Thinking as Gesture: A Note on Dialectic of Enlightenment Author(s): Alexander Garca Dttmann Reviewed work(s): Source: New German Critique,

No. 81, Dialectic of Enlightenment (Autumn, 2000), pp. 143-152 Published by: New German Critique Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/488550 . Accessed: 02/06/2012 13:47
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A Note on Dialectic of Enlightenment

Alexander Garcia Duittmann

Thinkingas Gesture:

The idea that there is a relationshipbetween thinking and exaggeration, which proves to be constitutiveof thinkingitself and its presentation, is an idea Adorno repeatedly formulateswithout ever expressly and systematically developing. Because this relationship is meant to allow thinking to relate to truth,the lack of a systematic development cannotbe explainedas the resultof a simple omission on the partof the philosopher.The question must be raised whether Adorno's idea does not in itself amountto an exaggeration.Does the exaggerationof thinking not thwart the attemptto develop a thought systematically?Does the absence of a systematic developmentof the idea that the very constitutionof thinkingdepends on exaggerationnot result from exaggeration itself, fromthe impossibilityof justifying it? Everyjustified exaggerationis no longer an exaggeration.Once justified, exaggerationis either an externaldevice or a necessary limitation of thought. In both cases it ceases to be an exaggerationwhich constitutes thoughtand its claim to truth;indeed it ceases to be an exaggeration capable of constitutingthoughtand its claim to truth.The external device may serve the purposeof rhetoricalemphasis, yet strictly speaking its function cannot be justified from the point of view of thought. Thought as such stands in no need of rhetoricalemphasis. Thus, exaggeration does not constitute a thought it emphasizes rhetorically.As soon as it has been justified as a rhetoricaldevice or supplement,it also ceases to be an exaggeration. has been domesticated. It A necessary limitation,on the other hand, belongs to thinking itself. 143

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The momentcritiquehas elucidatedthis belonging,the necessarylimitation can no longer be viewed as an exaggerationthat is active in even' thought. The insight into thinkingand its predispositionto deviate, to overshoot the object it deems to grasp cognitively, is indebtedto a crithat is tique which understands exaggeration an illusion,even if it locates the necessity of the illusion in the very structure thinking.Once again of the justified exaggerationno longer appearsto be an exaggeration.To the extent that it is justified, it pertainsto the past of an uncriticalor precritical thinking. Given that any justification of an exaggerationcan of always be identifiedas an actualization one of these two possibilities, one may state thatin generalthereare no justified exaggerations, that or can exaggerations be justifiedonly at the priceof theirrelinquishment. We seem to be moving in a circle. On the one hand,the assertionthat thinking is in essence exaggerationrouses the suspicion of being an assertion,an unjustifiedexaggeration,which has nothingto do arbitrary with thinking. On the other hand, the systematic development of the idea that exaggerations are constitutive of thinking, a development which alone can renderthis idea plausible, leads to its own negation and thereby annuls the possibility of an insight. To define insight in terms of an intuition or an inspirationat odds with any systematic developmentandjustification,does not open the circle, for to give such a definitionmeansto renouncethinking. The circle which envelops thinkingand prevents it from being free, or, more precisely, which comprisesthinkingwithin its movement,can be described as a peculiar dialectic of enlightenment.Enlightenment seeks a way out of exaggeration,an escape from the overwhelming experience, which thought cannot penetrate and which Adorno and Horkheimer it designateas myth. Yet the further proceedsin its destruction of the mythical, the more it falls prey to myth and engendersthe mythical. An entirely enlightened thought, a thought which, having become identical to itself, as it were, would meet no resistance and would be just as little a thoughtas a mereexaggeration ever is. That it is at all possible to speak of such a dialectic of enlightenment and of such a circle in which thinkingis caughtup presupposesthat the circle is not closed and that the dialectic does not consummateitself undisturbed. this point, all that can be said about the openness of the At circle is that it cannot result from a justificationof exaggeration.How does thinkingrelate to the exaggerationit is meant to be, and what is it

