Popper (PD 290-1, 298-300) rightly underlined that this dispute involved no positivists. Frisby (PD xxix) saw Adorno as criticising 'a naive positivism. .. hardly at issue amongst. .. the disputants'but, years after Adorno's death, added: 'even though it may remain in operation in much social scientific practice'.

The article examines Adorno’s conviction that a critique of concepts inevitably entails a critique of society. Some commentators, notably Cook, read Adorno’s idea of the seamless transition from conceptual to social critique as dependent on the use of normative concepts. According to this ‘Marxist’ reading, a critique of unfaithful concepts provokes a persuasive and constructive critique of society for failing to fulfil concepts. This line of argument creates problems. Adorno’s inquiries into society’s resistance to decipherment imply that the progression from conceptual to social critique via normative concepts leads to advocating misguided, potentially dangerous social standards. In response to this dilemma, the article proposes an alternative interpretation of the transition from conceptual to social critique. The focus shifts from normative concepts to Adorno’s examinations of society as a condition of false consciousness and suffering. From this perspective, conceptual critique entails a convincing — albeit no longer constructive — critique of society.

This article presents a sociological inquiry into the politics of the UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE) approach to health technology appraisals. It is based on analyses of documents published by NICE and of a 2005–2008 interdisciplinary debate about the ethics of its activities. Simultaneously, the article brings further perspectives to this debate by clarifying that NICE, through the comparisons central to its approach, arranges a competition in producing health between different treatments applied to their respective particular patient groups. In fostering competition for differentiation, NICE’s approach resembles objectives for shaping social relationships often attributed to neoliberal politics. Yet closer scrutiny reveals that NICE’s creation of positions for, and relations between, patients is simultaneously more problematic. A comparison between NICE’s work and long-standing sociological conceptions of the social relationship offers insight into the quality of the social relations NICE’s approach supports in more general terms.

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