A Comparative Study On The View Of Science And Technology Between Marcuse And Habermas

In the20thcentury, the main western thinkers were focused on the rapiddevelopment of technology and its profound influence on the society. Science andtechnology, namely ideology, are the first productive forces. Under this background, therelationship between the progress of technology and the liberation of mankind becamethe main content which Marcuse and Habermas dealt with the views of science andtechnology.How to face the role of the progress of science&technology during the liberationof mankind? