ABSTRACT
Critical Theory does not pretend to be axiologically neutral; it denies such a possibility for any social knowledge and it proclaims openly and proudly its commitment to certain values, its partisan character, its adherence to certain philosophical and ethical presuppositions. It believes in the objective validity of these presuppositions and values, avoiding therefore the dilemmas of relativism. The trouble is that social values and ethical assertions that are evident for one class are far from being so to others, and/or that the same values are interpreted by the different social classes in opposite ways and attributed widely diverse concrete meanings. Marcuse himself clearly stated, in the already mentioned passage from his article on the concept of essence, where Critical Theory’s “Archimedean point” lies. Critical Theory was condemned to become more and more suspended in the air, socially rootless, and abstract.
