Time in Exile In Conversation with Heidegger Blanchot and Lispector SUNY series Intersections Philosophy and Critical Theory 1st Edition Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback
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Preface
Why Kierkegaard and Critical Theory Now?
This book is written for all levels of Kierkegaard readers who have a budding curiosity about Critical Theory but perhaps no substantive idea about what this intellectual movement entails, or why it is relevant to a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard. This text is likewise intended for an stages of Critical Theory research that seeks an explanation of the reception of Kierkegaard by the most prominent Critical Theorists over the last century, and desires to understand why the intersection of Kierkegaard and Critical Theory is significant today.
Ever since Theodor W. Adorno, one of the most influential academics involved in Critical Theory in the twentieth century, published his rejection of Kierkegaard in his book, Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Asthetischen in 1933 in Germany (published in English as Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic in 1989), many scholars have presumed little or no positive connection between that movement and the writings of the nineteenth-century Danish existential thinker. Although there have been selected articles and book excerpts that have postulated a relationship, my goal is to expose the error of Adorno's dismissal through detailed methodological analysis, and to show the more intricate nexus between Kierkegaard and Critical Theory as it has existed historically. This approach is necessary because of presuppositions still made about Kierkegaard's writings as being antithetical to the aims and practice of Critical Theory. Through the presentation of my research I hope to enrich Kierkegaard studies and to foster development of two recent and important trends in global critical theory-postnationalism and postsecularism ( chapters 5, 6, and 7).
In the present book I do not carry out any exegesis of the primary literature in Kierkegaard's collected works; nor do I provide an "Introduction" to vii
Kierkegaard or offer a grand narrative of his religious philosophy. All of that is beyond the scope of the present work, given the involvement of material on both Kierkegaard and Critical Theory. The reader learns about Kierkegaard's writings through the multitude of ways in which they were encountered by the various Critical Theorists, different as their approaches may have been and still are. I find this to be the most effective way to grasp what Kierkegaard means for this specific tradition, instead of attempting to construct a bird's-eye-view of Kierkegaard's writings and then superimpose it onto each of the Critical Theorists' interpretations. Any argument of cohesion in either Kierkegaard's body of writings or in the movement of Critical Theory is itself a book-length project. While I do not reject a possible holism in Kierkegaard's corpus, I am also not trying to embed my own through the chapters included here. I have tried to be true to each of the Critical Theorists as well as to the figures who influenced them, and the ways in which they grappled with Kierkegaard in their own times. Nonetheless, I find it crucial to debunk Adomo's Kierkegaard as an outlier beyond any possible congruence with Kierkegaard's oeuvre.
The present book is written as a history of ideas that begins in J929 and ends in the first decade of the twenty-first century. My research has delved into the relationship between Kierkegaard and Critical Theory through multiple venues. I have gathered detailed analyses of the most conspicuous and also the less overt discussions that have affected this relationship. In the present work I have brought much of this investigation into a broad overview of the history of the intersection between Kierkegaard and Critical Theory, while providing philosophic portraits of the most impactful moments in that history through an involved focus on the scholarship. This has been done to present my thesis that Kierkegaard plays a very important role in the history of Critical Theory, as well as to open dialogue with others who have argued either similarly or in opposition to this thesis.
I came to write this book out of a deep reverence for and fascination with the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno. I made his Habilitationsschrift (the second dissertation required for promotion to university professor in Germany) on Kierkegaard the topic of my own dissertation. Through my wrangling with Adorno's early work, to my own surprise, I soon found myself defending Kierkegaard against the onslaught of Critical Theory that opposed him, most emphatically initiated by Adorno in the 1930s and nurtured by several thinkers in that tradition until the 1960s. For the ways in which Adamo's Negative Dialectics and Aesthetic The01y (published posthumously in 1969) radically altered philosophic understanding in the late twentieth century, I be1ieve the tradition will remain ind~bted for years to come, most especia11y in the domains of aesthetics and ethics after Auschwitz. But what disturbed me about Adorno's reading of Kierkegaard-so foundational to Adamo's own philosophic development, as I argue elsewhere-is the way in which he
Why Kierkegaard and Critical Theory Now? ix
extracts the social-political critique at the heart of Kierkegaard's notion of religious existence and postures the latter as a flighty individual who escapes social reality. Not only does Adorno's position engage in egregious errors as a philosophical interpretation of Kierkegaard, but it is also historically inaccurate on many levels. First, Adorno's claims disregard Kierkegaard's own life praxis as the Socratic gadfly of nineteenth-century Copenhagen. Second, Adorno's colleague of the Frankfurt School, Herbert Marcuse, had already documented Kierkegaard as a critical-theoretical provocateur in Marcuse's early essay of 1929, "On Concrete Philosophy," the year in which Adorno began his book on Kierkegaard. Third, to the day of his death, Adorno never retracted his early rejection of Kierkegaard, although other figures in Critical Theory (Marcuse's students of "The Great Refusal" in the 1960s), or scholars related to the movement (Ernst Bloch in 1959, in his trilogy, The Principle of Hope, for example), were putting forth compelling interpretations of Kierkegaard for a critical-theoretical framework. It was not until JUrgen Habermas, the leader of the second generation of Critical Theory in the 1970s and 1980s, that Kierkegaard was to be more firmly released from the anti-social pigeonhole in which Adorno placed him. But few people paid notice to the Kierkegaardian dimensions in Habermas's writings until recently, and therefore Adomo's Kierkegaard reading resonated ever still in circles of Critical Theory in the 1990s and 2000s in Europe, the United States, and globally, despite Habermas's transformation of the situation. For all of these reasons, I have written this book. Because I still hear scholars refer to Adorno's destruction of Kierkegaardian subjectivity as having put Kierkegaard away "once and for all" for the purposes of Critical Theory, I have engaged in so lengthy a dialogue about Adorno's Kierkegaard text in the present work. I subsequently turn to Habermas, and finally to Habermas's student, Martin Matustik, who was equally inspired by his American professors, Merold Westphal and James Marsh-the latter three scholars thus creating what can be referred to as "The Fordham School" from Fordham University in New York-to show the significant ways in which Kierkegaard's notion of subjectivity has been redeemed for an active role in a multiculture, postnational, and postsecular society today.
Acknowledgments
With the generous support of the following grants and research-travel stipends I have been able to complete this book: The Edna Hong Research Scholarship, Summer 20 I 0, and Visiting Scholar Stipend, January 2010, from the Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN; the Faculty Development and Scholarship Committee Summer Research Grant, Summer 2011, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA; and an Invited Lecturer Travel-Conference Stipend, May 2011, Center for Philosophy, Faculty of Letters of the University of Lisbon, Portugal.
I am grateful to Richard J. Bernstein and Agnes Heller of The New School for Social Research, Carol Bernstein of Bryn Mawr College, and Gordon Marino and Cynthia Lund of the Hong Kierkegaard Library of St. Olaf College for providing practical support and valuable feedback during the process of writing this book.
A few sections of this monograph have been drawn from my dissertation. They have been edited and at times significantly modified in their present form. They include section II of chapter 2, chapter 3, and chapter 4. I am grateful to the S0ren Kierkegaard Newletter of St. Olaf College for pennission to reprint '"Adorno's Reception of Keirkegaard: 1929-1933," originally published in 2003 in Northfield, MN; and to the Center for Philosophy at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, for permission to reprint a portion of "Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, and Critical Theory," originally published in Portugal in 2012. The previously published material has been edited and slightly modified.
The remaining content of this work includes ideas and historical analyses presented in previously unpublished guest lectures and conference papers, including '"Kierkegaard: Poetic Constructions of the Self," Invited lecture,
Acknowledgments
Department of Philosophy, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, Fall 2009; "The Meaning of Working through the Past: or Politics in the Effort to Forget," Faculty Humanities Seminar, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, Spring 2010; "Kierkegaard and Critical Theory Today," Sixth International Kierkegaard Conference, Hong Kierkegaard Library, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN, Summer 20 IO; "Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, and Critical Theory," Invited paper for Project on the Translation of Kierkegaard's Works 1938-44, "Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments," Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal, Spring 20 I I; and "Kierkegaard, Marcuse, and Matustfk: Radical Existential Praxis," 4th Biennial Conference of the International Marcuse Society, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Fall 20 I I.
Many thanks to the students who participated in my courses on Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy, and Kierkegaard and Existentialism at Muhlenberg College and posed thoughtprovoking analyses through their own creative interpretations, as well as to the faculty colleagues and students at the conferences listed above for their insightful questions and comments. I am especially grateful to Gordon Marino, Cynthia Lund, Roy Brand, Michael Davis, Elisabete Sousa, Jose Justo, Jeremy Teissere, and Andy Lamas for including my papers in these academic gatherings and enabling helpful suggestions and challenging queries to my research. I would like to express special thanks for the questions and comments from J. Michael Tilley, Leo Stan, Robert L. Perkins, Elisabete Sousa, Jose Justo, Jamie Ferrara, Lewis Gordon, Roy Brand, Michael Davis, and all of the Muhlenberg College faculty attending the Humanities Seminar during the Spring 20 IO semester.
I would like to thank my family, Michelle and John H. Morgan III, Jennifer, Tom, Thomas, Caroline, and Michael Levkulic, and my twin sons, Benjamin and David, for their never-ending love and support. Thank you to Ian for his creative and moral support, then and now.
