For Phenomenology's Contribution To The Marxism

This paper tries to present a systematic study on the development of Herbert Marcuse’s thinking phase in which he studied phenomenology with Heidegger in Freiburg. During this time Marcuse tried to synthesize Heidegger’s phenomenology and Marxism. The synthesis is not a purely theoretical one, since Marcuse was at that time already a committed Marxist, but one with predetermined practical orientation. So phenomenology was from the beginning used for the purpose of Marxism’s renaissance, he searched passionately to find how phenomenology could contribute to Marxism. With this purpose, this kind of striving can easily misunderstand phenomenology and Marxism in this or that way, the target of this paper is to clarify this misunderstanding, in order to on the one hand shed some light on the tension between these two traditions, and on the other hand also shed some light on Marcuse’s thoughts.The first chapter discusses the first subphase of Marcuse’s synthesis. In this subphase, Marcuse sought to transform phenomenology into a concrete philosophy, that is, into a revolutionary theory. The difficulty before him is the tension between Marxism’s concept of history and Heidegger’s concept of historicity. This tension was not so obvious due to Marcuse’s indiscriminate use of the concept of historicity. The first chapter offers a detailed view of the development of Marcuse’s thought in this subphase. It also clarifies the problem of history and historicity.The second chapter discusses the second subphase of Marcuse’s first synthetical project, during which he tried to, in a way of phenomenological ontology, deepen the historical theory into the ontological foundation of historical phenomenon. He interpreted Hegel’s thoughts through Heidegger’s ontology, and by doing so he put Marxism on a foundation which was a synthesis of phenomenology and Hegel’s thoughts. Through the clarification of Marcuse’s thoughts, the second chapter seeks to shed some light on the relationship among Heidegger, Hegel and Marx.The third chapter discusses the last subphase of Marcuse’s first synthetical project, during which he tried to do an existential analysis on Marx’s Paris manuscript and the ontological concept of labor. This time he sought to transit from the problem of historicity to the discussion of concrete historical problems, and he found that this kind of discussion need an ontological premise. He demonstrated this premise in his existential analysis of human being and labor. Besides the articulation of Marcuse’s thoughts, the third chapter also discusses the difference between the phenomenological concept of essence and the marxist concept of essence, and the problem of inner contradiction in Marcuse’s concept of labor.