Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

by Adorno, Theodor W.; Tiedemann, Rolf; Livingstone, Rodney

• ISBN13: 9780804742924
• ISBN10: 0804742928
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-10-01
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Though he is a pivotal thinker in Adorno' s intellectual world, the closest Adorno came to an extended discussion of Kant are two lecture courses. This volume contains his lectures from the course on the Critique of Pure Reason .

Table of Contents

Methods and Intentions	1	(11)
The grounding of the objective nature of knowledge in the subject
The decline in Kant's authority
Metaphysics and the `question of Being' in the Critique of Pure Reason
Making experiences of the history of philosophy legible
The foundations of the mathematical sciences: setting limits to the possibility of absolute knowledge
The expression of bourgeois resignation; the prohibition on `straying into intelligible worlds'; the self-reflexivity of reason in Kant and German idealism
Confidence in the mathematical sciences
Principal question: `How are synthetic a priori judgements possible?'; the history of philosophy as the history of critique (I)
Judgement [Urteil] and proposition [Satz]; analytic and synthetic judgements; a priori and a posteriori; Kantian `sobriety'; the timelessness of truth (I)
The Concept of the Transcendental (I)	12	(11)
False example
Logical judgements and system of reference
Rejection of the demand that there be no presuppositions; the `mania for foundations' and idealism
The organization of mind as a given
The distinction between Kant and idealism; the impulse to form a system and the consciousness of a `block'
The concept of the `transcendental' (I)
Transcendental and transcendent
The transcendental as a no man's land (I)
The Concept of the Transcendental (II)	23	(11)
The timelessness of truth (II)
The residual theory of truth and experience
Primordial bourgeois elements in the concept of truth; metaphoric content; knowledge and the exchange relation
`Independent of experience' and `for all future experience'; synthetic a priori judgements mediated by experience
Deictic determination and definition
Test of validity through reflectin; critique and `generation'
Verites de raison and empiricist scepticism; salvaging of ontology (I)
The transcendental as a no man's land (II)
The Copernican revolution: the self-reflexivity of reason
Metaphysics (I)	34	(12)
The concept of metaphysics
The arrangement of chapters in the Critique of Pure Reason; metaphysics as a question of synthetic a priori judgements
Metaphysics as a `natural disposition'
On post-Kantian idealism
Metaphysics as a science
Metaphysics as residue
Metaphysical propositions as synthetic a priori judgements
Interrogating the subject; the unity of reason
Form and content of knowledge
Metaphysics (II)	46	(11)
Indirect critique of metaphysics; Kant and the Enlightenment
The concept of speculation in Kant and his successors
Form that misrecognizes itself as content
Metaphysics as `battle-ground'
Primordial delusion of the `first principle'; the domination of nature in the philosophy of origins
The dichotomy of experience and reason
Critique of Pure Reason as a `court of law'; the concept of autonomy
The history of philosophy as the history of critique (II)
The programme of Enlightenment
Enlightenment	57	(12)
Kant's relation to the Enlightenment
Against the dogmatism of metaphysics
On method (I): micrologic; critique of the `thema probandum'
The call for the unfettered use of reason; Enlightenment restricted subjectively
Enlightenment restricted by the division of labour; affirmative thinking in Kant and Hegel; the rationality and irrationality of bourgeois society
Enlightenment as demythologization; critique of anthropomorphism
Identity and non-identity (I); `block'
The question of dialectics
Knowledge as Tautology	69	(12)
Identity and non-identity (II); knowledge as tautology (I) Hegel's solution to the problem of knowledge
Attitude towards reason: identification with the Enlightenment and the accusation of blasphemy
`Protestantism'; knowledge of the Absolute and erotic metaphor
Attitude towards utopia: the making real of reason and `This shall not be'; the concept of the infinite; the concept of depth (I)
Knowledge and faith
Theology and philosophy; spirit and organic nature
The construction of Kantian philosophy: theoretical and practical reason
The signature of the history of philosophy in Kant (I): class thinking and `spokesperson of mankind'
Interpretation as objective expression
On method (II): interpretation as extrapolation; interest in contradictions
The Concept of the Self	81	(12)
On method (III): revised view of non-contradiction; fissures and chinks
Against a prejudgement in favour of identity
Negativity as the self-movement of the thing; Nietzsche's critique of logic
Contradiction and expression; salvaging of ontology (II)
Ontology as the forecourt to metaphysics
The mediation of pure existence and existent beings; dialectics or the dualism of form and content
Attitude towards Hume
The concept of the self
The unity of personal consciousness
The category of causality (I)
The concept of the thing
The Concept of the Thing (I)	93	(12)
Reinstatement of the objectivity of `naturalistic' concepts; the unity of consciousness as the correlative of the unity of the thing
On the theory of the thing: Kant's `law' and Hume's `rule'
Transcendental idealism/empirical realism
`How we are to understand the idea that the mind prescribes laws to nature'
On the distinction between form and content; subjectivity as creator of form; the undetermined nature of material; `creative spirit'
The concept of law and of the given; categories as the ground of the laws of nature
Synthesis and the unity of consciousness; the apprehension in intuition and Gestalt theory
Synthesis within a temporal horizon: memory and expectation
A functional theory of the thing
The ambiguity of `Erscheinung' (I)
The Concept of the Thing (II)	105	(12)
Difficulties and equivocations in the subject matter; the ambiguity of `Erscheinung' (II)
The unity of consciousness as the correlative of the unity of the thing
The category of causality (II); the dualism of object and thing-in-itself
