Imagens da libertação: a relação entre práxis política, transformação social e arte na teoria crítica de Herbert Marcuse

Abstract

The objective of this study is to demonstrate that the relationship between social change and art is present throughout the work of Herbert Marcuse and undergoes changes in the way the author to develop over his intellectual trajectory. Moreover, evidence that social transformation requires a change in the consciousness of the individual. The art, preserving their autonomy, may contribute to this transformation, assisting in the construction of a new sensibility. In other words, the philosopher argues that the autonomy of art gives it a major political power and subversion in the process of transforming the consciousness of individuals and society. Marcuse, on the one hand, from the reading of Kant, Freud and Schiller, supports the possibility of reconciliation, in aesthetic dimension, between the "pleasure principle and the "reality principle". Moreover, from the reading of Hegel, Marx and Weber took as points of departure the historical, the dissolution of the individual, the dimensional of capitalist society and the need for revolution. Combining all these influences and giving them a character of its own, Marcuse proposed the construction of a new individual and a new society from the revolution, both as social consciousness and sensitivity. The art, as an inspiring, one of the variables that could contribute to the construction. The research seeks to present the Marcuse s concept of revolution through analysis of the affirmative and negative aspects of art, as well as characterization made by the potential for denial of art, which was already present in the works of the 1930s and follows the thoughts of author until their final works in the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, from the following hypothesis: there are, within the framework of Marcuse s Critical Theory, a place for art as part of an inspiring new political praxis which, in turn, requires a transformation of consciousness. How to unfolding the case, advocate that, for the author, one of the functions of art is to provide "images of the liberation , which help in the process of change in the consciousness of individuals. According to our findings, both the hypothesis, as its unfolding, were confirmed, but it can not be said that there is a consensus on the issue among researchers of Marcuse's philosophy.