The Nonidentical as a Problem of a Systemic Approach to Scientific Music Pedagogy

Author(s): Stefan Orgass

Source: Philosophy of Music Education Review , Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring 2018), pp. 82-98
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/philmusieducrevi.26.1.06

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THE NONIDENTICAL AS A PROBLEM
OF A SYSTEMIC APPROACH
TO SCIENTIFIC MUSIC
PEDAGOGY
Stefan Orgass
Folkwang University of the Arts, Essen, Germany
orgass@folkwang-uni.de

Abstract
The “nonidentical” is Adorno’s term for anything that cannot be grasped by a
concept or a system of concepts: sensual experience and events; emotions, under-
stood as unconscious but influential layers of the psychic system; emergent
results of interactions; the possibility of non-alienated and non-reified social
circumstances. Within practices of music pedagogy, the nonidentical is rele-
vant under all these aspects: the naming of musical issues does not encompass
(let alone substitute for) the musical phenomenon (and it is not self-evident
how to conceptualize appropriate deictic actions). Emotionality should not be
tamed (and it is an open question how to bring it to bear in a sensible way).
Emergent results of the interaction in music lessons are a problem for planning
classes, a planning which has to consider learning outcomes. The school system
is almost completely shaped by economics of education (and cannot easily try
to simulate processes of non-alienated and non-reified interactions between all
participants). Corresponding research has to focus on identities constituting
practices in music pedagogy; but it can develop a sensitivity to realizations of

Philosophy of Music Education Review 26, no. 1 (Spring 2018), pp. 82–98
Copyright © 2018, The Trustees of Indiana University  •  doi: 10.2979/philmusieducrevi.26.1.06

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Stefan Orgass 83

the nonidentical and induce new practices which are structured according to
Critical Theory. The paper is concerned with the complementarity of identities
and the nonidentical with regard to music pedagogy in a broader perspective,
classifying practices of music pedagogy within a system of this discipline–on
the basis of a logic of reflection.

Keywords: The “nonidentical,” Adorno, Critical Theory, scientific theory of

music pedagogy, contingency in music education, system theory

The objective of this essay is to explain the structure of a system of music

pedagogy as a scientific discipline which is based on a logic of reflection. At first,
the system itself will be presented, followed by a proposal to draw a practical
consequence for teaching music and then by a discussion of the system’s relation
to Critical Theory.

Strengthening a System of Scientific Music

Pedagogy by Considering the Nonidentical
One method to strengthen the scientific value of music pedagogy as a disci-
pline consists of building a system which not only gives an overview of all (classes
of) practices belonging to this discipline but which also explains the functional
connections between these practices as well as between their constituents. Such a
system can be built on the basis of the logic of reflection. According to the philos-
opher Johannes Heinrichs, a four-dimensional sign builds the center of a system
following this logic. In this paper, these dimensions are named “constitution of
an object” (or “object” for short), “individual,” “interaction,” and “modification
of sense” (or “sense” for short). These dimensions are graded in terms of reflec-
tiveness (in the sense of the grade of “reflective mediation between the self and
alterity”): object (“one-sided intentionality”), individual (“unilaterally reflected
intentionality”), interaction (“double and interpersonally reflected knowledge,”
but in separate courses of reflection) and sense (“fully reflected commonness,”
in interdependent reflection of at least two individuals).1 By asking for analogous
realizations of the nexus between these dimensions in human practices, systems
can be unfolded, reiterating this question with reference to the results of the first
question and so on–according to Heinrichs overall three times–so that a system
with four exponentiated with four (256) positions can be gained.2 But the number
of “dialectical subsumptions”3 can as well follow the specifics of the questions to
be answered. One subsumption can result in different positions, for instance by
naming human actions in one case and phenomena in another. This approach
allows for the reconstruction of existing practices; at the same time a sharper view
of the items of the reconstruction can be gained–by naming positions which have
been neglected so far.

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84 philosophy of music education review 26:1

In the case in question, a “disciplinary matrix”4 of scientific music pedagogy

can be built: the four dimensions of the general sign correspond with four classes
of practices which constitute music pedagogy as a science, namely the classes of
musical practices, of practices of music pedagogy, of interdisciplinary practices,
and of practices of research in music pedagogy. The first subsumption to each
of the four classes of practices according to the four dimensions of the sign will
be named in the following way. Musical practices: to hear/to realize/to produce
music; to correlate non-musical phenomena to music; to interact musically; to
modify musical sense according to its realization. Practices of music pedagogy:
to learn music; to teach music; to interact in music lessons; to realize musical
Bildung. Interdisciplinary practices with participation of scientific music ped-
agogy: to present research results of scientific music pedagogy; to understand
research results of alien scientific disciplines; to learn within an interdisciplinary
interaction from each other; to establish a common problem for the process of
interdisciplinary research. Practices of scientific music pedagogy: to conceptual-
ize and to apply methodology (research being divided into empirical, historical,5
comparative, and systematic research); pragmatics; topics/didactics–systematics
(the last one thematizing the systemic significance of research results, including
the assessment of desiderata for further research).
By unfolding this system, the basis for naming constitutive principles of
music pedagogy as a scientific discipline is established. These principles can
be named as follows. First, each of the four dimensions of the sign has to be
considered in the course of each scientific effort (principle of holism; object).
Second, reconstruction of practices of music pedagogy is performed by describ-
ing existing practices and by naming neglected dimensions of these practices
(principle of theory-driven reconstruction; individual). Third, in its communi-
cation with its societal environment, the system differentiates between systemic
and intersystemic forms of both interdisciplinarity and interpraxiality (principle
of system-sensible communication; interaction). Fourth, classes of practices
with higher grades of reflexivity serve to improve the classes with lower grades of
reflexivity (principle of systemic functionalization of practices; sense).6
On the basis of this matrix, research in music education is made possible
under the aspect of a systemic autonomy of the discipline. The questions put
by the practices of music pedagogy concerning music learning, music teaching,
music lessons, and musical education (in the sense of the German Bildung) are
related to the improvement of musical practices. These questions can only be
answered by applying questionings and methods of other scientific disciplines:
psychology, cognitive sciences, neurobiology, sociology, and, last but not least,
philosophy have to be involved in giving answers. (Scientific music pedagogy
modifies these questionings and methods and makes them its own.) The integral

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Stefan Orgass 85

of the relationships between the four classes of practices is dealt with by systematic
music pedagogy, itself belonging to the class of practices of research in music
pedagogy (empirical, historical, comparative, and systematic research).
But systems consist of the relations of ‘identities’; these are unfolded in the
explanation of the system by naming and analyzing them. If system philoso-
phy should run a chance in contemporary thought, the arguments of Theodor
W. Adorno–often regarded as the strongest opponent of system philosophy–have
to be rejected by stronger ones or at least relativized by other arguments. Adorno’s
main argument against system philosophy consists of a rejection of a focus on
identities without being aware of the ‘nonidentical.’ So the goal is to find a way to
consider the nonidentical from the perspective of the system of music pedagogy.
By doing so, ideas of Critical Theory can be reconstructed by the system. With a
certain dialectic, this thought must be articulated in a systemic context because
otherwise it tends to not exist at all if it is not formulated this way. This research
interest was criticized by Hermann J. Kaiser who discussed problems of thinking
in systems thirteen years ago. Apart from the repetition of Adorno’s thought that a
system is not apt to comprise the nonidentical,7 Kaiser summarizes further objec-
tions. The multi-perspectivity of knowledge, the heterogeneity of its orientations,
the multitude of references which transcend it, its measure which cannot any
longer be overlooked by one person would make the concept of a system obso-
lete. It is prone to a problematic self-superelevation.8 Nevertheless, explaining
the chances and problems of building a system of scientific music pedagogy is
worthwhile. By proposing a concept of the discipline and inviting colleagues
to participate in unfolding it, the search for identity of the discipline might be
fostered. The unfolding of the system outlined above should lead to new aspects
and questionings concerning the practices of music pedagogy, all the more if the
nonidentical is considered from the perspective of this system as well.

Adorno on Identity and the Nonidentical

In order to comprehend Adorno’s concepts of identity and of the noniden-
tical, relevant passages from Adorno’s Negative Dialectics are discussed here.
Adorno explains the term identity with Immanuel Kant’s distinctions:

In the history of modern philosophy, the word “identity” has had several
meanings. It designated the unity of personal consciousness: that an “I”
remains the same in all its experiences. This meant the Kantian “I think,
which should be able to go with all my conceptions.” Then, again, identity
was what is legally the same in all rational beings–thought as logical univer-
sality–and besides, it was the equality with itself of every object of thought,
the simple A = A. Finally, epistemologically, it meant that subject and object
coincide, whatever their media.9

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86 philosophy of music education review 26:1

This list of meanings corresponds with the four dimensions of reflection

mentioned above (Adorno lists them in a different order): individual (“personal
consciousness”); interaction (“legally the same in all rational beings”); object
(“equality with itself of every object of thought”); and sense (“subject and object
coincide”). Considering the gradation of the complexity of reflection, we have to
organize the succession of the four dimensions as follows: “equality with itself of
every object of thought,” “personal consciousness,” “legally the same in all ratio-
nal beings,” and “subject and object coincide,” (alluding to Schelling’s philoso-
phy of identity) that is: object, individual, interaction, sense, the four dimensions
of the sign.
In contrast to these theoretical reflections, Adorno explains, after a short
abstract definition, the term nonidentical with a case in point of application; this
method corresponds with the meaning of the term: Not only are there definitions
of every single object which are not contained in the definition of the class under
which the single object is subsumed. But there are also concepts–Adorno calls
them “emphatic”10–which cannot be defined by identifying the aspect named
by them in cases of their empirical application (or in their tokens): The concept
of freedom, for instance, “lags behind itself as soon as we apply it empirically”:
apart from being “applicable to all individuals defined as free”, it “feeds on the
idea of a condition in which individuals would have qualities not to be ascribed
to anyone here and now”.
This analysis of the concrete “judgment that a man is free”11 (not of an
‘example’ as this would point to the insufficient law of a term) corresponds with
Adorno’s notion of music. In his opinion, music should in itself be “the image
of freedom.”12 Adorno continues to explain the dimensions of the nonidentical
almost analogically to the distinctions concerning the term identity, but always
regarding the analyzed “judgment that a man is free”: In addition to the already
mentioned definition of a single object “not contained in the definition of the
class”13 (object), Adorno names three further dimensions of the nonidentical:
The individual’s concern is “to hold on to that of which the general concepts
robs him”14–which at the same time means that the individual experiences his
individuality “as his own negativity”, as deficient (individual). This deficiency
points to conditions of full-blown individuality which have to be conceptualized
as social conditions. The concept of a free man “feeds on the idea of a condition
in which individuals would have qualities not to be ascribed to anyone here and
now”. In this notion, the comparison between individuals realized by the indi-
viduals themselves is crucial (interaction). At the same time “the contradiction
between the concept of freedom and its realization remains the insufficiency
of the concept”, according to which individuals should live together under
non-alienated and non-reified conditions. “The potential of freedom calls for

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Stefan Orgass 87

criticizing what an inevitable formalization has made of the potential” (sense).

As it has been shown above, the four dimensions of the sign can be applied to
Adorno’s reflections on the nonidentical as well–under the aspect of desiderata
concerning realizations of the four dimensions in the field of individuality that
have been observed so far.

THE FOUR-DIMENSIONAL SIGN AND DECENTRALIZATION

IN THE LIGHT OF THE NONIDENTICAL
The four dimensions of this sign–object, individual, interaction and sense–
are mutually constitutive; there is no object without its observation by an individ-
ual. Reversely, the individual can be understood as a context of the object, which
is built by certain distinctions. On the one hand, these distinctions–whether
conceptual or nonconceptual–have emerged from interactions dealing with the
object. On the other hand, the individual experiences that his distinctions which
are constitutive of an object are contingent: they can differ according to per-
spectives–individually and at the latest when he or she is confronted with other
distinctions constituting the object in another way. This contingency is restricted
by the sense which is already available, which has been built in interactions and
which pertains in the culture of which the individual is a part of. Sense is not
dependent on its realizations in interactions but can be called up in actions and
interactions. In turn, these actions and interactions modify sense. The object
is neither conceptualized in a naïve or non-constructivistic way, nor does the
notion of the individual follow an egological line. The individual is decentral-
ized, he or she is reliant on a surrounding world comprising–above all–others
with whom he or she interacts inter-corporeally. Interaction is conceptualized
as a complex process in which new sense emerges and which cannot be grasped
as a sum of the participant’s actions. One of its main characteristics is its double
contingency, that is, the participants do not know with what they will be con-
fronted by the others and each participant is aware of this unknowingness. This
contingency and spontaneity can be limited by types of interaction (for example,
in institutions), but it cannot be abolished entirely.
The musical sign can be conceived as a constellation of corresponding factors
or momenta. Music is conceived as the perception of relations between tones,
sounds, and silence as sensible (or meaningful) relations (which encompasses
music that is not created intentionally). Accordingly, carrying out (or perform-
ing) the distinctions in the sounding material is understood as musical meaning
(object). Relating everything that the individual does apart from drawing the
mentioned distinctions–to have emotions and/or associations, to do movements,
and to apply terms to music–is grasped as (also) non-musical meaningfulness

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88 philosophy of music education review 26:1

(individual). The remaining dimensions are musical interaction (interaction) and

musical sense. The term (also) non-musical meaningfulness is chosen in order to
convey the notion that the mentioned actions of the individual are not reserved
for or specific to music; in other contexts, they gain other meanings. For instance,
the term ‘tension’ can be used in order to describe a certain musical impact, but
also in order to describe the action in a crime movie, and so on. The general
and the musical sign are non-representative signs: their contents depend on the
individual’s capacities of drawing distinctions in the musical and the non-musical
field and of relating both to each other; they emerge in the concrete process of
dealing with things in the case of the general sign and with music in the case of
the musical sign. Even if they represent already existing meanings which have
been brought forth by culture they are tinged by the individual’s history of learn-
ing and experiencing which distinguishes an individual from other individuals.
Under the aspect of aesthetics, this concept of music and musical meaning should
be non-dogmatic enough to be open for disturbances evoked by the nonidentical.

