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OnNotBeingSilentintheDarkness:Adorno's
SingularApophaticism
JamesGordonFinlayson
HarvardTheologicalReview/Volume105/Issue01/January2012,pp132
DOI:10.1017/S0017816011000514,Publishedonline:21December2011
Linktothisarticle:http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0017816011000514
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JamesGordonFinlayson(2012).OnNotBeingSilentintheDarkness:Adorno's
SingularApophaticism.HarvardTheologicalReview,105,pp132doi:10.1017/
S0017816011000514
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On Not Being Silent in the Darkness:
Adornos Singular Apophaticism*
James Gordon Finlayson
University of Sussex, U.K.
,UUatioQaOisP
Habermas has two different versions of this objection. To begin with, he accuses
Adorno of abandoning reason in favor of some other mode of apprehension of
XWRSLD,QKLVFULWLTXHRI$GRUQRLQTheory of Communicative Action, he follows
Axel Honneth, in convicting Adorno of withdrawing behind the lines of discursive
thought to a mindfulness of nature, an objection that Habermas also levels
2
$ *UHHN (QJOish /H[icoQ (ed. Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, and Henry Stuart Jones;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) 22526 (hereafter LSJ III).
3
Tar, 7hH )UaQNIXUt 6chooO 28189; Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107; Habermas,
3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 15; Wellmer, 3HUsistHQcH oI 0oGHUQit\, 7; Schndelbach Dialektik
als Vernunftkritik, 70.
4
See for example Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107; Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO
7hiQNiQJ, 15.
5
Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 183.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 3
0\sticisP
Apophaticism is a close cousin of mysticism. However, until we know more about
what mysticism is and why it is philosophically reprehensible, the claim that
Adornos late philosophy resembles mysticism will not be very illuminating, nor
will it count as an objection. Habermas appears to make two claims: First, that
apophaticism is eo ipso mysticism since it posits a divine, wholly transcendent being
WKDWLVFRQVHTXHQWO\LQHIIDEOHDQGXQNQRZDEOHDQGVHFRQGWKDWDSRSKDWLFLVPLV
mysticism since it holds out the prospect of an extra-conceptual experience of the
divine presence, won through the dialectical self-subversion of discursive reason.8
,QcohHUHQcH
The third objection is that Adornos uncovering by means of reason of reasons
complicity with domination is a totalizing or self-stultifying form of criticism.
Habermas contends that by claiming that the primary concern of philosophy is
to think the non-identical, Adorno makes performative contradiction . . . into
the organizational form of indirect communication.9 It is this incoherence, in
+DEHUPDVVYLHZWKDWOD\V$GRUQRRSHQWRWKHQDOREMHFWLRQ
(PptiQHss
Negative dialectics, Habermas claims, is simply an exercise [Exerzitium], a
drill [bung], and a mere procedure of determinate negation.10 Again there are
6
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ (trans. Thomas McCarthy; 2 vols.; Cambridge,
U.K.: Polity, 1984-87) 2:385; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ +aQGHOQs (2 vols.; Frankfurt
am Main: Suhrkamp, 1981) 2:516. Wellmer make the same objection when he claims that Adorno
can only conceive mimesis as the Other of rationality. 3HUsistHQcH oI 0oGHUQit\, 13.
7
Habermas, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI 0oGHUQit\ (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1987) 185. In
3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, Habermas repeats the earlier objection, accusing Adornos late work
of taking a turn to the irrational. Habermas, 3ost0Htaph\sicaO 7hiQNiQJ, 37 and 2829. Arnold
Knzli makes a similar objection. Arnold Knzli, Irrationalism of the Left, in )oXQGatioQs oI
thH )UaQNIXUt 6chooO oI 6chooO 5HsHaUch (ed. Judith Marcus and Zoltn Tar; New Brunswick, N.J.:
Transactions Books, 1984).
8
In his earlier criticism of Adorno, Habermas uses the word gesticulation/gesture [Gebrde] to
denote the non-discursive relation to whatever it is that is outwith the bounds of discursive thought
that Adorno is proposing instead. Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:385; trans. of
7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ +aQGHOQs 2:516.
9
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, 18586.
10
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:385; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ
4 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
two separate claims here. First, that negative dialectics, like negative theology, is
theoretically empty insofar as it renounces the goal of theoretical knowledge of
its object.11 Second, the empty procedure (negative dialectics) is unproductive
or pointless.12 This second objection feeds into Habermass wider criticism of the
absence of any viable political dimension to Adornos critical social theory.
The deprecative comparison and the four associated objections presuppose a
FHUWDLQUHDGLQJRI$GRUQRVFRQFHSWRIQRQLGHQWLW\DVWKHJXUHRIZKDWLVZKROO\
other to discursive thinking.13 So we should ask whether this readinglet us call
LWWKHVWURQJUHDGLQJLVMXVWLHG
Adornos notion of non-identity is one of the most notoriously elastic and
SRO\VHPRXV WHUPV LQ KLV SKLORVRSKLFDO YRFDEXODU\ DQG FRQVHTXHQWO\ VFKRODUV
contest its meaning. Still, an examination of the role of non-identity in Adornos
Negative DialecticsVKRZVWKDWLWFDQEHFRQVWUXHGDVWKHJXUHRIVRPHWKLQJZKROO\
beyond reason and completely other to discursive thought, and hence ineffable and
unknowable. Two sets of considerations support this contention.
First, the non-identical has to be radically other than, and discontinuous with,
the totally administered social world, which, according to Adorno, furnishes the
social and material conditions of concept formation. Adorno claims that the
concern [Interesse] of philosophy is to think the non-identical.14 He uses the
term Interesseconcern/interestin the emphatic sense of the early critical
theorists for whom it denoted the aim of emancipation, social transformation,
and happiness.15 Interests in Frankfurt School parlance are internally linked to the
practical aims of critical theory.16 So Adornos claim about the non-identical goes
hand in hand with the claim that philosophy (and critical theory) must aim at utopia,
+aQGHOQs 2:516; idem, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI 0oGHUQit\,186.
11
Habermas, 7hH 7hHoU\ oI &oPPXQicatiYH $ctioQ 2:387; trans. of 7hHoUiH GHs NoPPXQiNatiYHQ
+aQGHOQs 2:518.
12
Like exiles we wander about lost in the discursive zone: and yet it is only the insistent
force of a groundless reection turned against itself. Habermas, 7hH 3hiOosophicaO 'iscoXUsH oI
0oGHUQit\, 186.
13
Habermas glosses Adornos position thus: The wholly other may only be indicated by
indeterminate negation, not known. Habermas, 3hiOosophicaO3oOiticaO 3UoOHs, 107.
14
Adorno, 1HJatiYH 'iaOHNtiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 6 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH
6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 1920 (hereafter, *6 6).
15
For instance in Traditional and Critical Theory Horkheimer refers to three such interests:
the interest in reasonable conditions, the interest in social transformation, and the interest in
the elimination ($XIhHEXQJ) of social injustice. Horkheimer, Traditional and Critical Theory, in
ibid, &UiticaO 7hHoU\ 6HOHctHG (ssa\s (trans. Matthew J. OConnell et al.; NewYork: Herder and
Herder, 1972) 199, 241, 243; trans. of .UitischH 7hHoUiH (iQH 'oNXPHQtatioQ (ed. Alfred Schmidt;
2 vols.; Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1968) 2:147, 189, 190.
16
Habermas still uses the term iQtHUHst in its emphatic sense in .QoZOHGJH aQG +XPaQ ,QtHUHsts
Habermas, (UNHQQtQis XQG ,QtHUHssH (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973 [1968]). Frankfurt School
critical theory conceives the interest of theory as the material expression of the practical, i.e., the
remedial aim of critical theory: the rational society or social transformation for Horkheimer,
utopia or reconciliation, for Adorno, emancipation from social oppression, and 0QGiJNHit for
Adorno and the young Habermas.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 5
ZKHUHXWRSLDGRHVQRWMXVWVWDQGLQIRUDPRGLFDWLRQLPSURYHPHQWRISUHVHQWO\
existing society, but for a transformed society that has broken free of the mutually
constitutive relationship between conceptual thought and identity thinking on the
one hand, and the totally administered society on the other. In Adornos estimation,
thinking that which is wholly other to thought will help philosophy to achieve this
radical break. This is why he writes in his lectures that the two termscritical
theory and negative dialecticshave the same meaning.17
Second, Adorno is an austere negativist about the good, and the view that the
non-identical is ineffable and unknowable is essential to his austere negativism.
Austere negativism arises from a strict interpretation of Adornos dictum There
is no right living in the wrong life.18 On this strict interpretation Adorno makes
two claims: that there are no vestiges of the good, of utopia, or right living in the
present social world (in any relevant sense of vestige)19 and that under present
conditions we cannot so much have a reliable conception of the right life. This
is because in Adornos view to think is to identify, and concepts themselves are
incipient forms of domination and mastery. Hence even to form a conception of
the good is adventitious and complicit with the current context of domination
and delusion. The second claim is one that Adorno associates closely with the
prohibition against images, the Bilderverbot. These two claims, together with
his refusal to countenance forms of non-discursive access to the goodwhether
WKLVEHWKURXJKIDLWKRUIHHOLQJRUZKDW$TXLQDVFDOOHGV\QWHUHVLVRUDHVWKHWLF
17
Adorno, /HctXUHs oQ 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, 21.
18
Adorno, 0iQiPa 0oUaOia 5HHctioQs oQ a 'aPaJHG /iIH (trans. E. F. N. Jephcott; Radical
Thinkers 1; London, U.K.: Verso, 2005) 39 (hereafter as MM); trans. of MiQiPa MoUaOia (ed. Rolf
Tiedemann; vol. 4 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1997) 30 (hereafter as *6 4).
19
Take for instance Bonaventures distinction between vestiges (footprints) through which we
can contemplate God (per YHstiJia), and vestiges in which we can contemplate, that is, directly
experience God (in YHstiJiis). An example of the latter in Adorno would be the existence of lilacs and
nightingales which, he says, by their very existencewhere the universal net has permitted them
to survivemake us believe that life is still alive. See Adorno, Essay as Form, in ibid, 1otHs to
/itHUatXUH (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen; 2 vols.; European Perspectives;
New York: Columbia University Press, 19911992) 1:11 (hereafter as 1/ 1); trans. of 1otHQ ]XU
/itHUatXU (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 11 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 19 (hereafter as *6 11). On Bonaventures distinction see Denys Turner, 7hH
'aUNQHss oI *oG 1HJatiYit\ iQ &hUistiaQ M\sticisP (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press,
1995) 109. An example of the former would be certain works of art, particularly works of music:
The enigma of artworks is their fracturedness. If transcendence were present in them, they would
be mysteries, not enigmas. Adorno, $HsthHtic 7hHoU\ (trans. H. Pickford; New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998) 126 (hereafter as $7); trans. of bsthHtischH 7hHoUiH (ed. Rolf Tiedemann;
vol. 7 of 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 191
(hereafter as *6 7). An austere negativist holds that there are no vestiges of utopia, or right living
in the present social world, nightingales are no more exemplars of right living than works of art
are symbols of transcendence through which the outlines of a good life can be discerned. Adorno
makes both claims, in different contexts. But as I argue below, he is not particularly concerned to
advance an internally coherent and stable philosophical theory.
6 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
intuitionmotivate his view that philosophy must aim to think the non-identical
understood as something wholly other to discursive reason or conceptual thought.
For these reasons I believe that the strong reading is correct. But my argument
does not rest on the correctness of this interpretation. That would be to take
a needless hostage to interpretative fortune. Textual evidence is prone to be
inconclusive, for it is in the nature of it to yield to more than one interpretation.
Moreover, in Adornos case there is another factor at work: he does not try to make
clear what he means by philosophical terminology such as non-identity, in the sense
WKDWKHUHIXVHVWRGHQHRUWRGLVDPELJXDWHKLVWHUPVIRUKHLVYHU\VXVSLFLRXV
of the drive for clarity and distinctness in philosophy, just as he repudiates the
formal aim of consistency. This refusal to accord clarity primacy in philosophical
GLVFRXUVHLVDFHQWUDOSDUWRI$GRUQRVFULWLTXHRISRVLWLYLVP20
0\FODLPLVWKHVRPHZKDWZHDNHURQHWKDWWKLVUHDGLQJLVMXVWLHGE\ZKLFK,
PHDQWKDWWKHUHLVVRPHWH[WXDOZDUUDQWIRULWLQVRIDUDVWKHJXUHRIZKDWLVZKROO\
other to discursive thought is one among a number of meanings that can be plausibly
given to the notion of non-identity. Habermas, Wellmer, and Schndelbach, all
of whom subscribe to the strong reading, show this to be the case. Furthermore,
Adorno has several apparently synonymous expressions for non-identity, including
the ineffable and the non-conceptual, which constitutes further prima facie
evidence for this reading.21 This weaker claim, that there is some textual evidence
for the interpretation of non-identity as that which is wholly other to thought, is
thus hard to dispute.
Most people, however, who want to defend Adorno from Habermass objections
tend to deny the strong reading of the non-identical, and on that very ground to
reject the idea that there is a parallel between Adornos late work and negative
theology.22 For the reason I have just recounted, however, namely that it rests on
20
Hence, also, the title of his third study on Hegel: Adorno, Skoteinos, or How to Read Hegel,
in ibid, +HJHO 7hUHH 6tXGiHs (trans. Shierry Weber Nicholsen; Studies in Contemporary German
Social Thought; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1993) 89149 (hereafter as +76); trans. of =XU
MHtaNUitiN GHU (UNHQQtQisthHoUiH 'UHi 6tXGiHQ ]X +HJHO (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 5 of 7hHoGoU
: $GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 32676 (hereafter as *6
5). Skoteinos means the obscure one and was an epithet for Heraklitus.
21
On this, see Schndelbach, Dialektik als Vernunftkritik 70.
22
For example, Peter Osborne, J. M. Bernstein, and Simon Jarvis all reject Albrecht Wellmers
claim that Adornos philosophy of art is a kind of negative theology. Peter Osborne disputes the
reading of Adornos work as a negative theology on the grounds that Adornos aesthetic theory
afrms the possibility of metaphysical experience. Peter Osborne, Adorno and the Metaphysics
of Modernism: The Problem of a Postmodern Art, in 7hH 3UoEOHPs oI MoGHUQit\ $GoUQo aQG
%HQMaPiQ (ed. Andrew Benjamin; New York: Routledge, 1989) 23. The similarity between Adorno
and negative theology stops at the point where what is termed the absolute can be gathered only as
a result of negations. For Adorno these negations are determinate and not abstract. J. M. Bernstein,
7hH )atH oI $Ut $HsthHtic $OiHQatioQ IUoP .aQt to 'HUUiGa aQG $GoUQo (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity,
1992) 256. Simon Jarvis asserts contra Wellmer that Adornos thought cannot be adequately
understood as a negative theology. $GoUQo $ &UiticaO ,QtUoGXctioQ (Key Contemporary Thinkers;
Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 1998) 112.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 7
Even in this last essay, the only place where Adorno actually uses the term negative
theology, he uses it to refer the Old Testament prohibitions against making
graven images and on pronouncing or writing the name of God. It is true that these
religious prohibitions, and the scriptures in which they occur became central to the
tradition of apophatic theology, and were used as examples of the via negativa by
later theologians, but Adorno does not go into this. In fact, Adorno shows a rather
FDYDOLHU ODFN RI LQWHUHVW LQ WKH UHOLJLRXV VLJQLFDQFH RI WKHVH SURKLELWLRQV DQG
freely and radically reinterprets them. For example, he takes the ban on images
(Exod 20:4) to apply to speech, concepts, thoughts, and even the idea of hope, and
he pays little attention to the different ways in which the prohibition on naming
God plays out in Judaism and Christianity respectively.27 In other words, Adorno
presses the motifs of the Bilderverbot and the prohibition against naming into the
service of his own theoretical agenda, and this agenda (rather than the religious
doctrines or the Hebrew Scriptures in which they are set out, or their interpretation
by later theologians) remains the sole focus of his interest. I therefore take Adorno
at his word when he claims that philosophy secularizes theology insofar as the
Bilderverbot pervades thought.28
Meanwhile the secondary literature on Adorno talks about negative theology in
relation to his work in a different sense: Negative theology is a byword for a certain
apocalyptic strain of Jewish messianic thought whereby salvation is conceived in
opposition to immanent individual or collective historical agency.29 Though I cannot
argue for this here, I contend that much of the literature puts undue emphasis on
WKHUHOLJLRXVGLPHQVLRQVSHFLFDOO\WKH-XGDLFGLPHQVLRQRI$GRUQRVWKRXJKW
No doubt some messianic ideas were in the air during Adornos time, and Adorno
moved in circles among people who held such ideas. No doubt Adorno borrowed
ideassometimes wholesalefrom close friends such as Siegfried Krakauer,
:DOWHU%HQMDPLQDQG0D[+RUNKHLPHUZKRZHUHPXFKPRUHGHHSO\LQXHQFHG
by Judaism than he was. Yet it should not be forgotten that Adorno was born of a
Catholic mother and a father who had long since converted to Christianity, that he
$GoUQo *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 45476 (hereafter as *6 16).
