Translation: Adorno & Horkheimer's 1939 Discussion on "The Temporal Core of Truth. Experience & Utopia in Dialectical Theory." (Ed. Gretel Adorno)
From the early discussion protocols for Dialectic of Enlightenment
Translator’s note.
The following is a revised translation draft of one of the earliest Diskussionsprotokolle between Adorno and Horkheimer, from the first truly intensive phase of their long-planned, and much discussed, collaboration on the ‘dialectics’ (or ‘dialectical logic’ or ‘dialectical materialism’) project. This sequence of discussions is published in Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften. Band 12: Nachgelassene Schriften 1931-1949., edited by Alfred Schmidt and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1985) (hereafter: MHGS Bd. 12), under the title: “[Discussion about Language and Cognition, The Domination of Nature by Humans, Political Aspects of Marxism.] (1939).” It was held in eight sessions over the course of October and November 1939, and began with a discussion on October 2nd, 1939, of Horkheimer’s fragment for the ‘dialectical logic’ project titled “Kopula und Subsumtion” (1939). (The CTWG plans to publish a translation of this fragment, along with Adorno and Horkheimer’s discussion of it, in a forthcoming collection of translations—co-translated/-edited by J.E. Morain—of sketches written for the ‘dialectical logic’ project between 1939 and 1949. A specific date will be announced shortly through the CTWG’s ‘news’ page, social media, and, likely, an update here on Substudies.) It was from these conversations that the plan for what would become Dialectic of Enlightenment [Dialektik der Aufklärung] (1947), originally published under the title Philosophische Fragmente [Philosophical Fragments] (1944), first arose. Of particular interest is Horkheimer’s mention of The Communist Manifesto as a possible model for the form of the collaboration. The fifth and eighth sessions, titled “Aspects of Political Theory” and “Relation Towards Marxism” respectively,1 are, in fact, dedicated to outlining the themes, form, and content of a new Manifesto—almost twenty years before the much more well-known discussions in 1956 more recently published under the title Towards a New Manifesto.2 Based on the discussions of 1939, the MHGS Bd. 12 editors infer that the Manifesto was “evidently supposed to present the basic features of Marxism as critical theory [Grundzüge des Marxismus als kritischer Theorie],” but was never completed in this form.3 Nevertheless, as I recently argued in the preface to the first volume of the CTWG’s journal, Margin Notes: Kernels of Early Critical Theory, Adorno and Horkheimer’s interest in the Manifesto as a model for their authorship has grounds within, and reciprocal influence on, their overall conception of the method of presentation for critical theory in the 1930s-1940s.
Unless marked otherwise, the editorial notes to the text below are the translator’s own. The transcript is (loosely) structured by ‘notes’ which punctuate the conversation, providing minimal but essential context and references. As the editors of MHGS Bd. 12 note, the discussion protocols in this sequence (with the exception of the second, and much lower quality, transcript—probably by Löwenthal—dated 10/13/1939) were transcribed and edited by Gretel Adorno.4 Without her almost entirely uncredited editorial work, there would likely be no record—let alone such a conceptually or stylistically coherent one—of the majority of the ISR’s internal discussions from the late 30s through late 40s. For this reason, she is credited here as editor.
James/Crane (1/13/2025)
Discussion about Language and Cognition, The Domination of Nature by Humans, Political Aspects of Marxism. (1939)
The Temporal Core of Truth [Zeitkern der Wahrheit]. Experience and Utopia in Dialectical Theory.
[Discussion protocol, 10/18/1939]5
[Note:]
Various themes are discussed in consideration for the upcoming, major work.
1) Questions of mythology and modern logic. (All of the Gods of the Greeks originate from holy names.)
2) Subsumptive logic [Umfangslogik]6 as anticipation of the limitation of the world to that which exists.7 (To what extent is operating with pre-given concepts not already the philosophy of identity?)
3) Connection between the philosophy of identity and discursive logic. (Question of the possibility of a non-identical dialectic.)