Analyzing Music Learning with Regard to

Identities and the Nonidentical
In order to show the usefulness of the system of scientific music pedagogy
for practices of music education, the constituents of music learning, named by
identities, will be contextualized by corresponding realizations of the nonidenti-
cal. The derivation of music learning from the highest level of distinctions of the
system is easily recapitulated. One level lower than the differentiation between
the four classes of practices (of musical practices, of practices of music pedagogy,
of interdisciplinary practices, and of the practices of research in music pedagogy),
music learning represents the dimension of the object within the class of prac-
tices of music pedagogy. (Music learning is the object of measures taken by music
teachers; from the moment that teachers observe the learning activities of their
students, they learn that these activities and their results are complex, nontrivial,
and principally not, at least not wholly, predictable.) Now, music learning can be
analyzed according to the logic of reflection itself, asking for realizations of the
dimensions of object, individual, interaction, and sense. Its constituents are per-
ception, interpretation, orientation, and motivation/self-activity. The differences
between perception and interpretation are intricate because, on the one hand,
there is no perception without differentiations which are due to schemes or con-
cepts. But on the other hand, (music) learning would not be possible if it were
not for ‘disturbing remains’ which involve learning actions. What is meant by
orientation is the consideration of broader contexts (musical and/or non-musical
concepts, musical practices constituted by locations, behavior, peers and

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Stefan Orgass 89

conventions) in the process of the modification of perception and interpretation.

Motivation or self-activity realizes the dimension of sense, because any music
learning aims at a modified and ameliorated musical self-activity–that is hear-
ing, making, or interpreting music in a new, more differentiated and thus more
vivid way.
These realizations of the four dimensions of the sign consist of identities.
They can positively be differentiated from other phenomena or actions. Each of
them indicates another, negative side, namely a corresponding form of the non-
identical. The perception of a musical unit as something (a sort of movement,
a timbre, a chord, a phrase, or form etcetera) indicates a form of perception
without such a reference, realizing a sort of musical presence or appearance.
Interpretation of music has unintentionality in the form of nonconceptual con-
tents of cognitions as its counterpart. Unintentionality can also manifest itself
in emotions, associations, movements, and notions–the realization of (also)
non-musical meaningfulness–which seem to be inappropriate, at least at first
sight. Orientation is denied by nonidentical appearances emerging from unin-
tentional listening, thus disturbing the listener and probably directing his atten-
tion to so far unheard ‘lines of hearing’ the music. Motivation/self-activity can be
experienced as a self-boosting musical process, put forth not by intention but by
flow (as a mental state).
In each of these regards, music teaching has to be ready for these contin-
gencies, granting opportunities for actualizing these forms of the nonidentical
and being aware of the narrow range of influence or impact on the self-referent
processes of music learning. As a pedagogical category, the notion of the non-
identical reminds the teacher that music learning cannot be conceptualized as a
transitively generated product of his teaching measures and methods.

The Sense of the Differentiation between

Identities and the Nonidentical
The differentiation between identities and the nonidentical does not simply
follow the motif to complete a notion of a whole which, according to Adorno,
is “the untrue” anyway.15 In order to grasp the philosophical sense of the dif-
ferentiation in question, Adorno’s explanation of the terms “concept” and “the
nonconceptual”16 is relevant. According to Adorno, reflection on the meaning of
concepts reveals that they are constituted by the nonconceptual (f. e. by deictic
elements). The “direction of conceptuality”, says Adorno, should be changed
toward nonidentity, thus providing “the hinge of negative dialectics” and showing
that the concept is not in itself “a unit of meaning”.17 Conversely, the process-
ing of musical thinking in the sense of putting into effect musical meaning (as

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90 philosophy of music education review 26:1

explained above) while (f. e.) composing is part of the concept of musical thinking.
This concept can only be explained after having composed–as a realization of the
complex nexus of the four dimensions of the musical sign (encompassing musi-
cal meaning).
According to Adorno, a similar relationship of complementarity can be stud-
ied with regard to the nonidentical displayed by nonconceptual aesthetical expe-
rience on the one hand and the conceptual interpretation of this experience
which reveals its societal truth on the other hand. Adorno explains this relation-
ship: “Aesthetic identity” as realized in aesthetic experience “seeks to aid the
nonidentical, which in reality is repressed by reality’s compulsion to identity.”18
But aesthetic experience that lives up to its name is not blind. It should become
“philosophy”:

The truth content of artworks is not what they mean but rather what decides
whether the work in itself is true or false, and only this truth of work-in-itself
is commensurable to philosophical interpretation and coincides–with
regard to the idea, in any case–with the idea of philosophical truth. For
contemporary consciousness, fixated on the tangible and unmediated, the
establishment of this relation to art obviously poses the greatest difficulties,
yet without this relation art’s truth content remains inaccessible: Aesthetic
experience is not genuine experience unless it becomes philosophy.19

Adorno describes more precisely what is meant by ‘becoming philosophical’ in

search of “art’s truth content”: Starting with a spontaneous reaction of the recip-
ient (in the sense of the German ‘Erlebnis’) to the “non-judging” gestures of the
music, full comprehending experience (in the sense of the German ‘Erfahrung’)
demands the concept. The spontaneous reaction can consist of a “shudder”,20 a
“memento of the liquidation of the I”, thus becoming “ultimately critical of the
principle of the I, that internal agent of repression”. “This subjective experience
[Erfahrung] directed against the I is an element of the objective truth of art”,
whereby art is metaphorically understood as “the historical voice of repressed
nature”.
In terms of a logic of reflection, one can reconstruct: In an aesthetical expe-
rience of music with such a content of truth,21 music (as the object) conveys a
manifestation of the nonidentical to a hearer (individual) in a musical inter-
action. For Adorno, cognitions are constituted by “sensations”; what he says
about them pertains a fortiori to emotions. Within the complex of “subjective
cognition” (to which aesthetical experience belongs), sensations and their cor-
responding somatic processes manifest the nonidentical.22 This nonidentical
negatively refers to the social whole (sense) which itself is a result of complex
interactions. Concerning musically induced responses, the hearer asks for the

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Stefan Orgass 91

qualities of the musical making which he or she regards as conditions of these

responses. In the process of conceiving this connection between musical cause
and individual effect conceptually, the individual considers historical and soci-
etal contexts of those qualities and of these responses, grasping the negativity of
their relationship.