Chapter One Introduction to Kierkegaard and Critical Theory
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KIERKEGAARD AND CRITICAL THEORY
Critical Theory is an interdisciplinary framework of analysis that was founded by a group of intellectuals working at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. 1 While the Institute itself was established in 1923, the program of ''critical theory" was not formalized until 1937 when Max Horkheimer, the Director of the Institute at that time, dubbed it as such in his essay, "Traditional and Critical Theory." 2 The Institute is frequently referred to simply as "The Frankfurt School." The significance of Critical Theory cannot be underestimated. As Eduardo Mendieta recently pointed out, "Just as it is almost impossible to think of the intellectual physiognomy of Western culture without the French philosophes of the Enlightenment, it is almost impossible to think of W estem culture today without the tradition of inter-disciplinary, critical, and philosophically informed social research developed by the eponymous called Frankfurt School." 3 To this day there have been three generations of Frankfurt School academics, but "critical theory" refers to something broader than just the work of the Institute for Social Research. Critical Theory now indicates a theoretical approach that is studied all over the world. However, the main interests and goals of the founding Institute still remain integral. Foremost among these interests is the primary focus on the individual human being as the locus for social change. Over the years many debates have ensued as to how the individual can achieve social change. While these debates took Critical Theory in diverse directions, S0ren Kierkegaard, a nineteenth-century Danish religious thinker who emphasizes the individual's self-imposed obligation to
society at large, played a major role. Nevertheless, Kierkegaard's impact ~n the development of Critical Theory has received scant study. I aim to fill tlus scholarly lacuna. My intention is to expose the complexity not only of Kierkegaard but of the Frankfurt School and their cohort. Kierkegaard's relationship to critical theory suffered from the misappropriation of his works by philosophers and theologians associated with National Socialism. This caused the Critical Theorists to view the content of Kierkegaard's philosophy itself as fascistic. Ultimately, I will highlight the way in which Kierkegaard has been redeemed for a multicultural activist ethics, working vigorously in spirit with the fundamental aims of the Frankfurt School.
Max Horkheimer was the director of the Institute for Social Research at the time the program of Critical Theory was formed, and he is credited for its naming. But before he did so in his essay, "Traditional and Critical Theory," other members of the Frankfurt School were already drawing connections to Kierkegaard and their incipient critical theoretical views. 4 The first intellectual from the Frankfurt School to appropriate Kierkegaard was Herbert Marcuse. In his essay of I 929, "On Concrete Philosophy," the young Marcuse "adopts Kierkegaard's activist critique of Christendom as an example of critical theory rooted in concrete existential praxis," 5 as Martin Matustik has explained. But despite Marcuse's effort to make Kierkegaard a constructive part of the Critical Theory program, the relationship turned sour only shortly thereafter and remained in a state of disarray for decades to come.
This is in large part because of Theodor W. Adorno's provocative and not so reader-friendly Habilitationsschrift titled Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic and published in I 933, which served as the real breakthrough for the religious thinker into the domain of critical theory. 6 This breakthrough was both a blessing and a curse. Adorno vehemently rejected Kierkegaard in an attempt to reach opposition intellectuals in Germany at a time when it might have made a difference. Adorno was trying to ·'save" Kierkegaard from the Nazi sympathizers who had claimed him for their own theological and philosophical programs (namely, dialectical theology and existential phenomenology). 7 In doing so Adorno mislabeled Kierkegaard as a proto-fascistic thinker in the minds of the Critical Theorists for decades to come. This was substantiated by Horkheimer in the 1930s, by Marcuse in the 1940s, ~nd by Gyorgy_Lukacs in,the 1_950s.In "~uthority and the Family," Horkhe1mer blamed Kierkegaard s not10n of obedience for patriarchal hegemony not dissimilar to the Aryan ideology of the mother role. s In Reason and Revolution Marcuse criticized Kierkegaard for a radical individualism in which the subject is separated from societal concerns and any ge · I • 1 h 1 9 nume y active role in the socia w o e. Lukacs likewise reproached Kierkega d b t
• • "d f I ar ' u this time for g1vmg pn e o P ace to the irrational and the absurd 1 ,..,.., if L k , . .[:'. . n 1 ,1e Destruction o Reason u acs m1orms us that the move into the t t· th
• • • h f H" 1 wen 1e century, chmaxmg mt e person o 1t er, can been seen as a straight line
coming directly from the theoretical dissolution of Hegelian dialectic. 10 The culmination of this dissolution he attributes, in the end, to Kierkegaard. Hence Kierkegaard becomes aligned with the onslaught of totalitarianism, yet again. For this was Adorno's thesis in the early 1930s, following a different path than Lukacs's but arriving at the same goal. This can almost be seen as a repetition compulsion-indeed a false repetition in the Kierkegaardian sense 11-in response to the trauma experienced from the various forms of totalitarianism in the first half of the twentieth century.
When Marcuse re-engaged with Kierkegaard in the 1960s for the revolutionary plan of the Great Refusal, a breath of fresh air was brought in against the pessimism of Kierkegaard reception by the Critical Theorists. Here Marcuse "shows some moderate success in socially integrating Kierkegaard's existential approach into the activist notion of the Great Refusal" 12 as Matustik has noted. 13
But the saga of Janus-faced interpretations of Kierkegaard internal to critical theory changed when Habermas took the reins for the second generation of the Frankfurt School. Habermas attributed Kierkegaard an important role, for example, in his Postmetaphysical Thinking in 1988, citing Kierkegaard's initial rupture to the metaphysical philosophy of consciousness, but also citing Kierkegaard's intransparency as yet another instantiation of falling in the trap of a philosophy of reflection and consciousness. 14 But Habermas will later become one of the main proponents of Kierkegaard internal to the domain of critical theory in the late twentieth century and until the present day, for example in The Future of Human Nature. 15 I find this one of the most interesting and paradoxical aspects of Kierkegaard's relationship to the critical theorists. Here Habermas invokes Kierkegaard's opaque notion of radical subjectivity while Habermas himself has spent a lifetime propagating communicative action internal to a transparent discourse ethics. Noteworthy is that it has been Habermas 's student, Martin Matustik, who has most innovatively furthered the connection between discourse ethics, critical theory, and Kierkegaardian activist subjectivity. 16 Matustik's work has most impacted the relationship between Kierkegaard and critical theory today and it provides the content for the conclusion of this book.
A MORE DETAILED DEFINITION OF CRITICAL THEORY
Comprehensive analyses and reviews of both the history of the Frankfurt School and of Critical Theory abound. For purposes of the present book I will not engage in any general examination of the origins of the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main (the official home of The Frankfurt School in Germany) or its critical-theoretical point of view. I refer the reader to the multitude of texts on this history. 17 My focus is rather the specific
intersection between critical theory and the writings of nineteenth-century Danish religious thinker, S0ren Kierkegaard. In order to do this, howev~r, I need to be cJear about what definition of critical theory I am employing. Although there are constel1ations of ideas and figures that characterize the spirit of the initial aims of the Frankfurt School and the interdisciplinary framework of analysis it founded, it has been attested already in numerous well-known publications that no singular definition of the original Critical Theory can be constructed. For this reason, I focus on text-immanent analyses of each individual Frankfurt School member whom I have chosen as a key figure in the trajectory of my study. This includes the first-generation members, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse, as wel1 as the writings of Walter Benjamin. Benjamin died in 1940 while fleeing the Nazis and, despite the financial support of the Institute, never became an official member. 18 His work significantly impacted Adorne's methodology, which proves to be a crucial component of the critical theorists' reception of Kierkegaard. My analysis furthermore includes the most predominant second generation theorist, J Urgen Habermas, and then moves to an exploration of critical theory beyond the parameters of the official Frankfurt School by focusing on the shift from Europe to the United States exemplified by the work of Martin Matustfk, as inspired by Habermas, but also by the American scholars, James Marsh and Mero Id Westphal.
For my understanding of Critical Theory I draw foremost on the seminal work by Martin Jay from 1973 in which he describes one of its main characteristics as "an aversion to cJosed philosophical systems." 19 He writes:
To present it as such would therefore distort its essentially open-ended, probing, unfinished quality .... Instead, Critical Theory, as its name implies, was expressed through a series of critiques of other thinkers and philosophical traditions. Its development was through dialogue, its genesis as dialectical as method it purported to apply to social phenomena. Only by confronting it m its own terms, as a gadfly of other systems, can it be fully understood. 20
This description is corroborated in a pointed contextualization that appears in Die lntellektuelle Griindung der Bundesrepublik [The Intellectual Foundation of the German Democratic Republic]. In this collaborative effort published in 1999 by several scholars in Germany, the following definition of Critical Theory is given by Clemens Albrecht:
That the teachings of several academics become furnished with one name is not natural but rather uncommon. If it happens as in the case f th F kt' I h • k 'd o e ran urt Scho_o,t 1s m~r s an I eat and social unity that requires clarification. If one considers the history of the label "Critical Theory" in this rega d ·t · b • • • I • r , 1 1s o v1ous that its tmp ementat1on can be ascribed to two complete) d"ft' • 1 y I erent socia postttons: first, the theoretical and economic central pos 1 · 11 • 0 fH kh • • no or e1mer m
the 1930s at the Institute for Social Research, and second, the attempt of students in the 1960s to fixate the Frankfurter teachings to a canonical form. 2 l
As it is clear from these analyses, any unity that can be attributed to Critical Theory is of the most external kind, lying in the formative influence of Horkheimer's position from the 1930s, which I will elucidate shortly, and the historicizing factors of the student movement in the 1960s, which sought a program to support its social and political goals. Indeed, the latter found this in the interdisciplinary method of a critical dialectical stance at the hem1 of Critical Theory, which will also be made clear in my explication to follow.
Richard J. Bernstein has recently captured well the spirit of critique behind the project of Critical Theory-inspired by Marcuse 's political project, which was involved in the student movement in the 1960s and was labeled by Marcuse, "The Great Refusal"-as follows:
Critique demands that we emphasize the gap between the ugly political realities we confront and the ideals that we seek to realize or approximate. This is the tension that is required to keep open the space for effective political action. And this requires a faith in a defensible ideal of justice, equality, and freedom that stands opposed to what presently exists and that can provide a motivating force for political action. It is what Marcuse once called the "Great Refusal." 22
Before I engage in discussion about Horkheimer's groundbreaking essay on "Traditional and Critical Theory" of the 1930s, I would like to include a few more dimensions of the label of "Critical Theory" as presented in some more of the most informative works on the topic. But the consensus on what Critical Theory means becomes more dissolute when one attempts to ascertain the figures around whom the original project of Critical Theory revolves. For Albrecht Clemens it is Freud, Marx, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Kant. According to Rolf Wiggershaus in The Frankfurt School: Its History, Theories, and Political Significance, it is Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Klages; 23 while Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt claim in The Essential Frankfurt School Reader that Critical Theory is focused mainly as a reaction to the critical projects of Kant and Marx. 24 Contrarily, in Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, Stephen Bronner and Douglas Kellner claim that Critical Theory must be understood in a clear separation from "approaches like existentialism, phenomenology, poststructuralism and postmodernism as well as the various versions of humanist idealism." 25 While I agree with Bronner and Kellner's framing of Critical Theory as "maintain[ing] a nondogmatic perspective which is sustained by an interest in emancipation from all forms of oppression, as well as by a commitment to freedom, happiness" and their representation of Critical Theory as "an antidote to the frequently noncritical quantitative approaches within contemporary social science," I diverge from
their viewpoint which excludes existentialism and phenomenology from the domain of Critical Theory.