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that institutesthe relationto truthwhich characterizesthe exaggerating thought, if exaggerationcannot be justified and if that which remains into a substitutefor a justification, a unjustifiedcannot be transformed substitute alien to the claims of thought? To put it differently, how does enlightenmentrelate to myth if myth is not an illusion, which can be recognized and done away with, and if enlightenmentis not to be submittedto myth either? of It could be objectedto the analogicaltreatment these two questions that however enigmatic, the unusualthesis of thinkingas exaggeration between remainsa positive claim, while any claim aboutthe relationship must be a negative or critical claim. But such and enlightenment myth an objectionis acceptableonly if one constructsa "causal"link between and Adorno summarize the two theses by means of which Horkheimer the argumentof theirwork in the prefaceto Dialectic of Enlightenment. In the end, the constructionof a "causal"link amountsto an arbitrary of Strictlyspeakingsuch a "causal" separation myth and enlightenment. as link can only exist between myth and enlightenment historicalforces, not between the two theses. Because myth is already enlightenment, enlightenment must relapse into myth or, to quote verbatim, into "mythology." An interpretationwhich presupposes a "causal" link and between myth and enlightenment which thereforeentails the necessity of a critical approachcan refer to a passage from the first part of Horkheimerand Adorno's book: "To be sufficiently strong to shatter is myths, thinkingmust do violence to itself."' Enlightenment capableof and hence does not oppose them as something comshatteringmyths and Myth is itself historical,the pletely heterogeneous incommensurable. of enlightenment(a fact Horkheimerand result of an early process Adorno try to establish in their exposition of the concept of enlightenment) and containswithin itself the possibility of enlightenment(a fact and Adorno try to establish in their excursus on the HomHorkheimer for eric epic). Enlightenment its partimplies the possibilityof the mythiof a violent reification,and can assertitself againstmyth only to the cal, and Adorno try to extent that it becomes mythical (a fact Horkheimer of in their reconstruction the "prehistory" anti-Semitism). of establish which link myth and Thus, the homogeneity and commensurability to enlightenment each othercan be gaugedfroma threefoldimplication.
1. Max Horkheimer and TheodorW. Adorno,Dialectic of Enlightenment,trans. JohnCumming(New York:Continuum,1972)4 [trans.modified- AGD].

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steps forthin the figureof myth and from the figure of Enlightenment inasmuchas it steps forth from the figure of myth, enlightenmyth, yet ment also assumes a mythicalform. The interpretation the dialecticof of link betweenthis threefoldimpliwhich createsa "causal" enlightenment cation and the relapseof enlightenment "mythology," into cannotbut curtail the comprehension of the proposition that myth is already Doubtless,this interpretation enlightenment. proceedsfrom the homogeof but neity and commensurability myth and enlightenment, only in order the to set up an abstractoppositionand subordinate homogeneityand to and incommensurability. ends up It commensurability a heterogeneity off againstmyth, and myth againstenlightenment. playing enlightenment bears mythic traits means that it can never wholly That enlightenment and without residueturninto myth,just as little as myth can never simThe is ply turninto enlightenment. dialecticof enlightenment not a schematic and final conversionof one into the other, it is not a conversion, entanis which ends with a final result.Because enlightenment inherently with myth, because it is determined a resistanceagainst which gled by or the enlightenedthoughtmust measureitself, becauseit is non-identical can at odds with itself, the relapse into "mythology" only signify a tendency and, consequently,an exaggeration a tendencybroughtaboutby the tension which drives myth and enlightenment apartwhile also relatand forcesto each other. these two homogeneous heterogeneous ing The dialectic of enlightenmentis thereforealso misjudgedby a criticism which denounces its presumedinevitabilityor ineluctabilityas a dogmatic totalizationor hypostasization,referringto this exaggeration as an occasion for distinguishing between an enlightenment which which has been remains under the spell of myth and an enlightenment purified by communicationtheory. For even a form of enlightenment theorymust dependon somethingmythical, purifiedby communication on something which proves to be heterogeneouswhen comparedto a it communicationguided by reason, at least if the transparency pursues is not to coincide with the opacity of myth, thereby confirming the denounced schema. An example will clarify this constitutive depenand paraphrasing section of his notes on a dency. In the introductory philosophicaljustification of discourse ethics, Habermasspeaks of the dialectical force field extending between the acting and observing agents, between the perspectiveof an individual"who belongs to a life world" and the perspectiveof a moral philosopherwho objectifies this