The Differentiation between Identities and

the Nonidentical–A Topic in Class?
On the one hand, Adorno’s dictum: “There is no right life in the wrong one”23
can support the view that it is futile or even devious to teach students in school
in an educational and methodical sensible and well-conceived way. School only
manifests the “wrong life” because it is not only a part of it but moreover helps
to maintain it. On the other hand, this consequence from Adorno’s intransigent
negativism itself seems to be unreasonable. If Adorno’s philosophy has any rele-
vance for real life, music teaching should make this negativism its subject–as a
sting in the flesh of positive reflection and the dealing with curricular identities
which impede reflection on their other side. Music as a teaching subject can
bring such a critical approach into being. As an example, this can be accom-
plished first, by making John Cage’s music a topic of classes–as a music whose
fundamental aesthetical assumptions Adorno criticizes–and second by thematiz-
ing Adorno’s view of a “musique informelle.”
First, in his essay Vers une musique informelle, Adorno criticizes Cage’s
“hypothesis that the note ‘exists’ rather than ‘functions’” as “either ideological or
else a misplaced positivism”: “Cage, . . . perhaps because of his involvement with
Zen Buddhism, appears to ascribe metaphysical powers to the note once it has
been liberated from all supposed superstructural baggage.”24 In accordance with
the content of the preceding chapter, Adorno argues in the same essay: “It is the
right of subjectivity to be present in the music itself, as the power of its immediate
performance, instead of being excluded from it once it has been launched.”25
Partly as a result of this fact, chance-compositions–as results of chance operations
generating contingency (compare with Cage’s ‘Number Pieces’)–are perceived
as meaningful and coherent in the course of their performance by the individual
who hears a performance of such a composition. The individual–potentially–
gains aesthetical experiences as if they referred to intentionally composed music.
By doing so, aesthetical experience which–primarily–is itself a manifestation of
the nonidentical is described by conceptual identities. But by comparing differ-
ent realizations of such a composition–such as the ‘Number Piece’ Five (1988)26–
students recognize that their individual experience refers to musical contexts
which are not intended as such. That is, reactions to music cannot be starting

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92 philosophy of music education review 26:1

points of processes of a hermeneutical Verstehen [understanding]. The attitude

supporting the latter grasps at nothing, provided that the individual asks for the
meaning or sense behind the sounds–an attitude which is inadequate regard-
ing Cage’s meta-intention of abolishing compositional intentionality. Students
should discuss this approach, for example, on the basis of a reading of Cage’s
lecture at the Ferienkurse für Neue Musik Darmstadt in 1990.27 The uncertainty
which the students experience by hearing and reflecting on Cage’s Five is nec-
essarily mediated with concepts which themselves are disturbed by Cage’s expla-
nations. On a microcosmic level, this mirrors the constitutive referentiality of a
(conceptual) system of scientific music pedagogy (which can be understood as a
hyper-concept) to empirical research.28
Second, in order to motivate students to deepen their experience phil-
osophically in Adorno’s sense, meaning to strive for putting the content of
the particular experience in a conceptual nutshell, students should read and
discuss Adorno’s critical commentaries on Cage’s music and aesthetics, possi-
bly in a didactically prepared form. In the context of Cage’s ideas concerning
anarchic harmony, Adorno’s criticism should be discussed critically. That is,
neither the former nor the latter are topics of doctrines to be conveyed or
imparted; each student should be encouraged to form his or her own opinion,
but in the context of the disturbance which might be effected by the exam-
ination of Cage’s music and aesthetics in comparison with Adorno’s criticism.
As musique informelle is a concept which, according to Adorno, has not yet
been actualized in concrete music, students could–after having read Adorno’s
elucidations–as well be invited to create such music (and probably to reflect
on reasons for failure).
Music education has to take into account the relations between identities and
the nonidentical in their forms of manifestation described above, but necessarily
from the viewpoint of concepts (as a form of identities). On the one hand, the
need for orientation is a matter of all human beings and has to be satisfied; here,
disturbance (in its constructivist sense) finds its boundary, a fortiori in contexts
of music education. On the other hand, the student’s experience of the limits of
orientation given by contingency and chance should be facilitated as well.

The Holistic System of Music Pedagogy and

Critical Theory: Learning from Adorno
In a didactical perspective, the attempt to transcend the identical which can
open an awareness of the nonidentical is not enough with regard to the claims
of Critical Theory. Suffering from societal conditions should also be a topic to
reflect upon.