27
Adorno is aware that he has exacerbated the ban on images. 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics (trans. E.
B. Ashton; London: Routledge, 2000) 4012 (hereafter as 1'); *6 6:394. The prohibition against
naming God refers to the ban on pronouncing the Tetragrammaton, YHWH, that arose among Jews after
exile in reference to Exodus 20:7. Adorno appears to take this as an extension of the ban on images.
28
Adorno, 9oUOHsXQJ EHU 1HJatiYH 'iaOHNtiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp, 2003) 46 (hereafter as 91'). With the previously mentioned proviso that in this respect
philosophy secularizes religion, not theology.
29
Rabinbach calls this the Jewish messianic idea. Anson Rabinbach, Between Enlightenment
and Apocalypse: Benjamin, Bloch and Modern German Messianism, 1HZ *HUPaQ &UitiTXH 34
(1985) 123. Authors who use the term negative theology to refer to the %iOGHUYHUEot include Buck-
Morss, 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics 195 n. 51; Rudolf Siebert, Adornos Theory of Religion,
7HOos (1983) 113; Adorno, &M, 236; Adorno, *6 16:463; see Elizabeth A. Pritchard, Bilderverbot
Meets Body in Theodor W. Adornos Inverse Theology, +75 95 (2002) 291318.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 9
ZDVERUQEDSWL]HGDQGEURXJKWXSD&DWKROLFWKDWKHFKRVHWREHFRQUPHGLQD
Protestant Church, and that he grew to be a secular humanist and atheist.30
,I,DPULJKWDERXWWKLVLWLVVRPHZKDWVXUSULVLQJWKDWDZRUNZLWKQRVLJQLFDQW
religious or theological dimension should bear such a striking parallel with apophatic
theology.31 We can best explain this striking parallel not by positing the existence
of a secret religious (or theological) dimension in Adornos thought, but rather by
UHFRJQL]LQJWKHH[LVWHQFHRIDVSHFLFDOO\SKLORVRSKLFDOGLPHQVLRQRI apophatic
theology. The reason that commentators on either side of the debate about Adorno
and negative theology have not noticed this is that they have all refused to lay out
in any detail what aspects of negative theology that Adornos negative dialectic is
supposed to resemble, or not to resemble, as the case may be.
30
Tars account is particularly misleading since he extrapolates from Horkheimers family
background and upbringing to Adornos work (Tar, )UaQNIXUt 6chooO, 28189). Adornos Jewish
origins were far more remote and dilute than that of most other members of the Frankfurt School,
and were much less present to him than much current intellectual history would have one believe.
His relation to Judaism is a complex one, since many of his closest friends, and his wife, were part of
the Jewish community. That said, far too many people give the impression that Adorno was Jewish.
Siebert for example calls Adorno one of those unbelieving Jews (Siebert, Adornos Theory of
Religion, 110). Terry Eagleton writes of Jews like Adorno, 7hH ,GHoOoJ\ oI thH $HsthHtic (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1990]) 343) and calls him a devout, agnostic Jew (ibid., 10). Even Susan Buck-Morss
argues in her seminal work7hH 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHcticsagainst the claim that Judaism
and negative theology had any positive inuence on Adorno on the following grounds: Unlike
Benjamin he joined no Jewish youth groups as a student; unlike Scholem, he was not attracted to
Zionism; nor did he participate with Siegfried Kracauer, Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber in
Rabbi Nehemiah A. Nobels intellectual circle in Frankfurt. Buck-Morss 7hH 2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH
'iaOHctics 7hHoGoU : $GoUQo :aOtHU %HQMaPiQ aQG thH )UaQNIXUt ,QstitXtH (Hassocks, U.K.:
Harvester, 1977) 7. This remark seems to ignore the fact that by race Adorno was only ever half-
Jewish, and that by upbringing he was a Catholic, and that by self-understanding he was a secular
humanist or atheist. Evelyn Wilcock, Negative Identity: Mixed German Jewish Descent as a Factor
in the Reception of Theodor Adorno, 1HZ *HUPaQ &UitiTXH 81 (2000) 16987.
31
Buck-Morss claims that Tillich, under whose supervision Adorno wrote his Habilitation on
Kierkegaard, cannot be said to have inuenced him (2UiJiQ oI 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, 268). In his
/HctXUHs oQ 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics, shortly after Tillichs death, Adorno claims that he is not justied
in speaking about the decisive aspect of his friend Paul Tillichs work, namely das Theologische
(Adorno, 91', 10).
32
Philosphie hat, nach dem geschichtlichen Stande, ihr wahres Interesse dort wo Hegel, einig
mit der Tradition, sein Desinteresse bekundete: beim Begriffslosen, Einzelnen und Besonderen
(Adorno, *6 6:20).
10 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
It might be objected here that the paradox outlined by Augustine is not a paradox,
but a sophism. David Cooper, for example, claims that, although the statement
God is ineffable has the same grammatical form as the proposition, S is p, which
makes it look as if the statement is predicating something, namely ineffability, of
God, in fact the statement is not describing God or predicating ineffability of God
at all. The statementCooper takes this to be a general point about the mystics
XWWHUDQFHVLV WKHUHIRUH QRW DERXW *RG UDWKHU LW UHVRQDWHV ZLWK WKH VSHDNHUV
experience of being unable to put God into words.39 There is therefore no paradox,
but rather a sentence that looks like a proposition that is not one.
My view is that there is a paradox and that Augustine and the negative theologians,
when they say that God is ineffable, are saying something about God, just as they
do when they say that God is mysterious. These are not just disguised statements
DERXWXVDQGRXUQLWHDQGLPSHUIHFWFRJQLWLYHDQGOLQJXLVWLFFDSDFLWLHV5DWKHU
they are statements about God: God is ineffable and mysterious, because something
in God, or about God, makes him this way. This is the paradox of the ineffable to
which both apophatic theology and Adornos late work address themselves. The
VLJQLFDQWSDUDOOHOEHWZHHQ$GRUQRDQGQHJDWLYHWKHRORJ\FRQVLVWVLQWKLVWKDW
faced with the paradox of the ineffablerefusing Wittgensteins and Augustines
respective injunctions to silenceAdorno and the apophatic theologians attempt
ORTXDFLRXVO\WRVD\ZKDWFDQQRWEHVDLG40
39
This is David Coopers argument (MHasXUH oI 7hiQJs, 291).
40
For Adornos rejection of Wittgensteins injunction to silence see *6 6:395/1', 403, where
he praises Wittgenstein for rejecting the idea of truth in play in positivism, and yet also condemns
his injunction to silence as a falsely resurrected Metaphysics that is indistinguishable from
Heideggers wordless rapture of belief in Being.
