Theodor W. Adorno - Concept Quotes

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The conflicts that tear society apart resemble the distinction between the concept and the particular facts subordinated to it.... Whatever refuses to abide by the unity imposed by the principle of dominion manifests itself not as something indifferent to that principle, but as an infringement of logic: as a contradiction.

Theodor W. Adorno
The thesis of the identity of concept and thing is in general the vital nerve of idealist thought, and indeed traditional thought in general.... Negative dialectics as critique means above all criticism of precisely this claim to identity.

Theodor W. Adorno
In both positivism and Heidegger—at least in his later work—speculation is the target of attack. In both cases the thought that autonomously raises itself above the facts through interpreting them and that cannot be reclaimed by them without leaving a surplus is condemned for being empty and vain concept-mongering.

Theodor W. Adorno
Underlying the concept of positivity is the conviction that the positive is intrinsically positive in itself, without anyone pausing to ask what is to be regarded as positive.... It is significant and really quite interesting that the term 'positive' actually contains this ambivalence. On the one hand, 'positive' means what is given, is postulated, is there—as when we speak of positivism as the philosophy that sticks to the facts. But, equally, 'positive' also refers to the good, the approvable, in a certain sense, the ideal. And I imagine that this semantic constellation expresses with precision what countless people actually feel to be the case.

Theodor W. Adorno
Philosophy … must not bargain away anything of the emphatic concept of truth.

Theodor W. Adorno
In the general tendency toward specialization, philosophy too has established itself as a specialized discipline, one purified of all specific content. In so doing, philosophy has denied its own constitutive concept: the intellectual freedom that does not obey the dictates of specialized knowledge.

Theodor W. Adorno
None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

Theodor W. Adorno
The metaphysical apologia at least betrayed the injustice of the established order through the incongruence of concept and reality. The impartiality of scientific language deprived what was powerless of the strength to make itself heard and merely provided the existing order with a neutral sign for itself. Such neutrality is more metaphysical than metaphysics.

Theodor W. Adorno
The concept of positivity in itself, in abstracto, has become part and parcel of the ideology today.... Critique has started to become suspect, regardless of its content.

Theodor W. Adorno
As a constellation, theoretical thought circles the concept it would like to unseal, hoping that it may fly open like the lock of a well-guarded safe-deposit box: in response, not to a single key or a single number, but to a combination of numbers

Theodor W. Adorno
On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.

Theodor W. Adorno