A Brief Overview of the Frankfurt School’s Mission: A Mini Essay
The following contains excerpts from an unpublished article titled The Function Of Extended Cosmic Metaphors In Herbert Marcuse’s Social Ontology.
“[Critical theory] wants to describe what should be overcome without getting involved in speculation about the end state,” Max Horkheimer said in a 1969 interview before he went on to explain the main difference between Marcuse’s definition of Critical Theory and his own. Horkheimer asserted that the main difference between their definitions is all in the details. According to Marcuse, Horkheimer argued, “it isn’t the abuses, detrimental elements in the current society that should be abolished but the entire current society.” To Marcuse, he continued, liberal society, our society, is an “inevitable precursor to fascism” and whereas Marcuse considered revolution to be a solution to society’s problems, Horkheimer considered revolution to be a potential threat. Ultimately, Horkheimer concluded, there is a chance that Marcuse would disagree with him about the alleged differences in their theoretical leanings and, possibly, the assertion that they disagree at all. Either way, Horkheimer’s assessment highlights a key feature of Marcuse’s social ontology: mereological inconsistencies.
Be that as it may, Marcuse’s extensive investigation into the origins, features, and…