From this perspective in my work, Critical Theory is an agglomeration of the definitions provided by Jay, Wiggershaus, Arato and Gebhardt, and Bronner and Kellner, who, although they are not saying the same thing, convene around a few common themes. For Arato and Gebhardt, Critical Theory is "the umbrella for a whole spectrum of positions assoc~ated with the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research" and as a concept "denves from the traditions of Kantian critical philosophy and Marxian critique of ideology." 26
As they point out, "Critique, in the Kantian sense, is an analysis of the conditions of the possibility and the limits of rational faculties undertaken by reason itself: assuming a self-reflective or 'transcendental' posture, reason analyzes and criticizes itself in the process of its world-constituting 'legislating activity. "' 27 In regard to ideology critique, lying at the heart of Critical Theory's inception, "This critique refers not just to the simple discovery of systematically concealed interests behind theories, but also and even primarily to the explosive confrontation of true and false dimensions of existing theories of reality."
28 What becomes evident is the emphasis not only on critique but on dialectics. The original Critical Theorists set out not just to critique false manifestations of human subjectivity in overtly capitalistic social and economic systems, but also to take to task the pervasive and pernicious manipulation of modern subjectivity and the social norms through which it acts at the heart of Soviet Communism. Critical Theory is both a critique of capitalism and communism. Herein stands the pragmatic core of the dialectical nature of the program. At its most abstract level, it could be found in G.W.F. Hegel's critique of Kant. The double character inherent in the dialectical process of ideology critique finds its philosophical roots in "Hegel's objection that Kant assumed the given 'facticity' and 'positivity' of existing sciences." 29 Hence, it is fair to list not only Kant and Marx as motivational figures for the establishment of Critical Theory, but also Hegel, and, in rega_rdto the cr!tical stance toward rationality and normative structures of society, also Nietzsche and Freud. To my mind, these are the foremost influences on the philosophic-psychoanalytic and social-theoretic viewpoints of C~itical The?ry with the others mentioned serving ancillary roles. If Kant 1s the earhest of the foremost influences the extent t 11·h the • lf fl
0 W IC Kantian se -re ec_tivepos1tlon in which "reason analyzes and criticizes itself in the process of_1ts ~orld-constituting 'legislating activity'"30 needs to be underscored. For tt brmgs out yet another most notew rtl .ic: f l t ti . . . , o 1y 1acet o w 1a 1e Frankfurt School theonsts conceive m the dialecti·cal t f C · · 1 Th • • na ure o nt1ca eo- ry: the relat1onsh1pbetween theory and practice Her I t M · J . • • • e re urn to art1n ay with his lucid summary of one of the most important t· d b h h l • . q ues 10ns pose y t e first Frankfurt Sc oo thmkers m regard to the issue of praxis:
Introduction to Kierkegaard and Critical Theory
Loosely defined, praxis was used to designate a kind of self-creating action, which differs from the externally motivated behavior produced by forces outside man's control. Although originally seen as the opposite of contemplative theoria when it was first used in Aristotle's Metaphysics, praxis in the Marxist usage was seen in dialectical relation to theory. In fact, one of the earmarks of praxis as opposed to mere action was its being informed by theoretical considerations.31
The question of the relationship between traditional theory and praxis is played out in a groundbreaking manner in Horkheimer's "Traditional and Critical Theory," published in 1937, that essay which provoked the dubbing of"Critical Theory" for the disparately united works of the Frankfurt School members in the 1930s. As Wiggershaus points out, "The label 'Critical Theory' was maintained to some extent throughout [the history of the Frankfurt School], although the various people using it understood it in different ways, and Horkheimer himself moved away from his original view of it." 32 Nonetheless, Horkheimer's essay provided enough substance on many different levels to enable, on one hand, the founding of a so-called School, and on the other hand, the beginning of a new kind of critical program in the spirit of Kant. I would like here to engage with the essay briefly to make clear some final points about the origins of the meaning of Critical Theory.
HORKHEIMER'S EARLY FRAMEWORK FOR CRITICAL THEORY
In "Traditional and Critical Theory," Horkheimer initiates a clear bifurcation between theory traditionally construed and experience or "actual fact." 33 At the beginning of his analysis he writes:
Theory for most researchers is the sum-total of propositions about a subject, the propositions being so linked with each other that a few are basic and the rest derive from these .... The real validity of the theory depends on the derived propositions being consonant with the actual facts. If experience and theory contradict each other, one of the two must be reexamined .... Theory is stored-up knowledge, put in a form that makes it useful for the closest possible description of facts .... The general goal of all theory is a universal systematic science, not limited to any particular subject matter but embracing all possible objects .... But we are still rather far from such an ideal situation. 34
Horkheimer continues by elucidating the "supposed" origins of such traditionally defined theory as rooted in Descartes' scientific method, and, citing Husserl's Logical Investigations, comments likewise on certain Husserlian parameters in which "theory is defined 'as an enclosed system of propositions for a science as a whole.' Theory in the fullest sense is a 'systematically linked set of propositions, taking the form of a systematically unified deduc-
tion. "'35 With specific application to Kierkegaard, we are reminded that the overwhelming scholarship places his work exactly on the other side of traditional theory and system building, in what I would classify as a kind of prototype of Critical Theory. Horkheimer traces the trajectory of traditional theory parallel to the development of industrial production techniques in late modernity, noting that the social sciences took notice of the successes of the natural sciences and attempted to follow the latter's methodology. He writes, "In recent periods of contemporary society the so-called human studies (Geisteswissenschaften) have had but a fluctuating market value and must try to imitate the more prosperous natural sciences whose practical value is beyond question." 36 Horkheimer concludes from this a general tendency of theory "towards a purely mathematical system of symbols." 37 Through an analysis of various sociological models Horkheimer asserts that although some might begin on the more empirically oriented factually based side, and others on the abstract level of ideas, all converge to ascertain the traditional model of theory laid out at the beginning of Horkheimer's essay. He corroborates this by considering historicalJy evaluative examples from which it follows that:
The rules of experience here are nothing but the formulations of our knowledge concerning economic, social, and psychological interconnections. With the help of these we reconstruct the probable course of events, going beyond the event itself to what will serve as explanation. We are thus working with conditional propositions as applied to a given situation. Ir circumstances a, b, c, and dare given, then event q must be expected; if dis Jacking, event r; ifg is added, events, and so on. This kind of calculation is a logical tool of history as it is of science. It is in this fashion that theory in the traditional sense is actually elaborated. 3 8
To this approach Horkheimer counters his own definition of theory, which is bas~d ''in th_ec~_ntextof real s?cial processes." 39 Newly realized connections, which reqmre the restructurmg of current ideas " he claims are ''not due ~xclusively to logic~l considerations or, more pa~icularly, to 'the contradict10n between the discovery and particular elements in current views." 40 Horkheimer emphasizes the materialism in his conception of theory which can be clarified with his statement: "That new views in fact win out i; due to concrete historical circumstances "41 Tl11·s has fiurth I e . . . . • er consequences, a so rlate~ to h1stoncal cond1t10ns and social context: '"As the influence of the sub~ect matter ?n the theory, so also the application of the theory to the subJe~t matter 1 ~ not only an intrascientific process but a social one as well.' 42 He provides the exam I f 'ft .
• Pe o spec1 1c chemical analyses only really bemg tested out when used by • d t • l I b · · · • • m us na a or m the factories He likewise gives a negative connotation to the theory carried out by "the scholar" whose
Introduction to Kierkegaard and Critical Theory 9 activity is executed "alongside all the other activities of a society but in no immediatelyclear connection with them." 43
As mentioned, Horkheimer will later come to reject the dichotomous formulationof traditional theory contraposed to critical theory in this essay, among Horkheimer's earliest works. He has presented an exaggerated image of"scholarly," "scientific," and "logical" theory which in hyperbolic description sets up a straw man (or men) in the debate between theory and practice. Nonetheless, this overly drawn distinction gives us a clear image of what Critical Theory initially set out to emphasize: social action as a necessary corequisite to theoretical work. One cannot take place without the other, according to Horkheimer, and indeed he and his colleagues of the first-generation and second-generation Frankfurt School will debate the extent to which one takes precedence over the other: Is more theory required in order to achieve social praxis, or, on the contrary, should theory be kept to a minimum? Depending on the figure under consideration in both first-and secondgeneration Frankfurt School thought, the answer to this question will be different.
I am not sympathetic to Horkheimer's over-exaggeration. He sounds much more compelling when he writes against the "one-sidedness" of '"limited intellectual processes (that] are detached from their matrix in the total activity of society." 4 4 The figures cited by Horkheimer as representative of "traditional theory," such as Husserl, for example, themselves argue for rootedness in the so-called life world. 45 But Horkheimer is right that his conception of an alternative, critical theory takes a much stronger stance in regard to the "matrix in the total activity of society."
Horkheimer's solution ultimately resides in a critical account of knowledge at the level of the individual human being. This, albeit, necessitates an account of the activity of the society as a whole. 46 There is an integral and inextricable connection between the individual and society, both in the realms of knowledge and, as a direct outflow, of freedom. The individual in traditional theory conceives of the self as a passive recipient of the forms of knowledge yielded by society. But Horkheimer argues that a much more powerful symbiosis of the individual with society exists historically, such that "the facts" that are presented to us are already "socially preformed": "through the historical character of the object perceived and through the historical character of the perceiving organ." 47 Not only are the facts socially preformed; so also are the "human ideas and concepts." In turn, there is no "purity of object event" as the latter is "obviously connected with technological conditions, and the connection of these in turn with the material process of production is evident." 48 This double position of predetermined facts and ideas eliminates any posturing of simple reception on the part of the individual human being and paints the relationship between individual and society in an entirely new light.
