> 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.
That's what I meant (in my own awkward way). Knowledge, for Adorno, is mediated, and thereby appropriately takes a negative form. So we don't arrive at knowledge as such, we end up tarrying with the negative (truth is the nonidentical - which doesn't take on a solid form - it is the spark of something like creative negativity).
> It's *contingent* that the subject is constituted though the violence of
identity thinking, but it's a fact nonetheless.
Kell wrote: "right on curtiss baby!" with regards to transhistorical ideals...
Lacan's entire theoretical edifice revolves around the idea of contingency. What is taken to be transhistorical is actually Lacan's understanding of ideology. Ideology reproduces itself, and it possesses an ahistorical kernel - which can be understood historically but the fabric of the tapestry itself is not historical as such. If we collected 300 contemporary essays on "how Americans view Canada" - one wouldn't arrive at a *historical* image of Canada, at least nothing that someone could seriously entertain as actual history (heh, whatever that might be!). There is no history without political and ideological manipulation. It is always mediated. So Adorno talks about mediation, and Lacan about the manipulation of enjoyment... I never quite understand the charge that Lacan is ahistorical, or transhistorical, maybe more in appropriation - but Lacan knew very well that his analysis was limited and mediated (which is why he didn't want any of his work published).
There are several things that are important to remember - first, jouissance is not historical (Adorno might have said that freedom does not exist in history). So the critique of ideology takes on a historical form (as an intervention), but it doesn't necessarily end up with historical results (neither Lacanian analysis or negative dialectics is in the business of writing history). Adorno once wrote that the proletariat would only be unified by the subordination of its membership - and Lacan would agree. Subjectivization requires an Other (which the subject is subjected to). I don't quite see how this critique of mass identification is transhistorical. Neither Adorno or Lacan actually define freedom, but it is the centre of both of their works. And neither thought that "reality" is as obvious as history tells us - it continues to be written. So in the same way that identity thinking is not at one with its object, the symbolic is not at one with the real. There is a gap, which, for Adorno requires thinking concepts against themselves and, for Lacan, requires further symbolization. Adorno's empahsis on the subject-(identity)-object dialectic is mirrored in Lacan by his focus on the real-(imaginary)-symbolic.
> I agree it's impossible to stand outside of history,
> but why does that render it impossible to make certain
> judgements?
Because we're still caught in the effects of history (contingency).
> 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)
Ie. historical thoughts are true if they don't understand themselves... (if we're going to take impossibility seriously, then it isn't all that easy to derive a typical truth claim).
> 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.
Yeah, I suspect that our differences here are rather minor. What I find remarkable is the tremendous similiarity between a Zizekian Lacan and Adorno - the Lacanian imaginary is similar another way of formulating Adorno's notion of identity thinking - and the nonidentical in Adorno is Lacan's notion of "travesing fantasy." As far as I can see, although there are differences, these approaches are not mutually exclusive.
ken