Introduction to Sociology [Hardcover]

Theodor Adorno (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1999

Introduction to Sociology distills decades of distinguished work in sociology by one of this century’s most influential thinkers in the areas of social theory, philosophy, aesthetics, and music.

It consists of a course of seventeen lectures given by Theodor W. Adorno in May-July 1968, the last lecture series before his death in 1969. Captured by tape recorder (which Adorno called “the fingerprint of the living mind”), these lectures present a somewhat different, and more accessible, Adorno from the one who composed the faultlessly articulated and almost forbiddingly perfect prose of the works published in his lifetime. Here we can follow Adorno’s thought in the process of formation (he spoke from brief notes), endowed with the spontaneity and energy of the spoken word. The lectures form an ideal introduction to Adorno’s work, acclimatizing the reader to the greater density of thought and language of his classic texts.

Delivered at the time of the “positivist dispute” in sociology, Adorno defends the position of the “Frankfurt School” against criticism from mainstream positivist sociologists. He sets out a conception of sociology as a discipline going beyond the compilation and interpretation of empirical facts, its truth being inseparable from the essential structure of society itself. Adorno sees sociology not as one academic discipline among others, but as an over-arching discipline that impinges on all aspects of social life.

Tracing the history of the discipline and insisting that the historical context is constitutive of sociology itself, Adorno addresses a wide range of topics, including: the purpose of studying sociology; the relation of sociology and politics; the influence of Saint-Simon, Comte, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and Freud; the contributions of ethnology and anthropology; the relationship of method to subject matter; the problems of quantitative analysis; the fetishization of science; and the separation of sociology and social philosophy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“North American sociologists, social theorists, and social scientists will welcome the accessibility of this text. It is well translated, easily read, and informative on Adorno’s critique of empiricist and positivist sociology. . . . One will rarely encounter another text like this one, which can make an argument for a dialectical theory of society while also showing great sophistication in the treatment of historical materials as well as in the critical appraisal of research methods. All in all, Adorno’s great intellectual passion is noticeable throughout these lectures. They clearly build on the series of splendid books produced by the author in Germany during the 1950s and 1960s.”—Critical Sociology

“Adorno an author of an ‘intro’ book? This surprising volume is a wonderful antidote to the impression that the Frankfurt School opposed empirical research. . . . This brief work is thick with implications for the discipline of sociology, which Adorno fundamentally rethinks.”—Contemporary Sociology

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: German

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (December 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804739331
• ISBN-13: 978-0804739337
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,349,495 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Theodore Adorno died for your sins, November 11, 2002

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Edward G. Nilges "Author, 'Build Your Own .Ne... (Hong Kong, China) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Introduction to Sociology (Hardcover)

This book is part of a series of translations by Edmund Jephcott that also includes Adorno's lectures on Kant and ethics. I have little German but it seems to me that Jephcott knows how to translate, by immersing himself not in static German Kultur (which would be a bad mistake with regards to Adorno, a victim of bad culture) but by immersing himself in the current events in which Adorno's lecture was contextualized.

Now, this book is not what we here in the States would consider an "introduction" to "sociology.". That's because almost anything "101" is both indoctrination and education.

American social research has defined itself in reaction to Adorno. While Adorno repeatedly asserted his support for quantitative methods, American social research is based on an exclusionary reversal of the European overemphasis on theory…in which (as Adorno points out in this book) data gathering and moron math replace theory.

In terms of the philosophy of science, Adorno's ontology of social research happens to be right. Physics, unlike sociology, can stand outside the object of research for the very good reason that in physics, the objects of interest are either very small or very far away.

Whereas the sociologist studies phenomena which are very large and in the same room.

A physicist could not study black holes while being sucked into a black hole. A social theorist has to do social research at all times while also being sucked into various social black holes…including Hitler's expulsion of Adorno's kreis in the 1930s. Furthermore, unlike the physicist's work the sociologist's work immediately and necessarily becomes part of the phenomena.

In Godel's proof, the statements that generate Godel's contradiction are outlier cases. In Heisenberg the self-reflexive phenomenon occurs only at the level of elementary particles.

In sociology and in anthropology, however, these phenomena happen all the time.

A true introduction to social theory would therefore foreground this ontological issue, but in fact, Sociology for Dummies 101 does not.

Instead, American sociology in reaction to Adorno proclaims the acceptance of "methodological individualism" as canonical for entry.

Methodological individualism is a metaphysic (which justifies itself as pragmatic) which declares that insofar as we're concerned, society can be reduced to individuals following goals. In this ontology talk about larger elementary structures such as "the proletariat" on the left or "the nation" on the right is relegated to "dogma." The reduction to absurdity is the gnomic utterance of the mad woman Margaret Thatcher: "there is no such thing as society."

It is indeed nonsense to speak of hypostatized entities such as "the proletariat" or "the nation" as if they could exist apart from the interests of their actual members. Part of the metaphysical puzzle of nuclear war was the insanity, on the part of Soviet leaders, in believing that by killing 90% of the proletariat they could ensure the victory of the proletariat: yet indirectly, the hypostatizing thought of Stalinism generates this insane ontology.

The reverse insanity is to even attempt to make sensible conclusions about society from a mass of data...and, as needed, confuse images of reality with elementary "facts." Its size is a practical problem which means that no justification is available from American pragmatism, the epistemology which underlies methodological individualism and this means that methodological individualism contradicts itself...it doesn't work.

But the real problem is Godelian/Heisenbergian as seen in the large American industry of SAT test preparation, resume writing, and corporate grab-ass. It is that methodological individualism scales up from individual observations that are gamed by ordinary slobs, who don't like to be treated as lab rats, and who in many cases are temporary, paid employees of firms, who allow themselves to be objectified for a fistful of dollars and free chow.

Adorno presents a foundational solution based on Kant.

Suppose, examining the simultaneous existence of individual choice and the emergence of larger structures including that structure visible (in an example of Adorno's) when one is unable to borrow money or get a job, we were to say that this analysis, which acknowledges the existence of BOTH individual choice AND larger structures, neither of which would exist without the other. [I have of course, just reinvented the intellectual foundations of European Social Democracy.]

This resembles Kant because this surrender was part of the Kantian method. In ontology it is the admission that while we cannot know the world as such in the way we demand, there is nonetheless a difference between dream and reality, a transcendental difference established by the benign circularity of an argument which shows that the existence of a distinction is presupposed as a condition of knowledge, and thus argument, itself.

In American-ese, I can well imagine Adorno saying "sure, my Frankfurt school is part of society and it plays the game. My guy Horkheimer concealed its Marxism when we were in California during the McCarthy era because we like to eat. But I deny that this falsifies our conclusions as self-interested. This is because individuals and their individual institutions NECESSARILY exist alone with ALL OTHER individuals and institutions as part of a society which WOULD NOT EXIST without at least two individuals talking to each other."

"You can't say that this cheerful admission of being part of society falsifies what we say. This is because the economics that results from individualist sociology proclaims self-interest as paramount. This places the apologists for methodological individualism and a dogma which dares not speak its name under the logically identical cloud of suspicion...which works both ways. Now get out of my office."

The most moving part of the book is the end, for Godde and Jephcott have preserved the audience's hissing when Adorno defends another academic's right to speak. He was probably hissed by clowns who are now senior executives at Deutsches Bank and Springer, who unlearned left politics but retained the ability to use methodological discourtesy (and left sexism) as a tactical tool and used it in the corporate climb.

Theodore Adorno (two years after these lectures) died from the stresses of 1968.