41
The former is a Greek idea of ers, the latter a Christian notion of agape, although, according
12 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
and epistemological. There is a hierarchy of being, starting from those with mere
existence, continuing through living beings, beings with sense perception and those
with reason, and culminating in those beyond all reason. There is a corresponding
cognitive ascent, through the objects of the will, of the sense perception, of the
mind, and then of divine contemplation of objects beyond discursive reason, which
Dionysius calls divine unknowing.42
The heritage of Hebrew Bible traditions can be seen in 7hH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\
where, reecting on Moses ascent of Mount Sinai, Dionysius is struck by the
fact that at the summit Moses does not meet with God himself [ouj sugginivnetai
tw/ Qew/] and does not behold him [qeorei dev ouvk ajuto;n] but only the place
where he is [ajlla; to;n tovpon ou| ejsti].43 Dionysius interprets this as a sign of the
superessential difference: Namely that the essence of God surpasses and exceeds
all language, all concepts, and all understanding. Objects of the eye and mind are
but secondary and subordinate symbols of the transcendent God, which Gods
being renders as naught. Hence at the summit Moses is shrouded in the Darkness
which is above the intellect, which conduces not merely to brevity of speech,
but even to absolute dumbness both of speech [ajlogivan pantelh`] and thought
[ajnomsivan].44 We (initiates in the Christian sacraments), in our attempt to think
Gods being, must plunge into the darkness [eij~ to;n gnovfon] like Moses on
Mount Sinai, who plunges into the Darkness of Unknowing [eij~ to;n gnovfon th`~
ajgnw`s iva~] where the one beyond everything [ov pavntw`n ejpevkeina] truly is. 45
It would be wrong to think of this oneness with God as an experience of the
divine presence, for in this place God remains concealed, the one who is hidden in
WKHGDUNQHVV*RGVSUHVHQFHLVQRWSHUFHLYHGKLVHVVHQFHLVQRWUHYHDOHG1RULV
there anyone, any cognitive subject or knower to whom the divine presence could
manifest itself.46 In the moment of ecstatic union with God, Moses leaves everything
QLWHDQGFUHDWHGLQFOXGLQJKLPVHOIEHKLQG,QKLVRQHQHVVZLWK*RGKHEHORQJV
to Nygren, Proclus prepared the way for the later Christian conception of agape. Anders Nygren,
$JapH aQG (Uos (London: SPCK, 1954) 569.
42
Dionysius, 'iYiQH 1aPHs. (ed. J.-P. Migne; vol. 3 of PG; Paris: Migne, 18571866) 592C
700B, 708D, 865CD (hereafter as '1)
43
Dionysius, M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\ (ed. J.-P. Migne; vol. 3 of PG; Paris: Migne, 18571866) 1000D
(hereafter as M7). Exodus, chs.19, 20, and 33:2030, particularly the last. And he said, Thou canst
not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live. And the Lord said. Behold, thHUH is a place
by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock: and it shall come to pass, while my glory passeth by, that
I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will cover thee with my hand while I pass by: and I will
take away my hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen. Dionysius,
as an anonymous reader for this journal pointed out, uses the term theology to mean discourse
from God which engenders a discourse to God. This is rather different from the way I have been
using the term, to mean a discourse about God.
44
M7 3:1037C.
45
M7 1:3, 1000C.
46
M7 1:3, 1000D and 1000B.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 13
to Him that is beyond all things and to none else (whether himself or another)
and being through the passive stillness of all his reasoning powers united
by his highest faculty to Him that is wholly Unknowable, of whom thus
by a rejection of all knowledge he possesses a knowledge that exceeds his
understanding.47
The ecstatic unionecstatic in the sense that the knowing self is driven out by the
reception of the unknownis prepared by intellectual discipline of ascent through
negation but its culmination is achieved through surrender [ajnenerghsivav/].48 This
surrender or self-abnegation is strictly speaking neither an act, nor an experience
(even less a personal experience since its precondition is the loss of self as agent
and as patient) but rather an event: It takes place.
47
M7 1:3, 100A.
48
Rolt translates this as passive stillness. 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH 1aPHs aQG
thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\ (trans. C. E. Rolt; London: Macmillan, 1957) 194.
49
Although, according to Turner, for Dionysius silence is the goal, paradox and contradiction
the means to it (Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 150).
50
This falsies Steunebrinks in my view too simple claim that [n]egative theology speaks of
God in a negative way (Steunebrink, Adornos Philosophy, 293).
51
M7 1:3, 997A.
14 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
52
M7 3:1033B and 1040B; Dionysius, &HOHstiaO +iHUaUch\ (vol. 3 of PG; ed. J.-P. Migne; Paris:
Migne, 18571866) 3:141AB
53
'1 5:8, 824AB
54
ouvdeniv mevrei sugkecumevnh '1 2:4, 641A. And hence it is not out of place [atopon]
when we mount from obscure images to the cause of all things, with supercosmic eyes behold all
things [theorsai panta] (even those things which are mutually contrary existing as a single unity).
'1 5:7, 821B.
55
'1 I:7, 632B. They praise it as nameless even while they call it by every name. '1
1:6, 596A.
56
M7 1:997B.
57
Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG, 32. As he puts it apophatic theology in this sense ought really to
mean that speech about God which is the failure of speech. Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 20.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 15
58
1', 15, *6 6:27. See also *6 6:21/1', 10 Die Utopie der Erkenntnis wre, das Begriffslose
mit Begriffen aufzutun, ohne es ihnen gleichzumachen.
59
The subtitle 3hiOosophicaO )UaJPHQts is curiously omitted in the English translation by John
Cummings.
60
4), 226/*6 16:455.
61
MM, 49 See also the earlier remark in '(, 118 But only exaggeration is true.
16 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
For centuries society has been preparing for Victor Mature and Mickey
5RRQH\62
Every visit to the cinema leaves me, against all my vigilance, stupider and
worse.63
1R XQLYHUVDO KLVWRU\ OHDGV IURP VDYDJHU\ WR KXPDQLW\ RQH GRHVOHDG IURP
the slingshot to the megaton bomb.64
8QOLNHDZHOOIRUPHGMXVWLHGVWDWHPHQWRIIDFWWKHH[DJJHUDWLRQZHDUVLWVRZQ
LQDGHTXDF\RQLWVVOHHYH,WZULQJVIURPODQJXDJHWKHDGPLVVLRQRILWVIDOVLW\DQG
thereby, Adorno claims, appropriates it for truth.65
Third, take Adornos notion of the constellation. Adornos work redounds with
programmatic statements to which he adheres with varying degrees of zeal: In
a philosophical text he writes in Minima Moralia all propositions ought to be
HTXDOO\FORVHWRWKHFHQWUH66 Adornos strategy of thinking in constellations is
faithful to this compositional principle. A constellation is a thought pattern, but one
WKDWLVQRW[HGLQDGYDQFHOLNHDPHWKRGDQGRQHWKDWLVQRWLQWHQGHGWRRXWODVWWKH
TXHVWLRQDWLVVXH,WLVOLNHWKHSDWWHUQWKDWIDOOVRXWRIDURWDWLRQRIWKHNDOHLGRVFRSH
only to be replaced by another. For all that, it is a cognitive and theoretical exercise.
As a constellation, theoretical thought circles the concept it would like to un-
VHDOKRSLQJWKDWLWPD\\RSHQOLNHWKHORFNRIDZHOOJXDUGHGVDIHGHSRVLW
box: in response, not to a single key or a single number, but to a combination
of numbers.67
3ODFLQJDQREMHFWRIFRJQLWLRQLQDIRUFHHOGRIKRUL]RQWDOUHODWLRQVWRRWKHUFRQFHSWV
SURGXFHVDDVKRILOOXPLQDWLRQZKLFKIRUPVDYHUWLFDOUHODWLRQWRRUWKRJRQDOWR
the conceptual plane.68
62
Adorno, 'iaOHctic oI (QOiJhtHQPHQt (trans. John Cumming; London: Verso, 1997) 156
(hereafter as '().
63
MM, 25.
64
1', 320
65
'(, 24. See also MM, 71/*6 4:79: The point of philosophy should not be to have absolutely
correct, irrefutable cognitionsfor these invariably boil down to tautologiesbut cognitions that
turn the question of correctness against themselves. MM, 71/*6 4:79.
66
MM, 71/*6 4:79. This normative principle is itself a principle of composition of Schoenbergs
middle period. Of Schoenbergs Fourth Quartet, and of the mature Berg, Adorno writes that, in spite
of their development: Every bar is equally close to the centre. Adorno, Form in the New Music
(trans. Rodney Livingstone) MXsicaO $QaO\sis 27:23 (2008) 20116, at 213. While earlier he writes
of the inescapable claim of twelve tone music that in all its elements it is equidistant from its
midpoint. 7hH 3hiOosoph\ oI 1HZ MXsic (trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor; Mineapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2006) 59/Adorno, 3hiOosophiH GHU 1HXHQ MXsiN (ed. Rolf Tiedemann; vol. 12
of Theodor W. Adorno: *HsaPPHOtH 6chUiItHQ; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997) 73 (hereafter
as *6 12).
