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1  1 Reading ‘biology’ for ‘philosophy’ here.

2  2 Since Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) expressly defended an evolutionary theory of society, he has often been seen as a forerunner of Social Darwinism. In his later lecture course ‘Introduction to Sociology’, Adorno recommended that the students should take a look at Spencer’s ‘system of sociology’, since his ‘Principles of Sociology, although long-winded, contains, unlike the work of Comte, an abundance of concrete social insights and real social perceptions. I would recommend Spencer as extremely worthwhile. I would think that very many of the great sociological systems of later times, if one may call them such – even Durkheim’s – cannot be understood without a knowledge of Spencer.’ (NaS IV. 15, p. 72f.; Introduction to Sociology, Jephcott, p. 40).

3  3 In accordance with the distinction between the ‘intelligible’ and the ‘empirical’ character, Kant and Fichte expressly distinguished between the supra-empirical or transcendental subject and the empirical or material individual. Adorno argues that ‘the chorismos [i.e. separation] between subject and individual belongs to a late stage of philosophical reflection that was conceived for the sake of exalting the subject as the absolute’ (GS 7, p. 297; Aesthetic Theory, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor, London, 2004, p. 263). In Negative Dialectics he formulates this idea as a criticism of Hegel: ‘He who seeks to liquidate Kant’s abstract concept of form keeps nonetheless dragging along the Kantian and Fichtean dichotomy of transcendental subject and empirical individual. The lack of concrete determinacy in the concept of subjectivity is exploited for the sake of a higher objectivity on the part of a subject cleansed of contingency; this facilitates the identification of subject and object at the expense of the particular’ (GS 6, p. 343; Negative Dialectics, Ashton, p. 350, translation slightly modified).

4  4 Adorno often uses this expression, although it is not actually found in Hegel.

5  5 Reading ‘Desiderat’ for ‘ein ewiger Rat’.

6  6 In his influential and widely read introduction to the Fischer Lexikon on sociology, König had defended a concept of the discipline from which ‘in the first instance all philosophically motivated reflections’ were said to have been ‘expunged’. In this way we are ‘finally able to envisage a sociology which is nothing but sociology, namely the systematic and scientific treatment of the general structures of social life, the laws that govern their movement and development, their relations to the natural environment, to culture in general and to the specific fields of human life, and finally to the social-cultural character of the human being as a person’ (René König, ‘Einleitung’, in Fischer Lexikon – Soziologie, Frankfurt am Main, 1958, p. 7). In his introduction to The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, Adorno also refers explicitly to the ‘concept of society which many positivists, such as König and Schelsky in Germany, would happily eliminate’ (GS 8, p. 314).

7  7 Reading ‘jeder’ for ‘kein’. In a radio discussion with Ernst Bloch (1885–1977) broadcast on 6 May 1964, Adorno alludes to Kant’s discussion of the ontological proof of the existence of God to clarify the sense in which utopia is harboured in every concept. He explains that we cannot have any concept, including any concept of what does not as yet exist,unless there were some ferment, or some seeds, of what this concept genuinely intends. I would actually think that, if there were no trace of truth in the ontological proof for the existence of God, in other words, if the moment of its reality were not also already contained within the power of the concept itself, then there could not only be no utopia, but there could be no thought either. (Theodor W. Adorno and Ernst Bloch, Etwas fehlt … Über die Widersprüche der utopischen Sehnsucht, in Ernst Bloch, Viele Kammern im Welthaus: Eine Auswahl aus dem Werk, ed. Friedrich Dieckmann and Jürgen Teller, Frankfurt am Main, 1994, p. 702)The hope that, if the concept is already there, then there is also already a trace of what that concept intends – in other words, a real possibility of realizing the concept in question – is also strongly endorsed in Adorno’s lecture course on ‘History and Freedom’. There he says that ‘we can only speak meaningfully of freedom because there are concrete possibilities of freedom, because freedom can be achieved in reality. And in contrast to the entire dialectical tradition of Hegel and Marx, I would almost go so far as to say that actually this has always been possible, that it has been possible at every moment’ (NaS IV.13, p. 249; History and Freedom, trans. Rodney Livingstone, Cambridge, 2008, p. 181).