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world. He thus draws attentionto the fact that ethics is kept alive by the impossibilityof unifying both perspectives,by the blind spot which forand and in ever obstructsa radical decontextualization universalization so prevents the "moral intuitions of everyday life" from being doing finally justified on the grounds of universally valid reasons.2 A perfectly decontextualizedand, in this sense, universal communitywould be sterile and abstract,it would not be a community. The unlimited community of communicatingagents must renew its sustaining forces by means of a constant recollection of concrete, contextually bound communities of communicating agents. In his autobiography,Elias Canetti expresses this necessity in a mannerwhich stresses the divergence of the differentperspectivesup the point of paradox:"A 'moral' has to contrastwith the way you feel and behave in orderto strike you, and it has to remain in you for a long time before it finds its opportunity, suddenly braces itself, and strikes."3The fact that by seizing its opportunitythe assailing moral cannot sublate the antithesis and comprehend it in itself without becoming powerless, the fact that such an belongs neitherto moralitynor to an amoralexperienceand opportunity
behavior, shows, in terms of Dialectic of Enlightenment, an entangle-

ment with mythwhich is vital for enlightenment. It is well known that the "positive" concept of enlightenment,for which Horkheimer Adornowish to preparethe path,4presupposesa and What is meant here by "self-reflec"self-reflection"[Selbstbesinnung]. tion" can only amountto an enlighteningclarificationof the misunderstanding, which consists in identifying the dialectic of enlightenment with an unavoidableand schematic relapse into myth. For the thesis according to which enlightenmentrelapses into "mythology"does not follow from the thesis according to which myth is already enlightenment. Securingthe positive concept of enlightenmentconsists in going of beyond a merely negative or criticalunderstanding the entanglement of myth and enlightenment.It does not consist in replacinga negative with a positive one. The positive concept will concept of enlightenment do nothing but indicate an awareness of the blockage which prevents
of "DiscourseEthics:Notes on a Program PhilosophicalJus2. JiirgenHabermas, Action, trans. ChristianLenhardt tification,"Moral Consciousnessand Communicative and ShierryWeberNicholsen (Cambridge: Polity, 1990)47. 3. Elias Canetti, The TongueSet Free, trans. JoachimNeugroschel (New York: Seabury,1979) 231. xvi. 4. Horkheimer Adorno,Dialectic of Enlightenment and

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the two theses of the book from being inscribed in a purely (con)sequentialrelationship,in a relationshipof cause and effect which detaches enlightenmentfrom myth in an abstract fashion. Thus, the analogy between the question of an exaggeration,which is constitutive of thought, and the question of a mythical element, which is constitutive of enlightenment, turnsout to be justifiedafterall. In Minima Moralia, Adorno polemically states that the truthof psyalone.5His pointedremarkseems to choanalysislies in its exaggerations be directedagainsta suppressing negatingconformism.One could, of or course, interpretit as a specific expressionof a more general thought: elsewhere, Adomo claims that truthgenerallydependson the exaggerations of thinking. But this interpretation would play down a remark whose sharpnessis inseparablefrom its specificity. Moreover,it would expose itself to the objectionthat Adomo's remarkcannotbe separated from the therapeutic value of the psychoanalyticdoctrine,from a value which does not determineevery conceptualdiscourse the way it determines psychoanalysis.It seems plausible, however, to assume that the of includethe claim to validity pragmaticpresuppositions argumentation of of arguments,a claim which anticipatesthe establishment a universal and consensus,and a strivingfor dissent.Is thinkingin its argumentative form not always thwartedand impelledby the irreconcilable conceptual conflict between a double claim or striving?If an establishedconsensus is not held open by (virtual)dissent, it becomes petrified.A consensus which could no longer be challengedby dissent because it would coincide with what is true and thus radicallyoppose itself to the arbitrariness of dogmaticassertions,would not be a consensusanymore.Hence, to the extent that the claim to validity of a thought is thwartedand impelled by a double striving,by a striving for the establishmentof a consensus and by the striving for a provocationthroughdissent, only thoughts of which exaggerations are constitutive can aim at truth, thoughtswhich are drivenbeyondtheirpossiblejustification. In the text on the "Essayas Form,"writtenafterhis returnfrom exile, Adorno underlinesthe affinity between the essay and "luck and play."6 He regardsits form as rejectinga way of thinkingwhich drawson a philosophy of the origin: "Its concepts are not derived from what comes
5. Adorno,MinimaMoralia,trans.E.F.N. Jephcott(London:New Left, 1974) 49. 6. Adorno,"TheEssay as Form,"Notes to Literature, vol. 1, trans.ShierryWeber Nicholsen (New York:New York UP, 1991) 4 [trans.modified- AGD].

