Abstract
Reason and Revolution (hereafter R&R) contains Marcuse’s most detailed analysis of the Hegelian and Marxian philosophies, and provides, in effect, a historical-theoretical foundation for critical theory by tracing the rise of critical social theory in the nineteenth century and by articulating its basic presuppositions. The book was received as an important interpretation of Hegel, Marx, and the rise of social theory, and it remains today one of the best works on the topic.1 Marcuse emphasizes the critical-revolutionary elements in Hegel taken over by Marx, arguing that the Marxian theory is the authentic continuation and development of Hegel’s philosophy. He also attempts to show that Hegel’s thought is incompatible with the contemporary fascist ideas and theories of the authoritarian state which many associated with Hegel. Marcuse combats the interpretations of Hegel as a proto-fascist thinker by positing the Hegelian and Marxian theories as ‘negative philosophy’ which is rational, critical and subversive of conformist thinking and contrasting it with the ‘positive philosophy’ that arose after Hegel’s death and which ‘undertook to subordinate reason to the authority of established fact’ (R&R, p. xv).
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Notes and References
Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (New York: Oxford University Press, 1941). Pagination is similar in the Oxford edition, the 1954 Humanities Press edition, and the 1960 Beacon Paperback edition.
When R&R was published in 1941, it received somewhat mixed reviews. Writing in the Institute’s journal, Paul Tillich stated: ‘This book is an extremely valuable interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy in its social and political significance and consequences, and constitutes a monumental introduction to the method of socio-historical criticism, to the method of “critical theory” as developed by Max Horkheimer and the Institute of Social Research’, Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, vol. IX, no. 3 (1941) pp. 476–8.
Tillich presents a sympathetic account of the book and regrets only that R&R does not contain a fuller account of Hegel’s philosophy of religion and aesthetics, claiming that ‘Even a critical social theory cannot avoid an “ulitmate” in which its criticism is rooted because reason itself is rooted therein’ (p. 478). Tillich also raises the provocative question, ‘Is positivism as such or only a special type of positivism reactionary?’ (p. 478). Although Karl Löwith admired Marcuse’s scholarship and his ‘excellent analysis of the foundations of Hegel’s philosophy’, he believes that Marcuse is mistaken in interpreting Hegel primarily in terms of those elements of his philosophy taken over by Marx. Löwith stresses the importance of the religious elements in Hegel, the concept of recognition as a key anthropological principle not adequately stressed by Marcuse, and argues that ‘reconciliation’ is the goal of the Hegelian system (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. II, no.4 (1942) pp. 560–2). In the same issue, Marcuse wrote a rejoiner to Löwith’s criticisms, who replied to Marcuse’s remarks (pp. 564–6). The most pointedly critical reviews of Marcuse’s book were written by Sidney Hook in The New Republic, vol. 105 (21 July, 1941) pp. 90–1 and The Living Age, vol. 360 (August 1941) pp. 594–5.
The New Republic, Hook berates Marcuse’s book as ‘a kind of apologetic defence, before the event, against the charge that Hegel was a forerunner of fascism’ (p. 90). Hook claims that Marcuse’s interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy as a response to the French Revolution and his defence of the liberal elements in Hegel’s philosophy are ‘highly dubious and on basic questions definitely wrong’ (p. 91). What especially angers Hook is Marcuse’s broadside polemic against positivism — a critique that I shall discuss later in this chapter. In The Living Age, Hook complains that Marcuse ‘obscures the essential fact that Hegel was an outspoken conservative’ and dismisses the books as a ‘tendentious apologetic’ (pp. 594, 595). Other book reviews were more favourable and include: Hans Kohn, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 217 (September 1941) pp. 178–9
Herbert Rosinski, The Nation, vol. 153 (13 September 1941) pp.231–2
Benjamin E. Lippincott, American Political Science Review, vol. XXXVI, no. 2 (April, 1942) pp. 386–7
J. Glenn Gray. Political Science Quarterly, vol. LVII, no. 2 (June, 1942) pp. 292–3
John H. Hertz, American Historical Review, vol. XLVII, no. 3 (April, 1942) p. 591.
For other accounts of Hegel and the French Revolution, see Georg Lukács, The Young Hegel (London: Merlin Press, 1975); Joachim
Ritter, Hegel und die Französische Revolution (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1965)
Jean Hippolite, ‘The Significance of the French Revolution in Hegel’s Phenomenology’, in Studies on Marx and Hegel (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).
