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REFERENCES
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New German Critique
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Epistemology and Exchange:
Marx, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory*
by Nancy S. Love
7'
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72 Epistemology and Exchange
4. Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State," in The Essential Frankfurt School Read-
er, ed. by Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (New York: Continuum Books, 1982) 107.
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Nancy S. Love 73
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74 Epistemology and Exchange
10. Herbert Marcuse, "Some Social Implications of Modern Technology," in The Es-
sential Frankfuirt School Reader 145.
11. Adorno and Horkheimer xvi.
12. Fredrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Age of Classical German Philosophy, (New
York: International Publishers, 1941)22.
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Nancy S. Love 75
ism, I demonstrate that Marx concurs with this answer and how this im-
plicates him in the dialectic of enlightenment.
As a materialist, Marx argues that a material world objectively exists,
that is, exists independently of knowing subjects: "To say that man is a
corporeal, living, real, sensuous, objective being full of natural vigor is to
say that he has real, sensuous, objects as the objects of his being or of his life,
or that he can only express his life in real, sensuous objects."'" Our
thoughts reflect our sensory experience of this material world. Marx re-
fers to ideas as "the material world reflected by the human mind and
translated into forms of thought" and to ideology as the "reflex,"
"echo," or "sublimate" of material life.14
Although the objective existence of matter and the ability of our
thoughts to reflect it are premises of dialectical materialism, Marx
bypasses philosophical arguments to this effect. Dialectical materialism
is a "real, positive science" where "real" and "positive" mean sensuous-
ly ascertained: "This method of approach is not devoid of premises. It
starts out from the real premises and does not abandon them for a
moment. Its premises are men, not in any fantastic isolation and rigidi-
ty, but in their actual, empirically perceptible process of development
under definite conditions."'5 These premises of dialectical material-
ism are to be neither understood nor defended abstractly. In fact, Marx
argues that philosophical abstractions have no value independent of
history.16 He rejects the Kantian (as Engels later rejects the neo-
Kantian) incomprehensible "thing-in-itself," and the related dis-
tinction between reality and appearances, practically not theoretical-
ly. As Engels says, "If we are able to prove the correctness of our con-
ception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into
being out of its conditions and using it for our own purposes in the
bargain, then there is an end of the Kantian incomprehensible
'thing-in- itself'."7
13. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripnts of 1844, The Marx-Engels Reader,
ed. Robert C. Tucker (NewYork: Norton, 1978) 115.
14. Karl Marx, Capital, (New York: International Publishers, 1967) 1, 19. Also see:
Karl Marx, The German Ideology, ed. C. J. Arthur (New York: International Publishers,
1977)47.
15. Marx, The German Ideology 47-48.
16. Ibid.
17. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, 23. For a detailed discussion of practical knowledge, see
Len Doyal and Roger Harris, "The Practical Foundations of Human Understanding
New Left Review 139 (July 1983).
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76 Epistemology and Exchange
18. Friedrich Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," in The Marx-Engels Reader,
ed. by Robert C. Tucker, (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1978) 696. Although Engels
develops the dialectics of nature and Marx focuses on man's dialectic with nature, Marx
explicitly agrees that nature, like history, verifies dialectics. This should notbe surprising,
since his premises require it. On the one hand, to declare that man imposes dialectical
structure upon nature is to revert to an idealist metaphysics, to declare mind predomi-
nant over matter. On the other hand, to declare nature undialectical is to revert to a mate-
rialist one. Matter exists objectively, but not structured as objects. Selected Correspondence
(NewYork: International Publishers), 189; Capital, 1:309 and 3: 373-375.
19. Marx, The German Ideology 52.
20. Karl Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach," numberten.
21. Marx, Capital 3: 817. He also makes the same point in the final section of chapter
one, "On Commodities," ofvolume one.
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Nancy S. Love 77
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78 Epistemology and Exchange
24. This discussion draws heavily upon G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory ofHistory: A
Defense (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), appendix 1, "Karl Marx and the
Withering Away of Social Science."
25. Marx, "Theses," number two.
26. Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" 701.
27. Marx says that "All science would be superfluous if the manifest form and the es-
sence of things directly coincided." Capital, 3: 797.
