Marcuse and Adorno diverged on whether history harbors a guaranteed positive essence

Evidence

Marcuse took the view that there was a positive essence inherent within negative phenomena, and saw the subterranean history of that positive essence as being the authentic and ultimately victorious side of history. Adorno, by contrast, did not accept that a subterranean history of this sort could offer any guarantee. Only at the moment of consummate negativity would it be possible for both the negative and the positive, and the victorious light of a redemption that would cancel at once the distinction between them, to reveal themselves simultaneously. Only from the moment in which redemption occurred, and therefore in retrospectlike a life flashing past one at the moment of deathwould it be possible to distinguish correctly between the negative and the positive. It was precisely Adorno’s insistence on the aporia of the immanent critique of false conditions that led him into a kind of theology in parentheses. It was like a bill of exchange whose character as such was emphasized, while one nevertheless counted on its being redeemed. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2153

Categorization

• XREF: This Marcuse/Adorno divergence on redemption connects to the broader Adorno scholarship on negative dialectics and to the ‘theology in parentheses’ concept discussed across later Frankfurt School secondary literature. — connects to: Adorno rejected Marcuse’s guarantee of positive essence beneath negativity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2153; Marcuse sought to reconcile historical necessity with the ethical value of freedom — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 420; Marcuse and Adorno diverged on whether redemption is immanent in existing society — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2152
• DEEPTHINKING: The idea that redemption alone enables retrospectively distinguishing negative from positive, and the ‘bill of exchange’ metaphor for Adorno’s theological commitment, is a dense philosophical formulation worth sitting with.