This paper explores the metaphysical foundations of critical theory in Marcuse and Habermas's postmetaphysical alternative. It argues that Habermas's attempt to free critical theory from a normative conception of life‐activity deprives it of the conceptual tools required to accurately diagnose the fundamental structure of social problems today. It thus concludes that Marcuse's efforts towards specifying a life‐grounded foundation to critical theory must be renewed if the project of human freedom is to be advanced today.

O presente artigo, analisando a hermenêutica de Gadamer e a teoria crítica de Horkheimer e Marcuse, procura mostrar que, se se concebe a sociedade moderna do ponto de vista do político, é possível elaborar uma teoria da modernidade em que ambas, em vez de se oporem, sejam complementares.This paper analyses Gadamer's hermeneutics and the critical theory of Horkheimer and Marcuse. It tries to show that, if modern society is conceived as political, then it is possible to elaborate a theory of (...) modernity where hermeneutics and critical theory, instead of opposing, complement each other. (shrink)

The work of Herbert Marcuse, unlike that of certain of his colleagues at the Institut für Sozialforschung, is most often maligned as being excessively positive and identitarian. His work on Freud, for example, is criticized for being grounded in a crude biological determinism which points towards an ultimate reconciliation of both psychic and social conflict. This essay will attempt to counter such readings by critically juxtaposing Marcuse’s concept of non-repressive sublimation with Cornelius Castoriadis’s understanding of psychic socialization. It will be (...) suggested that the affinities between Marcuse and Castoriadis’s appropriations of Freudian metapsychology reveals the degree to which the former can be read as a radical democratic thinker affirming the values of autonomy and creativity. This reading demonstrates that Marcuse has much to contribute to contemporary debates on the role of the aesthetic and the sensuous in democratic theory. (shrink)

Jeffrey Alexander’s recent book on cultural sociology argues that sociologists must grant the realm of ideas autonomy to determine behavior, unencumbered by interference from instrumental or material factors. He criticizes the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as “weak” for failing to give autonomy to culture by reducing it to self-interested behavior that immediately reflects class position. However, Alexander’s arguments seriously distort and misstate Bourdieu’s theory, which provides for the relative autonomy of culture through the concepts of habitus and field. Because habitus (...) is a set of durable dispositions conditioned by past structures, it may contradict the changed structures of the present. Further, the influence of the habitus is always mediated by the structure and strategies of the field of contest in which it is deployed, so that the same habitus may motivate different actions in different circumstances. However, Alexander is correct to argue that in Bourdieu’s theory culture generally serves to reproduce, not contradict social structures. Yet Bourdieu addresses this and other problems in his later work, in which he argues for the existence of certain cultural universals transcending particular structures. (shrink)

Estamos en medio de una onda enorme de protestas, rechazos masivos y multitudinarios de las condiciones contemporáneas. El trabajo se pregunta qué significa decir NO en una sociedad que requiere de los pobres y miserables que subsidien el sistema financiero para mantener la ilusión de una riqueza abstracta. Este subsidio es necesario en la sociedad existente, para asegurar su riqueza y prevenir su implosión. La sociedad capitalista no puede combatirse de una formadirecta e inmediata - ¿qué significa realmente luchar contra (...) el dinero, resistir el movimiento de monedas, combatir el movimiento de tipos de interés, luchar contra los movimientos de precios, y resistir a la pobreza en un modo de reproducción social que conlleva la pobreza en su concepto de riqueza? El rechazo a aceptar las cosas tal y como son es enteramente negativo con respecto a las condiciones existentes de reproducción social. Demanda que su progreso continuo se ponga en suspenso. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse : No Dialectics, No Critique.

The aim of the paper is to investigate the connection between the Frankfurt School and the events of 1968. Accordingly, the paper focuses only on those important members of the School whose philosophical, ideological or practical influence on the events is clearly detectable. This means dealing with four thinkers in three sections: the influence of Adorno and Horkheimer is treated in the same section, whereas the work of Marcuse and Habermas is examined in separate sections. The three sections represent three (...) different approaches. Adorno and Horkheimer are passive onlookers of the events their passivity being rooted in their skeptical philosophical thinking. The initially also passive and pessimist Marcuse slowly rises to the role of the ’prophet’ of the students. And the early Habermas’ critical analysis paves the way for his initially pessimist, but later more optimistic reformist attitude. The paper is structured accordingly: after introductory thoughts, the mentioned thinkers are treated in separate sections that contain historo-philosophical analysis of their relevant works. (shrink)