The double nature of the concept of the thing and the doubling of the world; Kant as `Hinterweltler'
Metaphysical experience: to live without fear and alientation in the Absolute
`As if', allegory, the Absurd
The moral law as an `inner light'
Idealism and reification
Reification as function of subjectivity: thought and labour; the antinomy of bourgeois society: rationality and impotence
`Deduction of the Categories'	117	(11)
Concerning salvage operations
`Upwards to idealism'
The dialectic of reason
Critique and apologia for reason; Kant's history of philosophy (II): between dogmatism and heteronomy
Subjectivity and receptivity
The qualitative as trans-subjective minimum
Nothing without mediation
Nominalism and realism
The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding (I): objectivity as the secret of subjectivity
Schematism	128	(10)
The known: a problematic concept; knowledge as tautology (II)
Knowledge as the organization of materials and as self-adjustment to the material
The function of the Schematism chapter
Intuition and category as essentially different
Time as schema
Resignation and triumph of the natural sciences
Subjectivism and practical philosophy; the truth and untruth of idealism
Tautology as imprisonment within ourselves
Constituens and Constitutum (I)	138	(11)
Subject and object: constituens and constitutum
Necessity and causality
Causality as synthesis
Universality as a priori
Critique of concept-formation
Objective and subjective reason; universality and consensus
The social and the transcendental subject
Society and epistemology; the constituens not detachable from the constitutum
Obligation to move towards dialectics; against the absolute first principle
Constituens and Constitutum (II)	149	(11)
The `we' cannot be eliminated
The `we' and the universality
Plurality as the synthesis of singularities
The form of personality; form and factual consciousness
The Amphiboly chapter
Mediating the transcendental
Formal and transcendental logic; the `question of origins'; spontaneity
The critique of idealism and of naive realism; against the idea of the absolute first principle; the impossibility of ontology
Constituens and Constitutum (III)	160	(10)
Reciprocity of constituens and constitutum; prima philosophia always an idealism
`God is in the detail'
Residual theory of truth as dogmatism; subject and object: the separation is historically determined
Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit; lack of interest in mediation today
Differentiation and need for unity
Social substance; genesis and validity; the idea that truth is immutable
Transition from the Kantian problem of constitution to history
Against sociologism; Durkheim's position
Society `Block'	170	(10)
`I and we' as starting-point of epistemology
Epistemology as reflection of the labour process
Truth and untruth of the transcendental subject; the concept of mankind in the Critique of Practical Reason; Kant's formalism and the reversal into materialism
The Kantian `block' and the universal exchange relation
Relation to the natural sciences; knowledge and the domination of nature
Positivism and metaphysical mourning
The `block' as the expression of indecision
The distinction between appearance and essence unimportant; the world view of a blunted bourgeois sensibility
Ideology The Concept of Depth	180	(10)
Critique and affirmation
Utopia as undertaker
The problem of a binding authority; practical philosophy; the neutralization of culture
The concept of depth (II)
Against the alleged depth of the irrational
Protestantism; inwardness; the tragic
Depth and depth psychology; attitude towards psychology
Continuation and conclusion of the lecture course
Psychology	190	(11)
Relation to psychology; Kant and Hume
Kant's demotion of psychology; philosophy versus psychology in Germany; state-of-mind [Befindlichkeit] in Heidegger; denial of the element of drives; Kant's `authorization' of psychology as a science
The psychological paralogisms; the doubling of the concept of the self; unity of consciousness and the existing soul; inner experience is like outer
Kant's concept of synthesis and thought that dominates nature; the one and the many
Unity of consciousness and the privileging of the subject
Against the substantiality of the soul; the singularity of the self of appreception; the non-identical identity of the subject in advanced art [Proust]
The Concept of the Transcendental (III)	201	(12)
The schema of the transcendental amphiboly: the subjective asserts itself as objective
Kant's inconsistent critique of the claims of a priori status
Reification and the psyche
Character and conscience in Kant
The synthetic unity of apperception and intuition
The concept of depth (III): no doctrine of essence in Kant; essence and appearance in post-Kantian philosophy
The concept of the transcendental (II); the transcendental sphere not logical; time as necessary element; the transcendental sphere not metaphysical
The Concept of the Transcendental (IV)	213	(11)
The concept of the transcendental (III)
The metaphysical interpretation of the transcendental
The Deduction of the Pure Concepts of Understanding (II): the transcendental as intelligible object
Breaching his own prohibition: purely logical inferences
En route to post-Kantian idealism; transcendental dialectics as organ of knowledge; theory of knowledge and primacy of the subject; theory of knowledge and guilt
The transcendental as a credit system
Secularized transcendence; spirit as transcendence in Fichte and Hegel
The concept of depth (IV): the Critique of Pure Reason as metaphysics; obligation to construct the Transcendental Aesthetic
`The Transcendental Aesthetic'	224	(11)
The interpretation of the Transcendental Aesthetic; fundamental thesis of the a priori nature of the forms of intuition
Critique of the first thesis: space and time are not taken from empirical reality
Critique of the second thesis: space and time are necessary ideas
The third thesis: space and time are not concepts
Critique of the fourth thesis: space and time are `infinite givens'
The reciprocity of intuitions and the forms of intuitions
En route to dialectics: universal mediation and immediacy; identity and non-identity (III)
Bibliographical References	235	(3)
Editor's Notes	238	(44)
Editor's Afterword	282	(7)
Acknowledgements	289	(1)
Index	290