Two-dimensional thought stems from experiencing reality as fundamentally antagonistic

Evidence

This conception reflects the experience of a world antagonistic in itself—a world afflicted with want and negativity, constantly threatened with destruction, but also a world which is a cosmos, structured in accordance with final causes. To the extent to which the experience of an antagonistic world guides the development of the philosophical categories, philosophy moves in a universe which is broken in itself (déchirement ontologique)—two-dimensional. Appearance and reality, untruth and truth, (and, as we shall see, unfreedom and freedom) are ontological conditions. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 492

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains what ‘two-dimensionality’ means at its source: the ontological split between appearance and reality built into Western metaphysics.
• XREF: connects to: Technological transformation of physical nature erases the dimension of contradiction in lived reality — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 305; Thought requires deliberate self-distancing because reality resists being understood directly; Restricted experience produces the one-dimensional, manipulated individual — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 672

Broader Connections

• Thought requires deliberate self-distancing because reality resists being understood directly #corroborates (0.75)
• Restricted experience produces the one-dimensional, manipulated individual #expands (0.75) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 672