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Studies in Critical Philosophy
Book by Marcuse, Herbert
- GenresPhilosophy
227 pages, unknown
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Herbert Marcuse
236 books654 followersGerman-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist, and a member of the Frankfurt School. Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left", his best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension. Marcuse was a major intellectual influence on the New Left and student movements of the 1960s.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 20, 2018
Collection of essays on various subjects.
I - decent restatement of historical materialism as a doctrine, just after the assimilation of Marx’s then-newly published economic & philosophic papers. Marketing copy on the book purports that this reading is an important 20th century contribution, though it seems to me to be fairly standard now, looking back.
II - centerpiece of the text, a “study on authority,” beginning with Luther & Calvin, passing through Kant, Hegel, the counter-revolutionary theorists (Burke, Stahl, et al.), Marx himself, and ending with Sorel & Pareto, of all things, as the dialectic develops into totalitarianism. Reminiscent of a very similar outline presented in Neumann’s Behemoth, his recitation must have become a standard of Frankfurt marxism. Develops the Lutheran point that ‘freedom’ is for the interior, whereas the exterior is subject to the coercion of worldly power. Marcuse regards as a “terrible utterance” the Lutheran position that “no outer thing can make the free Christian free of religious […] none of the external touches the soul, either to make free or captive” (57). The importance here is that if the external of the world can attack the internal of the soul, then “the freedom or unfreedom of man is decided on earth itself,” and is accordingly “free from God” (63). Essay traces this topos through Calvin, Kant, et al. Quite a bit here, very useful, hard to overstate.
III - a critique of Sartre. Whereas Camus embraces absurdity and rejects explanations (which “falsify its reality” (160), Sartre seeks to “elaborate the structure of ‘being in an absurd world’” (id.). Regards Sartre as simply a “reinterpretation of Descartes’ Cogito” but according to a “restatement of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind and Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit“ (162). Works through Sartrean positions, finds them “closer to Stirner’s Einziger und sein Eigentum than to Descartes’ Cogito“ (175). Sartre adopts a “dialectical style” but his concepts are “decidedly undialectical” (176), and ultimately “tries to rescue his idea of freedom from Historical Materialism” (183). Sartre’s idea is that he “accepts the revolution as the only way to liberation of mankind, but he insists that the revolutionary solution presupposes man’s freedom to seize this solution, in other words, that man must be free ‘prior’ to his liberation” (id.).
IV - a critique of Popper. situates Popper’s critique of historicism in the debate regarding how “the application of wholesale violence is explained in terms of a specific philosophy of history” (193), with the object of associating fascism and communism in some sort of communion of evil historicism. Marcuse suggests that “there is no philosophy of history which may not lend itself to the systematic use of violence” (194). Notes that Popper’s position is based on a “fundamental distinction between legal and extra-legal mass extermination,” rooted in how “the indictment of mass extermination is not from the beginning restricted and made to conform with the standards and criteria of the society from whose position the indictment is leveled” (195). Distinguishes fascist from Stalinist terror insofar as the former deploys philosophy of history (in the form of ‘race destiny’) as “the most transparent rationalization,” an ideology) whereas the latter crushed the historicist discussion in the purges of party members (196). Ridicules Popper for his ‘analysis’ (is that some kind of disease of the anus, here?) of historicism, in which, according to Herr Popper, “I have not hesitated to construct arguments in its support which have never, to my knowledge, been brought forward by historicists themselves” (197), a total strawperson. Notes that “Hayek looms large in the supporting footnotes, and the critique of historicism is largely a justification of liberalism against totalitarianism” (204). So, yeah.
V - a fairly forgettable meditation on ‘freedom.’ I love these guys, and consider myself a reformed anarcho-marxist of the Frankfurt school, but godsbedamned they need to get off the ‘freedom’ stuff.
Recommended to those for whom possession has become peremptory, self-subordinates to general coercion, and readers with the tendency to revile the genetic view that the state originates from the material interests and needs of individuals as being destructive of authority.
I - decent restatement of historical materialism as a doctrine, just after the assimilation of Marx’s then-newly published economic & philosophic papers. Marketing copy on the book purports that this reading is an important 20th century contribution, though it seems to me to be fairly standard now, looking back.
II - centerpiece of the text, a “study on authority,” beginning with Luther & Calvin, passing through Kant, Hegel, the counter-revolutionary theorists (Burke, Stahl, et al.), Marx himself, and ending with Sorel & Pareto, of all things, as the dialectic develops into totalitarianism. Reminiscent of a very similar outline presented in Neumann’s Behemoth, his recitation must have become a standard of Frankfurt marxism. Develops the Lutheran point that ‘freedom’ is for the interior, whereas the exterior is subject to the coercion of worldly power. Marcuse regards as a “terrible utterance” the Lutheran position that “no outer thing can make the free Christian free of religious […] none of the external touches the soul, either to make free or captive” (57). The importance here is that if the external of the world can attack the internal of the soul, then “the freedom or unfreedom of man is decided on earth itself,” and is accordingly “free from God” (63). Essay traces this topos through Calvin, Kant, et al. Quite a bit here, very useful, hard to overstate.
III - a critique of Sartre. Whereas Camus embraces absurdity and rejects explanations (which “falsify its reality” (160), Sartre seeks to “elaborate the structure of ‘being in an absurd world’” (id.). Regards Sartre as simply a “reinterpretation of Descartes’ Cogito” but according to a “restatement of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind and Heidegger’s Sein und Zeit“ (162). Works through Sartrean positions, finds them “closer to Stirner’s Einziger und sein Eigentum than to Descartes’ Cogito“ (175). Sartre adopts a “dialectical style” but his concepts are “decidedly undialectical” (176), and ultimately “tries to rescue his idea of freedom from Historical Materialism” (183). Sartre’s idea is that he “accepts the revolution as the only way to liberation of mankind, but he insists that the revolutionary solution presupposes man’s freedom to seize this solution, in other words, that man must be free ‘prior’ to his liberation” (id.).
IV - a critique of Popper. situates Popper’s critique of historicism in the debate regarding how “the application of wholesale violence is explained in terms of a specific philosophy of history” (193), with the object of associating fascism and communism in some sort of communion of evil historicism. Marcuse suggests that “there is no philosophy of history which may not lend itself to the systematic use of violence” (194). Notes that Popper’s position is based on a “fundamental distinction between legal and extra-legal mass extermination,” rooted in how “the indictment of mass extermination is not from the beginning restricted and made to conform with the standards and criteria of the society from whose position the indictment is leveled” (195). Distinguishes fascist from Stalinist terror insofar as the former deploys philosophy of history (in the form of ‘race destiny’) as “the most transparent rationalization,” an ideology) whereas the latter crushed the historicist discussion in the purges of party members (196). Ridicules Popper for his ‘analysis’ (is that some kind of disease of the anus, here?) of historicism, in which, according to Herr Popper, “I have not hesitated to construct arguments in its support which have never, to my knowledge, been brought forward by historicists themselves” (197), a total strawperson. Notes that “Hayek looms large in the supporting footnotes, and the critique of historicism is largely a justification of liberalism against totalitarianism” (204). So, yeah.
V - a fairly forgettable meditation on ‘freedom.’ I love these guys, and consider myself a reformed anarcho-marxist of the Frankfurt school, but godsbedamned they need to get off the ‘freedom’ stuff.
Recommended to those for whom possession has become peremptory, self-subordinates to general coercion, and readers with the tendency to revile the genetic view that the state originates from the material interests and needs of individuals as being destructive of authority.
Displaying 1 of 1 review