Written over the last two decades, John McDowell's papers, as a whole, deal with issues of philosophy. Specifically, separate groups of essays look at the ethical writings of Aristotle and Plato; moral questions regarding the Greek tradition; interpretations of Wittgenstein's work; and, finally, questions about personal identity and the character of first-person thought and speech.

This paper focuses on 3 features of Freyenhagen's Aristotelian version of Adorno. (a) It challenges the strict negativism Freyenhagen finds in Adorno. If we have morally relevant interests in ourselves, it is implicit that we have a standard by which to understand what is both good and bad for us (our interests). Because strict negativism operates without reference to what is good, it seems to be detached from real interests too. Torture, it is argued, is, among other things, a violation (...) of those interests. (b) Freyenhagen identifies the “impulse” in Adorno as an untutored yet moral reaction to morally demanding situations. The plausibility of this primitivism and its compatibility with Adorno's general worries about immediacy are considered. (c) The disruptive character of Adorno's version of the categorical imperative, its willingness to complicate action through wholesale reflection on the norms of what we are committing ourselves to, is set in contrast with Freyenhagen's Aristotelian claim that certain notions, such as “humanity,” cannot be intelligibly questioned. (shrink)

In einem Brief nennt Adorno die "Negative Dialektik" kurz nach ihrem Erscheinen unter seinen Schriften "das philosophische Hauptwerk, wenn ich so sagen darf“. Dieser herausgehobenen Bedeutung, die das Werk für Adorno hatte, entspricht nicht nur die lange Zeit, die er mit der Abfassung des Buchs beschäftigt war, sondern auch die lange Geschichte, die ihre zentralen Motive in seinem Denken haben. Philosophische Begriffsklärung, die Arbeit an "Begriff und Kategorien“ einer negativen Dialektik, versteht Adorno dabei als dialektischen Übergang in inhaltliches Denken – (...) und so betreibt er sie auch hier. Das hat Konsequenzen für die Form des kooperativen Kommentars, der in diesem Band versucht wird. Adornos "Negative Dialektik" zu kommentieren, kann nur in dem Bewußtsein der unüberbrückbaren Kluft gelingen, die den Kommentar von diesem Text trennt. (shrink)

If we grant that there can be no ethical validation that is external to our own ethical outlook, does this mean that we can only engage in internal piecemeal reflection, or could we still reflect on the whole of our outlook? In this paper I argue that the latter is possible, and that it is necessary if we face an ethical outlook that is wrong as a whole.

If we grant that there can be no ethical validation that is external to our own ethical outlook, does this mean that we can only engage in internal piecemeal reflection, or could we still reflect on the whole of our outlook? In this paper I argue that the latter is possible, and that it is necessary if we face an ethical outlook that is wrong as a whole.

Fabian Freyenhagen's impressive reconstruction of Adorno's ‘practical philosophy’ provides a convincing defence of the possibility of making normative claims about the social world we live in without justifying these claims in terms of the right, the good, or human nature. More specifically, and more controversially, Freyenhagen argues that the normative resources Adorno's critique relies on are provided by a negative Aristotelianism. In this paper, I argue that this approach underestimates the extent to which Adorno follows the model of immanent critique, (...) I highlight the socio-theoretical underpinnings of what Freyenhagen calls Adorno's ‘ethics of resistance’, and I discuss the risk of overstating the danger of co-optation that collective political action faces. (shrink)

In this paper, I offer some critical comments on Fabian Freyenhagen's book, Adorno's Practical Philosophy. Although I am largely in agreement with many of his arguments about the value of Adorno's negativism for contemporary critical theory, I raise a few critical questions that are grouped around the following three headings: immanent critique, objectivism, and skepticism. My primary aim in pursuing these questions is not to haggle over fine points of Adorno interpretation but rather to consider how these three issues bear (...) systematically on the vision for critical theory that Freyenhagen has put forward. (shrink)