63 quotes
The revolution, Stahl declared, is the ‘world-historic mark of our age.’ It would found ‘the entire State on the will of man instead of on the commandment and ordinance of God.’ p. 364
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
Such abstraction which refuses to accept the given universe of facts as the final context of validation, such “transcending” analysis of the facts in the light of their arrested and denied possibilities, pertains to the very structure of social theory.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
By virtue of the way it has organized its technological base, contemporary industrial society tends to be totalitarian. For "totalitarian" is not only a terroristic political coordination of society, but also a non-terroristic economic-technical coordination which operates through the manipulation of needs by vested interests.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
Paul Valéry insists on the inescapable commitment of the poetic language to the negation. The verses of this language “ne parlent jamais que de choses absentes.” They speak of that which, though absent, haunts the established universe of discourse and behavior as its most tabooed possibility—neither heaven nor hell, neither good nor evil but simply “le bonheur.”
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
When capitalism is negated, social processes no longer stand under the rule of blind natural laws. P. 318
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
Marx explains the alienation of labor as exemplified in, first, the relation of the worker to the product of his labor and, second, the relation of the worker to his own activity. P. 276
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
The judgment that human life is worth living, or rather can and ought to be made worth living, … underlies all intellectual effort; it is the a priori of social theory, and its rejection (which is perfectly logical) rejects theory itself.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
We hope that the analysis offered here will demonstrate that Hegel’s basic concepts are hostile to the tendencies that have led into Fascist theory and practice. Preface
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
The people are led to find in the productive apparatus the effective agent of thought and action to which their personal thought and action can and must be surrendered. And in this transfer, the apparatus also assumes the role of a moral agent. Conscience is absolved by reification.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The societal Division of labor obtains the dignity of an ontological condition. If truth presupposes freedom from toil, and if this freedom is, in the social reality, the prerogative of a minority, then the reality allows such a truth only in approximation and for a privileged group.
The ontological concept of truth is in the centre of a logic which may serve as a model of pre- technological rationality. It is the rationality of a two-dimensional universe of discourse which, contrasts with the of thought and behavior that develop in the execution of the technological project.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
This organization of functional discourse is of vital importance; it serves as a vehicle of coordination and subordination. The unified, functional language is an irreconcilably anti-critical and anti-dialectical language. In it, operational and behavioral rationality absorbs the transcendent, negative, oppositional elements of Reason.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
Dialectical thought understands the critical tension between “is” and “ought” first as an ontological condition, pertaining to the structure of Being itself. However, the recognition of this state of Being — its theory — intends from the beginning a concrete practice. Seen in the light of a truth which appears in them falsified or denied, the given facts themselves appear false and negative.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The way in which a society organizes the life of its members … is one “project” of realization among others. But once the project has become operative in the basic institutions and relations, it tends to become exclusive and to determine the development of the society as a whole.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The individual would be free to exert autonomy over a life that would be his own. If the productive apparatus could be organized and directed toward satisfaction of the vital needs, its control might well be centralized, such control would not prevent individual autonomy, but render it possible.
This mutual dependencies no longer the dialectical relationship between master and servant, which has been broken in the struggle for mutual recognition, but rather a vicious circle which encloses both the master and the servant. Do the technicians rule, or is their rule that of the others, who rely on the technicians as their planners and executors?
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
This language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for concepts. It denies or absorbs the transcendent vocabulary; it does not search for but establishes and imposes truth and falsehood.
One-Dimensional Man (1964)
The transition from philosophy to the domain of state and society had been an intrinsic part of Hegel’s system. P. 251
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
The social and political theory responsible for the development of Fascist Germany was, then, related to Hegelianism in a completely negative way. P. 418
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)
Gentile himself call his doctrine ‘absolute formalism’: there is no; ’matter’ apart from the pure ‘form’ of acting. ‘The only matter there is in the spiritual act is the form itself, as activity.’ P. 407
Reason and Revolution, Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (1941)