted as a fundamental opposition to, while Adorno tries to sophisticate of, modern epistemology. Heidegger is trying to leave behind the basic terminology connected to the methodological emphasis on the role of the subject opposed to present-at-hand objects in the word that was a corner stone of Husserl s phenomenological approach. Dasein s irreducible engagement with the world, its fundamental state of always already Being-inthe-world, gains an explanatory primacy that goes over and beyond the methodological solipsism that was inherent in Husserl s notion of the phenomenological reduction. It is somewhat ironic that Adorno accuses Heidegger of engaging in a form of transcendental phenomenology while Husserl accused Heidegger of the exact opposite, namely, to be reducing the transcendental project to a form of historical anthropology. Heidegger does indeed claim that the traditional concept of a transcendental consciousness failed to 10
account for Dasein s average everydayness. Adorno s reading of Heidegger suggests, however, that this does not mean that he cannot engage in a form of transcendental phenomenology. Dasein s average everydayness, Adorno claims, takes on the structurally equivalent role of Husserl s notion of transcendental consciousness. Indeed, it is their divergent attitudes towards Husserl that enables one to come to grips with the epistemological difference of the approaches they pursue. Both philosophers share a critical attitude towards Husserl s notion of the natural attitude. Heidegger, who wants to supersede the subject-object dichotomy of traditional philosophy, exchanges Husserl s concept with the one of inauthenticity as a fundamental mode of Dasein s fallenness and forgetfulness of Being. Adorno shares the conviction that one should not take the natural attitude at face value. He exchanges it with the notion of reification, taken from Lukacs s extremely influential History and Class Consciousness, and thus introduces the idea of inauthentic or immediate life into neo- Marxist theory. Heidegger is very critical towards the concept of reification probably because he regarded it as a remnant of the philosophy of the subject. The meaning or use of the concept of reification mirrors, however, Heidegger s critique of inauthentic Dasein as well as inauthentic theory: the attempt to understand Being not from that which is ready-to-hand, but from that which is present-at-hand. The question why this kind of reification or inauthenticity often characterizes late capitalist societies remains ultimately unanswered in the closing paragraph of Being and Time (Ibid. 437). Adorno and the Frankfurt School in general tried to give a causal explanation that makes use of the most sophisticated findings of psychoanalysis and sociology, as well as political economy, to explain the genesis and structure of this mode of fallenness in order to open up the potential for emancipation. Similar to the act of rationalizing the causes of neurosis in psychoanalysis, a society, as the Frankfurt School claim goes, would be stripped of its mental diseases once they would understand the objective sources behind their present state. Heidegger could, however, respond that these approaches remain within a model that is solely concerned with thinking about our and past societies in such a limited way that the deeper structures remain outblended. Heidegger might ask what the ontological presuppositions of a theory that looks at human beings from the standpoint of critical 11
social psychology would be. Isn t the concept of reification, for example, derivative of more primordial forms of fallenness? How do social critics such as Adorno legitimate their own critical standpoint? Wouldn t it be deeper reaching to just describe underlying structures of Dasein s everydayness? Heidegger might also doubt the chance of any large-scale emancipatory potential at all and look for deeper modes of thinking that would replace the modes of thinking that stand behind the genesis of the modern mind. Heidegger s later philosophy that is based on his notion of Gelassenheit, or a state of letting things be, proposes an alternative to the emancipation oriented approach. Let us now turn to the real epistemological differences between Adorno and Heidegger. Adorno, in contrast to Heidegger, tries to replace traditional dualistic ontologies with a dialectical approach that - in contrast to idealist dialectics - puts emphasis on the role of the object. Although it does not make any sense to speak about some mind independent world, because the mental faculties are already part in any act of perception, it is not the mind that posits the object. Trying to sophisticate Hegel s explanation of the genesis of experience as outlined in the Phenomenology of Spirit, Adorno does not only account for the mediating procedure of the mental, but in addition tries to widen it and make room for the irreducibility of the object by the concept that is generated by a subject. The object, Adorno claims, has always been the open wound of idealism. In this sense Adorno s position has rightly been interpreted as a materialistic philosophy which employs idealistic means. 12 Where Heidegger sees merely ontic analysis and the danger of forgetfulness of Being (Seinsvergessenheit), Adorno tries to anchor his criticism. The Hegelian synthesis, or reconciliation, of concept and object does not take place in Adorno s account, for the conceptual always does harm to the object. It can never, qua its generalizing features, grasp the object in its particularity. Any attempt of building philosophical systems fosters a tendency to cover up actual differences and falls short of accounting for the particular. Thus for Adorno a natural next step to discredit a philosophy that imposes a closed categorical structure is criticism of language understood as showing how far established and frozen categories, or in Heidegger s case 12 See: O Connor, Brian: Adorno, Heidegger and the Critique of Epistemology. In: Philosophy & Social Criticism vol. 24 no. 4 1998, pp. 43-62. 12