Marcuse had defined ‘positivism’ earlier in R&R as ‘a general term for the philosophy of “common sense” experience’ (R&R, p. 112). It is typical for Marcuse’s characterization of the history of philosophy that England is usually excluded from important philosophical developments. Accounts of positivism generally root the movement in Locke, Hume and British empiricism and their rejection of speculative metaphysics. Marcuse, however, roots the rise of positivism in continental Europe, in the reaction against critical rationalism. Thus, on his account, positivism is not so much a healthy reaction against the excesses of speculative metaphysics as it is a rejection of the critical method and tendencies of continental rationalism. It should be noted that ‘positive philosophy’ is a perjorative term for Marcuse, denoting a conformist attitude, whereas ‘negative philosophy’ is favourably evaluated for being critical, radical and subversive.
I might note that these thinkers were major influences on Marx, whose thought and politics were shaped by his study of these precursors of critical theory. However, Marcuse does not adequately indicate their connection with Marx and critical theory. In fact, his discussion of the transition from Hegel to Marx pictures Marx as emerging fully developed from Hegel, as if Zeus were to have sprung fully grown from the head of Minerva! A more balanced interpretation would have indicated the influences on Marxism of French socialism and British political economy, perhaps discussing in turn how Hegel influenced his appropriation of these tendencies.
Sidney Hook, review in The New Republic, p. 91.
The following discussion lays out Marcuse’s understanding and critique of contemporary positivism. His detailed book reviews, cited in note 7 below, show how he thought that earlier positivism was linked to its contemporary versions, and indicate the continuities and discontinuities involved. Marcuse would elaborate on his concept of positivism in One-Dimensional Man, and a series of articles which precede that work: discussed in Chapter 8. Lucio Colletti has taken up attacking Marcuse’s criticisms of scientific positivism and empiricism; see From Rousseau to Lenin (London: New Left Books, 1972) and Marxism and Hegel (London: New Left Books, 1973). The critiques of Marcuse are more or less the same in both books, which sometimes overlap. Colletti is concerned to purge all dialectics from Marxist materialism and provides an ‘ideal type’ of Hegelian idealism and dialectics to which he assigns Marcuse, as well as Lukács, Heidegger, Bergson and others! Such an undifferentiated ‘critique’ fails to see where Marcuse differs from Hegel and covers over the differences between Marcuse, Lukács, Heidegger, et al. as well. Colletti even takes on the difficult task of ignoring, suppressing or sometimes criticizing those hated elements of Hegelian dialectics and philosophy in Marx, Engels, Lenin and the other Marxian thinkers whom he otherwise seems to admire.
See Marcuse’s critique of Dewey’s Logic of Inquiry and the positivists’ International Encyclopedia of Unified Sciences in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, VIII, 1/2 (1940) pp.221–32; his critique of Dewey’s Theory of Valuation in Zeitschrift far Sozialforschung, IX, 1 (1941) pp. 144–8
von Mises and Russell in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung, IX, 3 (1941) pp. 483–90.
Marcuse, ‘Critique of Positivist Encyclopedia’, p. 23.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 232.
Marcuse, ‘Critique of Russell and von Mises’, pp. 483 and 485.
Marcuse, ‘Critique of Dewey’, p. 144. In this example, Marcuse refers back to the early, more radical period of positivism and concedes that the positivist critique of metaphysics previously had a relatively progressive function.
Ibid., p. 145.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 146. This review, in effect, provides an answer to Hook’s criticism cited in note 5.
Ibid., p. 147.
Ibid., pp. 147–8. In a remarkable essay, ‘Some Social Implications of Modern Technology’, in the same volume as the Dewey Review, ZfS, IX, 3 (1941), Marcuse examines some of the forces that were restricting freedom in contemporary society. Here Marcuse previews some of his later analyses of the role of technology as an instrument of domination, the decline of the individual in technological society, and the emerging new forces of social control. Against the tendencies towards conformity, Marcuse champions an ideal of autonomous individuality and critical rationality. This study forms the matrix from which his later critical theory of contemporary society was to develop, and I shall refer back to the essay in the discussion of One-Dimensional Man (see 8.1).
See Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Notebooks of 1844, pp. 329ff. For other interpretations of The Phenomenology of Spirit, see Jean Hippolite, Genesis and Structure of the Phenomenology of Mind (Evanston: Northwestern, 1975)
Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (New York: Basic Books, 1969)
Charles Taylor, Hegel (New York: Cambridge, 1975).