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Nancy S. Love 79
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80 Epistemology and Exchange
that the longing subject cannot love what is alien and different, with the
craving for incorporation and persecution." He concludes that "If th
alien were no longer ostracized, there hardly would be any more aliena
tion."33 Other Marxist concepts are equally anthropomorphic. Adorno
criticizes "reification," in part, because it restricts dialectics to ep
phenomena, i.e., to symptoms, not causes, of human suffering. But
also argues that reification, like alienation, presents thingness as a "rad
cal evil" to be annexed by "philosophical imperialism."34 Attackin
Marx's distinction between reality and appearance, Adorno also chara
terizes the "image" or "reflection" theory of knowledge as a materialist
reversion to idealism, even barbarism.35
Productive and conceptual imperialism, anthropologism and anthro-
pomorphism, converge in Marx's notion that practice proves the truth
As critical theorists read it, the "second thesis" reduces truth to power
This makes scientific socialism the extension, not the transcendence, of
objectification. True revolutionary practice depends not upon scientific
formula, but upon the intransigence of theory. In response to those who
would characterize this position as left Hegelian, Adorno says,
The call for unity of theory and practice has irresistibly de-
graded theory to a servant's role, removing the very traits it
should have brought to that unity. The visa stamp of practice
which we demand of all theory becarrie a censor's placet. Yet
whereas theory succumbed in the vaunted mixture, practice
became nonconceptual, a piece of the politics it was supposed
to lead out of; it became the prey of power. 36
He suggests that:
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82 Epistemology and Exchange
or up, to any other 'reality' besides the reality of our drives."'4 That re-
ality, he says, is will to power and nothing else:
... One has to risk the hypothesis whether will does not affect
will wherever 'effects' are recognized - and whether all me-
chanical occurences are not, insofar as force is active in
them, will force, effects ofwi 11.41
40. Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Basic Writings ofNietzsche, translated by
Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1966), aphorism #36. Nietzsche explicit-
ly distinguishes his monist materialism from idealism: We are to see the world "not as a
deception, as 'mere appearance,' an 'idea' (in the sense of Berkeley and Schopenhauer)
but as holding the same rank of reality as our affect as a more primitive form of the world
of affects in which everything still lies contained in a powerful unity before it undergoes
ramifications and developments in the organic process." I should note that Nietzsche
can consistently espouse materialism and skepticism. The distinction between material-
ist and idealist ontologies must not be confused with that between skeptical and realist
epistemologies. For example, Kant and Hume belong together as skeptics, whereas
Hegel and Engels belong together as realists.
41. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, aphorism #36.
42. What Nietzsche criticizes and understands as dialecticsperse is a dialectic of reas-
on. (See: Twilight ofthe Idols, 476-479). This target he shares to some extent with Marx: both
deny that reason determines reality. Further, neither precludes the adoption ofa differ-
ent, both would probably say de-mystified, hypothesis that history is dialectically or-
dered by man's tendency to expand his creative - producing or willing - powers.
43. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R.J.
Hollingdale (NewYork: Random House, 1968), aphorism #569.
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Nancy S. Love 83
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84 Epistemology and Exchange
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50. Ofelia Schutte develops this distinction in her Beyond Nihilism: Nietzsche Without
Masks (Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1984).
51. For these criticisms of Nietzsche see: Dialectic of Enlightenment, 97-99; Minima
Moralia, Aphorisms #59 #60 #61.
52. Adorno argues that Nietzsche ultimately is a positivist: "Nietzsche, the irreconci-
lable adversary of our theoretical heritage in metaphysics, had ridiculed the difference
between essence and appearance. He had relegated the 'background world' to the
'backwoodsman,' concurring here with all of positivism .... Ifa man rates all phenomena
alike because he knows of no essence that would allow him to discriminate, he will in a
fantasized love oftruth make common cause with untruth." (Negative 169).
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86 Epistemology and Exchange
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Nancy S. Love 87
identity upon objects. Their respective concepts of being and things tyr-
annize over reality and fail to reach it. Reality, contrary to their concep-
tions of it, is incomplete, contradictory, and fragmented. Adorno says
"While our images of perceived reality may very well be Gestalten, the
world in which we live is not; it is constituted differently than out of mere
images of perception."6' Unlike previous materialists, Adorno respects
the concrete particular's non-identity with itself and his concepts. The
particular is that which cannot be named: "The concept of the particular
is always its negation at the same time; it cuts short what the particular is
and what nonetheless cannot be directly named, and it replaces this with
identity."62 He concludes that the liberated subject will also liberate ob-
jects; he will be their agent, not their constituent.
As the object's agent, Adorno is a dialectician as well as a materialist.
But, again like Nietzsche, he would transcend dialectics dangerously
undialectical structure.63 Non-conceptuality must replace the conceptu-
al correspondence of subject and object. Adorno acknowledges the
difficulties this creates: "We can see through the identity principle, but
we cannot think without identifying."64 He concludes that dialecticians
must "think against thought." "As thinking," he says, "dialectical logic
respects that which is to be thought the object even where the object does
not heed the rules of thinking."65
Dialectical thought respects objects by excluding ontological con-
cepts, e.g., premises, standpoints, and positivity, and focusing instead
upon "inner-historical complexes." Like ontological theorists, critical
theorists distinguish between essence and existence, but in a profoundly
different way. The former seek concealed or manifest intentions by posit-
ing a metaphysical reality beneath or beyond phenomena. The latter in-
terpret unintentional realities within phenomena themselves, creating a
"nonmetaphysical metaphysics." Adorno describes his dialectical
method, which he says Marx "largely" (an important qualification)
shares, as immanent critique. Immanence illuminates essences by ex-
posing "the contradiction between what things are and what they claim
61. Theodor Adorno, "The Actuality of Philosophy," trans. Benjamin Snow, Telos 31
(Spring 1977): 126.