4) To what extent is truth bound to linguistic form?
Adorno: An old theme of Benjamin’s, Preface to the Baroque-book [viz., Ursprung des Deutschen Trauerspiels], no object of intentions.8
Horkheimer: It may still very well be that truth never is something which does not lie in thinking.
Adorno: I believe that there is no truth in the absence of a relation to thinking.
Horkheimer: In theology, truth is identical with Logos; for several hundred years at a time, only a single proposition could be true.
[Note: New approach, without consideration of the other themes.]
Horkheimer: The philosophy of life [Lebensphilosophie] is always false, a philosophy of death [Todesphilosophie] would be more correct. When I designate something as existing, this consists in switching off time, the claim of the super-temporal.9 But time has its power. That which existed vanishes. It would not be so bad if, at least, the consciousness that it had vanished could be held onto. But even this thought is fleeting.10 As soon as one switches time back on, every existential judgment [Existentialurteil] shows itself to be untruth, everything is forgotten, nothing remains.11 I find there is a monstrous optimism in Hegel’s “positive negation.”12 Something, that which is too abstract, is negated; in reality, one ends up with nothing.
Adorno: That is a theological question.
Horkheimer: We must decide: either historicism is right that truth only exists for a determinate time, or the truth must remain something eternal, something which is not doomed to expire.
Adorno: Reference to Karl Kraus. Adorno thinks Kraus’s failure lies in the fact that his concept of language is not theological enough. We must align ourselves with the great Jewish theology against fetishism.13
Horkheimer: You conduct yourself as follows: You are actually opposed to fetishes and are smashing them continuously, but in such a way that though you do not make any statements about the positive object of negative theology, you nevertheless leave no doubt there is one. Kraus could reply with the objection he went a step further. If philosophy is to have meaning, it must begin precisely where you held it in reserve. But as soon as one opens their mouth, they fetishize. On that which is decisive, I believe the hated nominalists are still more right than the more sympathetic realists—namely, that language touches nothing.
Adorno: Positivism would become truth in its moment of desperation.
Horkheimer: What is decisive lies precisely in the nuance between the desperate and the cynical.14
Adorno: You have characterized two moments for me with great precision: first, that I am fundamentally of the conviction that the positivists are not right, for if they were, the world would be hell. On the other hand, I have no esoteric doctrine [Geheimlehre] either. I believe, however, that the kind of view I have is such that it finds the reflexion [Widerschein] in things of the same source of light which cannot be the object of intentions and thoughts.15
Horkheimer: Can one really help oneself with such formulations? My difficulty is that I always get precisely as far as we have come now—namely, to objective despair.16 In what does the distinction between objective and subjective despair consist? I will stand by saying my despair is a psychological matter, for otherwise I would be compelled to objectify hope.
Adorno: The moment of the objectification of hope is contained even in Marx.
Horkheimer: On this point, sociological [objectification] is just as bad as psychological [objectification].
Adorno: I would say, it is the hope for utopia.17 The fact that I am influenced by certain metaphysical thoughts, and that you have liquidated the whole positivistic legacy of Marxism, is not accidental.18 It comes from a certain feeling of the poverty of any cognition [Erkenntnis] in which the element of the trace is not contained. The seal of authenticity of any cognition is the reflexion of possibility.19 Therein lies my basic philosophical experience and your critical motor.20 Beyond that, the criterion of language is enough.
Horkheimer: Our linguistic differences could be determined like this: for you, the sacred appears in many places; for me, the pleasant, simplification.21 If we were both more conscious of this, we could conduct ourselves more rigorously.
Adorno: The truth of metaphysics is fundamentally to be decided by the critique of language. I believe that there is a determinate kind of concrete cognition which has such a force of impact that even in its isolation, the possibility of the whole is contained.22 The fragmentary concrete.
Horkheimer: The concepts of whole and part are no longer appropriate either.
