"If the progressing rationality of advanced industrial society tends to liquidate, as an “irrational rest,” the disturbing elements of Time and Memory, it also tends to liquidate the disturbing rationality contained in this irrational rest. Recognition and relation to the past as present counteracts the functionalization of thought by and in the established reality. It militates against the closing of the universe of discourse and behavior; it renders possible the development of concepts which destabilize and transcend the closed universe by comprehending it as historical universe. Confronted with the given society as object of its reflection, critical thought becomes historical consciousness as such, it is essentially judgment. Far from necessitating an indifferent relativism, it searches in the real history of man for the criteria of truth and falsehood, progress and regression."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (1964), p. 99
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Critical_theory
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Critical theory
11 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Critical theory →
Related Quotes
"The error in positivism is that it takes as its standard of truth the contingently given division of labor, that betw…"
"The idea of critical theory, in the context of the history of marxism, is usually associated with the Frankfurt Schoo…"
"For the Romantics and for speculative philosophy, ... to be critical meant to elevate thinking so far beyond all rest…"
"Every presentation of philosophy, whether oral or written, is to be taken and can only be taken in the sense of a mea…"
"A critique is not a matter of saying that things are not right as they are. It is a matter of pointing out on what ki…"
"When an active individual of sound common sense perceives the sordid state of the world, desire to change it becomes …"
"Instead of ideologically synchronizing contradictions, or assigning them to separate halls of the academy, critical t…"
"The greatest merit of the critical spirit is that it tends to cure fanaticism, and it is logical enough that in our o…"
"In high industrial civilization, ... the “inner” dimension of the mind in which opposition to the status quo can take…"
"The philosopher will ask himself … if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the …"