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Stefan Orgass 93

In the following, the term ‘Critical Theory’ denotes the practice of nam-
ing social nuisances, as it was part of what its protagonists Adorno and Max
Horkheimer practiced as philosophers and sociologists. (Sometimes this practice
will be addressed as articulation of the “critical thought.”) Although Adorno him-
self argued against reification as a hypostatization of “the indirect as direct,”29 this
term will be used in the respective contexts–together with the term “alienation”.
A short explanation of concepts with which the exponents of Critical Theory the-
orized the “totally administered world” is given by Roger Behrens. After having
explained the ‘critique of instrumental reason’ in a separate chapter, his topics
are the context of delusion (universeller Verblendungszusammenhang), reducing
rationality to its instrumental aspect; alienation (cutting social relationships by
promoting the universality of possessive individualism); fetish as a main char-
acter of merchandise (Fetischcharakter der Ware), letting appear the economy
of exchange as natural and providing products with a social power, for instance
in the sense of status symbols; finally capitalism on the stage of its global power,
thematizing–attendant to Horkheimer and Adorno–the problems produced by
capitalism under the contemporary circumstances of globalization.30 Another
topic which is relevant for all forms of dealing with music is the concept of “cul-
ture industry”–a complex theorem which thematizes the “art of mass” with its
problems of quality.31
The nexus of main concepts of Critical Theory can be reconstructed in the
sense of the theory of reflection: reification (object) – alienation (individual) –
totally administrated society/culture industry (interaction) – instrumental reason/
context of delusion (universeller Verblendungszusammenhang) (sense). It seems
to be a punchline of Critical Theory that the critical point of view is generalized
in such a way that the observed phenomena build a holistic nexus; precisely
this is meant with the term “universeller Verblendungszusammenhang”. Adorno
has specified what the nexus of these concepts means with regard to musical
practices (from the “rational irrationality of art, evident in its technical proce-
dures” over culture industry down to dealing of the alienated subject with “rei-
fied artworks”).32
But is this point of view really a general or universal one in the sense of the
theory of reflection? The aforementioned main concepts of Critical Theory are
mutually constitutive; they form a holistic nexus. Nevertheless, their negativity
points to a positivity which has to be presumed because it facilitates the obser-
vation of negativity. This implies that the holistic nexus of the terms of Critical
Theory is (only) a concretization of the holistic conceptual system of scientific
music pedagogy: Society (as “context of delusion”) is used as an antonym of sense
which itself appears in traces of freedom and in non-alienated and non-reified
societal circumstances. In other words, Critical Theory opts for certain values (as

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94 philosophy of music education review 26:1

manifestations of sense), which are of course regarded as ubiquitous. Particularity

is posed as generality. The mentioned holistic nexus of terms of Critical Theory
could not replace (or function as an alternative to) the nexus of the four
dimensions of the sign (and, of course, Adorno would not have intended this).
In contrast, and in accordance with the system presented in this paper, the
reconstruction of the manifestations of sense (as opposed to non-sense) focuses
on–among other things–objects, actions of the individual and interactions in
terms of their factual determination by values. Only the fact that values play this
decisive role can be an element of a holistic system according to the theory of
reflection, not certain realizations of values. Elements of such a system must
consist of general qualities; that is: they cannot be ‘disjunctive’, f. e. ‘critical’
as opposed to ‘affirmative’.33 The latter decision allows for a broader spectrum
of research approaches and therefore is more appropriate for a philosophy of a
scientific discipline.
Nevertheless, two kinds of influence of Critical Theory on the holistic system
of music pedagogy can be distinguished: Firstly (and as shown above), the signif-
icance of the epistemology of Adorno’s Negative Dialectics can lie in asking for
the other side of what can be named and predicated with regard to constituents
of the four classes of practices. Following this thought, historic, comparative, and
systematic music pedagogy can render contingent (and insofar determinable)
existing concepts. This theoretical sensitivity is the core of what could be called
the “pragmatic frame” of Negative Dialectics. Secondly, empirical research can
concretize the four qualitative features of the constituents of the respective prac-
tices belonging to the “disciplinary matrix” in the sense of Critical Theory, thus
inducing new practices as starting points of research. Such a research forms a
complementary counterpart of the primary function of the system which consists
of the reconstruction of existing relevant practices. Thus, the system of scientific
music pedagogy could possibly learn according to the results of this ‘theoretically
induced’ empirical research.–Considering these two aspects of direct and indi-
rect influence, Negative Dialectics and articulations of the critical thought could
strengthen the identity of the discipline by enhancing scientific rationality (in the
sense of broadening the spectrum of justification).