existentialia, fail to grasp the particular object they purport to account for. Adorno does not accuse Heidegger of inventing categories or a pseudo-concrete terminology. What he does accuse him of pretending that these categories and terminology are not created but are in a higher sense historically objective. This is what Adorno means by falling into a jargon. Precisely because of this, Adorno s criticism of certain forms of philosophical jargon that hypostasize, or in his terminology fetishize, certain ideas are applied to fundamental ontology. Concepts such as the call of conscience, decision, authenticity, the they, Dasein, the different existentialia and above all Being gain a power they do not themselves possess because they are introduced without developing them sufficiently and applying them to specific historical situations. The allegation of a weakness in Heidegger s philosophy with regard to developing and defining his categories in a precise way has to be met with some doubt. Being and Time is full of passages that are meant to do just the kind of conceptual development Adorno is calling for. In fact each time Heidegger introduces an important technical term you find justifications why he chose exactly this term and why it is more pertinent than traditional alternatives. When one reads Adorno on word or concept fetishism in Heidegger, one feels strongly reminded of Feuerbach and Marx s critique of religion. They look at the functions religion fulfills in deluding the oppressed classes. Religion, as a form of ideology, leads people who are suppressed by the form of society they live in to believe that their miserable situation is God given and they prolong their hopes for salvation to the kingdom they enter after their passing away. Adorno similarly concludes that a false longing for security makes one open to adopting a language that is full of institutionalized phrases, i.e., a use of language that covers up the particularity and complexity of experience. Instead of reflecting about actual causes for social alienation, Heidegger s philosophical analysis is uncoupled from any interest in social institutions and easily gives rise to the fetishization of concepts such as the one of resoluteness, which turns empty and vague if not connected with a discussion about possible ends one should be resolute for. Heidegger, although he is well aware of the shortcomings of traditional epistemology with its misconception of the human condition as being essentially rational 13
and cognitive, and its neglect of the fundamental aspects embodied in Dasein s everydayness, wants to do justice to grasp the fundamental structures of Dasein s existence. One can charge him with failing to deal in appropriate depth with the question as to whether this fundamental structure is fixed or a product of a historical form of domination. Adorno agrees that experience precedes conceptually dualized accounts of subject and object. However, the character of immediacy it seems to possess is misleading, since experience always already entails mediation. In emphasizing the priority of the mediation of subject and object, Adorno is, compared to Heidegger s fundamental ontology, abstracting from the immediacy of Dasein s non-dualistic experience. Adorno s account is arguably negative in that it operates by primarily showing the pitfalls of traditional epistemology but not showing any way out. In light of these problems of giving a positive picture of how experience or Dasein s Being-in-the-world is constituted, Adorno s negative dialectics faces a serious challenge through Heidegger s program of an existential analysis that purports to look at experience without abstraction or negation. The model of experience as it is outlined in Being and Time presents a model that is neither facing methodological contradictions such as traditional epistemology, nor - if we trust Heidegger s promises in the beginning chapters - is it abstractive like Adorno s account. The question that remains is whether it is possible to have a philosophy that is able to account for experience without applying transcendental categories. It seems to be more reasonable to expect the argument to be that one should look for the appropriate categories and constantly sophisticate or revise them. The danger of regarding categories to be transcendental is one that is central to Adorno and well justified. In Heidegger s terminology one often falls into regarding something that is ontic to be ontological. That is exactly what Adorno charges Heidegger to do in the case of Dasein. Adorno regards the use of the term ontological, if suitable at all, as applicable to propositions, not to entities in the world. The difference between the emphases on ontic or ontological analysis boils down to the one between a radical historicism, which Adorno seems to be defending, and transcendental philosophy, which he with some justification accuses Heidegger of engaging in. Heidegger seems to be at least aware of 14