[Note: Discussion ensues in response to Adorno’s comment about the effect of the snare drum in the blue booklet.23]
[The snare drum: three quick, soft beats on a single instrument evoke the feeling of a distant, marching crowd. Thus we are reminded that all music, even the loneliest, is for the many whose gestures its sound preserves.]24
Horkheimer: This sentence has the form of an analogy. I have a suspicion that all of the cognitions [Erkenntnisse] that you have in mind are analogies. This is the form of petty-bourgeois thinking, the idea that something always means something.25
Adorno: Analogy doesn’t play an essential role here; the sentence belongs within a theoretical context. It has to do with understanding the language of the music the way Siegfried does the language of the birds.
Horkheimer: You have a knowing wink in your eye about everything.26
Adorno: All that remains of theology is the winking of augurs.27 I would accuse your prose of containing a moment of agreement with what is. Your prose is beneath the experiences you wish to convey, mine is above those I am able to convey.28
Horkheimer: For both of us, form and content do not quite fit together.29 In your case, it looks as if there were no center of light at all.30 This is probably connected with the fact that there is a certain occasionalism in the formulation “reflexion” [“Widerschein”]. That which is most important can be tied to everything.
Adorno: These distinctions we have been given between important and unimportant should be set aside.
Horkheimer: Given the right circumstances, you would convey the sentence about the snare drum with the same intensity as a highly significant discovery.
Adorno: My instinct tells me that the cognition expressed within it is very important.
Horkheimer: I would like to make this more determinate than ‘instinct.’31
Adorno: You suspect me of irrationalism.
Horkheimer: I believe that what you call instinct goes back to highly significant experiences.
Adorno: The value of a cognition depends essentially on the density and depth of the experiences which are precipitated in it. Benjamin says that each smallest cell outweighs the rest of the world as a whole.32
[Note: Problem of theory and experience.]
Today you are mistrustful of closed theories, but in the past you have demanded that every insight prove itself before the theory as a whole.33 I demand instead the density of experience. Every single cognition without construction is trivial. In what relation do authentic experiences stand to authentic theory?34 The individual insights must not be blind. In theory, everything has to be equally close to the center.35
Horkheimer: As we find in the Communist Manifesto. The sentences present experiences.36 We ought to try our hand at a text with such tendencies. The decisive experiences to which you refer certainly occur during childhood. The child always has the right to absolute happiness from the mother.
Adorno: That is very much connected with the question of the only child. It all comes down to the reconstruction of childhood.
[Note: Reference to the Schönberg passages of the Fetishism essay.]37
All of the violence we would need to break through regression depends on the depth with which we can penetrate this layer. We renounce nothing.38
Horkheimer: We are not disillusioned, and we are holding on to possibility.39 Your “reflexion” [“Widerschein”] is connected to the experience of possibility, to happiness. But how should one respond here to the accusation of psychological subjectivism? The categorial structure in which such a statement is convicted of being subjective is none other than that of the statement itself. Therefore, the accusation is invalidated. The second of these standpoints is in no way superior to the first. The whole of positivism is necessarily related to physicalism. In this way one cannot have any experience whatsoever. We would have to prove that the experiences we imagine the inhabitants of Mars can share with us are in no way more objective than those we have by ourselves alone.
Adorno attempts to justify the sentence with the snare drum: My cognition is accused of being analytically naive. Is this standpoint not already an admission that one does not believe in happiness? Is not this naivete a higher form of cognition than the unnaive [form] of analysis?
Horkheimer: I have not relinquished the claim on happiness either, but I do not believe in happiness. Whoever really believes in happiness is naive in the pejorative sense.
Adorno: We must be much more naive [naiver] and much more unnaive [unnaiver] at the same time.
