P H I L O S O P H Y, P S YC H O A N A LY S I S A N D E M A N C I P AT I O N COLLECTED PAPERS OF HERBERT MARCUSE EDITED BY DOUGLAS KELLNER AND CLAYTON PIERCE Volume One TECHNOLOGY,WARANDFASCISM Volume Two TOWARDSACRITICALTHEORYOFSOCIETY Volume Three THENEWLEFTANDTHE1960s Volume Four ARTANDLIBERATION Volume Five PHILOSOPHY,PSYCHOANALYSISANDEMANCIPATION Volume Six MARXISM,REVOLUTIONANDUTOPIA 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 Civilization,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 Theory, Marxism and Modernity. His Critical Theory and Society: A Reader, co- edited with Stephen Eric Bronner, and book Media Spectacle,are also published by Routledge. CLAYTON PIERCE is a research assistant professor in the department of Education, Culture, and 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). He has published also in Educational Theory and Policy Futures in Education. PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOANALYSIS AND EMANCIPATION H E R B E R T M A R C U S E C O L L E C T E D PA P E R S O F H E R B E RT M A R C U S E Vo l u m e F i v e E d i t e d b y D o u g l a s K e l l n e r a n d C l a y t o n P i e r c e This edition published 2011 by Routledge 2Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011. To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk. ©2011 Peter Marcuse Selection and editorial matter © 2011 Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce Herbert Marcuse, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation: An Introduction ©2011 Douglas Kellner, Tyson Lewis, and Clayton Pierce Marcuse as Philosopher ©2011 Andrew Feenberg All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Acatalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number:97154404 ISBN 0-203-83870-X Master e-book ISBN ISBN13: 978–0–415–13784–3 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–83870–9 (ebk) C O N T E N T S Introduction Herbert Marcuse, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation DOUGLAS KELLNER, CLAYTON PIERCE, AND TYSON LEWIS 1 I Philosophical Interventions 76 Theses on Scientific Philosophy 76 Schiller’s Humanism 78 Review of John Dewey’s Logic: The Theory of Inquiry 80 Critique of Dewey’s Theory of Valuation 87 Idealism and Positivism 92 II Psychoanalytic Interventions 101 AReply to Erich Fromm 101 Theory and Therapy in Freud 106 Obsolescence of Psychoanalysis 109 The Ideology of Death 122 III From Ontology to Technology 132 From Ontology to Technology: Fundamental Tendencies of Industrial Society 132 IV Philosophical Reflections on Science and Technology 141 World without Logos 141 The Malcontent in the Affluent Society 143 Anthropological Perspectives of a Technological Epoch 145 vi Contents On Science and Phenomenology 145 The Responsibility of Science 155 V Philosophy in the Contemporary World 160 On the Position of Thinking Today 160 Overcoming Domination 164 Peace as Utopia 166 The Relevance of Reality 172 The Role of Religion in a Changing Society 182 VI Conversation with Marcuse in Psychology Today 189 Revolutionary Eroticism, the Tactics of Terror, the Young, Psychotherapy, the Environment, Technology, Reich 189 VII Late Philosophical/Political Reflections 206 Ecology and the Critique of Modern Society 206 Children of Prometheus: 25 Theses on Technology and Society 222 Critical Philosophy: A Personal Perspective with Dr. Herbert Marcuse 226 Afterword Remembering Marcuse ANDREW FEENBERG 234 Index 242 I N T R O D U C T I O N H e r b e r t M a r c u s e , P h i l o s o p h y, P s y c h o a n a l y s i s a n d E m a n c i p a t i o n D o u g l a s K e l l n e r, C l a y t o n P i e r c e , a n d Ty s o n L e w i s 1 Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation, Volume 5 of the Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse, presents for contemporary readers Marcuse’s unique syntheses of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and critical social theory, directed toward human emancipation and social transformation. Within these disciplines, Marcuse critically engaged disparate currents ranging from Heidegger and phenomenology to Hegel, Marx, Dewey, and Freud to create unique philosophical perspectives and analyses, often overlooked in favor of his social theory and political interventions with the New Left, the subject of previous volumes. The collection assembles significant, largely unknown, texts from the Herbert Marcuse archives in Frankfurt, important, and in some cases unknown, critiques of positivism and idealism, Dewey’s pragmatism, and the 1 For editorial advice and help with sources we would like to thank Peter-Erwin Jansen and Charles Reitz, who also provided significant editorial help in shaping the final version of this Introduction. 2 Introduction 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, philosophy, and critical social theory; philosophical reflections on death, human aggression, war, and peace; and his later critical philosophical perspectives on science, technology, society, religion, ecology, and human emancipation. These philosophical themes are connected to genealogical lines of develop- ment that appear as one assesses Marcuse’s intellectual and political growth, which help define his unique critical theory project. The task we undertake in the Introduction to this volume is to make prominent these threads of Marcuse’s critical theory that play a major role in his theoretical synthesis. We see Marcuse as moving beyond traditional approaches to philosophical and social problems in a highly productive and relevant manner. Struggling against the conceptual and political limitations of various thinkers and movements, Marcuse developed a synthetically robust and historically attuned critical theory capable of confronting the multifaceted problems facing contemporary civilization as it continued to produce damaged conditions for human and non-human life under capitalist organization. In this sense, Marcuse’s Marxist reworking of Heideggerian inter- pretations of being and historicity, the development of a Freudian critical theory of the psyche and society, and critiques of intellectual movements such as idealism, positivism, and pragmatism should be understood as philosophical endeavors interested in constantly reevaluating the capabilities of critical theory for developing a metacritique of human domination that ultimately aimed at human emancipation. The subject–object relation, the psyche/society/nature dialectic, and perhaps most importantly, the effects of science and technological rationality on human life are just some of the examples of philosophical and social problems that Marcuse reinterpreted in novel ways within his constantly evolving critical theory of society. In sum, Heidegger, Hegel, Marx, and Freud appear as privileged inter- locutors because they open up the path for reconceptualizing the strengths and weaknesses of critical theory in light of historical tendencies. Primarily a philosopher, Marcuse demonstrated that philosophy could concern itself both with the crucial political issues of the day and with traditional philosophical problems and prospects for human emancipation. The Introduction to the volume will situate Marcuse’s engagement with phi- losophy in the context of main currents of twentieth-century philosophy and the development of his own philosophical perspectives. Marcuse’s enduring philosophical contributions will be presented, along with the intense controversy over his work and its continuing relevance for challenges of the contemporary moment. Introduction 3 HERBERT MARCUSE’S POLITICAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ADVENTURES: AN INITIAL OVERVIEW In 1922 Marcuse summarized his early life in the Lebenslauf (biography) required as part of his German doctoral dissertation Der deutsche Künstlerroman(The German Artist-Novel): Iwas born on July 19, 1898 in Berlin, the son of the businessman Carl Marcuse and his wife Gertrud, born Kreslawsky. I attended the Mommsen Gymnasium and from 1911 the Kaiserin–Augusta Gymnasium in Charlottenburg until my summons to military service in 1916. After completing my final examina- tion (Reifeprüfung), I entered Reserve Division 18 (Train-Ers.-Abtg. 18)but remained in the homeland on account of my poor eye-sight and was transferred to the Zeppelin Reserves (Luftschiffer-Ers.Abtg. 1)where I received permission and the opportunity to visit lectures. After my release in the Winter of 1918, I studied regularly for four semesters in Berlin and four semesters in Freiburg, first Germanistik, and then modern German literary history as my main subject (Hauptfach) and philosophy and political economy as minors (Nebenfach). I attended the lectures of Professors Roethe, Geiger, Herrmann, Schneider, Heusler, Hübner, Witkop, Schultz, Heiss, Brückner, Dessoir, Riehal, Stumpf, Troeltsch, Cohn, Geyser, Husserl, Eberstadt, Schumacher, Diehl, Mombert. I partook in seminars offered by Professors Herrman, Roethe, Schneider, Hübner, Kluge, Witkop, Schultz and Dessoir. I am particularly obliged to Professor Witkop for decisive influence.2 Marcuse has always insisted that his childhood and upbringing was that of a typical upper-middle-class German youth.3He claims that his Jewish family was well integrated into German society and that he never felt any acute alienation because of his Jewish origins.4 While it is tempting to try to find clues to the later man and thinker in his early biography, Marcuse himself 2 Herbert Marcuse, Lebenslauf,appended to his doctoral dissertation, Der deutsche Künstlerroman(Freiburg i. Br., 1922); reprinted in Schriften 1 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1978) p. 344 (hereafter S1). 3 Conversation with Herbert Marcuse, December 28, 1978, La Jolla, California; see also Sidney Lipshires, Herbert Marcuse: From Marx to Freud and Beyond (Cambridge,MA: Schenkman, 1974) p. 1. Biographical information is based on research and interviews done by Douglas Kellner for Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism.Berkeley and London: University of California Press (USA) and Macmillan Press (England), 1984, as well as decades of research by the editors in the Herbert Marcuse archives and other published sources on Marcuse and the topics addressed. There is still no definitive biography of Marcuse’s life and work. 4 Conversation with Marcuse, December 28, 1978, La Jolla. Marcuse also told Helmut Dubiel that he had rarely actively experienced anti-Semitism in Germany. See Helmut Dubiel and Leo Löwenthal, Mitmachen wollte ich nie (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1980) pp. 27ff. Consequently, like Marx, Marcuse was never especially interested in the “Jewish question,” as were other Jewish Marxists like Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and Ernst Bloch. Nonetheless, Marcuse’s Jewish origins may have helped produce alienation from bourgeois society, which may help explain his sharp critiques of bourgeois society and search for an alternative model