Marcuse’s trajectory from ontology to history let him replace Adorno as philosophy reviewer

Evidence

Adorno had recognized, in a review of Marcuse’s Hegel book, that Marcuse was moving from the "Meaning of Being" to the interpretation of existence; from fundamental ontology to the philosophy of history; from historicity to history'. Marcuse was therefore standing in for Adorno, who had previously produced the philosophy review section almost single-handedly with his student, Dolf Sternberger. (The Nazi takeover and the Institute's emigration had destroyed Adorno's hope, which he mentioned to Kracauer as late as January 1933, that the journal, whose philosophy review section he was now officially in charge of along with Horkheimer, could be turned into our official organ’. The people around us will be very decent,' Adorno wrote to Kracauer, encouraging him to join them. Benjamin and Lukács are with us, I’m taking over most of the philosophy reviews myself, I’ve dismissed all the incompetent people and I want to get real talents like Sternberger and Marcuse involved instead.’) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 541

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s phrase traces Marcuse’s evolution from Heideggerian fundamental ontology toward historical materialism — a precise intellectual-biography marker.
• XREF: connects to: Marcuse’s early project merged Heideggerian phenomenology with Marx against Engels’ naturalism — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 274

Broader Connections

• Marcuse’s early project merged Heideggerian phenomenology with Marx against Engels’ naturalism #expands (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 274