Freud Sigmund - Eros and civilization : a philosophical inquiry into Freud

Herbert Marcuse (18981979) was born and educated in Berlin. In 1934 he left Nazi Germany, and took refuge in the USA, where he taught at Columbia University. He then held appointments at Harvard, Brandeis and the University of California at San Diego. He became well known in the 1960s as the official idealogue of campus revolutions in the USA and Europe. His books include Reason and Revolution (1941) and OneDimensional Man (1964), published by Routledge.

One-Dimensional Man

Reason and Revolution

The Collected Papers of Herbert Marcuse , edited by Douglas Kellner

Volume One, Technology, War and Fascism

Volume Two, Towards a Critical Theory of Society

Volume Three, The New Left and the 1960s

Volume Four, Art and Liberation

Volume Five, Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Emancipation

Volume Six, Marxism, Revolution and Utopia

First published in England 1956
by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd
Ark edition 1987

Transferred to Digital Printing 2005

Reissued with new preface 1998 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

1956 Herbert Marcuse
Preface 1998 Douglas Kellner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 0-415-18663-3

Herbert Marcuses Eros and Civilization (EC) provides an exciting and compelling articulation of his perspectives on contemporary civilization, domination, and liberation. Written at the height of McCarthyism in the 1950s, Marcuses epic of emancipation sketches out his vision of a free and non-repressive civilization during a historical epoch characterized by social repression and attacks on radical thought. His emphasis on liberation, play, love, and eros anticipated the ethos of the 1960s counterculture which in turn made him a guru of radical thought. In addition, the text provides an extremely radical critique of contemporary civilization which was to make Marcuse a darling of the New Left and one of the most influential thinkers of his epoch.

From the perspective of critical social theory, Marcuse reconstructs Freudian and Marxian theories in order to develop a critical theory of contemporary society, combined with visions of a non-repressive society which draws on Marx, Freud, utopian socialism, German idealism, and various poets and philosophers. In this text, Marcuses project went well beyond classical Marxism to envisage new possibilities for liberation in an era when revolutionary action and even critical thinking were threatened by oppressive social forces and conformist ideologies. In his resolutely utopian work, Marcuse articulates the vision of human emancipation that was to distinguish his version of critical theory. Whereas Adorno, Horkheimer, and most other Institute members were reluctant to develop any detailed utopian concepts, or outlines, of an alternative society, Marcuse attempted to sketch out Utopian alternatives to the present way of life. The addition of eros, art, and emancipation to his Hegelian Marxist theory provided new substance to Marcuses thought and eventually was to attract a large audience for his critical theory.