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This paper intends to present some considerations on a possible epistemology of noise as a response to theory of recognition and its bases on theory of communicative action. The principal movement will be to recover some aspects of Marcuse’s and Foucault’s perspective on the disturbances narratives in social sphere. The interest for them becomes stronger from Habermas’ perspective on their “performative contradicions”. Both of them would appeal to social aspects that escapes from critical normativities. Foucault’s structures of power as well as Marcuse’s psychoanalytical drives would represent aspects of the same Habermasian problem: the absence of auto-critical rationality. However, we can question: what would offer to the two authors the limits of communicative action?
The essay focuses on the impact of Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization in Germany in 1968. First, the essay discusses how Freud’s theory was used in the late twenties at the Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt. Then, it focuses on how certain of Adorno and Horkheimer’s ideas were developed in Eros and Civilization. Finally, it shows how Marcuse’s work became relevant for the intellectual development of the student movement in Germany.
In this paper I intend to discuss the relation of Marcuse’s theory of technology to its grounding in the possibilities he believed lay inherent, but as yet untapped in nature. Marcuse was an early critic of what he considered to be the exploitative, predatory approach to nature brought about through the direction of technology, industry and science under consumer capitalism, however his alternative; a “new science” and “new technology” which would treat nature as an “ally” in the general struggle for liberation and emancipation, was not without its problems.
The events of 1968/69 initiated a dispute between Adorno and Marcuse over the (alleged) separation of theory and praxis. While Marcuse “stood at the barricades” Adorno sought recluse in the “ivory tower”. Marcuse and German students perceived Adorno’s move as departure from fundamental postulates of critical theory as laid down in Horkheimer’s 1937 essay. Adorno died amidst the process of clarifying his differences with Marcuse and thus the “unlimited discussions” between the two remain unfinished. This paper sets to examine how both Marcuse and Adorno remained dedicated to the unity of theory and praxis, albeit in different ways. I argue that Adorno did not separate theory and praxis; instead, he perceived the gap between critical theory and concrete historical situation. Adorno rejected simple and unreflective translation of theory into praxis. Hence his attempt to recalibrate critical theory. Marcuse’s and Adorno’s differences lie in their different evaluation of the student movement and this (mis)evaluation was context related. My second argument is that Marcuse/Adorno disagreement is partly caused by the absence of the two from the concrete historical context.