Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution defined Marx’s dialectic as historical rather than ontological.

Evidence

The totality in which the Marxian theory moves is other than that of Hegel’s philosophy, and this difference indicates the decisive difference between Hegel’s and Marx’s dialectics. For Hegel, the totality was the totality of reason, a closed ontological system, finally identical with the rational system of history… . Marx, on the other hand, detached dialectic from this ontological base. In his work, the negativity of reality becomes a historical condition which cannot be hypostatized as a metaphysical state of affairs. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 293

Categorization

• DEFINE: Encapsulates the key distinction between Hegel’s closed ontological totality and Marx’s open historical negativity — a core definitional claim in the Frankfurt School’s reading of the dialectic.
• XREF: This Hegel-vs-Marx totality distinction is central to Critical Theory’s self-definition throughout the tradition and echoes Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness. — connects to: Marx saw historical development as contradictory rather than unilinear; Reason that opposes the established order is historical Reason. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 534; Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution was pursued partly to ease his departure from the Institute — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1092

Broader Connections

• Reason that opposes the established order is historical Reason. #contradicts (0.70) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 534