Unlike positivism’s drive for the reduction of multiplicity (the “other”) to the
mathematical point of immanence, equivalence and identity, dialectics, par-
ticularly negative dialectics, “contradicts the traditional norm of adequacy”
as it is “the consistent sense of nonidentity” (Marcuse 1960:5). Dialectical the-
ory seeks “to change the direction of conceptuality, to give it a turn toward
nonidentity” (Marcuse 1960:12).
The dialectical thought of the Critical Theory, therefore, does not begin
with a pre-established, paradigmatic theoretical position that is then exter-
nally applied to and forced upon its object. Rather, dialectical thought is the
negative process of realizing its own theoretical insufficiency in the face of
reality. It is the realization that things do not fit neatly into their socially cre-
ated concept or definition. Dialectical thought, in general, critically recog-
nizes, enters into, and seeks the concrete or determinatesocio-historical negation
of the tension/contradiction between reason and reality, essence and exis-
tence, the infinite and the finite, sacred and profane, religion and secularity,
the individual and the collective, etc. Unlike the dualistic methodology of
modern natural and positivistic social science as expressed in Rational Choice
Theory, which abstractly negates or crassly reduces this tension to a calcu-
lating stratagem of individual interest, the dialectical dynamic of determi-
nate negation seeks a higher historical form of this tension’s reconciliation
beyond the mere existence of what is. The reduction, if not negation of this
contradiction and the suffering it produces, is not just an issue of logic, method-
ology, or theory formation. Rather, the very concrete and historical goal of
this dialectical method of the critical theory is the specific negation of those
social systems, structures, and powers of the reified status quo that prevent
the creation of a more reconciled future society.
Dialectic or critical theory gives expression to that which is “other” than
what is; to that which doesn’t fit into the neatly constructed concepts of the
status quo’s logic or social system. The critical theory of society and religion
gives revolutionary articulation to the voice and longings of the innocent vic-
tims of the class exploitation, domination, and barbarism of capitalist civil
society. Through negative dialectical thought and its methodology of deter-
minate negation, the critical theory of religion gives expression in a materi-
alistic voice to suffering humanity’s religiously expressed longing for justice,
redemption, happiness, God or that which is “totally Other” than what is. In
the critical theory, this totally “Other” is not conceived in a metaphysical,
theological, or idealistic way, which abstracts from people’s experiences in
The Notion of the Totally “Other” • 131