About this ebook
Within philosophy, Marcuse engaged with disparate and often conflicting philosophical perspectives - ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology, to Hegel, Marx, and Freud - to create unique philosophical insights, often overlooked in favor of his theoretical and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. This collection assembles significant, and in some cases unknown texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, including:
- critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the tradition of German philosophy
- philosophical essays from the 1930s and 1940s that attempt to reconstruct philosophy on a materialist base
- Marcuse’s unique attempts to bring together Freud and philosophy
- philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace
- Marcuse’s later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, and ecology.
A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s work in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century politics and philosophy. An Afterword by Andrew Feenberg provides a personal memory of Marcuse as scholar, teacher and activist, and summarizes the lasting relevance of his radical thought.
About the author
Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) is an internationally renowned philosopher, social activist and theorist, and member of the Frankfurt School. He has been remembered as one of the most influential social critical theorists inspiring the radical political movements in the 1960s and 1970s. Author of numerous books including One-Dimensional Man, Eros and Civilisation, and Reason and Revolution, Marcuse taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis University and the University of California before his death in 1979.
Douglas Kellner is George F. Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA. He is author of many books on social theory, politics, history and culture, including Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, Media Culture and Critical Therory, Marxism and Modernity. His Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, co-edited with Stephen Eric Bronner, and recent book Media Spectacle, are both published by Routledge.
Clayton Pierce is a research assistant professor in the department of Education, Culture, & Society at the University of Utah. His books include On Marcuse: Critique, Liberation, and Reschooling in the Radical Pedagogy of Herbert Marcuse (with Douglas Kellner and Tyson Lewis), and Marcuse’s Challenge to Education (with Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis and Daniel Cho). His work also appears in journals such as Educational Theory and Policy Futures in Education.
