Os pressupostos filosóficos e os imperativos fundamentais da teoria crítica incipiente de Herbert Marcuse: em torno dos ensaios da ZfS (1937-1941)

Abstract

This work argues for the existence of an incipient critical theory in Marcuse’s essays written under the Institute of Social Research. For this goal, I consider Marcuse’s essays published from 1937 to 1941 in Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung as a theoretical unity and, consecutively, I submit them to an interpretation based on the twofold perspective of their philosophical assumptions and – what we will define here as – their fundamental imperatives. Each of these perspectives is approached in chapters 1 and 2, respectively. In chapter 1, I analyze Marcuse’s essays from the viewpoint of their double philosophical rooting in Hegelian dialectics and Marx’s critique of Political Economy, that is, as a particular type of Hegelian-marxism. In particular, I intend to interpret Marcuse’s writings from the philosophical concepts of dialectical negation (Hegel) and alienated labor (Marx). Subsequently, chapter 2 aims to identify the fundamental imperatives that make the social theory designed in Marcuse’s essays as a critical one. In this chapter, the concept of “criticism” is inspected by the standpoint of its objects and its major objective, i.e., to construct a rational society. Conclusively, I recapitulate the key points discussed along chapters 1 and 2, emphasizing the elements attesting this work’s main thesis: the interpretation of Marcuse’s essays as expressing an incipient critical theory – provided that we assume Eros and Civilization (1955) as the work in which Marcuse reach his philosophical maturity, in the sense that in this book Marcuse formulates, for the first time, an original philosophical theory of capitalist society and its prospects of transformation.