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off into first,nor are they rounded and transformed what comes last."The of the essayist reveal themselves to be fundamentally interpretations If "over-interpretations." Adomo's concept of thinking is tied to the insights he gains from his analysisof the essay as form, then his exposiof tion of a thoughtand his presentation an idea are determinedby the In exaggerationwhich resides in every "over-interpretation." his essay Delusion Society" which was published in the early 1960s, "Opinion to Adornoclaims thatno thoughtexhaustsitself in its adequation a given, must be considto facts or data,and that,as a consequence,exaggeration ered a constitutivemomentof thinking.A thoughtalways shoots beyond its "confirmation the given facts,"yet in this differencelies as much by for for its "potential" truthas its "potential" delusionand madness.7The relationof thoughtto truth,which is expressly at stake here, is already to conspicuousin a questionAdomo raises in the introduction his metacof epistemology.This questioncalls to mind the reflectionson the ritique essay as form: "For why, indeed, should the playful luck of spirit be Ten diminishedby the risk of error?"8 years later,in NegativeDialectics, Adorno writes that a truthwhich cannot fall into the "abyss"of "madand ness"is merely"analytical" nothingbuta "potential tautology."9 in the movement of exaggerationwhich withstandsjustification Only does thought become thought, is thought capable of aspiring to truth. Thus truth is neither to be conceived of as a relationshipof adequacy between a thought and a given nor as a self-referentialrelationshipof thinking. Thinking and truth are not simply thinking and truth. Only when they are carriedbeyond themselves and exposed to madness and delusion can they become what deserves to be called thinkingor truth. An exaggeration which no longer measures itself against something given or presupposed, something to which it could be reduced and which would account for its intelligibility, is neither an indication of truthnor a symptomof madnessand delusion; it is neitherthinkingnor its opposite.Ratherit is thinkingas gesture. Why does exaggerationconstituteevery thoughtaiming at truth?Why is thinkinga gesture?Because with every new and inaugurating thought
and 7. Adorno,"OpinionDelusionSociety,"CriticalModels:Interventions Catchwords, trans. Henry W. Pickford(New York: ColumbiaUP, 1998) 108. Cf. Alexander GarciaDilttmann,"Das Recht der Kunst,"Kunstende.Drei aesthetischeStudien(Frankfurt/ Main:Suhrkamp, 2001). A trans.Willis Domingo (Oxford: 8. Adorno,AgainstEpistemology: Metacritique, Basil Blackwell, 1982) 15. 9. Adorno,NegativeDialectics, trans.E. B. Ashton(New York:Seabury,1973) 34.

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the world is experienced differently, and because in opening and disclosing a world, thinking has already and irrecoverablybeen driven beyond itself. Only in a previously disclosed world can a thought correspond to what is given in this world, only there can one speak of a "mere" exaggeration and distinguish between a justified and an unjustified exaggeration.10Yet, does one not justify the exaggeration of thinking if one gives such an answer to the question of its constitutive function? No. For an exaggerationis an exposure. There is no thinking without the disclosing practice, which exposes it to both madness and truth. Precisely because it can never be decided whether a thought is in fact a true thought, exaggeration cannot be justified. This impossibility, however, does not trigger a relativistic vacillation. A manifestation of thinking is incompatible with other manifestations of thinking, since it must claim that the world should be viewed and understood according to the way in which it opens it up and discloses it. That the very idea of an opening, that is, a disclosure, of a world can be deconstructed, changes nothing. As a manifestation of thinking, deconstruction claims that the world should be understood as a world in the process of deconstruction. The incompatible claim of thinking withdraws from its justification, given that the exaggeration, which allows for a disclosure and makes it possible for a thought to claim something in the first place, cannot be justified. Thinking resembles art if the work of art is considered from the radically antagonistic point of view of Valery
10. In "Social Theoryand the Art of Exaggeration," Bert van den BrinkreadsDialectic ofEnlightenmentas a testimonyto an "artof exaggeration." authorappealsto a The in and Adornomaintainthat "exaggerationalone is true" paragraph which Horkheimer The (49). Yet he does not manageto clarifythe conceptof exaggeration. "artof exaggeration"is to be construedas an "uncompromising for this reasonemancipatory" and attempt to "escapethe attenuating coercionof the given."This attemptis said to be "basedon personal experience."It is impossibleto "justify" exaggerationfromthe standpoint the an of van "given"or of the "facts" a standpoint den Brinkmustpresuppose in orderto distinbecomes a "rhetorical device" (59). On the guish exaggerationfrom it. Thus exaggeration one hand,this rhetorical device servesthe purposeof"shaking [someone]out of [his] apait thy" and of "making[him] sensitive [to something]": has a psychological,not a logical function.On the otherhand, it is meantto allow for the "designation" "whatis essenof force"(55). To the extentthat exagtial,"and hence proves to have a "'world-disclosing' gerationis a "'world-disclosing'force,"it is more thanjust a "rhetorical device," which has an effect that can be measuredagainstpresupposed"facts."Van den Brinkdoes not elucidatethe relationship between the (onto)logicaland the psychological functionof his Neue Rundconcept of exaggeration.See "Social Theory and the Art of Exaggeration," schau, vol. 1 (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer,1997).

