To go through your reply in reverse order:
> Well, Adorno wrote a nice book, Against
> Epistemology, which, again,isn't all that different
> from Lacan's framework. Did Adorno think
> knowledge possible? Yes, but only in the negative -
But isn't the _Metacritique of Epistemology_ (the original name) directed not against epistemology itself but against *foundationalist* claims for epistemology and the covert ontology it presumes? What Adorno wants to take on there is the idea that a theory of knowledge could provide an "unmediated first" or irreducible given as a starting point for philosophy. In particular, he accuses such _prima philsophia_ of sanctioning a type of cognition (and by extension, a practice) that does "violence to unfamiliar things, though it exists only so that they may be known. It must model the other after itself...The _telos_ of cognition which, as methodical, is protected from aberration, autarchic and takes itself to be unconditioned, is pure logical identity. But it thereby substitues itself for things as the absolute." (_Against Epistemology_, p. 12) And as usual in Adorno, this wrong state of theory has a corresponding wrong state of things: "Spirit, which has been narrowed to a special funtion, misunderstands itself as absolute, for the sake of its peculiar privilege," which points out that the coersive element of thought has a social and historical basis. It's *contingent* that the subject is constituted though the violence of identity thinking, but it's a fact nonetheless. So when you write:
> What Adorno calls identity thinking is the
> constitutive element of subjectivity. It is
> necessary and violent. This is almost identical, in
> theoretical status, to Lacan's approach
> - - the subject is constituted by the imaginary
I'd have to reply that where Adorno is pointing out a (bad) social, historical, and economic state of affairs regarding how subjects are constituted, while Lacan seems to be positing a transhistorical, invariant account of subject formation.
> I'd say that activism and critique limited to
> "knowledge-based" truth claims is pretty pathetic.
> Yes, necessary, but also impossible. It is
> simply impossible to stand outside of history
> to judge "yes" or "no" with regards to things like
> justice, compassion and so on.
I agree it's impossible to stand outside of history, but why does that render it impossible to make certain judgements? The absence of a transcendental standard for truth doesn't mean such judgements are impossible.
Adorno again: "To think non-thinking is not a seamless consequence of thought. It simply suspends claims to totality on the part of thought. Immanence, however, in the sense of that equivocation of conscious and logical immanence, is nothing other than such totality. Dialectic negates both together. Epistemology is true as long as it accounts for the impossibility of its own beginning and lets itself be driven at every stage by its inadequacy to the things themselves."(p.25) So renunciation of transcendental standards and awareness of one's partial and immanent perspective is the real totality which the transcendent viewpoint countefeits. And thus a theory of knowledge is possible as an ongoing investigation that is aware of its limitations. Against this, the proposition that subject formation is always "constitued by imaginary fields" seems dogmatic at least.
> We pass judgement from where we stand,and from
> what we see. We don't need to pretend this is
> knowledge as a justification for our actions.
Again, I don't see how this follows. Yes, one's perspective is a limited one, and we do pass judgements from what we see. It disqualifies us from saying our knowledge isn't a justification for our actions *ONLY* if we're looking for that transcendent justification. The immanent justification should be adequate, i.e., "I'm acting from what I know, and while that's not a God's eye view, it's what I have."
As I look back over this, I'm wondering if I'm just picking nits. Maybe, after some real social transformation, these debates over theory will seem like arguments over whether or not Superman could beat up Spiderman. I have to say I'm in complete agreement with you that one should engage in what one believes in (almost wrote "holds to be true" there), and that it should be a matter of enjoyment, fun. Final thought: maybe, by neither glossing over differences or raising them to points of high principle, we can put together a form of solidarity that's effective but doesn't require comformity. -- Curtiss
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