8  8 The Latin expression, the origin of which is unknown, means: ‘Live first, and then philosophize’.

9  9 The words cited come from Friedrich Hölderlin’s poem ‘An die Parzen’ of 1799 (Friedrich Hölderlin, Poems and Fragments, trans. Michael Hamburger, London, 1980, p. 15: ‘To the Fates’).

10 10 Adorno is quoting the last two verses (‘I know not what this should mean’) from Heinrich Heine’s poem ‘Die Lorelei’ from the cycle of poems entitled Heimkehr (Homecoming), composed in 1823–4.

11 11 Adorno is thinking of the remark ‘The discovery of truth is only fatal for the one who declares it.’ See Claude Adrien Helvétius, A Treatise On Man; His Intellectual Faculties and his Education, London, 1810. See also Adorno’s essays ‘Kultur und Verwaltung’ (GS 8, p. 139) and ‘Zur Bekämpfung des Antisemitismus heute’ (GS 20.1, p. 382).

12 12 In the Republic, Plato identifies the rational element, the courageous element and the desirous element as the three parts of the soul, which correspond in turn to the three classes that constitute his ideal state (Republic, Bk IV, 437b–441c). See NaS IV.15, p. 217; Introduction to Sociology, Jephcott, pp. 129f.

13 13 See note 6 above.

14 14 See below, Lecture 4, pp. 44–6.

15 15 Adorno repeats this characterization of his own theoretical approach almost word for word in his introduction to The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology:The assertion of the equivalence of what is exchanged, the basis of all exchange, is repudiated by its consequences. As the principle of exchange, by virtue of its immanent dynamics, extends to the living labours of human beings it changes compulsively into objective inequality, namely that of social classes. Forcibly stated, the contradiction is that exchange takes place justly and unjustly. Logical critique and the emphatically practical critique that society must be changed simply to prevent a relapse into barbarism are moments of the same movement of the concept. (GS 8, p. 307; The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology, Frisby, p. 25)

16 16 Reading ‘etablierten Wissenschaft’ for ‘Etablierungswissenschaft’.

17 17 The transcript indicates a gap in the tape recording of the lecture at this point.

18 18 Durkheim writes:the public conscience exercises a check on every act which offends it by means of the surveillance it exercises over the conduct of citizens, and the appropriate penalties at its disposal. In many cases the constraint is less violent, but nevertheless it always exists … Here, then, is a category of facts with very distinctive characteristics: it consists of ways of acting, thinking, and feeling, external to the individual, and endowed with a power of coercion, by reason of which they control him. These ways of thinking could not be confused with biological phenomena, since they consist of representations and of actions; nor with psychological phenomena, which exist only in the individual consciousness and through it. They constitute, thus, a new variety of phenomena; and it is to them that exclusively that the term ‘social’ ought to be applied. And this term fits them quite well, or it is clear that, since their source is not in the individual, their substratum can be no other than society … (Emile Durkheim, Les règles de la méthode sociologique, 7th edn, Paris, 1910, pp. 7f.; The Rules of Sociological Method, trans. Sarah A. Solevay and John H. Mueller, New York, 1964, pp. 2–3)

19 19 The concept goes back to William Graham Sumner, Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals, Boston, 1906. In his book, the American sociologist Sumner (1840–1910) describes ‘folkways’ as the habits and customs through which social groups attempt to realize their interests in relation to nature and other groups of people. In his Introduction to Sociology, Adorno says that ‘wherever there is a manifestation of what … was called “folkways”, you come up against what is called “society” quite directly. You encounter modes of behaviour which neither have rational causes nor – perhaps this is all too true – are derived from individual psychology. These are long established rites …’ (NaS IV.15, p. 65; Introduction to Sociology, Jephcott, p. 36.

20 20 In Lecture 5 and Lecture 6 Adorno explores Durkheim’s concept of ‘chose sociale’ in more detail. See pp. 48f., 59f., and 64f. above.