The Philosophy Book

259

See also: Georg Hegel 178–85 ■ Karl Marx 196–203 ■ Martin Heidegger

252–55 ■ Slavoj Žižek 326

A

t first glance, nothing

seems to be more irrational

than Marcuse’s claim that

“that which is” cannot be true,

which appears in his 1941 book,

Reason and Revolution. If that

which is cannot be true, the reader

is tempted to ask, then what is? But

Marcuse’s idea is partly an attempt

to overturn the claim made by the

German philosopher Hegel that

what is rational is actual, and also

that what is actual is rational.

Marcuse believes this is a

dangerous idea because it leads us

to think that what is actually the

case—such as our existing political

system—is necessarily rational.

He reminds us that those things

we take as reasonable may be far

more unreasonable than we like to

admit. He also wants to shake us

up into realizing the irrational

nature of many of the things that

we -take for granted.

Subversive reason

In particular, Marcuse is deeply

uneasy with capitalist societies and

with what he calls their “terrifying

harmony of freedom and oppression,

productivity and destruction,

growth and regression.” We assume

that the societies we live in are

based upon reason and justice,

but when we look more closely, we

may find that they are neither as

just nor as reasonable as we believe.

Marcuse is not discounting

reason, but trying to point out that

reason is subversive, and that we

can use it to call into question the

society in which we live. The aim

of philosophy, for Marcuse, is a

“rationalist theory of society.” ■

THE MODERN WORLD

THAT WHICH IS

CANNOT BE TRUE

HERBERT MARCUSE (1898–1979)

Fast cars are the kind of consumables

that Marcuse accuses us of using to

recognize ourselves; he says we find

“our soul” in these items, becoming

mere extensions of the things we create.

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Political philosophy

APPROACH

Frankfurt School

BEFORE

1820 Georg Hegel writes in

his Philosophy of Right that

what is actual is rational and

what is rational is actual.

1867 Karl Marx publishes
the first volume of Das Kapital,
setting out his view of the
“laws of motion” within
capitalist societies, and
asserting that capitalism is
guilty of exploiting humans.

1940s Martin Heidegger
begins to explore the problems
of technology.

AFTER
2000 Slavoj Žižek explores
the relationship between
technology, capitalist society,
and totalitarianism.