Practices of Research in Music Pedagogy, Taking

Proflective Research Questions into Account
The final reflection concerns the potential role of Critical Theory for
research in music pedagogy. Realizing the dimension of sense of the holistic
system, the spectrum of this research encompasses empirical, historical, compar-
ative, and systematic research. Critical Theory facilitates a certain perspective

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Stefan Orgass 95

on all of these sorts of research. Given that it is basically not possible to realize a
non-alienated and non-reified togetherness in human practices, as long as iden-
tifying thinking distinguishes (groups of) persons and (classes of) things in a way
that entails unfreedom and unjustified objectification, research should not only
be conceived as reconstruction of existing practices but should ask for possibili-
ties of reducing alienation and reification, as well. On a first level, reconstruction
can be seen as a necessary determination of the status quo which can be modified
by focusing on positions–found by “dialectical subsumption”–that so far have
been neglected. Such a modification of the status quo remains in the realm of
affirmation. All this is a precondition of research on a second level which focuses
on empirical requirements of amelioration in terms of the two deficiencies men-
tioned above. The first kind of research can be called reflective, the second–with
an artificial word–proflective. The normative background of the latter has to be
explained with historical argumentation, considering first and foremost a his-
torical responsibility with regard to the history of 20th century. In so doing, sci-
ence is able to take over responsibility–which is in line with the rejection of an
alleged fact/value-dichotomy. Proflective research requires modernized forms of
the older action research.
In the given context, it is sufficient to give examples of proflective research. In
empirical as well as in comparative research, proflective aspects can be focused
by qualitative experiments. In historical research they can come into view by
using deconstructivist or discourse analysis. Systematic research displays a certain
affinity to proflective research questions which are thematized by many of the
‘turns’ proclaimed by cultural sciences in the last decades.

Conclusion
The plan to unfold scientific music pedagogy as a (holistic) system can and
should be pursued. This system–understood as a hyper-concept–finds its counter-
part not only in non-systemic empirical evidence (which today–after the decline
of speculative idealism–should be comprehended as a precondition of any sys-
temic approach). Adorno’s concept of the nonidentical, challenging each form
of systemic thinking, can–firstly–be reconstructed on the fundamental level of
designing the four dimensions of the sign. Secondly it can help to shape practices
that are relevant for music pedagogy themselves (cf. the example of Cage’s Five).
Consequences from Critical Theory in a broader perspective can firstly be drawn
with regard to ‘theoretical sensitivity’ in the realms of historic, comparative, and
systematic music pedagogy and secondly with regard to proflective research, the
latter realizing a counterpart of the reconstructive application of the holistic sys-
tem of scientific music pedagogy.

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96 philosophy of music education review 26:1

While the purpose of the system of scientific music pedagogy, understood as a

complex nexus of concepts, lies in structuring (empirical, historical, comparative,
and systematic) reflective and proflective research which conversely modifies the
system, the purpose of planning music lessons can be seen in the facilitation of a
music learning that is aware of identities with regard to music, being prepared for
the possibility that realizations of the nonidentical could occur. If the latter ones
are experienced, they should reversely influence the planning of subsequent les-
sons. With this parallel between practices of research in music pedagogy and
practices of music education in mind, one can state: The sting of the nonidenti-
cal remains–in a structural and at the same time ‘motivating’ sense.

Notes
1
Johannes Heinrichs, Das Geheimnis der Kategorien. Die Entschlüsselung von Kants
zentralem Lehrstück (Berlin: Maas, 2004; Tübingen: Francke, 1rst ed. 1986), 134 and 136–
138 (translation from German by Stefan Orgass). (Heinrichs distinguishes between “Ich”
(self), “Du” (you), “Es” (id, the object) and “Sinnmedium” (medium of sense), p. 139.
The divergent naming in this paper makes no difference as regards the methodology of
unfolding the system.
2
Ibid., 156f.
3
Ibid.
4
Thomas S. Kuhn, “Postscript–1969,” in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 50th
Anniversary Edition (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press 2012, 1962),
171–208: 181–186.
5
Historical research realizes the individual dimension of research, because the recon-
struction of the history of music pedagogy necessarily thematizes the (collective) identity
of the discipline. Comparative research (interactive dimension of research) asks for dif-
ferences between practices of (research in) music pedagogy in an inter- or transcultural
perspective.
6
The naming of constitutive principles contrasts with Hermann J. Kaiser’s notion
that only regulative principles (in the sense of Immanuel Kant) can be maintained with
regard to music pedagogy as discipline. See Kaiser, “Spurensuche. Auf dem Wege zu einer
Systematischen Musikpädagogik,” in Musikpädagogische Forschung in Deutschland.
Dimensionen und Strategien (Musikpädagogische Forschung, ed. by Arbeitskreis
Musikpädagogische Forschung e. V., 24 (Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 2004), 57–84, here 79.)
7
Kaiser, “Spurensuche,” 72f.
8
Ibid., 72.
9
Theodor W. Adorno, Negative Dialectics, trans. E. B. Ashton (New York and London:
Continuum, 2007; New York, 1973), 142, annotation.
10
Up to the end of this paragraph: Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 150f. It is signifi-
cant that the last-mentioned realization of the nonidentical is not dealt with in the arti-
cle “Identität” (identity) written by Kuno Lorenz in the Enzyklopädie Philosophie und
Wissenschaftstheorie, vol. 3, 2nd, revised and basically supplemented edition, in connection