67
1', 162/*6 6:166.
68
Adorno describes the constellation in another way also, as a kind of unreifying or liquefying
gaze, which brings to light the occluded history of its coming to be, which history is stored up
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 17
Finally consider the essay form, which, Adorno remarks, is not structured
DFFRUGLQJWRDQ\VFLHQWLFPHWKRGRUORJLFDORUGHU7KHHVVD\WDNHVWKHIRUPRID
VHULHVRILQFRPSOHWHUHHFWLRQVDUUDQJHGDURXQGLWVREMHFWWKURXJKLWVZHDNQHVVLW
WHVWLHVWRWKHQRQLGHQWLW\LWKDVWRH[SUHVV69 It is composed as if it could break
off at any point, so there is a certain arbitrariness and contingency inherent in its
form.70 That said, by so doing, Adorno claims, the essay wants to heal thought
RILWVDUELWUDU\FKDUDFWHUE\LQFRUSRUDWLQJDUELWUDULQHVVUHHFWLYHO\LQWRLWVRZQ
approach rather than disguise it as immediacy.71 Does Adorno think the essay gets
what it wants, that it manages to overcome its own arbitrariness by admitting to
it? Presumably he does, in much the same way that he claims that exaggeration,
by confessing to its own falsity, can be appropriated for truth. Of course someone
might worry that the mere admission to arbitrariness and incompleteness implicitly
contained in its form cannot make the essay less arbitrary and incomplete and
heal it in that sense. So it is hard to know in what sense the essay succeeds in
transcending the concept. Adornos thought seems to be that the essay, like the
fragment, goes beyond the concept by resisting the illusion of completeness and
foreshadowing an always unrealized and counterfactual completeness that throws
its incompleteness into relief.
Of course there is much more to be said about each of these devices than I can
KHUH%XWZHKDYHVHHQHQRXJKWRGUDZDSDUDOOHO/LNH'LRQ\VLXV$GRUQRXVHVVHOI
VXEYHUWLQJWHFKQLTXHVRIODQJXDJHWHFKQLTXHVWKDWWU\WRZULQJYLFWRULHVRXWRIWKH
defeat of discursive reason. On the one hand this allows him to manifest the limited
DQGQLWHQDWXUHRIFRQFHSWXDOWKRXJKWDQGLWVLQDGHTXDF\WRWKHQRQLGHQWLFDO
RUHYHQDVKHRFFDVLRQDOO\VD\VWKHDEVROXWHRQWKHRWKHULWH[KLELWVVRPHNLQG
of relation to what it fails to graspincluding the ineffable, the unsayable, and
the non-identical.
ZKHQZHDWWULEXWHQHJDWLYHSUHGLFDWHVWRQLWHFUHDWHGEHLQJV7KLVLVHVVHQWLDO
to Dionysiuss conception of the negative way, which is a path of transcendence
through serial negation. 73 God is neither soul, nor mind, nor one, nor deity,
nor being, nor non-being, nor light nor truth.74
$V7XUQHU HPSKDVL]HV WKH ZD\ RI QHJDWLRQ LQ 'LRQ\VLXV FRQWDLQV ERWK UVW
RUGHUDQGVHFRQGRUGHUQHJDWLRQV,QWKHUVWRUGHUDVZHKDYHVHHQQHJDWLRQDQG
DIUPDWLRQWKHDSRSKDWLFDQGWKHFDWDSKDWLFJRKDQGLQKDQGEXWWKHIRUPHULV
superior. Negation comes into its own in the second order precisely because it is
exalting. Second order negation is sometimes termed the negation of the negation,
although this phrase can be misleading. First, as Dionysius constantly reminds us,
WKHZD\RIQHJDWLRQLQYROYHVWKHQHJDWLRQRIERWKRUGLQDU\UVWRUGHUQHJDWLRQV
DQGDIUPDWLRQV75 Second, negating the negation in this context has nothing to
do with double negation elimination by which (p) becomes p. Third, it has
little to do with what Hegel calls determinate negation. For Hegel, determinate
negation is a negation of a negation leading to a positive residue or content. This
process is related to what Hegel calls sublation, a translation of the German
noun Aufhebung, stemming from the verb aufheben, which means both to cancel
and to preserve. For Dionysius, by contrast, negation of the negation involves a
VHFRQGRUGHUWUDQVFHQGLQJQHJDWLRQZKLFKVXSHUFHGHVDOORUGLQDU\DIUPDWLRQV
and negations by denying that any ordinary predicate applies to God, since they all
fall short of divine transcendence.76 Dionysiuss ascent via negation is (rather like
Augustines) divine in more than one sense: It is initiated by God, accompanied by
God, and also directed toward him. In The Mystical Theology Dionysius describes
the second order transcending negation culminating in divine unknowing as the
denial of all beings or the turning away from all beings.77 For this would really
be to see and to know: to praise him that transcends all beings in a transcending
way, namely through the denial of all beings.78 This phrase is more appropriate
73
Dionysiuss negative theology is distinct from and offers no support for what John D.
Caputo has recently christened a generalized apophatics (John D. Caputo, 7hH 3Ua\HUs aQG 7HaUs
oI -acTXHs 'HUUiGa 5HOiJioQ ZithoXt 5HOiJioQ [Indianapolis: Indiana Press, 1997] 28 and 55). Some
deconstructive commentators, following Derrida, and Derridas own writing on negative theology,
are happy to describe any discourse about the other, about otherness, or about difference, as an
apophatic discourse or a negative theology. They take the lead from Derrida who writes that tout
autre est tout autre; that every other is wholly other. For Dionysius it is only God that is wholly
other. To conate God with other kinds of otherness or difference is to commit the kind of idolatry
and confusion he is warning against. Thus there can be no generalized apophatics.
74
M7, 1040D1048B.
75
M7 1:1000B; M7, 1048B; '1 8:3, 641A.
76
Turner maintains that Dionysiuss negation of the negation is not some intelligible synthesis
of afrmation and negation; it is rather the collapse of our afrmation and denials into disorder,
which we can only express, a IoUtioUi, in bits of collapsed, disordered language, like the babble of
Jeremiah (Turner, 7hH 'aUNQHss oI *oG, 23). I think collapse and babble do not capture the
extent to which Dionysius is rehearsing a deliberate dialectical strategy.
77
M7 2:1025AB, '1 1:5, 593C. '1 7:3, 872B
78
M7 2:1025A. Jones has to praise the Transcendent One which sounds too explicitly Plotinian
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 19
than the negation of the negation which suggests that only negations are negated,
and to modern ears at least, has associations of Hegelian sublation.
7KHTXHVWLRQDULVHVZKHWKHUWKHQHJDWLRQRIQHJDWLRQRUGHQLDORIDOOEHLQJV
WKDW'LRQ\VLXVGHVFULEHV\LHOGVDQ\SRVLWLYHNQRZOHGJHRI*RG-DFTXHV'HUULGD
numbers among those who suspect that it does. He contends that Dionysiuss
apophatic theology is after all a metaphysics aimed at the immediacy of a
presence, whose success is assured.79 However, talk of the immediacy of a
presence and of the metaphysics of presence is misplaced. In the penultimate place
(the summit) where Dionysius says that God truly is, God is present only as the
one who is hidden, that is, never fully present. And in the ultimate non-place, the
abyss of the darkness of unknowing into which we plunge, we turn away from all
thought and knowledge and surrender any self or subject that could experience or
perceive or receive the presence of God. Thus Gods being is and remains utterly
transcendent, and is to that extent never immediately present. Better put, because
of the superessential differencethat is, because of Gods not having this kind
of existence and not that even where we are immediately present to GodGod
is never immediately present to us.
