In 2021, Adorno's academic monograph "Jargon der Eigentlichkeit", which criticized Heidegger's theory of survival and existentialism, was translated and published in Chinese Simplified domestic translations more than half a century after it was written. The Shanghai People's Publishing House and the Zhejiang University Press "Qi Zhen Guan" simultaneously published the Chinese translation, which were translated as "Authentic Jargon" and "Authentic Black Words" respectively.
In it, Adorno reflects on the metaphysical fantasy of grasping the "totality of reality" with thought (or concept).
Written by | Luo Songtao
(Professor, School of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University)
Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), also translated as Theodor Ador, was a German philosopher and sociologist.
In 1931, the fledgling Adorno began his inaugural speech at the University of Frankfurt on "The Reality of Philosophy", in which he spoke of an illusion that the study of philosophy as a profession must be abandoned: "The power of thought is enough to grasp the totality of reality." More than 30 years later, Adorno, who had become a core member of the first generation of the Frankfurt School, published a monograph on the existential ideas of Heidegger's survival theory, The Jargon of Authenticity.
1
No more "more"
In fact, Adorno's critical focus on Heidegger's ideas continued throughout his academic career. In his inaugural address , " The Reality of Philosophy " , which is regarded as the germ of his ideas , Adorno focused on Heidegger 's philosophical reflections on the problems of existence. Adorno argues that the "problem of existence itself" is in fact "the least complete problem" because it is "no different from the empty formal principle", and the premise of the questioning of "existence" is that "the mind is absolutely adapted to existence and associated with it". (See Wang Fengcai's translation of "Philosophical Reality", Foreign Social Sciences, No. 1, 2013) This idea of existence, which is absolutely compatible with "existence", became the "jargon of authenticity" in the book "The Jargon of Authenticity".
But, no matter how disguised, these jargons reflect or grasp not the totality of reality, but only the intellectual fantasy of Phnom Penh that "the power of thought is sufficient to grasp the totality of reality"—a jargon fantasy that Adorno, in The Dialectic of Negation, calls this jargonistic fantasy "conceptual fetishism", and his critique of German ideology is intended to carry out a kind of "disenchantment of concepts".
Cover of the Chinese translation of "The Jargon of Authenticity" (translated by Xie Yongkang; August 2021) by the Shanghai People's Publishing House.
In the philosophical vision of non-identity between subject and object, conceptual and non-conceptual (i.e., "conceptual surplus") that cannot be taken by concepts, Adorno insisted on the priority of the object (non-conceptual). We know that Marx and Engels, in the German Ideology, and especially in the first chapter of the first volume, "Feuerbach", repeatedly emphasized the starting point of historical materialism: "The premises which we begin to talk about are not arbitrarily formulated, not dogmas, but certain practical premises which can only be set aside in the imagination." These are the actual individuals, their activities and their material conditions of life, including those they already have and created by their own activities. (The Collected Works of Marx and Engels, vol. 1, People's Publishing House, 1995 edition, pp. 66-67) It should be said that this view of thinking about the relationship between man and history and between man and social reality from the perspective of "real man" is also the starting point of Adorno's criticism of Heidegger's survival and existential ideas.
If the young Hegelians, which Marx and Engels criticized, regarded theoretical criticism as a force for changing society, thus carrying an intrinsic element of avoidance (and even escape) from reality, then the fundamental problem of the modern German ideology represented by Heidegger's survival and existentialism criticized by Adorno was that in the reflection and questioning of "existence", thought was completely equated with existence. That is, the material conditions of life on which man's existence and practical activity depend are regarded as "so exist," abstracted as an "empty formal principle," and ultimately reduced to a "devotion to existence": "In this jargon the fragrance of flesh-and-blood, non-metaphorical things is quietly spiritualized. ”
Adorno argues that "in this jargon the fragrance of flesh-and-blood, non-metaphorical things is quietly spiritualized." In essence, the philosophy of existence, which is supposed to reflect on and transcend the dilemma of human existence, is nothing more than an authentic jargon that "deliberately sacralizes its everyday life." The "more" it contains is nothing more than an empty fantasy that is no different from the actual living conditions.
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Disagreement about what constitutes "death"
Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), German philosopher. One of the founders and leading representatives of existentialist philosophy in the 20th century.
In Existence and Time, Heidegger intends to suspend the abstract definitions of man in traditional metaphysics, so that the existence of "existing beings" is to comprehend its own existence and to make its own existence manifest through its existential activities: "The existence of this being is always my existence. This being makes a difference in his own existence. As the being of such a being, it has been entrusted to its own existence. For such beings, the key is all about being. In Heidegger's view, this presence, unlike other beings, can exist in the sense of survivalism, existentialism, possessing the existential qualities of "zu sein" and "Jemeinigkeit": "The 'essence' of this being lies in its existence", and "the existence to which this being does something in its existence is always my existence".
However, in Adorno's view, Heidegger's existential and existential analysis has become an ideological myth ("authenticity jargon") that confirms the legitimacy of the social status quo, which is epitomized in Heidegger's analysis of this "dying".
Qizhenguan Zhejiang University Press' Chinese translation of "The Black Words of Authenticity" (translator: Xia Fan; August 2021) book cover.
Heidegger saw death as the most fundamental possibility here, and "this most intrinsic, unrelated possibility is insurmountable." To the existence of this possibility makes this person realize that what hangs before it as the most extreme possibility of existence is the renunciation of itself. But this precedence is not like dodging this insurmountable realm like the unrealistic existence of death, but giving freedom to itself for this insurmountable realm." This "fear" in the face of this "insurmountable" possibility makes this authentic choice and determination about many possibilities of existence while existing in the world.