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Stefan Orgass 97

with Martin Carrier ed. by Jürgen Mittelstraß, Stuttgart and Weimar: J. B. Metzler’sche
Verlagsbuchhandlung & Carl Ernst Poeschel, 2008, 530–534. This realization of the non-
identical cannot be differentiated by analytical procedures, but presumes a certain moral
decision, that is: the standpoint articulated by Critical Theory. See below, annotation 33.
11
Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 150.
12
Adorno, “Vers une musique informelle,” in Quasi Una Fantasia. Essays on Modern
Music, trans Rodney Livingstone (London and Brooklyn, New York: Verso, 1998), 269–
322, here 322.
13
Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 150.
14
Up to the end of this paragraph: Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 150f.
15
Adorno, Minima Moralia. Reflections from the Damaged Life (1944–1947), trans.
Dennis Redmond (New York, NY: Prism Key Press, 2011), no. 29, 45–47: 47: “The whole
is the untrue.”
16
This paper presumes that the experiencing individual is able to observe the differ-
ence between concepts and non-conceptual contents. This requires that the content of
perception partly is conceptual and, of course, partly nonconceptual. That is: With regard
to certain (and not all) perceptions, language (not only but also analytical terminology)
clings to musical units and provides these units with meaningfulness. Cf. José Bermúdez
and Arnon Cahen, “Nonconceptual Mental Content,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta, ed. (Fall 2015), 21f. and 35ff. https://plato.stanford.edu
/archives/fall2015/entries/content-nonconceptual/.
17
Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 12.
18
Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, translated, edited and with a translator’s introduction by
Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Bloomsbury, 2013; London: The Athlone Press, 1997), 5.
19
Ibid., 179.
20
Up to the end of this paragraph: ibid., 332f. Here the additions in square brackets
(in italics). Adorno’s example is the beginning of the reprise in the first movement of
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony (ibid., 332): “It resonates like an overwhelming ‘Thus it
is.’ The shudder is a response, colored by fear of the overwhelming; by its affirmation the
music at the same time speaks the truth about untruth.”
21
According to Adorno, the individual’s identification with musical “products of
the culture industry” (ibid., 333f.) has nothing to do with aesthetical experience in the
explained sense. Such an identification remains on the level of referring the music to one-
self–without asking for musical reasons in the context of historical and societal reflections
and critique.
22
Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 193f. “The fact that the subject’s cognitive achievements
are somatic in accordance with their own meaning affects not only the basic relation of
subject and object but the dignity of physicality. Physicality emerges at the ontical pole
of subjective cognition, as the core of that cognition. This dethrones the guiding idea of
epistemology: to constitute the body (. . .) mentally. Sensations are already, in themselves,
what the system would like to set forth as their formation by consciousness.” The naming
of an emotion (‘appraisal’) following a somatic reaction on music (‘impact’) will remain
‘pale’ because language structurally fails these emotions. As a consequence, the basis for

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98 philosophy of music education review 26:1

the comprehension of the emergence of emotions generated in a musical practice in the

classroom should be broadened. Students’ willingness provided, the situations in which
emotions occurred should be described. If the emotion appears in the present, the student
should speak about those elements in the personal history of experiencing music which
are connected with this emotion.
23
Adorno, Minima Moralia, no. 18, p. 33–35: 35.
24
Adorno, “Vers une musique informelle,” 287.
25
Ibid., 320.
26
Cf. Stefan Orgass, “Die anarchic harmony in John Cages Zahlen-Stück Five (1988).
Didaktische Chancen des Vergleichs dreier Klangrealisationen,” in Hans Bäßler, Ortwin
Nimczik and Peter W. Schatt, eds., Neue Musik vermitteln. Analysen–Interpretationen–
Unterricht and two CDs, presenting the music discussed (Mainz etc.: Schott, 2004),
83–97.
27
John Cage, “mesosticks–Introduction,” in Ästhetik und Komposition. Zur Aktualität
der Darmstädter Ferienkursarbeit, ed. by Internationales Musikinstitut Darmstadt,
Gianmario Borio & Ulrich Mosch (Mainz etc.: Schott, 1994), 7–11.
28
Adorno’s alternative to systems are models: “Philosophical thinking is the same as
thinking in models; negative dialectics is an ensemble of analyses of models.” (Negative
Dialectics, 29.)
29
Ibid., 374f.
30
Roger Behrens, “Die total verwaltete Welt,” in Kritische Theorie (wissen 3000, ed. by
Christina Knüllig; Hamburg: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 54–59; on the critique of
instrumental reason ibid., 32–36.
31
Ibid., 64–68.
32
Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 25: “What the reified artworks are no longer able to say is
replaced by the beholder with the standardized echo of himself, to which he hearkens.”
33
The elements of a holistic system are constitutive of each other on condition that they
are not ‘disjunct’ in the sense of round vs. cornered or affirmative vs. critical. In the latter
case “dialectic subsumptions” do not work. Cf. Martin Esfeld, Holismus in der Philosophie
des Geistes und in der Philosophie der Physik (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2000), 29. For
further characteristics of an element of a holistic system see ibid., 24ff. and 28f.

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