QNegativity in Adorno
Adorno in some moods conceives his negative dialectic and the various literary
forms and tropes in which it is presented as determinate negations. He claims at
various places that negative dialectic is in fact nothing other than determinate
negation.80 For Hegel determinate negation yields a positive residue. Adorno, the
for the noun phrase . Rolt has Him that transcends all things, which is better.
Rolt, 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH 1aPHs aQG thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\, 19495
79
Derrida casts suspicion on this negativity in Dionysiuss sense of hyperessentiality. La promesse
dune telle presence accompagne . . . la traverse apophatique. Vision dune lumire tnbreuse,
sans doute . . . mais encore limmdiatet dune prsence. Jacques Derrida, 3s\chp ,QYHQtioQs GH
OaXtUH (Paris: Galile, 1987) 54243. On the same point, John N. Jones argues that while Dionysius
holds that God transcends what can be expressed by any individual denial, he also claims that
through the denial of all beings some human minds achieve transcendent knowing. John Jones,
Sculpting God: The Logic of Dionysian Negative Theology +75 (1996) 35962. The metaphor
Dionysius uses in the following sentence seems to add credence to this suspicion. We would be
like sculptors carving a statue. They remove every obstacle to the pure view of the hidden image,
and by removal alone [th/` ajfairevsei movnh/] bring to light the hidden beauty. This passage which
alludes to Plotinuss metaphor of the statue (Plotinus, (QQHaGs 1.6.9.9) appears to support the view
that some minds can achieve positive knowledge of God. C. E. Rolt holds that this simile shows
the Yia QHJatiYa is, in the truest sense, positive (Rolt, 'ioQ\siXs thH $UHopaJitH oQ thH 'iYiQH
1aPHs aQG thH M\sticaO 7hHoOoJ\, 195). However, the Plotinian metaphor is misleading in this
context: i) negation in the sense the metaphor puts in play is ordinary privation (or removal),
so by Denys own lights it is not the sense of negation operative here; ii) the block of Marble
is finite and not infinite like God; iii) for every piece of marble removed something remains;
so iv) the remainder forms a determinate and positive image.
80
Habermass objection to the emptiness of Adornos late work is targeted at his procedure of
determinate negation. See n. 10 above.
20 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Adono, MHtaph\sics &oQcHpts aQG 3UoEOHPs (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000) 144 (hereafter
82
as M&3).
83
Woher also soll die %HstiPPthHit der Negation stammen, ohne da die positive Setzung,
nmlich die des Geistes, in dem alles aufgehe, von vornherein si geleitet? Adorno, 91', 48.
84
91', 49.
85
91', 51.
86
Adorno, 3UoEOHPH GHU MoUaOphiOosophiH (ed. T. Schroder; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp,
1997) 260 (hereafter as 3'M).
87
Ich meine . . . da es so etwas wie ein . . . positives Movens des Gedankens gibt: wenn man
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 21
Even if Adorno does not convincingly solve his own problem and cannot develop
a notion of determinate negation that is consistent with austere negativism and
does not presuppose any positive knowledge, he does run into the problem that
Dionysius faces. Adornos notion of determinate negationthe notion he welcomes,
not the Hegelian notion he repudiatespoints in two directions at once: upwards
toward a transcendence that remains conceptually out of reach and hence ineffable,
and downwards toward the self-manifesting and hence effable falsity of all
language and thought. There is an important difference here, however, for although
Dionysiuss thought combines the human ascent toward the divine and the divine
condescension toward the human, the endpoint is the ecstatic union of the human
and the divine. Adornos thought shifts between two perspectives: from the false life,
the context of immanence (Immanenzzusammenhang), we look upward toward a
good that escapes us.88 We are thus drawn upward out of the context of delusion
or blindness (Verblendungszusammenhang), toward a standpoint of transcendence
from which we gaze back downward on the social world. Knowledge has no light
but that shed upon the world from redemption.89 The direction the light falls is
important von der Erlsung her auf die Welt. Having cantilevered a standpoint
of transcendence in order to break out of the context of illusion from within, the
aim is to look back upon the social world, for the social world is our sole concern.
Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal
it to be, with its rifts an crevices, as indigent and distorted as it will appear
one day in the messianic light. To gain such perspectives without velleity or
violence, entirely from felt contact with its objectsthis alone is the task of
thought.90
es Qicht will, und ich sage mit Absicht >es<, weil man >es< nicht sagen kann, nicht ausdrcken
kann, - ja, dann gibt es keine bestimmte Negation (Adorno VND 46). Brian OConnor has a nice
way of putting this, when he speaks of a vertical relation to something, as distinct from the horizontal
relations between concepts. This vertical relation is to a non-identity that is out of the range of
what any concept can grasp (Brian OConnor. $GoUQos 1HJatiYH 'iaOHctics 3hiOosoph\ aQG thH
3ossiEiOit\ oI &UiticaO 5atioQaOit\. [Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004])..
88
Interestingly Adorno uses the originally platonic and neoplatonic image of the blinding light
for this notion of the good. See the motto (from Goethes Pandora) to Essay as Form. Bestimmt
Erleuchtetes zu sehen, nicht das Licht. [Destined to see what is illuminated, not the light.] *6 11
9/1/ 1:3.
89
Erkenntnis has kein Licht als das YoQ GHU (UO|sXQJ hHU aXI GiH :HOt scheint. *6 4:287/MM,
247 [Emphasis mine].
90
*6 4:287/MM, 247.
22 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
difference: God is beyond being, and out of reach of all human language and thought,
QRPDWWHUKRZUHQHG)RU(FNKDUWE\FRQWUDVWWKHLQHIIDELOLW\RI*RGUHHFWVWKH
IDFWWKDW*RGVHVVHQFHLVWREHKLGGHQDQGLQVFUXWDEOH$V/RVVN\SXWVLW,QGHHG
WRWKHTXHVWLRQIRUZK\*RGLVLQHIIDEOH'LRQ\VLXVZRXOGKDYHUHSOLHG*RGLV
ineffable, because in his superessential nature he is transcendent not only to all
that is, but also indeed to being itself. Eckhart replies: God is ineffable, because
KLVQDWXUHLVWREHKLGGHQ$QGZKDWLVPRUHLWLVSUHFLVHO\TXD%HLQJsub
ratione essethat God is unknowable.91 For Dionysius, divine ineffability is a
IHDWXUHRIWKHKXPDQTXHVWIRU*RGVHVVHQFHRIWKHKXPDQUHODWLRQWRWKHGLYLQH
ZKLOHIRU(FNKDUWLWLVDFKDUDFWHULVWLFRIWKHTXHVWHG*RGVHVVHQFHLWVHOI(FNKDUW
does not teach that Gods essence is ineffable because wholly transcendent and
RXWRIUHDFK*RGVHVVHQFHLVLPPDQHQWEXWQHYHUWKHOHVVZKROO\P\VWHULRXVDQG
dark. His mysticism is what in German is called Wesensmystikmysticism about
Gods essence.92:KDWLVWKHQDOHQG"DVNV(FNKDUW,WLVWKHKLGGHQGDUNQHVV
of the eternal Godhead, which is unknown and never has been known and never
shall be known. God abides there in himself.93 I shall discuss just two of Eckharts
doctrines: his doctrines of the image, and his doctrine of detachment [Gelassen-
heit or Abgeschiedenheit].
Eckhart defended himself from this charge, saying that it is mistaken and false to
say that I am this image, since I am also a creature, and to this extent not identical
with the intellect or spark of the soul: For something created is not an image, and
angels and men were created in the image of God. Image and likeness in the true
sense are neither made nor the work of nature. 99
The second sense of image in Eckhart is that of a representation of God by
KXPDQ EHLQJV 5HSUHVHQWDWLYH LPDJHV DUH VRPHWKLQJ PDGH DQG WKH\ DUH DOVR
LGRODWURXVVLQFHWKH\HQFORVH*RGLQFUHDWXUHO\GHWHUPLQDWLRQVDQGGLVJXUHKLV
being. Citing Dionysius as a source, Eckhart teaches that we must empty ourselves
of all such representative images.
Anything you see, or anything that comes within your ken, that is not God,
just because God is neither this nor that. . . . The light that shines in the
darkness. God is the true light: to see it one must be blind and must strip
95
Q, 16a/: 1:121. This recalls Aquinass doctrine of the image e.g., in 67, 1, q. 35, a. 1. For
Aquinas Christ is the image of God in a very similar sense.
