ABSTRACT
Hegel’s system, says Marcuse, is that “that which men believe to be true and good, should be realized in the effective organization of their social and individual life.” The opposites of Hegel are Hume and Kant. Marcuse writes: If Hume was to be accepted, the claim of reason to organize reality had to be rejected. The manifesto of the destruction of things—which is what Marcuse too means by “revolution”—he himself points out in Hegel’s writings. The true direction of Marcuse’s position lies in the so-called critique of science. The opposition of “positive thought” and “negative thought,” of “intellect” and “reason,” of noncontradiction and dialectical contradiction, is else the opposition of science and philosophy. The Hegelian and romantic critique of the “intellect” reemerged precisely at the turn of the century, with the so-called idealist reaction against science.