62. Adorno,Negative 173.
63. Adorno says, "The polarity of subject and object may well appear to be an
undialectical structure in which all dialectics takes place," Negative 174.
64. Ibid. 149.
65. Ibid. 141.
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88 Epistemology and Exchange
Critical Contradictions
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90 Epistemology and Exchange
Adorno's insistence that subject and object are only separated histori-
cally is ascetic: he continues to deny life for truth. Along these lines,
Adorno argues that associating his critique of identity with irrationalism
is "horrid sophistry."72 Thought is currently a commodity, but ultimate-
ly it is inseparable from freedom. When Adorno associates rationality
and freedom, he abandons Nietzsche for Kant. He claims that Nie-
tzsche's merciless exposure of the identity of domination and reason
"implicitly liberates from its hiding place the utopia contained in the
Kantian notion of reason as in every great philosophy: the utopia of a hu-
manity which, itself no longer distorted, has no further need to dis-
tort."73 Adomno acknowledges the question he raises here: Do critical
theorists have a hidden conception of Being? But he refuses to answer,
maintaining only that such a conception of Being is unnecessary to criti-
cal theory.'7 If such a conception is present, it represents a reversion to
species-imperialism.
If a conception of being is absent, if subject and object are "truly non-
identical," Adorno becomes bourgeois. He also acknowledges this ob-
jection to critical theory. Some he says will accuse him of "unfruitful
negativity."''75 This accusation arises because Adorno's attack upon iden-
tity involves more than a critique of commodity exchange. Negative dia-
lectics, as Adorno describes it, is a critique of"constitutive consciousness
itself."'76 But, if rationality and society are repressive, then only the
speechless solipsist is free. Adorno does argue that the isolated individ-
ual now perceives reality better than a functional collective does. He also
says that direct communication is no longer a criterion of truth. Since
concepts establish equivalences, the isolated individual's freedom can-
not be communicated. Adorno criticizes even proletarian writing for
codifying oppression, and characterizes writing, now that demy-
thologization has destroyed language, as a Sisyphean task.77 Adorno
72. "Adorno's Radicalism: Two Interviews from the Sixties" trans. Russell Berman,
Telos 56 (Summer 1983).
73. Adornoand Horkheimer 119.
74. Adorno, "Actuality of Philosophy" 132. "I will not decide whether a particular
conception of man and being lies at the base of my theory, but I do deny the necessity of
resorting to this conception. It is an idealist demand, that of an absolute beginning, as
only pure thought by itself can accomplish."
75. Ibid.
76. Adorno,Negative 148.
77. Adorno, Minima Moralia, Aphorisms #65 and #142. For a more detailed
sion see: Seyla Benhabib, "Modernity and the Aporias of Critical Theory," Telos
1981).
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Nancy S. Love 91
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92 Epistemology and Exchange
Without Revolution? Habermas' Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns," Habermas and Mo-
dernity, ed. Richard Bernstein (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1985) 95-119 and Thomas
McCarthy, "Complexity and Democracy, or The Seducements of Systems Theory," New
German Critique 35 (Spring/Summer 1985): 27-53.
82. Habermas,Philosophical 107.
83. Ibid. 109.
84. Ibid.
85. Jiurgen Habermas, "Towards a Theory of Communicative Competenc
quiry 13(1970): 372.
86. I want, then, to distinguish my criticisms of symmetrical intersubjectivity
poststructuralists' Nietzschean-inspired attempts to abolish subjectivity. Those att
manifest the same performative contradiction as critical theory. Poststructuralis
ever, address this paradox of total critique rather differently: they affirm a plur
meanings and powers. Habermas has argued that poststructuralists' use of Nietzsc
conservative implications. See his "Modernity versus Postmodernity," New Germa
tique 22 (Winter 1981): 3-14 and "The Genealogical Writing of History: On Some A
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Nancy S. Love 93
in Foucault's Theory of Power," Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 10:1-2 (1986).
Also see Kenneth Asher, "Deconstruction's Use and Abuse of Nietzsche," Telos 62 (Win-
ter 1984-5): 169-178.
87. Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts 83.
88. Marx, Critique ofthe Gotha Program, The Marx-Engels Reader 530.
89. Critique, Norm, Utopia: A Study of the Foundations of Critical Theory (New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1986) 341. Benhabib does not, however, draw her critique of
Habermas' universalism from Nietzsche's exchange principle.
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94 Epistemology and Exchange
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