Translation by James Crane for the Critical Theory Working Group (12/31/2024)
CTWG website: https://ctwgwebsite.github.io/
Email: crittheoryworkgroup@gmail.com / crittheoryworkgroup@proton.me
Socials: ‘X’: @crit_theory_grp; Bluesky: @crittheoryworkgrp.bsky.social
See “[5. Aspekte der politischen Theorie. Entwurf des »Manifests« (1)] (25. Oktober 1939)” and “[8. Verhältnis zum Marxismus. Entwurf des »Manifests« (II)] / (20. November 1939),” In: Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 12 (1985), 512-515; 524-525, resp.
Adorno and Horkheimer, Towards a New Manifesto. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. (Verso, 2011)
See the “Editorische Vorbemerkung” (by Alfred Schmidt and Gunzelin Schmid Noerr) to the sequence titled “[Diskussionen über Sprache und Erkenntnis, Naturbeherrschung am Menschen, politische Aspekte des Marxismus] (1939),” In: Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 12 (1985), 495.
Ibid.
Discussion protocol #3 in: [Diskussionen über Sprache und Erkenntnis, Naturbeherrschung am Menschen, politische Aspekte des Marxismus] (1939). Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 12 (1985), 505-510.
Cf. Adorno on Umfangslogik in Kracauer: “But that is simply his aversion to theory in the emphatic sense: theory must go to extremes in interpreting its objects if it is not to conflict with its own idea. In opposition to that, Kracauer stubbornly insisted on a moment that always evaporated in the idea stage for the German spirit of almost any orientation. In doing so, however, he renounced the task that his awareness of the non-identity of the thing and its concept led him to the edge of: the task of extrapolating the idea from something refractory to it, extrapolating the general from the extreme of particularity. Dialectical thought never suited his temperament. He contented himself with the precise specification of the particular for use as an example of general matters. He hardly felt a need for strict mediation within the thing itself, the need to demonstrate the essential within the innermost core of particularity. In this he held, conservatively, to subsumptive logic [Umfangslogik]. He would have dismissed the idea of an intellectual splitting of the atom, an irrevocable break with phenomena, as speculative, and would have stubbornly taken Sancho Panza's side. Under the aegis of its impenetrability, his thought lets reality, which it evokes and which it ought to penetrate, stand as it is. From there one can make the transition to its vindication as something unalterable. Correspondingly, the enthronement of a form of individual experience, however eccentric, that is comfortable with itself remains socially acceptable. However much it feels itself to be in opposition to society, the principium individuationis is society's own principle. Thought that hesitates to venture beyond its own idiosyncratic form of response thereby binds itself to something contingent and glorifies it simply in order to avoid glorifying the great universal. But the individual's spontaneous reaction is not an ultimate; nor, therefore, does it guarantee binding knowledge.” In: “The Curious Realist: On Siegfried Kracauer” [1964]. Ed. Shierry Weber Nicholsen. New German Critique , Autumn, 1991, No. 54, Special Issue on Siegfried Kracauer (Autumn, 1991), 164-165.
“the limitation of the world to that which exists”: [Vorwegnahme der Beschränkung der Welt aufs Bestehende]
Benjamin: “The being of ideas simply cannot be conceived of as the object of vision, even intellectual vision. For even in its most paradoxical periphrasis, as intellectus archetypus, vision does not enter into the form of existence which is peculiar to truth, which is devoid of all intention, and certainly does not itself appear as intention. Truth does not enter into relationships, particularly intentional ones. The object of knowledge, determined as it is by the intention inherent in the concept, is not the truth. Truth is an intentionless state of being, made up of ideas. The proper approach to it is not therefore one of intention and knowledge, but rather a total immersion and absorption in it. Truth is the death of intention. The structure of truth, then, demands a mode of being which in its lack of intentionality resembles the simple existence of things, but which is superior in its permanence.” In: The Origin of the German Tragic Drama. Translated by John Osborne. (Verso, 1998), 35-36.
“Switching off time”: [die Ausschaltung der Zeit]; “The claim of the super-temporal”: [der Anspruch des Überzeitlichen]
“Thought”: [Vorstellung]
“Switching back on”: [die Zeit einschaltet]
“monstrous optimism”: [ein ungeheurer Optimismus]
In full: “Wir müssen hier mit der großen jüdischen Theologie gehen gegen den Fetischismus.”
