ABSTRACT
The combination of a declared Marxist standpoint with an imaginative critique of Heidegger has meant that it is often regarded as the earliest attempt to effect a synthesis of Marx and Heidegger, long before that of Sartre or Merleau-Ponty. The marxism of the SPD and that of the Second International, of which it was the uncontested leading member, had also during the years almost taken the form of an empty ritual, with simplistic formulae and without continuous reassessments characteristic of Marx’s own work. Heidegger’s phenomenological analyses show that the existential subject is born into a world shaped by and shared by others, necessarily perceived as the impersonal “they”. The theory of liberation rests upon the difficult synthesis of theoretical or descriptive elements derived from very different intellectual traditions, whose co-existence is precarious; in the years that follow the tension will become more apparent, as Marcuse concurrently develops characteristic Heideggerian themes and elaborates new fusion of dialectic with revised phenomenological approach.
