Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

My paper reviews the Marcusean response to the Marxism’s Crisis of the 20s. Marcuse’s attempt was to save Marxism from its dissolution by means of existential philosophy, having Heidegger’s thinking as reference. Exposing the question, outlining its problematic main concepts and conclusions defines the goals of this paper, together with throwing a prospective view to the current situation of Marxism from this experience. Marxism’s Crisis pointed out the alienation of the theory from its original purpose: a failure in the objective approach to the capitalist society and an absence of commitment with the social transformation. Understanding and action are therefore correlative terms within Marxism. Thus the concept of «revolution», which became an abstract concept for social-democrat Marxism and an expression of Realpolitik for soviet Marxism, should refer to an objective and necessary state of fact and should work as an appeal to the radical action. For Marcuse, then, overcoming this Crisis required a concrete approach to the political, economical, and social reality of society that leads in a deep understanding of the existential situation of the social transformation. Only in the existence can be found the tie needed between theory and praxis without which Marxism loses its ground and sense as a politically relevant philosophy. Both Being and Time and Heidegger himself played a significant role in the project of young Marcuse, who discovered in existential analytic a milestone to overcome bourgeois thinking and way of living: concreteness disclosed by Heidegger offered a relevant orientation to a new world.