A double positionality is therefore one of most crucial components of the Critical Theory that Horkheimer envisioned. This relates back to the Kantian critical project along with its respective question of a possible rational selftransparency of the subject. Horkheimer doubts the potential of such a transparency because he does not believe that society is constructed on a purely rational structure. If both the individual and society implicate each other in ways that are socially preformed, these elements are not able to be made completely conspicuous through purely rational processes at any given time, since that would depend on a "purity of object event," which, according to Horkheimer, is impossible. This is backed up by Horkheimer and by other members of the Frankfurt School through both their independent and collaborative work in the social sciences, that is, through quantitive and qualitative measure and analysis. 49 The double positionality of the individual and society, instead of accepting the conditions under which an individual is expected to Jive, views it criticaJiy and suspiciously. Horkheimer writes, "'The separation between individual and society in virtue of which the individual accepts as natural the limits prescribed for his activity is relativized in critical theory." 50 There is a rational component internal to human action, for Horkheimer. Although it cannot be made completely conspicuous from a bird's-eye view it must be honed through the process of a critical theory of society. This brings out the "two-sided character of the social totality," which is an undergirding tenet of all Critical Theory. For this reason, I quote Horkheimer here at length:
The two-sided character of the social totality in its present form becomes, for men who adopt the critical attitude, a conscious opposition. In recognizing the present form of economy and the whole culture which it generates to be the product of human work as well as the organization which mankind was capable of and has provided for itself in the present era, these men identify themselves with this totality and conceive it as will and reason. It is their own world. At the same time, however, they experience the fact that society is comparable to nonhuman natural processes, to pure mechanisms, because cultural forms which are supposed by war and oppression are not the creations of a unified, self-conscious will. That world is not their own but the world of capital. 51
Horkhei~er contin~es by asserting the importance, therefore, of both theory and practice. He reiterates at a key point in the essay the d bl h t f • • I h" k" ou e c arac er o cntica t m 1?g, on beha!f of both the individual subject and society as a wb~ole, but with the startmg place the rationality of the individual human emg:
[The] subject [of critical thinking] is a defi ·t · d" ·d 1 · •
• 1111 e m 1v1 ua m his real relation to other md1v1dualsand groups in his co fl · h
• , n uct wit a particular class and, finally, m the resultant web of relationship ·th h
' s Wt t e social totaltty and
with nature. The subject is no mathematical point like the ego of bourgeois philosophy; his activity is the construction of the social present. 52
The methodology is to begin with the basic concept of the exchange of commodities and to cast this idea with "relatively universal concepts." 53 This stands as a helpful counter-instrument to those stereotypical readings of Critical Theory that regard it as non-theoretical, irrational, or overly factual. Critical Theory therefore requires a grasping of the unity of thought and action.54 Horkheimer provides a social-psychological explanation for the aversion to theory, which is very apt today, by claiming that it "is really directed against the transformative activity associated with critical thinking."55
NOTES
1. For an explanation of the distinction between "Critical Theory" in the capitalized sense and "critical theory" in the more ordinary and lower-case sense, see the article by James Bohman, "Critical Theory," The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2010/entries/critical-theory/. In sum, the capitalized version indicates only those writings and philosophical works associated with the first-and second-generation thinkers of the Frankfurt School, originally based at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main in Gem1any. Critical theory in the lowercase sense indicates interdisciplinary work inspired by the original Critical Theory but carried out by academics and activist all over the globe to this day. I employ both the capitalized and lower-case versions in respect of this difference in the present book.
2. In Horkheimer, Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Continuum, 2002). In German: Kritische 1heorie, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1968).
3. The Frankji,rt School on Religion, ed. Eduardo Mendieta (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), p. 2.
4. In Horkheimer, ibid.
5. Martin Matustik, "Kierkegaard's Radical Existential Praxis, or: Why the Individual Defies Liberal, Communitarian, and Postmodern Categories," in Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, eds. Martin Matustik and Merold Westphal (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 244. See Marcuse, "On Concrete Philosophy," in Marcuse, Heideggerian Marxism, eds. Richard Wolin and John Abromeit (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), pp. 34--52 and in Marcuse, Schriften, Bd. l (Springe: Klampen Verlag, 2004).
6. Adorno, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989). In German: Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, volume 2, ed. Rolf Tiedemann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997). Hereafter Kand GS2.
7. See Morgan, "Adomo's Reception of Kierkegaard," in Soren Kierkegaard Newsletter, ed. Gordon Marino (Northfield, MN: St. Olaf College, 2003).
8. See Horkheimer, "On Authority and the Family," in Horkheimer, Critical Theory, ibid.
9. Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (New York: Humanities Books, 1999).
10. See Lukacs, Die Zerstoerung der Vernunft (Darmstadt und Neuwied: Luchterhand Verlag, 1973), Band I (originally published in Hungary in 1954). In English: The Destruction of Reason, trans. Peter Palmer (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980).
11. See Kierkegaard, Repetition, trans. Walter Lowrie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1941).
12. Matustik in Matustik and Westphal (eds.), p. 244. 1111111
13. For an excellent account of the Great Refusal, see Douglas Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 276-319.
14. See Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking (New York, Polity Press, 1998). In Gennan: Nachmetaphysiches Denken (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1988).
15. Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (New York: Polity Press, 2003). In Gennan: Der Zukun.ftder menschlichen Natur (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 200 I).
16. It is important to note here the very compelling essay by Robert L. Perkins, "The Politics of Existence: Buber and Kierkegaard," in Matustik and Westphal (eds.), pp. 167-81. Perkins emphasizes well Kierkegaard's actual life praxis, especially the last year and a halfof his life, as a politically active form. Professor Perkins' essay, along with Westphal, Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society (University Park: Penn State University Press, 1987), do much to bring out this dimension of Kierkegaard.
17. See, for example, Martin Jay, The Dialectical lmaginalion (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown, and Co., 1973); Andrew Arato and Eike Gebhardt (eds.), The Essential Frankfurt School Reader (New York: Continuum, 1997); Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its His1ory, Theories, and Polilical Significance, trans. Michael Robertson (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1998); Susan Buck-Morss, The Origins of Negative Dialectics (New York: The Free Press, 1977); and Sey la Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia: A Study of the Foundationsof Critical Theory (New York: Columbia University Press, I 986).
18. See Peter Osborne and Matthew Charles, "Walter Benjamin,"The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/benjamin/#BioSke , 2011.
19. Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, p. 41.
20. Ibid.
21. Clemens Albrecht, Gtinter C. Behrmann, et al. (eds.), Die /ntellektuelle Griindung der Bundesrepublik: Eine Wirkungsgeschichte der Frankfurter Schute (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag, 1999), p. 25. This is my translation of the German.
22. Richard J. Bernstein, "Is Politics 'Practicable' without Religion?"(manuscript, p. 22).
23. Wiggershaus, The Frankfi,rt School, p. 2.
24. Arato and Gebhardt, The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, pp. ix-xi.
25. Stephen Bronner and Douglas Kellner (eds.), Critical Theory and Society: A Reader (New York and London: Routledge, I 989, p. 2.
26. Arato and Gebhardt, The Essential Frank'i,rt School Reader p ix
27. Ibid. ':I' ' ••
28. Ibid., p. X.
29. Ibid., pp. x-xi.
30. Ibid. p. ix.
31. Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, p. 4.
32. Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, p. 2.
33. Max Hork,heimer, "Traditional and Critical Theory,"in Horkheimer, Critical Theory, trans. Matthew O Connell et al. (New York: Herder and Herder 1972) p J88
34. Horkheimer, Critical Theory, pp. 188-89. ' ' • •
35. Horkheimer, p. 189-90.
36. Horkheimer, Critical Theory, p. 191.
37. Ibid., p. 190.
38. Horkheimer, Critical The01y, pp. 193-94.
39. Ibid., p. 194.
40. Ibid., pp. 194-95.
41. Ibid., p. 195.
42. Ibid., p. 196.
43. Ibid., p. 197.
44. Ibid., p. 199.
45. See, for example, Edmund Husserl Crises oifthe E c, •
46. Ibid., p. 200. ' uropean 0c1ences.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., pp. 200-201.
49. See, for example, Theodor W. Adorno, Else Frenkel-Brunswik, Daniel Levinson, R. Nevitt Sanford,et al., TheAuthoritarian Personality (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950).
50. Ibid., p. 207.
51. Ibid., pp. 207-208.
52. Ibid., p. 211.
53. Ibid., p. 226.
54. Ibid., p. 231.
55. Ibid., p. 232.
Chapter Two
Kierkegaard and First-Generation CriticalTheory: Marcuse
and Adorno
HERBERTMARCUSE'S EARLIEST ENGAGEMENT WITH KIERKEGAARD
Herbert Marcuse was one of the original members of the Frankfurt School and as such belongs to the first generation of Critical Theory. Although he was overshadowed early on by his colleagues at the Institute for Social Research, namely Max Horkheimer, the director of the Institute at the time, and Theodor W. Adorno, the most genius and provocative of all the lnstitute's members, Marcuse made important contributions even in his early years to what would later become defined as Critical Theory. After Horkheimer and Adorno both had their careers come to an early end (Horkheimer retired in 1958 and Adorno died suddenly in 1969), it was in fact Marcuse who became the signature name and leading personality of the Frankfurt School philosophy in the 1960s and '70s. 1 During these years Marcuse became world famous. 2
Before the intellectuals working together at the Institute for Social Research at the university in Frankfurt am Main dubbed their collective project "critical theory of society" (in 1937 through Horkheimer's essay, elucidated above),3 Marcuse already had a brief and positive encounter with the writings of Kierkegaard. In looking at Marcuse's first published articles, already a relationship to Kierkegaard is clear. In 1929 in his essay, "On Concrete Philosophy," Marcuse lays out the core of his philosophical project in which Kierkegaard interestingly plays a key role. 4 What exactly is meant by "concrete philosophy"? How is "concrete philosophy" different from or related to the philosophy that was being done at the time Marcuse wrote this article? Why is Kierkegaard important to Marcuse's concrete philosophy?