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which Adorno appropriates.11 However, thinkingis also a message in a bottle, a "gesture composed of concepts," to quote an expression fromthe forties.12 Adornouses in a letterto Horkheimer at is essentially exaggeration, least to the extent that it opens Thinking and discloses a world. Every thought,which depends on such a disup closure, must bear the trace of an exaggeration.Yet, does the substantiation of these claims indeed justify the far-reachinganalogy between myth and exaggeration?While it is assertedthat myth is constitutiveof thinkingin all its manifestations,exaggerationin the sense of the argument presentedconstitutesonly a specific kind of thinking,namely that thinking which can be characterizedas philosophical. Therefore, the analogy has only a limited validity. Myth and exaggerationcannot be used as synonyms in this context; the exaggeration of philosophy is only a particularand exceptional case of the mythical. However, one must bear in mind that instrumental reason,or the conceptualidentification effected by the mythically petrified rationality Horkheimerand cannot be the Adorno describe as the dominantfigure of enlightenment, form of enlightenment.Rather, it corresponds to one only possible opening and to one disclosure of the world, as the splitting of the concept of enlightenmentinto a positive concept and a negative concept clearly shows. In Negative Dialectics, Adorno admits of the possibility of a prehistoriccatastropheand thus recognizes the irreduciblycontinNot gent moment of the dialectic of enlightenment.13 every opening of a world is performedby a philosopher.But without the exaggeration which must also manifest itself in every new philosophicalthought,to This points open up and to disclose a world would remainunthinkable. to the fact that exaggerationcannot be traced back to an exaggerating subjectivityand that its practiceis never simply the practiceof the philosopheras subject.
11. It is well known that Proust'swork played a centralrole in Adorno's "intellectual economy." In The GuermantesWay,Proustwrites: "And, lo' and behold, the world aroundus (whichwas not createdonce andfor all, but is createdas often as an originalartist is born) appearsentirely different from the old world, but perfectly clear." Marcel revised Proust,TheGuermantesWay,trans.C. K. Scott MoncrieffandTerenceKilmartin, by D. J. Enright(New York : Modem Library,1993). 12. Cited in VierzigJahre Flaschenpost,ed. W. van Reijen and G. Schmidt-Noerr Fischer, 1987) 9. (Frankfurt/Main: 13. Adomo, Negative Dialectics 323. Cf. Alexander Garcia Diittmann, Das Geddichtnisdes Denkens. Versuch iiber Heidegger und Adorno (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp,1991) 123.

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A critiqueof Dialectic of Enlightenment concerningitself solely with its thetic style and apodicticmanner,hence with the claim that Horkheimer and Adorno do not examine their ideas with satisfactoryscientific and rigor, corroborating confirmingthem by means of datafrom anthropological, ethnological, historical,sociological, political, and economic research,inevitablymisses the argumentput forwardand developed in their book. Revisions of the chapter on the culture industry, for instance, undertakenin a spirit of either enlightenmentor counterenlightenment,will always be toiling in its wake, no matterhow justified and how convincingthey may be. Perhapsthe thoughtof a converand of a relapse of enlightenmentinto sion of myth into enlightenment "mythology"is exaggeratedand schematicif one seriously attemptsto analyze the implicationsof the thesis that myth is already enlightenment. But how would one criticize such an exaggerationwithout at the same time making light of the "NationalSocialist terror,"which provided the two philosopherswith the most terrifyingincentive for their book? How would one establish with certaintythat the exaggerating trait of thinking,the gesturewithoutwhich the insight into the dialectic of enlightenmentwould have remainedhidden, does not express itself in this exaggeration?