The Power of Negative Thinking: Defending the Hegel of Adorno and Marcuse

Abstract

This paper will attempt to briefly outline (and defend) Theodor W. Adorno and Herbert Marcuse’s respective depictions of the eminently critical and revolutionary spirit inherent in G.W.F. Hegel’s thought: a spirit that led him to “denounce the world” as it was given, in order to strive towards “new modes of existence with new forms of reason and freedom.” After contextualizing the Frankfurt School’s (theoretical) predicament as a war on two fronts between both positivism and irrationalism, I proceed to discuss what Marcuse has termed “the power of negative thinking.” Here, I portray what I consider to be the fundamental components of the dialectical approach (immanent critique, determinate negation, totality, contradiction, mediation, etc.), before moving on to appraise its relevance today at the “end of history.”