Adorno and Empirical Sociology
Neil McLaughlin
nmclaugh at mcmail.CIS.McMaster.CA
Tue, 22 Jul 2003 11:14:26 -0400 (EDT)
Thank you Claus, for a very thoughtful account of your Adorno agenda.
A broader theory of society than sociological theory is an important goal,
and you clearly are approaching this with seriousness, insight and hard
work.
I have to admit scepticism again that an Adorno inspired empirical
sociology will work out, but ultimately the proof will be in what you
produce out of this. There is no way, of course, to say in advance what
you will come up with in the larger project.
For me, scholars often do what the sociologist Charles Camic has called
"predecessor selection" where thinkers from the past are choosen as
inspiration and citation for present work based on a variety of
non-intellectual factors. This is not a criticism - intellectual life
works this way.
Good luck with your project.
I guess I would make three points.
First, I see a big difference between "grounded theory" and what Adorno
does. Adorno knew what he thought about a variety of cultural, political
and artistic questions before he did his research, something that goes
against the ideas of grounded theory as I understand them.
He really does not seem the type to do research, and then say, "hey, I
guess I was wrong about the enlightenment" based on empirical evidence of
any kind, as far as I can see.
I have made this point in a piece I wrote on the American sociologist
Davie Riesman, called "Critical Theory Meets America: Riesman, Fromm and
the Frankfurt School" in the journal The American Sociologist sometime in
2001.
Second, I would look at the role Erich Fromm played in the early
Authoritarian Personality study and the later work he did in Social
Character in a Mexican Village before making too many claims for the
originally of Adorno's methods.
See the work of Bonss on this, as well as
http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/articles/mclaughlin.html
Thirdly, Robert Alford's The Craft of Inquiry (oxford, 1998) will give you
a nice summary as well as an original argument regarding thinking about
the theory/method connection in sociology today...
Good luck with your exciting work..
Neil mclaughlin
Neil G. McLaughlin KTH-620
Associate Professor McMaster University
Department of Sociology Hamilton, Ontario
E-mail: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca L8S 4M4
Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611 Canada
On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Claus Hansen wrote:
> Well I can't say I am surprised that you raise doubts on the possibility of
> creating an Adorno inspired empirical sociology. Maybe you are indeed right
> about this, I do not know yet and as far as I know no one has tried
> answering this question, which was the reason for asking for more
> reference. I can give you a quick view on my thoughts on it though I would
> not claim to know that great a deal about the contemporary discussion for
> instance regarding the theory/method connection as others have.
>
> My Masters Thesis in Sociology is an attempt at reconstructing an Adorno
> inspired empirical sociology as I believe it could be fruitful. My reasons
> for this is not wholly unfounded, the Danish sociologist, Henning Bech, has
> published a book on Modernity and Homosexuality (When Men Meet, Polity
> Press, 1997) that is to a great extent influenced by Adorno, Benjamin and
> Kracauer. The crucial point that is influenced by Adorno is of course his
> idea of 'granting primacy to the object' making Bech insist on trying to
> grasp the materiality of the lifeworld (our embodiment, use of aesthetic
> surfaces, the influence on 'moods' or 'tunings' etc). However, Bech is very
> eclectic and he does not supply the epistemological or methodological
> grounding on how to conduct this material sociology (or Social
> Physiognomics as Adorno termed it). This is what I would like to do,
> especially in the light of some recent interpretations of Adorno that in my
> opinion makes his thought more contemporary (for instance J.M. Bernstein
> and S. Jarvis).
>
> My contention so far is that Social Physiognomics has a lot in common with
> Glaser & Strauss' 'Grounded Theory' approach (a point Müller-Doohm also
> briefly states in his book). The first step in a research design inspired
> by Adorno would be to generate concepts by immersing oneself in the context
> being researched in a manner much the same as the one describes by Glaser &
> Strauss in The Discovery of Grounded Theory. This would of course involve a
> lot of different methods ranging from interviews and observation to the
> (discourse or content) analysis of crucial documents, pictures and the like
> depending on the object under inquiry. In my own research of women playing
> rock music the methods used consisted of life story interviews, pictures of
> the women, observation of them in concert situations, reviews and articles
> from music magazines and we also had an eye on the function the women had
> for the music (what instruments did they play, which sounds do these
> instruments make and how do the women sing). In order to 'grant primacy to
> the object' it would be necessary to alter the methods used so as to 'fit'
> the research 'objects'. Knowledge of which methods could (or should) be
> used is not only to be gained by a prior understanding of the research
> object or from litterature describing the object but also from the
> contradictions inherent in the 'Materials of Experience' (hereafter MoE)
> (Bech's word for empirical data). According to Adorno, the non-identical
> manifests itself as contradictions in identity-thinking which is the reason
> why one should look for these in the MoE. We found, for instance,
> contradictions inherent in the life story interviews (which were our prime
> source of MoE) - for instance the women denied being harassed
> while recounting events that could only be understood as episodes of
> harassment. By using contradictions as the guiding-line for further inquiry
> it could be possible to construct a constellation of concepts (or of
> different 'versions' of the same concept) that would help 'grant primacy to
> the object'.
