History and Freedom

T. Adorno, Frankfurt School Translated by R.Livingstone

• Editor’s Foreword xiiPart I HistoryLecture 1: Progress or Regression? 3Notes: The relationship of the lectures to Negative Dialectics; the concept of freedom in Kant and Hegel; the diminishing consciousness of freedom; the meaning of history refuted by Auschwitz; the philosophy of history implies that there is a meaning; cultural morphology (Spengler) and idealismLecture 2: Universal and Particular 10Trend and individual fact • Distance from and closeness to detail; progress as a particular • Rationality as a universal; rationality as the mastering of nature • The concept of universal history; rationality as a form of conflict; ‘Faustian technology’ and modes of production • Hegel’s concept of spirit [Geist]; spirit and technical rationality; spirit not primary, but a product • The immediate experience of the universal and the universal itself denounced as metaphysics; negativity as a universalLecture 3: Constitution Problems 19The truth of facts • Immediacy and mediation; individuality and the ‘untrue’ universal • Simmel’s philosophy of history; the problem of constitution (I) • The problem of constitution (II) • De Maistre; the grounds of knowledge and grounds of reality • Hegel’s ‘world spirit’ and the spirit of the age • The logic of things and heteronomyLecture 4: The Concept of Mediation 29Facts as a cloak • The experience of the speculative; experience of committees • Formal sociology; group opinion and social totality • French Revolution (I) • French Revolution (II); underlying cause and proximate cause: course of history and individual moment • French Revolution (III); primacy of the course of history: ‘economy based on expenditure’ instead of ‘economy based on acquisition’; the theory of historical categoriesLecture 5: The Totality on the Road to Self-Realization 39Philosophy of history and historiography • Parti pris for the universal • Hegel’s class standpoint • In defence of Hegel • Reason as unreason; individual interest and species; humanity: ‘public company for the exploitation of nature’ • Conflict in the concept of reason • The odious totalityLecture 6: Conflict and Survival 49Ambivalence of totality; Marx’s optimistic view of history • Conflict and totality • Theodicy of conflict • Conflict and the reproduction of life • Conflict and prehistory; the economy or relations of domination • Contemplative and revolutionary conceptions of history; the problem of anarchism • Defence of nonconformismLecture 7: Spirit and the Course of the World 59The concept of conformism • Critique of the hypostasization of concepts; the concept of reason; the irrationality of reason • Law and ‘emotional warmth’ in Hegel; universality in the particular • The course of the world and individual conscience; methesis [participation] of the spirit • Theodicy of rupture and concrete possibilityLecture 8: Psychology 69The concept of the character mask • Individuation and socialization • Identity and the semblance of reconciliation • ‘Sowing one’s wild oats’ • Intellectual forms of self-preservation and human breakdown; identification with the aggressor • Acquiescing in selfdestruction; concretism; psychology as cementLecture 9: The Critique of Universal History 79The course of the argument • The concept of universal history (I) • The concept of universal history (II) • False mastery and vindication of induction; Hegel’s theory of history • Freedom and the individual in Hegel • The individuality in antiquity and the early modern age • History from the standpoint of the victorLecture 10: ‘Negative’ Universal History 89Benjamin’s XVIIth thesis • Temporal core and non-identity • Continuity and discontinuity • History as a gigantic exchange relationship • The total state and the rule of competing cliques • Dialectic of the particular • The concept of chance; the utopia of knowledge • Hegel’s critique of the totality; course of the argumentLecture 11: The Nation and the Spirit of the People in Hegel 99 Notes: Spirit of the people and universal spirit; universal history as universal tribunal; pseudo-concreteness; repressive archaisms; anti-Cartesian elements in Vico, Montesquieu, Herder and Hegel; cult of the nationLecture 12: The Principle of Nationality 105The nation: a bourgeois form of organization; departure from natural forms of association • The path to delusions of race • Progressive aspects of the nation • The principle of nationality and natural history • The equality of the organization of life today • Hegel’s theory of national spirit viii contents obsolete; decentralization through technology • Germany ‘the belated nation’ • Predominance of the universal over the individual; objective reason split off from subjective reason • ‘Infernal machine’; natural history in HegelLecture 13: The History of Nature (I) 115Notes: Nature and history; history as spirit; the history of nature as a critical concept; Marx, the ironical Social Darwinist; mythical nature of history; first and second natureLecture 14: The History of Nature (II) 120The concept of second nature • Nature and history mediated • Critique of ‘historicity’; meaning and chance • Philosophy as interpretation (I); transience and allegory; philosophy’s transition to the concrete; history as secularized metaphysics • Philosophy as interpretation (II); hermeneutics • Practice thwarted; critique of the metaphysics of timePart II ProgressLecture 15: On Interpretation: the Concept of Progress (I) 133The history of nature, allegory, criticism • Secularized