Adorno’s critique of Husserl: the problem of the concept |. Introduction A. Being post-Kantian philosophers, both Adomo and Husser! face the same problem: the concepts, with which thought operates, reduce the complexity of non-conceptual. Thesis statement: Adorno’s critique of Husser’s attempt to deduce the universal concepts from singularities not only challenges the idealism inherent in classical phenomenology, but also sets ground for Adorno's “Negative Dialectics’, in which he suggests the unique model of dialectical relationship between individual and conceptual Il. The Husser!’s solution to the problem of universals A. Husserl criticises the method of abstraction, by which traditional concepts are created (abstraction of common qualities of multiplicity of things and uniting them into a concept), as such concepts are unable to channel the individuality of things 1. Husserl suggest an alternative — phenomenological abstraction and his own notion of universals, which he calls Species (Evidence: ‘Meaning as a Species therefore arises out of the above-mentioned background through abstraction, but not through abstraction in that improper sense by which empiricist psychology and epistemology are dominated, a sense which altogether fails to seize what is specific, and whose inability to do so is even counted as a virtue.” Logical Investigations, vol |, p.425) a) Husserl's ambition, at least in Logical Investigations, is to suggest the method of reaching the universal concept through a single phenomenological act of meaning (Evidence: When we mean Red in specie, a red object appears before us, and in this sense we look towards the red object to which we are nevertheless not referring. The moment of red is at the same time emphasized in this object, and to that extent we can again say that we are looking towards this moment of red. But we are not referring to this individually definite trait in the object, as we are referring to it when, e.g., we make the phenomenological observation that the moments of red in the separate portions of the apparent object's surface are themselves separate. While the red object and its emphasized moment of red appear before us, we are rather ‘meaning’ the single identical Red, and are meaning it in a novel conscious manner, though which precisely the Species, and not the individual, becomes our object.)Adorno’s critique (1) The complex relations between the individual and general here need to be explained (a) The intentional act of meaning (or “sense") here is singular ~ there is no comparison of different instances of redness in variety of objects and then devoting some generalised concept of red out of them. Rather, Husser! seems to imply a certain direction of attention, which concentrate on the aspect of redness of the imagined thing, thus making the redness itself the intended object (b) At the same time, however, this redness is referred not as quality of the particular imagined thing, but as some “ideal unity’, The redness refers to the multiplicity of its instances in the world. (Evidence: “Genuine identity that we here assert is none other than the identity of the species. As a species, and only as a species, can it embrace in unity [...] and as an ideal unity, the dispersed multiplicity of individual singulars. [...] Redness in specie is to the slips of paper which lie here, and which all ‘have’ the same redness. Each slip has, in addition to other constitutive aspects (extension, form etc.), its own individual redness, i.e. its instance of this colour-species, though this neither exists in the slip nor anywhere else in the whole world, and particularly not ‘in our thought’, in so far as this layer is part of the domain of real being, the sphere of temporality.” (2) Thereby, according to Husserl, an act of meaning intends to a specific aspect, such as the redness of a thing, making that aspect itself an intended object. However, this ‘redness’ is not referred to as a quality of the particular object in question, but as an ‘ideal unity’ that encompasses all instances of redness. Thus, Husser!'s approach attempts to bridge the gap between the specific and the general. A. The impossibility of a “singular” act of meaning1. Adorno points out that Husserl claims that when our intention is directed towards redness of the object, itis already some “identical red’, and, thereby, the Species. But then, this act of intention cannot be separated from the other acts, intended to other red objects in our memory, because “identity” presupposes multiplicity. (The weakness of the argumentation lies in the use of the term ‘identical’. For in that act we are indeed supposed to become conscious of ‘the single identical red’ and thus encounter the species itself instead of simply the individual. Yet one can speak meaningfully about identity only in relation to multiplicity. There is ‘identical red’ at all only for several objects which are red in common with each other. The expression need minimally apply to the continuity of perceived colours in a thing, ie. to something purely phenomenal, Against Epistemology, p. 98) a) Multiplicity is even needed already on the stage of intending the “redness” of the object (Husser! merely suppresses the fact that even the focusing on the moment red (in psychological terminology, the directing of attention) is no longer identical with the pure datum. As soon as one turns one’s view to ‘red itself’ (‘das’ Rot), then one categorizes and breaks up the unity of the act of perception, which applies to this colour, for example, together with other things observed here and now. The accentuated ‘red moment’ isolates the moment ‘colour’ from the present perception. If ever this were isolated as an autonomous unity, it would thereby fall into relations with other colours. Otherwise the colour moment could not be set off as autonomous at all, since in present perception it is simply blended into other things. It attains autonomy only by being brought together with a completely distinct dimension of experience, viz. past acquaintance with colour as such. It must be representative of ‘colour’ as is accorded to consciousness beyond sheer present experience. p.102) 2. But Husserl needs the act to be singular, because this would confirm the existence of the Species as an ideal object. Since if the act of meaning implies comparison with other instances of “red”, it will be possible to claim that the general “redness” gets constructed in this process, and does not exist in absolute, being untouched by subjectivity. However, Husserl cannot allow that: because truth of the concept, the “essence”, as Husser! calls it, then, would not be something universal and eternal, similar to mathematical categories (He rejected the splitbetween natural and cultural sciences which was in favour at the beginning of his career, i.e. the split between divergent ways of cognizing the individual or historical on the one hand, and mathematical universals on the other. He stood for the idea of a single truth, and tried to force together the unspoiled concretion of individual experience and the binding force of the concept. He never rested content with the pluralism of truth according to the realms of knowledge. [...] Since he is impressed by mathematics and thus does not venture to conceive the specific or ‘essential’ to which he is addicted, otherwise than as the class of scientific concept formation, he must turn to deducing the classificatory concept from singularity. Against epistemology p.97) a) One could argue, however, that in Ideas Husserl already “drops” the idea of individual meaning-act, and talks about “the stream of consciousness” (1) Adorno comments on that in the footnote, acknowledging that Husser! is inconsistent in this realm. However, Adorno emphasises, that even in Ideas Husser' still stands on the position of “eidetic singularities’, that is, the independent existence of universal objects, that manifest themselves in individual B. Discussing the issue, Adorno makes some important comments, which in the future will be unpacked as foundations of Negative Dialectic 4 “However true it may be that the species is not exhausted in the process of abstraction, since identical moments must be at hand for a concept to be formed at all from abstraction from the diverse, nevertheless these identical moments cannot be separated from the abstracting operation and discursive thought’ (Against epistemology, p. 101) “The two polar moments of the individual and unity congeal into absolute determinations as soon as they cease fo be understood as reciprocally producing each other and thus also produced.” (p.94)