For other interpretations of Hegel’s political philosophy, see Franz Rosenzweig, Hegel und der Staat (Aalen: Scientia, 1962; republication of 1920 edn)
Eric Weil, Hegel et l’Etat (Paris: Vrin, 1950)
Walter Kaufmann, ed., Hegel’s Political Philosophy (New York: Atherton, 1970)
Z. A. Pelczynski, ed., Hegel’s Political Philosophy (New York: Cambridge, 1971)
Scholomo Avineri, Hegel’s Theory of the Modern State (New York: Cambrdige, 1972)
Charles Taylor, Hegel and Modern Society (New York: Cambridge, 1978
Raymond Plant, ‘Hegel and Political Economy’, New Left Review 103 and 104 (1977).
A much harsher critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is found in Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (New York: Harper & Row, 1963).
Although Marcuse’s grasp of Hegel is far superior to Popper’s often superficial and incorrect readings, some of Popper’s virulent critique of Hegel’s philosophy of the state is justified, laying out some of the more excessive apologetics and paean to German nationalism which Marcuse plays down. For a critique of Popper’s methodology and inadequate source material, see Walter Kaufmann’s ‘The Hegel Myth and Its Method’, in From Shakespeare to Existentialism (Garden City: Doubleday, 1960).
Avineri, The Social and Political Writings of Karl Marx, argues that Hegel’s political philosophy was progressive for its period, and that both capitalism and a strong state were necessary to bring Germany into the industrial era. Avineri’s interpretation may be historically correct, but his attempt to paint Hegel as a progressive liberal tends to suppress the undeniably reactionary traits of Hegel’s philosophy. For debate on this topic, see the anthologies edited by Kaufmann and Pelczynski cited in note 20.
For a more detailed analysis of post-Hegelian philosophy, see Karl Löwith, From Hegel to Nietzsche (Garden City: Doubleday, 1967)
Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx (Ann Arbor: Michigan, 1962); and Vormarxistishcer Sozialismus, ed. Manfred Hahn (Frankfurt: Fisher, 1974).
Alasdair MacIntyre, Marcuse (London: Fontana, 1970).
Alasdair MacIntyre, Marcuse (London: Fontana, 1970). MacIntyre totally ignores Marcuse’s early writings and deep immersion in Marx during his formative period, emphasizing instead his study with Heidegger (for whom, he falsely claims, Marcuse wrote his doctoral dissertation). MacIntyre’s account of critical theory is extremely superficial, and his ‘summaries’ of Marcuse’s books are simple-minded, reductionistic and uniformed. Most of the book is an attempted hatchet-job on Marcuse, and whatever valid criticisms MacIntyre may have are lost in hyperbole (‘almost all of Marcuse’s key positions are false’, p. 7), supercilious attacks on Marcuse (see, for example, p. 61, where he claims that Marcuse’s critique of Soviet Marxism is ‘senile’), or idiotic counter-examples (see his astounding attempt to ‘refute’ Marcuse’s theses on technological rationality by citing the ‘accidental’ character of the Vietnam war and the ‘myth of American imperialism’, pp. 70ff). Throughout his ‘faithful … exposition’ (?!) (p. 7), MacIntyre obsessively remarks that Marcuse is ‘pre-Marxist’ (pp. 22, 40, 54, 61). I hope that my study discloses the perverseness of MacIntyre’s ‘interpretation’, which shares the worst features of Soviet tirades against Marcuse’s ‘non-Marxism’. For a sharp attack on MacIntyre’s book, see Robin Blackburn’s review in Telos, 6 (Fall 1970) pp. 348–51.
On the early Hegel, see Wilhelm Dilthey, DieJugendgeschichte Hegels (Leipzig: Teubner, 1921)
Georg Lukács, The Young Hegel; and Jürgen Habermas, ‘Labour and Interaction’, in Theory and Practice (Boston: Beacon Press, 1974).
Hegel, Philosophy of Right (New York: Oxford, 1942) pp. 10ff.
Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 5ff. This manuscript is especially important because it records Marx’s commitment to a form of radical democracy and sharp criticism of absolute state sovereignty, monarchy, bureaucracy and features of political absolutism that have plagued ‘actually existing socialist’ societies. Marx’s early commentary on Hegel’s political philosophy can thus be used to develop criticisms of existing socialist societies.
Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, pp. 331ff.
Marcuse writes: ‘The schools of Marxism that abandoned the revolutionary foundations of the Marxian theory were the same that outspokenly repudiated the Hegelian aspects of the Marxian theory, especially the dialectic’ (R&R, p. 398). In this section Marcuse again distances himself from Marxian ‘revisionism’ and sees its errors rooted in its abandonment of the Hegelian dialectic.
