Marcuse’s rationalism and identity-thinking delayed his engagement with psychoanalysis

Evidence

The early Marcuse was perhaps too much of a rationalist to find anything of great appeal in the murky world of the unconscious. Stressing as he did the potential reconciliation of subject and object, in a way that Horkheimer and Adorno with their emphasis on nonidentity never did, Marcuse was interested less in individual psychology than in the social totality. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 365

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Marcuse retained a faith in reason’s realization that the others lacked. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 271; Marcuse’s early project merged Heideggerian phenomenology with Marx against Engels’ naturalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 274; Political crises pushed Marcuse toward Freud and a utopian radicalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 367 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Marcuse defended the libidinal reading of the Oedipus complex against Fromm’s interpersonal reinterpretation #expands (0.80) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 372