the problems connected with necessarily separating the ontic from the ontological in every particular analysis. Heidegger claims that the preontological understanding of Dasein can yield an ontological analysis on the side of the philosopher that is engaging in existential analysis. He does not take Dasein s understanding at face value which Adorno s criticism seems to suggest, but emphasizes the importance of the distinction to some extent. In some passages he even argues that the ontic understanding of Dasein, which corresponds to Adorno s notion of immediate experience, is covered up: Proximally the who of Dasein is not only a problem ontologically; even ontically it remains concealed. (Ibid. 117) Adorno s subject-object philosophy at first sight seems to be facing the same problem Kant s theory of the thing in itself. If we stress that we are just moving within a realm of concepts, how can we say anything at all about an underlying realm of (particular) objects? In light of the so-called linguistic turn one is often tempted to dismiss Adorno s holding firm to a form of philosophy of the subject and applaud Heidegger for having foreseen the necessity to supersede it, if so, with a somewhat different solution than the main proponents of the communication centered paradigm defend. 13 I am convinced that one has to be careful with such judgments. It is not yet decided whether one can dismiss the philosophy of the subject without great loss. Even if one decides to dismiss it on the grounds I alluded to, it is possible to reconstruct Adorno s position without stressing the philosophy of the subject. 14 Adorno regarded the modern phenomenon of reification and, what is more important in this context, the subject-object distinction itself as one interpretatory perspective among others. The categories of subject and object, Adorno claims, are themselves mirroring the actual historical process of reification. Behind Adorno s emphasis on the irreducibility of the object lies an ethical conviction that calls for more sensitivity towards the contingency of human thought in order to adjust a theory according to specific situations. The regulative ideal of openness for self correction in light of better insights from life experience as well as scientific research seems to me a very important one. I think one can make a claim that 13 See: Habermas, Jürgen: Theory of Communicative Action, Thomas McCarthy (transl.), Boston, Beacon Press 1984. 14 See especially Hauke Brunkhaust: Adorno and Critical Theory, Cardiff 1999. 15
it is not very charitable to criticize Adorno on the basis of his epistemology when it is really an ethical theory he is defending when applying the subject-object terminology. Heidegger s attempt to supersede epistemology as such on the other hand does pose some problems. His philosophy lacks the conceptual medium in which it could explicate the mode of fallenness to the ontic. He is not able to account for the state of fallenness in terms of an epistemic failure or a lack of reflexion, such as Adorno proposes. The question how to even distinguish inauthentic from authentic Dasein is either dismissed as a pseudo-question or answered by referring to some more abstract definition. The impression one might get from a couple of scattered remarks that Heidegger is not condemning the state of inauthenticity but merely engaging in a descriptive analysis is hard to defend in light of the textual evidence. The reason that he distanced himself from a form of shallow moralizing should be read as distancing himself from forms of cultural criticism which were common in Weimar Germany. In Being and Time Heidegger seems to dismiss or downplay the role of a form of voluntaristic enlightened conversion to momentary states of authenticity. This seems to imply some form of pernicious elitism which would be hard to accept: Only those that always already understand the question for the meaning of Being belong to the esoteric group of the authentic. Interpreters who think differently would have to give an alternative explanation that has sufficient textual evidence and would do something more constructive than just justifying their objections to Adorno s criticism by aiming at the polemical tone that is without doubt present in these kind of accusations he favors, but does not alter the pertinence of the arguments he presents. Adorno presupposes an emphatic belief in the emancipatory potentials of sophisticated and self-reflexive forms of enlightenment. The role of mediation inside the subject takes place in the medium of critique. Adorno s claim that the Heideggerian concept of historicality (Geschichtlichkeit) places history in a realm that is basically a- or trans-historical was picked up by Hermann Mörchen to show that: The [Adorno s] argument is misguided: because especially Being and Time presupposes to get away from eternal (or at least prehistorically) truths (BT 227). Should this be acknowledged, the reason to accredit an ideological function to this [Heidegger s] thinking would be shown to be misguided. Adorno s rush to distance himself veils a convergence of a mutual experience of the temporal and historical. (Mörchen, 1981: 482) 16
The question remains whether Heidegger did not fall short of this aim in Being and Time. In the passage Mörchen refers to, Heidegger shows only that truth (understood as propositional truth) is not independent from the thinking (or speaking) subject. That does not imply that there can not be eternal truths for us. Heidegger s depictions do even suggest such a form of infinity or conclusiveness (Endgültigkeit) of truth. This takes place when in the uncoveredness of being Dasein finally gets to know it s own being. (Heidegger, 1979: 227) The reflection about Being as such, the horizon of understanding of Being and worldhood, takes on, in spite of the attribution of historicality, the same infinity. The Danger of Pseudoconcreteness? As mentioned earlier, Heidegger, in the introductory paragraph of Being and Time, makes a promise to perform his analysis in a concrete way. He writes: Our aim in the following treatise is to work out the question of the meaning of Being and to do so concretely. (Ibid. 1) But what does he really mean by concrete? He seems to link it to his emphasis on the necessity of an analysis of Dasein s irreducible and complex existence. This notion is supposed to capture the appropriate material or practical sense of existence. He wants to distance himself from other disciplines such as anthropology that purport to analyze human existence but in fact, he claims, perform only fragmentary analysis of certain features of human existence, and thus remain ultimately concerned with a form of ontic analysis. The promise to carry out an existential analysis, Adorno argues, remain unfulfilled in Heidegger. By splitting Being (Sein) from certain beings or entities (Seinden) and in turn the ontological from the ontic analysis, Heidegger looses sight of concrete phenomena and makes room for an abstract analysis of existentialia, as I have already shown earlier. These existentialia, Adorno argues, are, pace Heidegger s scattered denials, an expression of anthropological essentialism. By hypostasizing the historical entity Dasein out of its constantly differing sociopolitical and economic surroundings situations of oppression, delusion and coercion are sustained or even created. Conditions that are only contingently real - Adorno probably 17
thinks about the state of fallenness and the predominant power of the they (das Man) - are imagined as reflecting some natural condition. As in a self-fulfilling prophecy people identify either with the characterized mode of fallenness or, what is more likely, drift away into unreflected engagement, decisionism or a state of authentically facing their temporal existence in the presence of death. A picture that reminds one of the conditions that predominated in the totalitarian regimes not just of the second but also of the first world war. Adorno argues that the proximity of Heidegger s philosophy to human Dasein is only fictitious. Heidegger s aversion to dealing with physicality is just one aspect of this lack in proximity. That the question for the meaning of Being was meant to be of all questions, both the most basic and most concrete (Ibid. 9) was something Adorno faces problems to square with Heidegger s analysis. Adorno believes that an analysis of the human condition could only be concrete if it focused on the impact of society on the individual members of it. The strength of Adorno s approach lies in making philosophical use of the findings of sociology and psychology, rather than a priori dismissing them as merely delivering ontic analyses, to carry out a concrete analysis of the historical conditions of domination. If one looks at the development of mass sociology in the epoch Being and Time was written it is striking that the findings of Weber and Durkheim, just to mention a few, have not even been tried to be incorporated into 25-27 or 35-38 which deal with the inauthentic state of fallenness to the they or the existential of Beingwith (Mitsein). Solicitude gains a rather ambivalent role when connected to authentic states of Dasein. This does not imply that the more critically oriented sections in Being and Time are not helpful to understand Dasein s way of Being-in-the-world. In fact they open up potentials of critical research as Charles Taylor has shown in his attempt to defend a communitarian philosophy that heavily draws on Heidegger s work. Heidegger s philosophy does offer a gateway to understanding the actual processes of self-formation and social interaction, even more so when taken together with the findings of the social sciences. The intersubjective sphere, which in Being and Time seems to be reduced to an abstract threat, gained enormous importance in Heidegger most well known student, Hannah Arendt. These and other examples show the potential fundamental ontology 18
when opening up to different traditions of thinking. In light of this it is very questionable if one can talk about an implicit connection between Heidegger s philosophy and totalitarian politics any more than about such a connection in case of any other philosopher. The accusation that Heidegger s fundamental ontology lacked the promised concretion has been held up from a variety of parties and seems to mark a pertinent critical point. Günther Anders, who regards Heidegger as one of the last examples of extra-mundane philosophers that missed the process of naturalization and held on to a picture of philosophy as having to stand outside the realm of mere positive science, seems to have raised the accusation for the first time. 15 Adorno extended this accusation throughout his writings and tries to bridge the gap between a form of positivism that looks at natural science as the paradigm for knowledge and a form of philosophy that is uncoupled from empirical findings. The Charge of Irrationalism Adorno writes that it was Heidegger, who threw away the rational moment, that Husserl still held on to. (Adorno, 1973: 75) Heidegger, in criticizing traditional accounts of subject-object centered theories, focuses on the practical aspects of Dasein s existence. He regards our ordinary experience to have a certain primordiality, even an authoritative priority, when it comes to explaining what it means to exist, be it authentically or inauthentically. Heidegger understands feelings and moods more and more as attunements (Befindlichkeiten), in which Dasein has already an interpretative understanding (Auslegung) of itself that is more primordial (ursprünglich) than theoretical interpretation. It is wrong to regard this as irrationalism, because it would apply a measure, that of rationality, which is not appropriate to apply to the mode of Befindlichkeit since it stands outside and is not a derivative mode of rationality. When irrationalism, as the counter play of rationalism, talks about the things to which rationalism is blind, it does so only with a squint. (Heidegger, 1979: 136) Does this, as 15 See: Guenther Anders: On the Pseudo-Concreteness of Heidegger s Philosophy, in: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. VIII, p. 337 ff, 1956. 19