Adorno, who pondered after the specific historical situation of Auschwitz, argued: "Since Auschwitz, fear of death has meant that fear of death is worse than death. Heidegger went to great lengths to distinguish between the non-authenticity of ordinary people's "fear of death" and the true nature of this being, "fear of death", believing that the "death" of ordinary people "fearing" is nothing more than the "death of others" at the level of the existent to understand death as an object (event), and only the "death" of this "fear" of the original earth can put this place in a state of freedom that fully demonstrates its possibility of existence: "To analyze death as death, The only remaining possibilities are either to lead this phenomenon to the concept of pure survival, or to abandon the existential understanding of this phenomenon. ”
Adorno, who spares no effort to "disenchant" the above-mentioned authenticity jargon, believes that Heidegger's rendering of this is a set of words that obtain the true survival understanding through "dying and then making authentic choices" and finally "giving freedom to oneself", on the one hand, the reality of human existence (and death) is completely withdrawn, and on the other hand, the sense of powerlessness and fear of real people in the face of death is transcended into human survival characteristics, "as this jargon says, pain, calamity and death should be accepted." Ironically, this presence, which is bravely "dying" in existential and existential philosophies, is "incapable of confronting the fact that man is relegated to a functional set."
In Adorno's view, the modern German ideology represented by Heidegger's theory of survival and existentialism is essentially engaged in a kind of "desocialized" thinking.
"Existence has changed from an abstract concept to an absolutely anadmanent concept, rather than a concept that has just been set, because Heidegger presents a being and calls it this being, which is said to be at the same time not only the being, but also the pure condition of the being, but without losing anything in the process of individuation, such as obesity, physicality, etc. ...... Social relations, wrapped in subjective identity, are desocialized as An sich. It is no longer possible for an individual who can no longer trust in any fixed property to cling to himself in its most extreme abstraction, as clinging to what remains, which he imagines to be indelible. Metaphysics ends with this tragic consolation that people continue to exist, that they continue to be what they are. Because people are simply no longer what they are, not in the social sense, nor have they been in the biological sense, they compensate themselves with the empty remnants of their own equivalence as a striking sign of existence and meaning. ”
—Adorno, The Jargon of Authenticity, translated by Xie Yongkang, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2021.
The prisoners in the Auschwitz incinerator, forced to give up their lives, lose any meaning of existence, while the survivors can only prove their existence in the concentration camps by number, and the "tragic consolation" offered by Heidegger ("I" became the real "self" because of the death of "me") can at best indulge one in the illusion of "the most extreme abstraction", but in the end it cannot compete with a wisp of green smoke or a number.
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The "excessive abstraction" that becomes problematic
Coincidentally, the Austrian philosopher jean Emery, a survivor of Auschwitz, in The Philosophy of Aging: Resistance and Abandonment, also makes a powerful rebuttal to the abstract formal principle of "equality before death":
A poor wretched ghost who dies alone in the hospital, unappreciated by an indifferent nurse, is very different from a rich man leaving in a higher ward: for the latter, flowers on the table, cordial greetings and thoughtfulness of doctors to fulfill the obligations of high-paying positions, and frequent visits by relatives may not help him, but they can make some pain-free moments more peaceful. There is a good life in the days of death, and it is this good life that so starkly distinguishes his life from the miserable life of the poor.
One must repeat that we are equal before death, as it is not said, or that it excludes the demand for equality into the shameful, unconstrained metaphysical sphere, where we are not equal when we die.
——Refer to the philosophy of aging, Chinese edition, page 155, translated by Yang Xiaogang, Lujiang Publishing House, 2018.
Obviously, "equality before death" is only formal equality in the metaphysical speculative sense, and in fact "death" here, like "equality", is only an empty abstract concept; since it does not have any historical and practical "binding" nature, its propagation is "shameful". In contrast, the social, family, and individual situations faced by each individual "at the time of death" are complex and diverse and cannot be uniform. In my opinion, Emery's distinction between "before death" and "at death" also applies to Adorno's criticism of Heidegger's survival and existentialism.
In fact, in the 14th lecture series entitled Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems in 1965, Adorno recommended Emory's work to his students, with particular emphasis: "It is a lie to say that death has not changed in all ages; death is also a rather abstract entity." (Cf. Adorno, Metaphysic: Concepts and Problems, Polity, 2000) In heidegger's jargon of authenticity, death is desocialized as a "rather abstract entity." The philosophy of existence tries to rebel against the "oblivion of existence" and to give meaning to the survival of modern man, but because of this jargon "transcendence made of bad experience", it degenerates into a fantasy that merely tries to grasp the reality as a whole in the mind, an empty fantasy, a "grinding sound" of authenticity: "The extreme abstract self, which is nothing more than the incessant talking about me, me, my teeth grinding, is so nothing, just like the 'self' becomes in death."
It can be seen from this that Adorno's reflection and criticism of Heidegger's existential theory of survival in "The Jargon of Authenticity" aims to break through the fetishistic fantasy of the concept of "existence" and gain insight into the ideological mythological attributes of the jargon of the authenticity of life and death, so that the real person can break free from the shackles of abstract concepts and become himself and change the world in the concrete practice of life.
*Heidegger's view, which is not attributed in the text, is quoted from "Existence and Time", translated by Chen Jiaying and Wang Qingjie, Life, Reading, and Xinzhi Sanlian Bookstore, 2000 edition; Adorno's view is quoted from "The Jargon of Authenticity", translated by Xie Yongkang, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2021 edition.