In order to answer these questions, one needs first to Jook at Marcuse's philosophical background and to understand the context ~n which he created his theory of a concrete philosophy. Two groundbreakmg works, both of which were published for the first time in the 1920s in Germany, were to have a remarkable influence on the thought of the young Marcuse. These works are History of Class Consciousness written by Gyorgy Lukacs and published in 1923 and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time published in 1927. Lukacs had formulated a theory of Western Marxism. thus bringing a Marxian critique of advanced capitalism, as well as a Western critique of Soviet Marxism, to the fore of philosophy in the West for the first time. Heidegger created a new movement in existentialist philosophy that focused on the concrete existence of the human individual. What exactly the latter means, and how it should be worked out, became the heart of Marcuse's project in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Marcuse combined the Marxian critique of Lukacs with Heidegger's existentialism to create a radical synthesis. The essay "On Concrete Philosophy" serves as a guide for what this synthesis means for Marcuse.
Marcuse saw his project at this time as embarking on a whole new beginning for philosophy. He writes: "does not a necessary philosophical beginning come about when philosophy is once again seen from the standpoint of concrete human existence and is interrogated with concrete human existence as its end?"
5 Marcuse chooses Kierkegaard, a "proto-existentialist ... who is usually pictured as a paradigm of inwardness solely cultivating his relation to God and his individual sensibility, while advocating an ideal of 'the single one'" as the exemplar of a "concrete philosophy." In Douglas Kellner's extremely helpful and thorough account of Marcuse's life work. Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, Kellner explains further: "'Marcuse, however, points out that at a decisive point in Kierkegaard's life he stepped out of his isolation and struggled against the tendencies of his day, which he believed were the source of its spiritual crisis." 6 This is proof to Marcuse that Kierkegaard represents the kind of philosopher who can make "concrete philosophy" "become public . ... This involves real concern with social problems and taking a stand on contemporary issues. Philosophy thus commits itself to a 'drive toward actuality,' placing itself under a duty to be engaged in social practice." 7 Kellner here cites a lengthy passage from "On Concrete Philosophy," which I include in its entirety for purposes of clarity:
[Kierkegaard] went, in the Socratic sense of this activity, into the street: wrote article after article in a daily newspaper, gave out pamphlets, pressed his entire struggle in the public domain ... directed in all acuteness towards a concrete movement of contempora~ man, aimed at a "true" change of existence, and his attacks and ~em~nds directed _themselves ~t~a?!ly towards concrete ways and tasks of this existence, holding the poss1b1lit1es of achievement of the moment in full view. Only when one conceives how much Kierkegaard, in the
Kierkegaardand First-Generation Critical Theory: Marcuse and Adorno 17
fulfillmentof his concrete philosophizing came upon the urgent nowness of a real decision,upon a true movement and transformation of contemporary existence, only then can one understand the sharpness of his attack, the agitational violence of his public performance, the sought clash with the representative personalitiesof the public, the revolutionary concretion of his demands. 8
To develop a more elaborate understanding of the early Marcuse's relationship to Kierkergaard, consider further the following statement from "On Concrete Philosophy": "The existing of human Dasein is, however, at every instant a form of relating to the world: action and reaction. Truth must thus intervene in this actual sphere of existing [my ernphasis]." 9 If the empty categories of philosophical readings of history [Geschichte] and ontology [Sein]fail, how does one go about making the transition from the philosophical realm to the arena of practical action? What exists in this work that motivated many, above all, the student movement of the 1960s in Germany and in the United States, to look back on the young Marcuse? He answers with the following, and it is important here to quote him at length:
Human existence, the subject of philosophy, always stands in a particular historical situation. The subjects and objects addressed by philosophy are not abstract, "interchangeable" ones; each individual exists in a particular framework of activity ( in which he maintains and shapes his existence), in a particular social situation (through which his everyday environment is defined), in a particular state of the community of the people, which has in its turn evolved on the basis of particular natural and historical conditions .... [T]he objects that "stand over against" Dasein, the things with which it is occupied and with which it fills a life-space, the natural world in which it lives, the structures and forms in which it runs its course-these are not fixed, "unequivocal," independent quantities that manifest themselves in the same way in any given historical situation. Whenever and wherever they appear, they have already been grasped and changed by a concrete existence, have likewise become "history," handed down from one generation to another, shaped according to the necessities of the respective existence. 10
Marcuse proceeds by arguing for the removal of the phenomenological brackets of philosophical reduction in order to allow the human individual to stand face to face with the existing historical situation. He continues to describe his philosophy as a domain of action and claims that a concrete philosophy will never "contain abstract norms [or] empty imperatives." 11 He writes, "[The guidelines for action] will necessarily have been drawn from the necessities of concrete existing in its historical situation and will in every case be addressed, not to an abstract universal, but to a concrete, existing subject." 12 But Marcuse also poses a question we could now ask him: -
how does philosophy arrive at such guidelines for action and wha! type of subject will follow them? How can philosophy approach concrete existence at all? Certainly not by confronting existence with truths, taken from who knows where, that are presented as unconditionally binding and stopping short ~t ~he proof or the demonstration of theses truths. If philosophy in the appropriation of truths is committed to a real movement of existence, then it cannot be • l • t· h. t 13 satisfied with the knowledge of trut 1 as an impetus or t 1smovemen .
Hence the existential grasping of truth in the Kierkegaardian vein of truth as subjectivity, which does not mean that truth is purely subjective, a~ so~e have misread Kierkegaard to claim, but rather frustrates any linear d1alect1c of subject-object and harkens back to the subjective-objective double character of categories undertaken in Hegel. In fact, recent scholarship in Kierkegaard reception posits a closer relationship between Kierkegaard and Hegel than heretofore acknowledged. 14 Such would corroborate the Kierkegaardian roots in early Marcuse as in their own way overcoming Heidegger's inactive version of existentialism through more robust dialectical development. Marcuse makes evident that he is not accepting a passive stance toward existing in his formulation of concrete philosophy. He writes:
Concrete philosophy will exist in the public realm, because only by so doing can it truly approach existence. Only when, in full public view, it grabs hold of existence in its daily being, in the sphere in which it actually exists, can it effect a movement of this existence toward its truth. Otherwise, only an absolute authority, which is believed unconditionally to be in possession of revealed truth, can call forth such a movement. l 5
And Kierkegaard is to play a major role:
Kierkegaard saw most clearly [the] existential character of contemporaneity and the profound obligation it entailed for philosophy: For contemporaneity is the tension that prevents one from allowing the matter to remain undecided; rather, it forces one either to be offended or to believe.16
Marcuse continues by describing the philosophical momentum of Kierkegaard's thinking that led to the latter's public collapse. Marcuse questions: "How can the becoming public of philosophy become actual in concreto? To which concrete Dasein can philosophy address itself and where can it grab hold of concrete existence? ls there a guarantee of the possibility of an existential im~act?" Philosophi~ing through the individual, as Kierkegaard does, necessanly takes on a social character because it requires the situation of individual factual_existence t~ b~ 1:1ade contemporaneous in being with others. As su~h, ph1losoph~ of md1~1dual existence opposes the flight to inwardness mistakenly cred1~edto. K1erke_gaard in the early German reception.17 Marcuse elaborates with phtlosoph1cal-historical examples: "Thus, at
Kierkegaardand First-Generation Critical The0ty: Afarcuse and Adorno 19 the endpointof every genuine philosophy, one finds the public act: the accusationand defense of Socrates and his death in prison; Plato's political interventions in Syracuse; and Kierkegaard's struggle with the state church."1 8 Philosophywill not in each and every instance lead to such public acts. But such historical happenings will take place "where contemporaneous existence has actually been shaken to its foundations, that is to say, where a struggleis actually taking place over new possibilities of being." 19 lt is hence a "betrayal" of philosophy itself to evade new possibilities of being.
ADORNO'S RECEPTION OF KIERKEGAARD
In the same year that Marcuse published "On Concrete Philosophy," Theodor W. Adorno was beginning his Habilitationsschr[fi on the works of Kierkegaard, written between the years 1929 and 1933. 20 In his grandiose study, Adorno provided one of the most fascinating and at the same time problematic readings of Kierkegaard in the twentieth century. Adorno's book titled Kierkegaard: Konstruktion des Aesthetischen (Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic) 21 provoked two of the most important issues of Kierkgaard scholarship: the relationship between the aesthetic and religious life possibilities put forth in the heterogeneous writings of Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms, and the question of the extent to which a critical theory of society is made manifest in these writings. But there are many reasons why Adorno's Kierkegaard cannot be construed as a convincing interpretation of Kierkegaard's Collected Works, and needs to be seen rather as a confrontation with something else.
Adorno's Kierkegaard must be viewed within the philosophical and historical contexts of the time and place in which it was conceived. 22 • 23 First published in 1933 in Germany, the book appeared in bookstores on February 27, "the day that Hitler declared a national emergency and suspended the freedom of the press, making his transition from chancellor to dictator." 24 In the "Note" appended to the second and third editions of Kierkegaard, Adorno himself makes reference to the fate of his first publication of the book. He writes:
The final version appeared in 1933 in the publishing house of J.C.B. Mohr in Siebeck, on the very same day that Hitler became Dictator. Walter Benjamin's review appeared in the Vossiche Zeitung one day after the anti-Semitic boycott, on April 2, 1933. The effect [Wirkung] of the book was from the beginning on overshadowed by political evil. While the author had been denaturalized, the book was, however, nor forbidden by the authorities and had sold very well. Perhaps it was protected by the censors' inability to understand it. The critique of existential ontology which the book works out was meant at the time of its publication to reach the oppositional intellectuals in Germany. (GS 2, 261) 25
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Drap d’Or represents a type of the plum hardly known in America but very popular in continental Europe and most popular of all plums in France, the chief plum-growing country of the Old World. It is probable that the division of Prunus insititia represented by Drap d’Or, the Mirabelle plums, will thrive in America as well as the commonly grown Damsons of the same species. These plums certainly deserve to be far more generally planted than they now are. It is certain from the behavior of the few trees of the Mirabelle group now growing in New York that they have very decided merit. Drap d’Or is probably not the best of the yellow, sweet Insititias but it is at least well worth trial.
