Some aspects of Marcuse's thought

Abstract

In this first chapter, I shall give a description of Marcuse's work, a panoramic view and end up by giving an outline of the structure and purpose of this essay. I shall treat only a small part of Marcuse's thought and so the prime purpose of this introductory chapter is to fill in the background to the main point of this essay. Marcuse's earliest writings were published in the thirties. These re-appeared in book form in 1972 under the titles of Studies in Critical Philosophy and Negations. The former contains two essays from the aforementioned period namely "The foundations of Historical materialism" (1932) and "A study on authority" (1936). Negations contains studies written in the period 1934-38. These writings came out in the period when Heidegger had already published his Sein und Zeit (1927) in the same era as Marcel's Etre et Avoir (1935). Jasper exercised considerable influence on philosophical thought and so did Husserl, although phenomenology had lost a little ground to the newly emerging existentialist thought. It was an age then when attention was being re-focussed upon man and his existence. Sartre's L'etre et le Neant was waiting in ambush round the corner. Existentialism and its way of though was a growing movement in the thirties, it represented the 'revolutionary' thought of the time. It was a light of hope in a world full of turmoil. In later years, through the influence of such people as Sartre and Camus, and, due to its mode of presentation, existentialism was to become a widespread consumer good enjoying an extensive market especially among the reading public which is not usually inclined to 'heavy' literature impregnated with high sounding philosophical jargon. In fact, many of these novel style philosophical works were not heavy at all, but quite digestible to the average reader. [...]