“Desperate”: [Verzweifelten]; “Cynical”: [Zynischen]
“source of light”: [Lichtquelle]; “the object of intentions and thoughts”: [der Gegenstand von Intentionen und Gedanken]
“objective despair” [objektiven Verzweiflung]
“the hope for utopia”: [die Hoffnung auf die Utopie]
In full: “Die Tatsache, daß ich von bestimmten metaphysischen Gedanken beeinflußt bin, und daß Sie das ganze positivistische Erbe des Marxismus liquidiert haben, ist nicht zufällig. Es kommt von einem gewissen Gefühl der Armseligkeit jener Erkenntnis, in der das Element der Spuren nicht enthalten ist.”
“Reflexion of possibility”: [Widerschein der Möglichkeit]
“basic philosophical experience”: [philosophische Grunderfahrung]; “critical motor”: [kritische Motor]
“the sacred”: [Geweihte]; “the pleasant” [Gemütliche]; “simplification”: [Simplifizierung]
“A determinate kind of concrete cognition”: [eine bestimmte Art von konkreten Erkenntnissen]; “force of impact”: [Schlagkraft]
“Blue booklet”: [blauen Heft]
[MHGS Bd. 12 ed. Fn.:] “Kleine Trommel: drei rasche leise Schläge des einen Instruments erwecken das Gefühl einer fernen marschierenden Menge. So wird daran erinnert, daß alle Musik, und die einsamste noch, den Vielen gilt, deren Gestus ihr Laut aufbewahrt.” (Adorno, Motive, in: Gesammelte Schriften Bd. 16, Frankfurt ma Main 1978, S. 280f.)
“the form of petty-bourgeois thinking”: [die Form des kleinbürgerlichen Denkens]
Idiomatic expression: [ein vielwissendes Augenblinzeln]
Playing on Horkheimer’s ‘Augenblinzeln’: [das Blinzeln der Auguren]
In full: “Ihre Prosa ist unterhalb der Erfahrungen, die Sie mitteilen wollen, meine ist oberhalb dessen, was ich mitteilen kann.”
In full: “Bei uns beiden paßt Form und Inhalt nicht ganz zusammen.”
“Center of light”: [Lichtzentrum]
‘Instinct’: [Instinkt]
[MHGS Bd. 12 ed. Fn.:] Cf. Adorno’s following formulation about Benjamin: “Philosophical fantasy [Philosophische Phantasie] is for him the capacity for ‘interpolation in the smallest,’ and a cell of perceived reality outweighs for him—this too is his own formula—the rest of the entire world.” Introduction to Benjamin’s “Schriften”, in: Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften Bd. 1, Frankfurt am Main 1974, p. 570. These words of Benjamin have only been relayed thus by Adorno.
[geschlossenen Theorie]: this relates to one of the central topics of the 1939 discussions, in which Adorno contrasts his conceptions of dialectic as ‘determinate negation’ through ‘the principle of immanent critique’ to Horkheimer’s ‘uncompleted’ [Unabgeschlossene] dialectic which, aporetically, maintains with Hegel that ‘the truth is [in the] whole,’ but that this whole cannot be known by finite human beings.
“authentic experiences”: [echte Erfahrungen]; “authentic theory” [echter Theorie]
“Center”: [Mittelpunkt]
In full: “Die Sätze stellen Erfahrungen dar.”
T. W. Adorno, “Über den Fetischcharakter in der Musik und die Regression des Hörens.” In: ZfS vol. 7, no. 3, (1938), 321—356. In English translation: “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening” In: The Essential Frankfurt School Reader. Arato, Andrew & Gebhardt, Eike (eds.) (Continuum, 1977), 270-299.
In full: “Wir entsagen nicht.”
In full: “Wir sind nicht desillusioniert und halten an der Möglichkeit fest.”