>
> While this generation of 'substantive theory' where the concepts generated
> from the MoE after being connected to each other (and perhaps to some
> 'formal theory') would be the end point for Glaser & Strauss this is only
> the necessary beginning for Adorno what he calls 'physiognomic
> registration'. Here it would be appropriate to recall Adorno's distinction
> between essence and appearance: because of the dialectic of enlightenment,
> the primacy of identity thinking, that has resulted in a fundamental
> disenchanment of all aspects of life even of our language and therefore our
> ability to experience (because experiences are always conceptually
> mediated) we cannot be sure that things are what they seem on the 'surface'
> (I know this sounds hopelessly unfashionable and metaphysical but I find
> that J.M. Bernsteins account of Adorno gives his thought the necessary
> grounding in contemporary debates in philosophy - as I have said many times
> before I can heartly recommend the book as it is IMHO the Adorno
> interpretation). The 'essence' of society according to Adorno is its
> character of totality and from this it follows that we cannot grasp the
> totality by appealing to only one of its moments (for instance the concepts
> generated during the process of research) as these moments are themselves
> mediated by the totality (and thus only the appearances of this totality).
>
> Let me qoute a part from my thesis:
>
> 'To obtain knowledge of the essence of society we need to decipher the
> phenomena, to 'read individual faits sociaux as ciphers for a wider social
> reality'. Thus, we cannot be content with grounding sociology in the simple
> understanding of the meaning of social actions carried out by individuals
> as was the ideal of Weber's sociology. A disenchanted language calls for a
> more radical approach: 'A dialectical concept of meaning would not be a
> correlate of Weber's meaningful understanding but rather the societal
> essence which shapes appearances, appears in them and conceals itself in
> them' (ItPD 37). This characterisation of the procedure for an Adornian
> sociology also explains why he calls his approach social physiognomics: if
> physiognomic is 'the art of judging human character from facial features'
> (American Heritage Dictionary 2000) then social physiognomics must the 'the
> art of judging the character of society from its façade', its mere
> appearance to us. One could wonder how this could be, but according to
> Adorno this is due to the fact that 'essence must appear' (ItPD 12).
>
> In this respect sociological theories are required in order to understand
> the social phenomena one has found during the research. However, there is
> one crucial difference between Adorno's view on this and more the
> contemporary one that states more or less the same. For Adorno what is
> needed is not only sociological theory but a theory of the societal
> totality - a theory of society. Without such a theory it would not be
> possible to 'read individual faits sociaux as ciphers for a wider reality'.
> Sociological theories (in the more ordinary sense of the word for instance
> Mertons understanding of Middle-Range theories) are what Adorno calls the
> constellation of concepts that emerge from the analysis of MoE. One could
> of course object to this that it will result in nothing but mere projection
> of such theories of societal totality onto the MoE. However, in this
> respect Adorno emphasises the importance of relying on empirical studies in
> sociology because it 'prevents blindly superimposed constructions',
> prevents these decipherings to become so utterly speculative that they have
> no connection to reality. Thus, 'the task of empirical research [is] to
> protect the concept of essential laws from mythologization' (SaER 84). In
> other words, theory and MoE stand in a dialectical relation to each other
> in such a way that theory is generated and adjusted in the light of
> empirical findings and that these findings are concurrently deciphered in
> accordance with the theory of society employed. I think this idea of
> relating empirical findings to theory is a major issue in contemporary
> debates regarding sociology and its methodology (please correct me if I'm
> wrong) and I think that Adorno is very modern in his approach here?
> Furthermore I believe he is one of the only ones to provide the necessary
> epistemological grounding of the attempt to relate empirical findings and
> theory. Derek Layder is trying much of the same in his Adaptive Theory
> approach, but I find his arguments for doing it less than convincing, but
> me contention is that Bhaskar would be a good place to look if one were to
> find another person that could ground such an approach. Unfortunately I do
> not know that much about critical realism. But this is only my tentative
> thoughts so please correct me if I am wrong it would be a great help in
> finishing the thesis as well.
>
> I haven't said anything about the distinction and dichotomy between
> quantitative and qualitative research methods, and it would seem as if
> Adorno's social physiognomics could only be done by using qualitative
> research methods. I do not believe this to be the case. Even if it is
> considerably more difficult to conduct 'inductive' quantative research it
> can be done (for instance using factor analysis as a useful tool). However,
> I do believe that Adorno would grant primacy to the qualitative studies as
> an entry point to the research (as was done in The Authoritarian
> Personality), but once a first generation of concepts has been done it
> would be very fruitful to 'test the concepts' using quantitative research
> methods - for instance as a way of gaining knowledge of the relationship
> between the concepts in the constellation (as was also done in the
> Authoritarian Personality when constructing the different scales designed
> to measure different aspects of personality). In this way there would
> emerge a dialectical relationship between the two types of research
> methods. The 'results' of the quantitative research would of course have to
> be deciphered as describes above in order for them to say anything of the
> societal totality.
