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A Study on Authority
The great theorist of radical liberation analyzes the relationship between authority and freedom.
This is the first paperback edition of what is now recognized as Marcuse’s most important collection of writings on philosophy. He analyzes and attacks some of the main intellectual currents of European thoughts from the Reformation to the Cold War. In a survey that includes Luther, Calvin, Kant, Burke, Hegel and Bergson, he shows how certain concepts of authority and liberty are constant elements in their very different systems. The book also contains Marcuse’s famous response to Karl Popper’s Poverty of Historicism, and his critique of Sartre.
This is the first paperback edition of what is now recognized as Marcuse’s most important collection of writings on philosophy. He analyzes and attacks some of the main intellectual currents of European thoughts from the Reformation to the Cold War. In a survey that includes Luther, Calvin, Kant, Burke, Hegel and Bergson, he shows how certain concepts of authority and liberty are constant elements in their very different systems. The book also contains Marcuse’s famous response to Karl Popper’s Poverty of Historicism, and his critique of Sartre.
paper
First published January 17, 2008
About the author
Herbert Marcuse
229 books562 followersGerman-Jewish philosopher, political theorist and sociologist, and a member of the Frankfurt School. Celebrated as the "Father of the New Left", his best known works are Eros and Civilization, One-Dimensional Man and The Aesthetic Dimension. Marcuse was a major intellectual influence on the New Left and student movements of the 1960s.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 28, 2016
درباب اقتدار مارکوزه مجموعه از جستارهایی است که او از جنبش اصلاح دینی تا جریان های متاخر مارکسیستی به منظور تببین چگونگی شکل گیری اقتدار در ساختارهای نظری دنبال می کند.
کتاب مملوء از نکات جذاب است، هرچند ساختارهای منسجمی ندارد و به جز تاکیداتی که پیرامون انقلاب فرانسه و تاثیر آن بر کانت و هگل دارد از وجه انضمامی ساخت اقتدار غافل مانده است.
به هر حال کتاب مارکوزه حقیقتا صرفا "درباب" اقتدار است و تشریح چگونگی اقتدار و استقرار آن شاید، نیاز بر دقت در زوایای پنهان دیگری هم داشته باشد.
کتاب مملوء از نکات جذاب است، هرچند ساختارهای منسجمی ندارد و به جز تاکیداتی که پیرامون انقلاب فرانسه و تاثیر آن بر کانت و هگل دارد از وجه انضمامی ساخت اقتدار غافل مانده است.
به هر حال کتاب مارکوزه حقیقتا صرفا "درباب" اقتدار است و تشریح چگونگی اقتدار و استقرار آن شاید، نیاز بر دقت در زوایای پنهان دیگری هم داشته باشد.
September 5, 2019
It's dense, as critical theory often is, but an interesting examination on the ways that early modernist and Lutheran thought conceptualised and justified authority all the way up to Marxism and contemporary fascism (which for Marcuse was in the 30s). It doesn't have a definitive conclusion, so it reads more as a series of examinations that build on top of one another, but the later chapters are more or less independent of the previous analyses. The most difficult sections were on Hegel, but that is a given considering I myself haven't read the big man himself, so its easy to get lost in Marcuse's prose. Whilst it is very precise and very deliberate, don't hesitate to take a breather so that the concepts make more sense. Despite being a reasonably short essay, it isn't a light read by any means. Highly recommend it to anyone interested in the modern philosophy of authority and to any fans of critical theory in general.
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October 3, 2022A study on Authority, A short introduction to the very structural framework of the Authority and how it's formation is interconnected within every transcending new order. Protestantism as the central movement to develop the bourgeois theory of freedom, property relations and especially the family. The book reiterates the basis of the movements and tries to penetrate through the events by bringing a psychoanalytical approach. As Marcuse himself was a great Freudian. The rigour Neo-Kantian ethics to Hegel's philosophy of right. Marcuse gives these texts a very symptomatic yet philosophical reading.
Marx's construction for a social revolution to subvert the existing social relationships between Labour and Capital is precisely
re — illustrated/examined here.
Marx's construction for a social revolution to subvert the existing social relationships between Labour and Capital is precisely
re — illustrated/examined here.
February 1, 2018
Letting aside Marcuse's analysis and insights on this topic, the whole thing is insufferably abstract. I wished for a Bertrand Russell take at it, all I got was a high-nosed Kantian view on authority.
January 5, 2021
Traces modern (1936) authoritarianism through Protestant ideology, Kantian secularization of that ideology, on to Hegel's state philosophy, and finally shaped by Marx into its dualistic liberal or fascist possibilities.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 13, 2023
Unfortunately, this book is above my perception grade.
November 20, 2010
It is infact a critical/historical account of Authority by one of most heard philosophers of Frankfurt school. I like this study.
January 2, 2015
It's a good history of the legitimation of authority from Luther and Calvin up to Kant and Hegel. Best read alongside 'On Hedonism' in the Negations volume, which works on the reverse problem.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews