Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization best continued Critical Theory’s trajectory.

Evidence

In retrospect, the Freud book can be seen as Marcuse’s major theoretical work. Moreover, in comparison with the 1955 publications listed earlier in this chapter, and even with what was published in the years before and after, it has the best claim to be seen as a continuation of Critical Theory. In Reason and Revolution (1941) Marcuse had attempted systematically to snatch Hegel from the hands of reaction and fascism and demonstrate that Marx’s social theory was the heir to the critical tendencies in Hegel’s philosophy. In 1946 he had suggested producing a special issue of the planned new journal containing a systematic assessment of the political, economic and cultural ideas and programmes of the significant parties in post-war Germany. In 1947 he was the only one to draft programmatic theses around which to orient the new journal. Later on, the product of his fellowships at the Russian Institute at Columbia University and the Russian Research Center at Harvard was Soviet Marxism (1958), a systematic critique of Soviet Marxist ideology which took Marx’s theory as its yardstick. In One-Dimensional Man (1964) he attempted a systematic critique of the ideology of advanced industrial society. In Eros and Civilization, similarly, he used the dynamics of instinct to provide Critical Theory with a basis of a sort. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2130 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In much of the Institut’s work during the forties - The Authoritarian Personality, Dialektik der Aufklarung (Dialectic of the Enlightenment), Lowenthal’s Prophets of Deceit - Freud’s sobering influence was clearly evident. After the Institut’s return to Germany, this influence continued to play a meaningful role in both its theoretical and its empirical work. … It was, however, left to the member of the Institut’s inner circle who had had the least to do with the psychological speculations of the American period to attempt once again to reconcile Freud and Marx in an optimistic direction. In Eros and Civilization, Herbert Marcuse sought to rescue that “revolutionary Freud” whom Fromm had dismissed as a myth and whom Horkheimer and Adorno had turned into a prophet of gloom. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 364 (#expands, via linked claim)

For Marcuse and Neumann, Critical Theory would be developed as a theory of social change that would connect philosophy, social theory, and radical politics—precisely the project of 1930s Critical Theory that Horkheimer and Adorno were abandoning in the early 1940s in their turn toward philosophical and cultural criticism divorced from social theory and radical politics. Marcuse and Neumann, by contrast, were focusing precisely on the issue that Horkheimer and Adorno had neglected: the theory of social change. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 31 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization is the true continuation of Critical Theory — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2130; Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization revived the revolutionary Freud Horkheimer and Adorno had rejected. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 364; Marcuse and Neumann preserved Critical Theory’s political project that Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 31

Broader Connections

• Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization is the true continuation of Critical Theory #corroborates (1.00) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2130
• Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization revived the revolutionary Freud Horkheimer and Adorno had rejected. #expands (0.85) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 364
• Marcuse and Neumann preserved Critical Theory’s political project that Horkheimer and Adorno abandoned #expands (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 31