>
> A last remark is that while this has only dealt with Adorno's methodology I
> also believe that some of the specific methods he used can be and has in
> fact been revived with great success. The type of content analysis that
> Adorno did in his studies of astrology and the radio speech of certain
> right-wing demagogues in USA should not be seen as typical content
> analysis. In fact it reminds me more of the discourse analysis approach
> that is so popular at the moment (at least here in Denmark) - Adorno refers
> to Benjamin, Bloch and Kracauer as the original 'inventors' of this type of
> content analysis. He also to a wide extent used music, litterature and
> pictures as MoE and analysed the traces of the societal totality that lies
> hidden in these. This is also quite original I believe (we didn't get any
> education in how to this any way on my university) even if it could be
> sophisticated to a great deal by more contemporary approaches. Last, but
> not least I find the use of scales in the Authoritarian Personality also
> highly original - using the correlation between different scales as
> evidence for some kind of underlying connection between seemingly unrelated
> issues (that is they did not appear on the surface to have anything to do
> with each other).
>
> Well that was all I had I hope this answers your question or even better
> stimulate you to point out the inadequacies of my understanding so I can
> learn even more about Adorno or contemporary sociological debates
> concerning empirical studies.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Claus
>
>
>
>
> At 12:36 19-07-03 -0400, you wrote:
>
>
>
> >I have to admit some scepticism regarding the possibilities of creating an
> >Adorno inspired empirical sociology. But I would be interested in hearing
> >here on this list, an argument for what might come out of such an effort.
> >There has been, it seems to me, enourmous progress in sociology over the
> >decades since Adorno came on the scene specifically around the issue of
> >methods (advances in quantitative methods, important work in
> >historical/comparative methods and increasing sophistication in
> >qualitative methods) and the theory/method connection. I am going to try
> >to put aside my relative disinterest in Adorno's empirical contributions,
> >since (putting aside the Lazarsfeld/Adorno issue) it hardly seems like he
> >made many important empirical contributions in the past. I would try to
> >learn to
> >take free kicks from Beckham in soccer, since trying to bend it like
> >Beckham makes sense, since he did does it so well.
> >But trying to study things empirically like Adorno? Seems a stretch...
> >But I would be interested in hearing the core of the argument for trying
> >to build on Adorno's empirical approach, hopefully from someone up to date
> >with recent developments in sociology regarding thinking about the
> >relationship between theory and methods.
> >
> >
> >Neil G. McLaughlin KTH-620
> >Associate Professor McMaster University
> >Department of Sociology Hamilton, Ontario
> >E-mail: nmclaugh@mcmaster.ca L8S 4M4
> >Phone (905) 525-9140 Ext. 23611 Canada
> >
> >On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Claus Hansen wrote:
> >
> > > Dear list,
> > >
> > > I was wondering if any of you knew any articles dealing with Adorno's
> > > sociological works and especially his visions on how to conduct empirical
> > > sociology. I would also be glad if anyone knew if anyone had tried to
> > > elaborate a bit on his 'epistemology' and how it could be utilised for
> > > sociology. So far I have found the following:
> > >
> > > Stefan Mller-Doohm has published a book called - Die Soziologie Theodor W.
> > > Adorno's (1996, Campus Verlag) that sketches both some substantial issues
> > > in Adorno's 'sociological theory' and some answers as to how one should
> > > 'conduct' Adornian inspired empirical sociology. He has also published a
> > > few articles dealing with the same issue. Then there is the part of the
> > > 'Adorno-Konferenz 1983' (1983, Suhrkamp) that deals on his methodology -
> > > all in all three articles by Wolfgang Bonss, Jrgen Risert and Ulrich
> > > Oevermann. There is also a single English article by Ryan Drake called
> > > 'Objectivity and Insecurity. Adorno and Empirical Social Research'
> > > (Philosophy Today, Summer 2000). There are of course also a chapter in
> > > Rose's, Melancholy Science and Buck-Morss', The Origin of Negative
> > Dialectics.
> > >
> > > Does anyone know of any other articles in English, German or any
> > > Scandinavian language?
> > >
> > > Thank you,
> > >
> > > Claus
> > >
> > >
> > ____________________________________________________________________________
> > > "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, nr de siger 'jeg'"
> > > (T.W. Adorno)
> > >
> > >
> > >
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> "Hos mange mennesker er det allerede en uforskammethed, nċr de siger 'jeg'"
> (T.W. Adorno)
>
> --- StripMime Warning -- MIME attachments removed ---
> This message may have contained attachments which were removed.
>
> Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list.
>
> --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
> multipart/alternative
> text/plain (text body -- kept)
> text/html
> ---
>