According to Pomologie De La France, this variety was cited by Merlet in 1675 and is of old and uncertain origin. Merlet placed the Mirabelle and the Drap d’Or in the Damas class, but Poiteau thought
that the latter was probably a cross between Reine Claude and Mirabelle since it resembled the former in quality and shape and the latter in color and size. Yellow Damask, Mirabelle de Nancy, Yellow Perdrigon, Gross Mirabelle and others have proved to be identical with the Drap d’Or as tested in Europe. Whether all of the other synonyms mentioned are the true Drap d’Or is a question; their number indicates that there are many variations in this type of the plum. The American Pomological Society placed Drap d’Or in its catalog list in 1875 and withdrew it in 1899.
Tree small, upright-spreading, dense-topped, hardy, productive; branches ash-gray, with a brownish tinge, smooth, with very few, small lenticels; branchlets of average thickness and length, greenish-red changing to brownish-red, dull, sparingly pubescent throughout the entire season, with few, obscure, small lenticels; leaf-buds of medium size and length, conical, appressed.
Leaves folded upward, oval, one and one-fourth inches wide, two and one-half inches long; upper surface slightly roughened, covered with numerous hairs, the midrib grooved; lower surface silvery-green, pubescent; apex pointed or acute, base abrupt, margin serrate or crenate, eglandular or with small dark glands; petiole one-half inch long, pubescent, tinged red, glandless or with from one to three globose, greenish-yellow glands usually on the stalk
Flowers fifteen-sixteenths inch across, the buds creamy changing to white when expanded; borne in clusters on lateral spurs, usually in pairs; pedicels nine-sixteenths inch long, sparingly pubescent, greenish; calyxtube green, campanulate, nearly glabrous; calyx-lobes obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, somewhat reflexed; petals broadly oval, crenate or sometimes notched at the apex, tapering below to short, broad claws; anthers yellowish; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to the stamens in length
Fruit mid-season; one and one-eighth inches by one inch in size, roundish-oval, compressed, halves equal; cavity shallow, narrow, flaring; suture very shallow, often a line; apex roundish or depressed; color greenish-yellow changing to golden-yellow, somewhat mottled and blotched, occasionally with a faint bronze blush on the exposed cheek, overspread with thin bloom; dots numerous, small, whitish, inconspicuous; stem slender, sparingly pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin, separating readily; flesh light golden-yellow, moderately juicy, coarse, firm but tender, sweet, mild; of good quality; stone free, five-eighths inch by
one-half inch in size, oval, flattened, nearly smooth, blunt at the base and apex; ventral suture wide, blunt, smooth; dorsal suture shallowly grooved.
Apricot 5 incor. Dame Aubert Violet 12. Duane’s Plum 5 incor. Duane’s Purple 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17. Duane’s Purple 15, 19. Duane’s Purple French 1, 2, 3, 4. Duane’s French Purple 12. Duane’s Large Purple 3. Duane’s Large Orleans 3. Duane’s Purple French 8, 9. English Pond’s Seedling 8. Pourprée De Duane 15. Pourprêe Duane 13. Purple Magnum Bonum of some 12, 13. Purple Egg of some 12. Red Magnum Bonum of some 9.
This handsome, purple plum, very well shown in the color-plate, is one of the half-dozen leading fruits of its kind grown in New York, favorably known the country over and in Europe as well. Its popularity is due to its large size, well-turned shape, royal purple color, and firm, golden flesh, characters which fit it admirably for the store and the stand. But appearance is the only asset of the fruit so far as the consumer is concerned—the flesh is dry, tough, sour and clings to the stone, making a plum unfit for dessert though it does very well for culinary purposes. The fruit ripens slowly and colors a week or more before ripe; it is at its best only when fully mature. The trees excel in size, vigor and productiveness and are usually hardy and bear their crops well distributed and not clustered as in most varieties of plums. In minor characters, the trees are distinguished by large leaves, pubescence on the under side and by grayish-drab shoots covered with dense pubescence. Duane is generally found to be a very profitable market plum and if it were only better in quality we could heartily join in recommending it.
Duane originated as a seedling in the garden of James Duane, Duanesburgh, New York, about 1820. For several years, the variety was distributed by the Prince nurseries under the name Duane’s Purple French. This error was caused by Judge Duane’s accidentally sending William Prince, of Flushing, grafts of this seedling instead of a French plum[210] which he had imported in 1820. When this mistake was discovered by Downing and Tomlinson about 1846, the word French was dropped and the plum became known as Duane’s Purple and later, according to the rules of the American Pomological Society, as Duane. In 1856, it was listed by the American Pomological Society as promising well and in 1862 it was placed on the list of the fruit catalog.
Tree large, vigorous, round and dense-topped, hardy and productive; branches ash-gray, smooth except for the numerous small, raised lenticels; branchlets medium to thick, variable in length, with short internodes, greenish-red changing to dark brownish-drab, dull, thickly pubescent, with raised lenticels intermediate in number and size; leafbuds of average size and length, conical or pointed, free
Leaves folded backward, obovate or oval, one and one-half inches wide, three and one-half inches long; upper surface dark green, pubescent, rugose, with a narrow groove on the midrib; lower surface silvery-green, pubescent; apex acute, base cuneate, margin serrate, eglandular or with small amber glands; petiole one-half inch long, pubescent, tinged with red, eglandular or with one or two small, globose, greenish-brown glands on the stalk or base of the leaf
Blooming season rather early, of average length; flowers appearing before the leaves, one inch across, white; developing from lateral buds, singly or in pairs; pedicels nine-sixteenths inch long, thick, pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, pubescent; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate, erect; petals roundish, entire, short-clawed; anthers yellowish; filaments one-quarter inch long; pistil pubescent on the ovary, longer than the stamens
Fruit mid-season, ripening period of average length; one and threequarters inches by one and five-eighths inches in size, broadly oblongoval or obovate, compressed, halves unequal; cavity shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture variable in depth; apex roundish or depressed; color dark reddish-purple changing to purplish-black on the sunny side, overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, light russet; stem three-quarters inch
long, pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin below medium in thickness, tough, sour, separating readily; flesh pale yellow, lacking in juice, firm, sour unless fully ripe; of fair quality; stone adhering, seveneighths inch by five-eighths inch in size, oval, with pitted surfaces, blunt at the base and apex; ventral suture wide, blunt; dorsal suture with a broad, deep groove
Earliest of All was imported by H. H. Berger of San Francisco from Japan under the name Yosebe, which later became changed to Yosobe, and in 1897 L. H. Bailey gave the variety the name Earliest of All to avoid the confusion in the earlier nomenclature. The Wasse Sumomo introduced by J. L. Normand, Marksville, Louisiana, in 1895, is the Earliest of All. The variety may have some value because of its extreme earliness. It is, however, too small, too unattractive in color and too poor in quality ever to be other than a kitchen plum.
Tree intermediate in size and vigor, vasiform, unproductive; branchlets dark red, marked with thick scarf-skin; leaf-scars prominent; leaves reddish late in the season, narrow-obovate, one and one-half inches wide, three inches long; margin finely serrate, with small, reddish-black glands; petiole tinged red, glandless or with from one to seven glands usually on the stalk; blooming season early; flowers appearing before the leaves, white with a little pink; borne in threes and fours.
Fruit very early; one inch in diameter, roundish or roundish-oblong, light or dark pinkish-red, covered with thin bloom; flesh light yellow, rather dry, soft, inferior in flavor; of poor quality; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by three-eighths inch in size, flattened, oval.
Altesse du Roi 16. Damascena Dominicalis Praecox 13, 15. De Monsieur 16. De Monsieur Hâtive 15. Du Roi 15. Early Monsieur 12. Early Monsieur 4, 5. Early Orleans 11, 12, 13, 15. Frühe Herrnpflaume 13. Frühe Herrnpflaume 11. Frühe Herzogspflaume 11, 13, 15. Frühe Hernnpflaume 12. Frühe Herrnpflaume 15. Grimwood Early Orleans 10, 13. Grimwood’s Early Orleans 3, 6, 9, 11, 15. Hampton Court 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15. Königspflaume 11, ?13, ?15. Monsieur 11, 13 & 15 incor. Monsieur Hâtif 1, 7, 11, 12, 15. Monsieur Hâtif 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16. Monsieur Hâtive 4. Monsieur Hâtif de Montmorency 3, 6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15. New Early Orleans 3, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15. New Orleans 3, 6, 9, 10, 13, 15, 16 New Orleans 11 Orleans 3 Prune de Monsieur Hâtif 13 Prune de Monsieur Hâtif 8 Prune de Monsieur Hâtive 12 Prunus damascena dominicalis praecox 11 Prune du Roi 14 Prune du Roi 11, 13 Red Orleans 11, 13, 15 Wilmot’s Early Orleans 4, 7 Wilmot’s Early Orleans 3, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15 Wilmot’s Large Orleans 3, 4, 6 Wilmot’s Late Orleans ? 7 Wilmot’s New Early Orleans 3, 5, 6 Wilmot’s New Early Orleans 7 Wilmot’s Orleans 3, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15
Early Orleans has been planted very little in America and then chiefly because of its reputation in Europe. While it appears to be a very good plum in most respects as it grows on the Station grounds, being attractive in appearance, of good flavor, a freestone and firm enough to ship well, it surpasses in none of these characters and the fruit is so small as to make it a poor competitor among the purple plums of its season. It does not deserve the reputation in America that pomologists have given it in Europe. In France the Early
Orleans, under the name of Prune du Roi, is used in prune-making but it seems not to have been so used in America.
Early Orleans is old and of unknown origin. Duhamel in 1768 considered it a variety of the Orleans, differing only in the time of ripening but there are additional differences as can be seen in the descriptions of the two. It is true, however, that these two plums are very similar. According to Kenrick, Wilmot’s New Early Orleans was raised by John Wilmot, an Englishman. Though it may be of separate origin it is practically identical with the Early Orleans.
Tree small, upright-spreading, hardy, productive; branches ash-gray, smooth, with small, inconspicuous, oval lenticels; branchlets thick, with rather short internodes, covered with thin bloom and marked with scarfskin, dull brownish-drab, pubescent, with a medium number of small, raised lenticels; leaf-buds intermediate in size and length, conical, free, plump; leaf-scars enlarged
Leaves folded upward, two and one-quarter inches wide, four inches long, roundish-oval or obovate, thick; apex abruptly pointed, base acute, margin crenate and with small, dark glands; upper surface light green, sparingly pubescent and with a grooved midrib; lower surface silverygreen, pubescent; petiole three-quarters inch long, thick, pubescent, faintly tinged red, with from one to three large, globose glands mostly on the stalk.
