'Metaphysical categories are not merely an ideology concealing the social system; at the same time they express its nature, the truth about, and in their changes are precipitated those in its most central experiences.'
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Metaphysical ideas both hide and reveal the social system, and their changes mirror shifts in core experiences.
- In plain terms
- Philosophical categories both conceal and express society’s nature.
- What can you take from it?
- Study ideas to understand social change.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do ideas shape reality?
- When do ideas become mere disguises?
Another view
Abstract concepts can be too vague to map directly onto concrete changes.
More from Theodor Adorno
'Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength.'
Permalink to quote #58 'Mind arose out of existence, as an organ for keeping alive. In reflecting existence, however, it becomes at the same time something else. The existent negates…
Permalink to quote #60 'Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.'
Permalink to quote #57
Related quotes
In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will; these relations of production c…
Karl MarxKarl Marx quote #14 We 'conserve' nothing; neither do we want to return to any past periods; we are not by any means 'liberal'; we do not work for 'progress'; we do not need to pl…
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche quote #92 Freedom is a myth.
Patrick McGoohanPatrick McGoohan quote #1