melancholy; theory of interpretation; Hölderlin’s The Shelter at Hardt • Immediacy as the product of history; Hegel and Marx; art • The pleasures of interpretation • The concept of progress as a link between philosophy of history and the theory of freedom • Critique of nominalism • ‘Whether progress exists’Lecture 16: On Interpretation: the Concept of Progress (II) 142Towards conceptual synthesis • Progress as a way of averting catastrophe; the global social subject • Kant’s idea of humanity • Benjamin’s critique of progress • Progress and redemption in St Augustine • Escaping the trammels of the past • Progress mediated by society • Reconciliation and conflict in Kant; progress as absolutely mythical and anti-mythicalLecture 17: On Interpretation: the Concept of Progress (III) 153Jugendstil, Ibsen • Decadence and utopia; bourgeois coldness and privileged happiness; dialectics of individuation • Decadence and the defamation of sex; Jugendstil and expressionism • The domination of nature and the flowering of reason; Kant and Hegel’s concepts of reason; myth and demythologization in one • The idea of progress in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries • Two concepts of progress • The dialectics of inwardness; critique of the decisionism of existentialist spontaneity • Spirit as the repository of progressLecture 18: On Interpretation: the Concept of Progress (IV) 164Static elements of the spirit • Progress and mastery of material • Philosophical progress • Programme of reflection on the nature of philosophy • The concept of exchange; exchange and myth • Correcting progress • Speaking on my own behalfPart III FreedomThe concepts of freedom and the spell; concentration on free will; freedom as the epitome of resistance to the spellLecture 19: Transition to Moral Philosophy 177Non-existence of freedom in history • Individual freedom, social unfreedom • Freedom as a historical concept • The possibility of freedom in unfreedom • The current state of the forces of production • Reason and freedom • Model and constellation; free will and interiorityLecture 20: What is Free Will? 187Notes: Inside and outside reciprocally mediated; will and freedom not to be hypostasized; on pseudo-problems [Scheinproblem]; will and freedom synthesize individual impulsesLecture 21: Freedom and Bourgeois Society 190Towards a definition of will: the substratum of freedom • Will as the ordered unity of spontaneous and rational impulses; will and a strong ego; non-ego as model of the ego • Freedom and emancipation of the bourgeoisie; freedom and psychology • The scientific impulse versus demystification; bourgeois ambivalence • Theory of freedom as Sunday sermon • Freedom in the service of oppression; the psychoanalysis of the super-egoLecture 22: Freedom in Unfreedom 200Freedom as problem and cliché • Auschwitz as absolute negation of freedom • Guilt • Freedom and excessive demands • ‘Evil’ as unfreedom • The ageing of moral categories; society and the individualLecture 23: Antinomies of Freedom 209The narcissistic interest in freedom • Conformity as the dark side of freedom • Impulse, mimesis, irrationality • Kant’s concept of spontaneity • Spontaneity as something transcendental • The dialectics of spontaneity; Marx, Rosa Luxemburg • Obsessional neurosis; the egoalien egoLecture 24: Rationality and the Additional Factor 219Freud’s theory of repression; blindness of the ego • Ideology of inwardness • The ‘sphere of absolute origins’ and the subject • Critique of the experimenta crucis • Kant’s ‘gallows in front of the house’ • Kant’s card-sharp • A priorism or the empirical as determining factor; the construction of the intelligible characterLecture 25: Consciousness and Impulse 229Consciousness versus causality • Without consciousness, no will • Hamlet (I) • The medieval ordo: critique of Romanticism; Hamlet (II) • Hamlet (III); the additional or the irrational factor • The archaic element of the will • The archaic transformed • Reason and impulseLecture 26: Kant’s Theory of Free Will 239Evidence of impulse • The problem of theory and practice in Kant; lectures as a genre • Kant’s historicization of reflections on the moral law • Freedom as the determinate negation of unfreedom; Kant’s doctrine of freedom as fiction • Freedom a paradox in Kant; natura naturans and natura naturata • Kant’s ‘borrowed’ ideas of goodness; mediation repressive in Kant • Freedom as consciousness of the lawLecture 27: Will and Reason 249The dual character of Kant’s concept of reason • The ontologizing of the will in Kant • Kant’s false definition of will • Defence of formalism, misuse of the concrete; Scheler • The concept of character • Character and the ‘dissolute’ [Aufgelöste] • Will and reasonLecture 28: Moral Uncertainties 258Ontological validity and ontic genesis mediated • Voluntarist and intellectual elements • Morality as self-evident; good and evil • Will and violence; no moral certainty • Solidarity and heteronomy in matters of conscience • Universal and individual in moral philosophy • Free and unfree • Lectures on ‘Metaphysics’Notes 267References 334Index of Names 337Index of Subjects 343

"In an age once more in search of the big picture, Adorno's lecture course on 'History and Freedom' reminds us again of the astonishing contemporaneity of his thought. Combining dialectical agility with a refreshing candour and directness, these lectures represent a major thinker’s most open engagement with the meaning of human history, and the disastrous ambiguity of progress."Peter Dews, University of Essex