Season of bloom intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing after the leaves, nearly one-half inch across, white, the buds yellow-tipped as they unfold; borne in clusters on short lateral spurs, in pairs; pedicels one-half inch long, thick, pubescent, green; calyx-tube greenish, campanulate, thinly pubescent; calyx-lobes broad, obtuse, glandular, pubescent on both surfaces, reflexed; petals roundish, entire, not clawed; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, equal to the stamens in length.
Fruit early, season short; one and one-quarter inches in diameter, roundish-oval, slightly truncate, halves equal; cavity shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture shallow or a line; apex roundish to flattened or sometimes depressed, often oblique; color dark reddish-purple, covered with thick bloom; dots numerous, small, russet, inconspicuous; stem of average thickness, five-eighths inch long,
pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin, tough, not astringent, separating readily; flesh lemon-yellow, juicy, coarse, firm, sweet, mild but pleasant; very good; stone free, three-quarters inch by fiveeighths inch in size, oval, slightly oblique, blunt-pointed, with rough and slightly honeycombed surfaces.
EARLY RIVERS
Prunus domestica
1. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 314, 1845. 2. Horticulturist 4:40. 1849. 3. Elliott Fr. Book 419. 1854. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 912. 1869. 5. Am. Pom Soc Rpt 99 1871 6. Mas Pom Gen 2:117 1873 7. Jour Hort 30:273 1876 8. Oberdieck Deut Obst Sort 409, 411 1881 9. Hogg Fruit Man 699 1884 10. Mathieu Nom Pom 447 1889 11. Lucas Vollst Hand Obst 470 1894 12. Guide Prat 152, 356 1895 13. Rivers Cat 35 1898
Early Fruchtbare 12. Early Prolific 4. Early Rivers 4, 10, 12. Early Prolific 2, 3, 6, 10, 12, 13. Fertile Précoce 10. Fertile Précoce 6, 12. Frühe Fruchtbare 6. Frühe Fruchtbare 8. Prolifique Hâtive 10, 12. Rivers’ Early No. 2 1, 2, 3, 4, 10. Rivers’ Early Prolific Plum 2. Rivers’ Early Prolific 4, 9, 10, 12 Rivers’ Early 6 River’s Early 5 Rivers’ Blue Prolific 7 Rivers’ No 2 9, 10, 12 Rivers Frühpflaume 8, 11 Rivers’ Frühe Fruchtbare 10
Early Rivers is widely known because of its earliness, productiveness, regularity of bearing and desirability for culinary purposes. In New York, however, the plums are so small and drop so badly as they ripen that the variety is worthless for commercial purposes. Hogg, in the reference given above, notes the following peculiarity of the trees of this variety: “The original tree throws up suckers, which, when removed and planted out, do not bloom for several years; but scions taken from the original tree and grafted, bloom the second year. A curious fact is that the grafted trees fruit abundantly, and the branches are so brittle they break off; in those raised from suckers the branches never break. The grafted trees in spring are full of bloom, sparing of shoots, and very few leaves; the suckers are more vigorous in growth, have no bloom, but an abundance of foliage, even when six years old.” This variety is a
seedling of Early Tours raised by Thomas Rivers of Sawbridgeworth, England, about 1834. It was first disseminated under the names Early Prolific and Rivers’ Early No. 2 but, in 1866, Hogg with the permission of the originator, renamed it Early Rivers under which name it is now generally known.
Tree medium in size and vigor, round-topped, productive; branchlets thick, short, pubescent throughout the season; leaves roundish-oval or obovate, one and three-quarters inches wide, nearly three inches long, leathery; margin crenate or serrate, with few, small, dark glands; petiole pubescent, with from one to three small glands usually on the stalk; blooming season intermediate, short; flowers appearing after the leaves, seven-eighths inch across; borne on lateral buds and spurs, singly or in twos; petals roundish.
Fruit early, season short; one and one-quarter inches by one and oneeighth inches in size, roundish-oval or ovate, dark purplish-black, overspread with thick bloom; flesh dull yellow, firm, sweet, mild, pleasant; of good quality; stone semi-free, three-quarters inch by one-half inch in size, rather flat, oval, with rough and pitted surfaces.
Early Royal 3, 4, 6 Marian 6 Mirian 3, 4 Mivian 2 Miviam 6 Miriam 7 Royal Hâtive 1, 2, 5, 7 Royale Hâtive 3, 4 Royale Hâtive 6 Violette Königspflaume 6
While the fruits of Early Royal are not remarkably attractive in color, shape or size, the quality is high and its flesh is so firm that the variety should ship well. This sort is worthy of more extensive trial than it has yet had in America. Early Royal is a French variety introduced by M. Noisette of Paris, about 1830. Thompson made the first complete description of the variety in 1839 from the fruits of a
tree in the gardens of the London Horticultural Society Although recommended in the catalog of the American Pomological Society in 1862 it has not been extensively planted in this country.
Tree large, vigorous, spreading, rather open, productive; branches and trunk roughish; branchlets thickly pubescent; leaf-scars enlarged; leaves folded upward, oval or obovate, one and three-quarters inches wide, three and three-eighths inches long; margin serrate, with small, dark glands; petiole thickly pubescent, with one or two smallish glands; blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing with the leaves, one inch across, white, tinged yellow at the apex of the petals; borne on lateral buds and spurs, singly or in pairs
Fruit mid-season, ripening period long; about one and three-eighths inches in diameter, roundish-ovate, dark reddish-purple, marked by irregular russet streaks, covered with thick bloom; dots conspicuous; stem thick, pubescent; flesh greenish-yellow, rather dry, firm, very sweet, mild, pleasant flavor; very good; stone nearly free, three-quarters inch by fiveeighths inch in size, roundish-oval, blunt at the apex and base, with but slightly roughened surfaces; ventral suture prominent and with short wing; dorsal suture with a wide, shallow groove
EARLY TOURS
Prunus domestica
1. Duhamel Trait Arb Fr 2:67, 69 1768 2. Kraft Pom Aust 2:31, Tab 177 fig 2 1796 3. Lond Hort Soc Cat 151 1831 4. Prince Pom Man 2:64 1832 5. Kenrick Am Orch 265 1832 6. Poiteau Pom Franc 1:1846 7. Floy-Lindley Guide Orch Gard 282, 283 1846 8. Hogg Fruit Man. 376. 1866. 9. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 937. 1869. 10. Mas Le Verger 6:143. 1866-73. 11. Mathieu Nom. Pom. 443. 1889. 12. Guide Prat. 156, 361. 1895.
Blue Perdrigon of some 3, 9, 11, 12 Die frühe Pflaume von Tours 2 De Monsieur 12 incor Damas de Tours 8, 9, 11 Early de Tours 5 Early Tours 7, 9, 11 Early Violet 3, 7, 9, 11, 12 Gros Damas de Tours 1 Hâtive de Tours 12 Madeleine 11, ?12 Monsieur 11 incor Noire Hâtive 3, 8, 9, 11, 12 Perdrigon Violet of some 3, 9, 11, 12 Précoce de Tours 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 Précoce de Tours 2, 4 Prune de la Madeleine 4, 9, 11 Prune noire Hâtive 4. Prune de Gaillon 8, 9, 11. Prune de Monsieur 11
incor. Saint Jean ?11, 12. Violette de Tours 8, 11. Violette Hâtive 9, 11. Violet de Tours 9, 11, 12. Violette Hâtive 7. Violet 7.
Duhamel described this variety, Gros Damas de Tours and Gros Noire Hative in the same publication, his descriptions of the three varieties being nearly identical. Following Duhamel many horticultural authorities continued to separate the varieties, but Downing, Floy-Lindley and Mathieu give Damas de Tours as a synonym of Early Tours, and Thompson, Hogg, Downing, Mathieu and the Guide Pratique give Noire Hative as a synonym, while Prince holds Prune Noire Hative to be synonymous.
With this great similarity in the names and descriptions, it seems doubtful if these are separate varieties, but not having the fruit of the three to compare, it has been thought best in The Plums of New York to follow the nomenclature of the oldest authorities. Several writers have also named the Blue Perdrigon and the Perdrigon Violet as identical with Early Tours but neither can be, as all descriptions indicate that both are at least a month later in ripening than the variety under discussion.
Early Tours is considered in continental Europe one of the best early plums for dessert. It is said when fully ripened to be a veritable sweetmeat. As the variety grows in the Station collection it can hardly be lauded as highly as in Europe. Yet it is at least worthy of a place in a home orchard as a delicious early plum.
Tree intermediate in size, upright-spreading, rather open-topped, productive; branchlets thickish, pubescent; leaves falling early, folded upward, obovate or oval, one and seven-eighths inches wide, three and one-quarter inches long; margin crenate; petiole pubescent, glandless or with from one to three glands usually on the stalk; blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing after the leaves, one and one-eighth inches across; borne on lateral spurs or from lateral buds.
Fruit very early; one and one-quarter inches by one and one-eighth inches in size, slightly oval, dark purplish-black, covered with thick bloom; skin thick, tough, sour; flesh greenish-yellow, firm, sweet, pleasant flavored; good to very good; stone semi-free, three-quarters inch by onehalf-inch in size, irregular oval.
