ADORNO’S NEGATIVE DIALECTICS AS A PHILOSOPHY OF REAL POSSIBILITY

Abstract

This article examines some aspects of Adorno’s materialist dialectic, by focussing especially on his
Hegel: Three Studies. While Adorno’s philosophy is commonly read ”“ both by Habermasian critics
and more sympathetic readers ”“ as a “critique of instrumental reason” aiming at a mere refutation of
Hegel’s subject-object identity thesis, it is suggested here that this thesis plays a crucial role in Adorno
as a dialectical moment. First Adorno’s view of the objective essence of dialectics is outlined,
implying that materialist elements are already present in Hegel himself. The trascendent possibility of
utopia must be conceived, therefore, as a “real possibility”, grounded in the structure of immanent
experience. Then the question is posed of what, according to Adorno, is actually false in Hegel.
Through a survey on some core concepts of negative dialectics ”“ the ontological proof of God’s
existence, the object’s preponderance, the contingency of antagonism, the historical genesis of the
Freudian ego ”“ it is shown that Adorno’s critique to Hegel is directed at the idealist ontologization of
labor, and therefore, of subject ”“ itself a form of labor. Finally, a possible pratical outcome of negative
dialectics is briefly hinted at, consisting in the overcoming of labor through labor, i.e., in a conception
of the abolition of the commodity form that is dialectical, negative, and based on the acceptance of the
rule of law.