96
Gen 1:2627.
97
See article 26 of the Bull of John XXII ,Q $JUo 'oPiQico, March 1329. : l:1.
98
He also uses the metaphors of the crown, the castle, the citadel, and the ground of the soul.
Q, 2/: 1:72; Q, 86/: 1:76; Q, 48/: 2:103.
99
In spite of this defense, a similar doctrine was condemned in the Bull ,Q $JUo 'oPHQico,
Article 27: There is something in the soul that is uncreated and uncreatable. If the whole soul
were of such a nature she would be uncreated and uncreatable. This is the intellect (: 1:li).
24 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
from God all that is something. A master says whoever speaks of God in
any likeness, speaks impurely of Him. But to speak of God with nothing is
WRVSHDNRIKLPFRUUHFWO\:KHQWKHVRXOLVXQLHGDQGWKHUHHQWHUVLQWRWRWDO
VHOIDEQHJDWLRQWKHQVKHQGV*RGDVLQQRWKLQJ100
It is hard to know exactly what Eckhart has in mind here. It may have to do the
Scholastic notion of the intelligible species, the likeness by which angels know
objects.103 Viewed against this background, Eckhart is probably saying that, like
an angel, the human soul knows via intellectual forms [einem kleinen bildeln]
independently of sensory givens [ne bild].104 He also claims that knowledge of
higher beings, like self-knowledge, is of a higher order than knowledge of objects,
since it is not mediated by any images, and knowledge of God must occur without
images and immediately.105 Be this as it may, Eckharts epistemology and his
theology are about clearing away any perceptions, memories, imaginings that cloud
the intellect in order to achieve cognitive union with God. By dint of purging my
100
Q, 71/: 1:153.
101
Q, 22 : 2:63.
102
Q, 41/: 1:289.
103
According to the Scholastics, when a human perceives something, a sense faculty receives
a sensible species (or form) in the form of a phantasm, which is that by which an external
object is perceived. Qua sHQsiEOH, it allows cognition only of determinate particulars. In order for
humans to know any object as a kind of thing, they must abstract an intelligible species from the
phantasm, through the exercise of the agent intellect. But angels do not have senses. Hence the do
not and need not abstract intelligible natures from sensory givens. Their cognition is intellectual.
Nevertheless, according to Aquinas, for example, their knowledge involves intelligible species/
forms, which are not abstracted from sensory images, but are connatural to the angel. I owe A.
D. Smith for this suggested interpretation.
104
Quint suggests that Eckhart might be referring here to Aristotles theory of perception in 'H
$QiPa 419a1215, according to which there has to be a medium, air or water that connects the eye
to the object it sees. However, since Eckhart is talking about knowledge, and angels knowledge in
particular, and since angels dont have any senses, this seems like a complete red herring. : 2:254.
105
Alternatively he is recalling Aquinass notion of the gure which is an image without a
likeness to a specic nature (as a son is the image of his father), but rather which is a sign of the
species, i.e., a pictorial representation of a man or animal, but not a particular one (See Gilles
Emery, 7hH 7UiQitaUiaQ 7hHoOoJ\ oI 6t 7hoPas $TXiQas [trans. Francesca A. Murph; Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2007] 211).
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 25
soul of representational images of God, I become one with the image of God in the
soul. For Eckhart, who preached this doctrine from the pulpit, this is clearly not
just an epistemological but also a practical matter. If I am to know God without
means and without image, God must become practically I and I practically God,
so wholly one that when I work with Him it is not that I work and He incites me,
but that I work wholly with what is mine106 Avoiding the sin of idolatry is not the
only practical issue here. Eckhart is putting a whole way of looking at the world
WKURXJK UHSUHVHQWDWLRQV LQWR TXHVWLRQ (FNKDUWV DSRSKDWLFLVP LV OHVV D ZD\ RI
knowing God, than it is a way of being. It is a corrective to our current material,
QLWHFUHDWXUHO\H[LVWHQFH7RDFKLHYHWKLVDLPKHWULHVWRVKLIWRXUSHUVSHFWLYHRQ
WKHPDWHULDOZRUOGWRJHWXVLQVWHDGWRORRNDW*RGSHRSOHDQGWKLQJVIURPWKH
standpoint of the creator, rather than to represent them from our point of view.107
7KLVUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOYLHZRIFRQFHSWVLVUHLHGKHFODLPVVLQFHLWRFFOXGHVWKH
historical process by which reality has been shaped and concepts have been formed.
Moreover, it has an ideological function, since it perpetuates the idea that concepts
DQGWKHWKLQJVWKDWWKH\SLFNRXWDUHDQWHFHQGHQWO\LQGLYLGXDWHGDQG[HG$PRQJ
other things, representational thinking blocks the thought that the social world
might be completely otherwise, that it is shaped and can be re-shaped by human
HQGHDYRUKHQFHLWEORFNVWKHSRVVLELOLW\RIVRFLDOFKDQJH
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consciousness interpolating images between itself and what it thinks would
unwittingly reproduce idealism. A body of ideas would substitute for the
106
Q, 70 : 1:289.
107
Theologians generally speak of the relationship between God and his creation from the point
of view of the created; Eckhart, however, chooses to view the matter from the point of view of
the Creator. On this see Oliver Davies, *oG :ithiQ 7hH M\sticaO 7UaGitioQ oI 1oUthHUQ (XUopH
(London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1988) 6566.
108
Der Gedanke ist kein Abbild der Sache . . . sondern geht auf die Sache selbst . . . Was ans
Bild sich klammert, bliebt mythisch befangen, Gtzendienst. Der Inbegriff der Bilder fgt sich zum
Wall vor der Realitt. 1', 205/*6 6:205.
26 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
True reality can, Adorno claims, be grasped, if at all, without any representational
images. This is because concepts, and, since there is no thought without concepts,
discursive thought itself, are instruments of thinking, and thus incipient forms of
domination and mastery of what is thought. Thus for Adorno as for Eckhart, the
FULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJLVQRWRQO\DQGQRWSULPDULO\DQHSLVWHPRORJLFDO
GRFWULQHEXWDSUDFWLFDORQH$GRUQRSUDLVHVWKHLQQLW\DQGVXEOLPLW\RI.DQWV
categorical imperative, precisely where it does not repeat what occurs in social
reality, but has the tendency to hold level criticism at existing society and to hold
out to it another image of the possible, or an imageless image of the possible.111
The idea of the imageless image is indirectly linked to critical theorys utopian aim
RIEULQJLQJDERXWUDGLFDOZKROHVDOHTXDOLWDWLYHVRFLDOFKDQJH
Such imagelessness converges with the theological ban on images. Material-
ism secularises it, by not permitting utopia to be positively pictured: that is
the content of its negativity. 112
7KHFULWLTXHRIUHSUHVHQWDWLRQDOWKLQNLQJJRHVKDQGLQJORYHZLWK$GRUQRVFODLP
that philosophy has its true interest (namely the aim of individual emancipation,
social transformation, and of individual and social happiness) in the non-identical,
beim Begriffslosen.
Q(FNKDUWV&ULWLTXHRI$WWDFKPHQW
You often ask how you ought to live. Now pay close attention. Just as I have
told you about the imagethat is how you ought to live.113 Though based on
109
1', 207/*6 6:207. Abbildendes Denken wre reexionslos, ein Undialektischen Widerspruch . . .
Bewutsein, das zwischen sich und das, was es denkt, ein Drittes, Bilder schbe, reproduzierte
unvermerkt den Idealismus; ein Corpus von Vorstellungen substituierte den Gegenstand der
Erkenntnis, und die subjektive Willkr solcher Vorstellungen ist die der Verordnenden.
110
1', 207/*6 6:207. Die materialistische Sehnsucht, die Sache zu begreifen, will das Gegenteil:
nur bilderlos wre das volle Objekt zu denken.
111
3'M, 224.
112
Solche Bilderlosigkeit konvergiert mit dem theologischen Bilderverbot. Der Materialismus
skulisierte es, in dem er nicht gestattete, die Utopie positiv auszumalen; das ist der Gehalt seiner
Negativitt (1', 207/*6 6:207). Of course for Adorno philosophy cannot achieve this aim, it can
at best help, in various ways, to hold open the space for it. (For more on this, see Finlayson, 2007.)