Catalonian 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Cerisette Blanche 9, 11, 12. Castelane 11, 12. Catalane 11, 12. Catalonische Pflaume 11, 12. Catalonischer Spilling 12. Catalonischer Spilling 11. Catalonische Kricke 11. De Catalogne 6, 11. De Catalogne 12. D’Avoine 9, 12. Die gelbe frühzeitige Pflaume 12. Early Yellow 9, 10, 11, 12. Early John 9, 11. Early White Plum 11, 12. Gelbe Spindel Pflaume 11. Gelber Kleiner Spilling 11. Gelbe Frühzeitige 11. Gelbe frühe Pflaume 11, 12. Jaune précoce 11, 12. Jaune de Catalogne 9, 11, 12. Jaune Hâtive 6, 8. Jaune Hâtive 11, 12. Jaunhâtive 7. Jean Hâtive 9. Jean-hâtive 5. Jean White 11, 12. Kleine gelbe Früh Pflaume 11, 12. London Plumb 5. London Plum 9, 11, 12. Monsieur Jaune 11 incor., 12. Prune de Catalogne 8, 9, 11 Prune de St Barnabe 8, 9 Prune d’Avoine 11 Pickett’s July 9, 11, 12 Prune Monsieur Jaune 9 Prune d’Altesse blanche 9,? 11 Primordian 10, 11, 12 Prunus Catalana 11, 12 Prunus Catelana 11 Prunus Catalonica 11, 12 St Barnabée 9 Saint Barnabe 11, 12 Siebenbürger Pflaume? 11, 12
The Early Yellow goes back as far as the history of plum-growing in northwestern Europe is recorded. Because of its synonyms it is thought to have originated in Spain whence it was gradually taken northward, crossed the boundary and spread through the fertile valleys of France. Early in the Seventeenth Century it was firmly established in England and was described by Tradescant and Parkinson. From that time till the present it has kept a place in European and American horticulture, in spite of the introduction of hundreds of improved varieties. It is described as follows:
Tree hardy, moderately vigorous and productive; branches long, slender, upright until bent down with fruit; branchlets pubescent. Fruit very early, small, obovate; stem short, slender; color pale yellow, with thin bloom; flesh yellow, tender, sweet, moderately juicy, pleasant; good; freestone
EMPIRE
Prunus domestica
1. N Y Sta An Rpt 9:347 1890 2. Cornell Sta Bul 131:184 1897 3. Ohio Sta Bul 162:241 fig , 254, 255 1905 4. Rice Bros Cat 15 1908
Empire State 4. Rood 1, 2.
It is possible that Empire deserves more attention from fruitgrowers than it has had. It is attractive in appearance, pleasant in flavor and gives promise of shipping well. Wherever the variety proves productive, as it is to a fair degree on the grounds of the Station, this plum might well be grown. Empire was grown by Ezra Rood, Cortland, New York, about 1875, from seed purchased at the State Fair. In 1890, E. Smith & Sons of Geneva found this plum in Mr. Rood’s yard and procured cions of it, afterwards introducing the variety under the name Rood. The year that they made the discovery, John Hammond, also of Geneva, found the same variety at another place in Cortland and secured cions from which he subsequently disseminated the plum under the name Empire, by which it is now generally known.
Tree intermediate in size and vigor, spreading, open-topped, productive; branches covered with short, thick, fruit-spurs; branchlets short and stubby, pubescent throughout the season; leaf-scars prominent; leaves folded upward, oval or obovate, one and one-half inches wide, three and one-quarter inches long, thick, stiff; margin crenate, eglandular or with small dark glands; petiole thick, reddish, with a few large, globose or reniform glands; blooming season intermediate in time and length; flowers appearing after the leaves, over one inch across, yellowish-white; borne singly or in twos.
Fruit mid-season, ripening period very long; about one and five-eighths inches in diameter, round, dark reddish-purple, covered with medium thick bloom; dots numerous, conspicuous; stem thick, surrounded by a fleshy ring at the cavity; skin sour; flesh golden-yellow, dry, firm but tender, sweet, mild, pleasant in flavor; of good quality; stone nearly free, seveneighths inch by three-quarters inch in size, oval, turgid, with roughened surfaces; ventral suture broad, with short but distinct wing; dorsal suture wide, deep
ENGLEBERT
ENGLEBERT
1. Horticulturist 10:71 1855 2. Downing Fr Trees Am 392 1857 3
4.
6.
5.
7.
Prunus domestica
Cultivator 6:312 fig 1858
Hogg Fruit Man 376 1866
Thomas Am Fruit Cult 344 1867
Am Pom Soc Cat 24 1871
Mas Le Verger
6:61. 1866-73. 8. Barry Fr. Garden 415. 1883. 9. Cat. Cong. Pom. France 357. 1887. 10. Wickson Cal. Fruits 354. 1891. 11. Guide Prat. 154, 361. 1895 12. Cornell Sta Bul 131:190 1897 13. N Mex Sta Bul 27:125 1898 14. Mich Sta Bul 169:242, 244 1899 15. Waugh Plum Cult 101, 103 fig 1901 16. Va Sta Bul 134:42 1902
Englebert 9. Prince Englebert 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12. Prince Engelbert 10, 13. Prince Englebert 15, 16. Prinz Engelbert 11.
In common parlance Englebert is a prune, its origin, shape, color and firm golden-yellow flesh all marking it as such, but in prunemaking regions it is usually marketed in the green state, if grown at all, and is little used in curing. It cannot be said to be much more popular as a plum than it is as a prune, chiefly because it is not of high quality, but also because it is none too attractive in color, size or shape, cutting a rather poor figure in comparison with a great number of other Domestica plums. The variety fails in tree as well as in fruit. The trees are variable in size, suffer from cold in exposed situations and while rather productive bear their crops in clusters hard to pick and well placed to insure infection from brown-rot when that disease is epidemic. For some reason the fruit of this variety shrivels at this Station not only after being picked, but while still on the tree In New York, Englebert has been thoroughly tested, has been found wanting and is not now recommended.
This variety was obtained from a seed of the “Date Prune,” by M. Scheidweiler, Professor of Botany at Ghent, Belgium.[211] The date of origin has not been given, but it was probably produced about the middle of the last century since it was described as a new fruit in the Horticulturist for 1855. Englebert was added to the American Pomological Society catalog fruit list in 1871 under the name Prince Englebert, but in 1897, according to the rules of the Society, the name was simplified to Englebert.
Tree variable in size, vasiform, dense-topped, hardy except in exposed locations, productive; branches ash-gray, smooth except for the numerous, long-oval, raised lenticels; branchlets thick, rather short, with internodes above medium in length, green changing to dark brownishdrab, dull, heavily pubescent throughout the season, with few, inconspicuous, small lenticels; leaf-buds small, short, obtuse, appressed.
Leaves folded upward, oval or obovate, one and seven-eighths inches wide, three and one-quarter inches long; upper surface covered with very fine hairs, with a shallow groove on the midrib; lower surface pale green, finely pubescent; apex roundish-pointed, base obtuse, margin finely crenate, eglandular or with small dark glands; petiole three-quarters inch long, pubescent, faintly tinged red, glandless or with one or two small, globose, greenish-yellow glands at the base of the leaf
Blooming season early to medium, of average length; flowers appearing after the leaves, about one inch across, white except for a yellowish tinge near the apex of the petals; borne in clusters on lateral buds and spurs, usually in pairs; pedicels one-half inch long, below medium in thickness, pubescent, greenish; calyx-tube green, campanulate, pubescent; calyxlobes obtuse, sparingly pubescent on both surfaces, glandular-serrate and with marginal hairs; petals broadly oval or roundish, crenate, abruptly tipped with short, broad claws; stamens often inclined to revert to petals; anthers yellowish; filaments five-sixteenths inch long; pistil glabrous, longer than the stamens
Fruit mid-season, ripening period short; one and five-eighths inches by one and three-eighths inches in size; oval, swollen on the suture side, halves equal; cavity shallow, narrow, abrupt; suture a line; apex bluntly pointed or roundish; color dark purplish-black, overspread with thick bloom; dots numerous, russet; stem three-quarters inch long, pubescent, adhering well to the fruit; skin thin, sourish, separating readily; flesh golden-yellow, juicy, coarse, rather firm, sweet, pleasant-flavored, sprightly; good; stone one and one-eighth inches by five-eighths inch in size, oval or broadly ovate, strongly flattened, with roughened and deeply pitted surfaces, blunt at the base and apex; ventral suture narrow, strongly grooved, not prominent; dorsal suture acute, with a shallow, often indistinct groove.
This variety is one of the earliest of the Triflora plums and although the flavor is not as agreeable as that of the best sorts of its species, as Burbank or Abundance, it is much better than that of Earliest of
All, with which it competes in season. Almost nothing is known regarding the history and origin of Engre. It was first mentioned in 1890 in the catalog of J. L. Normand, Marksville, Louisiana, and in all probability is one of his numerous importations from Japan. The origin of the name is not known.
Tree of medium size, vasiform, dense-topped, productive; branches slightly thorny, with numerous fruit-spurs; branchlets very short and stubby, glabrous; leaf-buds plump; leaves reddish when young, oblanceolate, one and three-eighths inches wide, three inches long; margin doubly crenate, with small brownish glands; petiole tinged red, glandless or with one or two small, reniform glands on the stalk; blooming season early; flowers appearing with the leaves, five-eighths inch across; borne on lateral buds and spurs, in twos or in threes; calyx-lobes red at the margin; anthers pinkish.
Fruit very early; about one and one-quarter inches in diameter, roundish; cavity deep; color dark pinkish-red, covered with thin bloom; dots numerous, conspicuous; skin astringent; flesh yellowish, tender and melting, sweet near the surface, but sour next the pit, low in flavor; poor; stone clinging, five-eighths inch by one-half inch in size, roundish-oval, turgid; ventral suture broad, blunt.
ESPEREN
Prunus domestica
1. Mag. Hort. 15:298. 1849. 2. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 380. 1857. 3. Flor. & Pom. 4, Pl. 1863. 4. Downing Fr. Trees Am. 916. 1869. 5. Pom. France 7: No. 1. 1871. 6. Mas Le Verger 6:65. 1866-73. 7. Lauche Deut. Pom. 12. 1882.
Cloth of Gold Esperen 4 Cloth of Gold 2, 7 Drap d’Or of Esperin 1, 2 Drap d’Or d’Esperen 3, 6, 7 Drap d’Or Esperen 4 Drap d’Or d’Esperen 5 Drap d’Or of Esperen 6 Esperen’s Goldpflaume 7 Golden Esperen 5, 7 Golden Esperen 4. Golden Esperen Plum 3.
Were there not so many handsome, well-flavored plums of the Reine Claude group, Esperen might well be recommended to the amateur at least, for it is first class in appearance and quality. But the