Lukács, The Young Hegel. In a 1954 preface, Lukács provides information on the book’s genesis, revision and eventual publication (pp. xiff).
For a sympathetic account of Hegelian Marxism and Marcuse’s contribution, see Iring Fetscher, Marx and Marxism. For critiques of Hegelian Marxism that explicitly focus on Marcuse, see Lucio Colletti, Marxism and Hegel; Neil McInnes, The Western Marxists (New York: Library Press, 1972); and Steigerwald, Herbert Marcuses ‘dritter Weg’.
Marcuse, in Revolution or Reform?, ed. by A. T. Ferguson (Chicago: New University Press, 1976) p. 58.
On the Office of War Information, see Frank W. Fox, Madison Avenue Goes to War (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975)
R. Harris Smith, OSS (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972). Donovan would become head of the OSS, the government intelligence agency for which Marcuse later worked during the war. See Smith, OSS, pp. 2ff.
Marcuse, Revolution or Reform?, p. 59.
See the anonymous ‘Progressive Labour’ article, ‘Marcuse: Cop-out or Cop?’, Progressive Labor, vol. 6, no. 6 (February, 1969) pp. 61–6. Smith’s book, OSS, provides important background on the OSS and its relation to the CIA. Smith points out that there were both pro-and anti-communist members in the OSS, which included Marcuse, Franz Neumann, Norman O. Brown, William Bundy, Clark Clifford, John Galbraith, Arthur Goldberg, Walt Rostow and Arthur Schlesinger, to name but a few of the well known people of various political persuasions who worked in America’s intelligence service during the war. Smith stresses the anti-colonialism and ‘tradition of dissent’ in the OSS and their support for Asian nationalism in their struggles against Western colonialism (including support for the Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh). Whereas Smith’s interpretation of the CIA, which emerged from the OSS, is rather uncritical, it seems that the OSS was different in origin, composition, purpose and function from the CIA, and that OSS activity does not make Marcuse and his colleagues ‘agents of American imperialism’.
Marcuse, Revolution or Reform?, p. 59.
Marcuse, Conversation with Habermas and others, ‘Theory and Politics’, Telos, 38 (Winter 1978–9) pp. 130–1.
Henry Pachter, ‘On Being an Exile’, The Legacy of the German Refugee Intellectuals, p. 36. Describing his friend Franz Neumann’s activity, Marcuse writes: ‘He devoted most of his efforts to plans for a democratization of Germany which would avoid the failures of the Weimar Republic; he tried to demonstrate that denazification, in order to be effective, must be more than a purge of personnel and an abolition of Nazi legislation — that it must strike at the roots of German fascism by eliminating the economic foundations of the antidemocratic policy of German big industry. Neumann saw that the efforts to attain this objective failed, but he continued to work for strengthening the genuinely democratic forces in Germany in the narrow field still open for such efforts’; ‘Preface’ to Franz Neumann, The Democratic and the Authoritarian State, ed. Herbert Marcuse (New York: The Free Press, 1957) p. viii.
H. Stuart Hughes, The Sea Change (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975) p. 175.
Ibid.
Marcuse, ‘Existentialism: remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre’s L’Être et le néant’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, VIII, 3 (March 1949)
Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956).
Marcuse, ‘Sartre’s Existentialism’, SCP, 160.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 161.
Sartre, Being and Nothingness, p. 615.
Marcuse, ‘Sartre’s Existentialism’, p. 161.
T. W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972). The book was first published in Amsterdam in German in 1947. Marcuse participated in the discussions in New York and California that provided the background to the book and described it to me as ‘one of the most authentic expressions of critical theory’ (La Jolla, California, 28 December 1979).
Adorno and Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, p. xi.
Ibid. p. ix.
Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, pp. 253ff.
Conversation with Marcuse, 28 December 1978.
Perry Anderson, for instance, writes: ‘Marcuse in America came to theorize a structural “integration” of the working class into advanced capitalism, and thus the insurmountability of the gulf between socialist thought — now inevitably become “utopian” once again — and proletarian action in contemporary history. The rupture between theory and practice that had silently started in practice in Germany in the later twenties was clamantly consecrated in theory in the mid sixties, with the publication of One-Dimensional Man’, Considerations on Western Marxism, p. 34. Anderson does not discuss, however, Marcuse’s post-One-Dimensional Man attempts to repoliticize critical theory, thus freezing his sketch of Marcuse at an earlier stage of his complicated development.
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© 1984 Douglas Kellner
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Kellner, D. (1984). Hegel, Marx and Social Theory: Reason and Revolution. In: Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism. Contemporary Social Theory. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-17583-3_6
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