Adorno claims, lead Heidegger to abandon conceptual analysis as one might suspect from the charge of irrationalism? It is obvious that it does not. Heidegger is proposing a form of analysis that just accounts for the fact that abstract theoretical constructions are not what we do in our everyday life. He wants to show that they are just one type of action. They are a derivative mode, but the simple fact that he engages in fundamental ontology in a highly systematic and conceptual manner shows that his attempt to overcome philosophy from within has to be met with some doubt. To account for our everyday engagement in the world we have to start with analyzing practices. This analyzing does not in any way obliterate our conceptual activities, but regards them as such, as just another form of practice. But, as mentioned earlier, the kind of relationship Heidegger seems to take towards the concepts he deals with, namely one of absolutization, seems to be the touchstone of Adorno s critique. This becomes very obvious in their highly differing writing styles. While Adorno favors to make abundant use of the conjunctive, Heidegger writes in a very didactic manner. Adorno regards this didactic manner as identifying as opposed to experimental thinking. Identifying thinking, Adorno claims, is an important cultural precondition of forms of totalitarianism. This kind of overall judgment about Heidegger, can be hardly distinguished from the content of the judgment, the accusation to perform identifying thinking. One can hold up the same charge against Adorno. The question remains open, whether identifying thinking is a justified medium to struggle with identifying, and this is what polemos (struggle) originally meant. Irrationalism is however not a suitable description of Heidegger s philosophy. The Modern Condition The motifs I have assembled to extract the objections Adorno raises against Heidegger seem to converge in a very different attitude of both philosophers towards modernity. In reconstructing Heidegger s program of an existential analytic of Dasein s everyday existence we have seen that Heidegger fundamentally opposes modern epistemology and wants to supersede it by taking seriously the mode of Being-in-the-world (In-der-Weltsein). Adorno, on the other hand, tries to sophisticate modern epistemology by developing negative dialectics. While Heidegger opposes modernity all the way through, 20
Adorno radically interprets it as cultural modernism. Adorno sees the great achievement of cultural modernism he sees in its radical experimental attitude connected to the various -isms (expressionism, constructivism, avant-gardism etc.). Heidegger generally ignores the historically grown separation between subject and object. He only acknowledges it as a philosophical stipulation of epistemology but not as a fact of human life in modern societies (Ibid. 59). Adorno regards the neglect of a philosophy of the subject as an ideology because - this is the materialistic element of his theory - he does not understand the separation of subject and object as a mere illusion of philosophers, but as dependent on real social relations. Heidegger s philosophy neglects the positing of concepts by a subject that becomes especially obvious in the case of the concept of Being itself. Doing so he eternalizes the mediation by neglecting the locus of the subject and posits it as a form of first nature; Being itself becomes objectified mediation. On the other hand Heidegger could respond that we do not understand these real social relations if we do not try to look for the ontological presuppositions that enables there existence. From this vantage point one might even argue that Heidegger does not neglect the questions raised by Adorno. What he is doing is asking different questions: Questions that aim to uncover deeper lying presuppositions in order to understand Dasein as a whole. Heidegger did not see any important difference between the -isms of cultural modernity and rejected them as forms of inauthenticity (Uneigentlichkeit). 16 Because Adorno tries to hold on the achievements of at least cultural modernism and to some extend modern epistemology, Heidegger is far more fundamental in opposing modernity as such. Where Adorno envisions dialectical tensions and ambivalences, Heidegger diagnoses a complete forgetfulness of the higher truth of Being. It would need another paper to spell out the convergences and differences in the aesthetic convictions of Heidegger and Adorno. The claim I have tried to develop above seems to emerge anew: Heidegger and Adorno, although both emphasize the concept of truth as opposed to 16 In Die Zeit des Weltbildes Heidegger equates even political systems (Bolshevism and Americanism) as being essentially the same. See: Martin Heidegger: Die Zeit des Weltbilds, in: Holzwege (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1972), pp. 283-4. 21