This is exactly parallel with Eckhart.
113
Q, 16b : 1:127.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 27
114
Eckhart, 'iH OatHiQischH :HUNH (ed. and trans. Josef Quint; Stuttgart; Kohlhammer,
19361963) 1:187 (hereafter as /:).
115
Q, 5b/: 1:117.
116
Q, 5b/: 1:117. See also Eckhart, Reden der Unterweisung, 'iH 'HXtschH :HUNH (ed. and
trans. Josef Quint; Stuttgart; Kohlhammer, 19361963) 5:507 (hereafter as ':).
117
We should not content ourselves with the thought of God, because when the thought passes,
so does God. One must have an essential God (HiQHQ ZHsHQhaItHU *ott), who far surpasses the
thoughts of man and all creatures (Reden der Unterweisung, ': 5:510).
118
Q, 5b : 1:116. This also applies to the so-called QHJatiYH Za\.
119
': 5:507
120
': 5:508 [Emphasis in original].
28 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
a thought of God is every bit as ungodly as a way of life that cleaves to material
things and sensuous pleasure.
Against this, Eckhart preaches a doctrine of letting go (gelzenheit])or detachment
(Abgeschiedenheit). It is not just the idea that holiness can be transactedthe
instrumentalization of divine worshipthat is under attack here. Nor is it just the
idea that God commands good works, and external acts, and that these sanctify
the soul, ideas Eckhart was condemned for attacking.121 In letting go of all
attachments one is tuning out everything that obscures the divine wordevery
purpose, every intention, every reason and every image. For this reason it is wrong
WRVHHWKHGRFWULQHDVDGHRQWRORJ\5DWKHULWLVDQLPSOLFLWUHMHFWLRQRIGHRQWRORJ\
which in Eckharts view is still too agent-centered, too action-centered, and too
focused on good intentions to be truly holy. Before one can become one with God,
one has to sever all attachments to creaturely life. Once one has done that, one lives
as Eckhart says without why.
He is perfectly free in his acts, which he does out of true love. So does that
man who is at one with God: he is perfectly free in all his deeds, he does
them for love, without why.122
Q$GRUQRV&ULWLTXHRI)DOVH/LYLQJ
What I have elsewhere called Adornos ethics of resistance is the practical
FRQVHTXHQFHRIKLVQHJDWLYHGLDOHFWLFV, and its central idea, that the task of philosophy
is to think the non-identical. 124 Prima facie it seems surprising that Adorno has an
ethics at all. The moral of Adornos Problems of Moral Philosophy is that under
present historical conditions, namely in a false life, dominated by the pressures of
production and consumption, no theory of morality, no conception of morality, and
121
See the following ve articles of the Bull, ,Q $JUo 'oPHQico Article 7. Whoever prays for
this or that, prays for something evil and in evil wise. Article 8. Those who seek nothing, neither
honour nor prot nor inwardness nor holiness nor reward nor heaven, but who have renounced all
this including what is their ownin such men God is gloried. Article 16. God does not expressly
command good works. Article 17. An external work is not really good and divine, and God does
not really perform and beget it. Article 19. God loves souls, not external works. : 1:xlviixlix.
122
: 1:5657.
123
': 5:296.
124
Finlayson, Adorno on the Ethical and the Ineffable. (XUopHaQ -oXUQaO oI 3hiOosoph\ 10
(2002) 11. See section 2 above.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 29
no extant ethical life is available to support or guide the right life. For a variety
of complex reasons, which I cannot go into here, Adorno rejects deontological,
WHOHRORJLFDOSUXGHQWLDODQGFRQVHTXHQWLDOLVWHWKLFVVSDULQJQRWKLQJRQZKLFKWR
fasten his philosophy. Perhaps for this reason, some commentators maintain that
Adorno, like Heidegger and Nietzsche, attempts to situate his own thought outside
ethics. To my mind this cannot be right, however, since Adornos philosophy has
DQXQPLVWDNHDEO\PRUDODYRXUZKLFKFRPHVWRH[SUHVVLRQIRUH[DPSOHLQWKH
unconditional demands it places upon us:
Hitler has imposed a new categorical imperative on human beings, namely:
to order their thought and actions such that Auschwitz never reoccur, nothing
similar ever happen. 125
One ought not to torture: there ought to be no concentration camps.126
There is tenderness only in the coarsest demand that no-one should go hungry
anymore.127
7KDWVDLGLQ$GRUQRVH\HVVXFKGHPDQGVRZIURPDNLQGRISUHWKHRUHWLFDO
involuntary protest at the actuality of human suffering. These pre-theoretical moral
demands, he calls them impulsesemerge, as it were, spontaneously from our
affective somatic reactions to situations. They are not in need of reasons. Indeed,
they are more powerful and persuasive than any reason that could be given for
WKHPVRWKDWWKHDWWHPSWWRRIIHUUDWLRQDOMXVWLFDWLRQVIRUWKHPLVVHOIGHIHDWLQJ
since it weakens and undermines them. 128 However, Adornos ethics of resistance
is still an ethics in the sense that, while it will not help moral agents answer the
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of being and way of living.
The correct life [das richtige Leben] would consist in the shape of resistance
against the forms of a false life [eines falschen Lebens], which has been seen
through and critically dissected by the most progressive minds.129
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130
MM, 156/*6 4:178.
131
MM, 39/*6 4:43.
JAMES GORDON FINLAYSON 31
positivism is the idea that whatever it is that is outside thoughtGod, the good,
utopia or whatevercan somehow be made immediately present, by visionary
experience, or faith, or aesthetic intuition.132 And yet they also emphatically reject,
albeit for different reasons, the Hegelian idea that there is nothing beyond thought.
)LQDOO\ ERWK LQ DSRSKDWLFLVP DQGLQ$GRUQRVODWHZRUNZHQGDQXQVWLQWLQJ
criticism of representational thinking with an obverse, practical side, namely the
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with negative theology opens Adornos late work to the four objections contained
in the deprecative comparison: irrationalism, mysticism, incoherence and
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is, it is true, suspicious of rationality, which he conceives anthropologically as a
tool for mastering external and internal nature. He construes moral demands as
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Adorno is not an irrationalist, namely that his philosophy refuses to appeal to any
non-rational or extra-rational mode of apprehending the non-identical. The aim of
negative dialectics is to go beyond rationality, to go beyond conceptual thought,
by means of it.
The charge of mysticism can be answered similarly. Any attempt to say what
cannot be said is in one sense, though a fairly trivial one, a form of mysticism.
However, Adorno is no mystic: He holds that discursive thought can be abandoned
in favor of non-discursive modes of thinking: faith, feeling, visionary experience,
poetry, aesthetic intuition, or mimesis. The metaphysical experience that Adorno
claims to be encrypted in certain avant-garde works of art, even in works of
music, stands in need of interpretation and elucidation by philosophy. Just as the
apophatic theologians we have looked at do not hold out the prospect of an extra-
conceptual experience of the immediacy of the divine presence, through synteresis,
so in Adorno there is no direct encounter with otherness or non-identity. No vision
or direct apprehension of a transformed social reality is to be won through the
dialectical self-subversion of discursive reason or the experience of avant-garde art.
As for the charge of incoherence, we must concede, of course, that to attempt
to say what cannot be said is pragmatically incoherent. However, Adorno is not
guilty of a simple error: He exploits this incoherence as a way of manifesting the
limitations of discursive thought. It is not incoherent to attempt to show what
132
No evidence is needed to show that Adornos philosophy contains a critique of positivism, of
which he has a very permissive understanding, and of which he takes a very dim view. Almost any
text of his would show that. More surprising, given the alleged propinquity between apophaticism
and mysticism, is that the former, according to Turner, is better seen as a rejection of the very idea
of individual religious experience and a critique of the experientialism that is, in short, the
positivism of Christian spirituality. Turner, 'aUNQHss oI *oG 259 and 268.
32 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
133
Hence there is something awry with Alstons complaint about how fulsomely mystics report
their experiences. See n. 38 above. The experience of being shown something might not be ineffable,
even when what one is shown is.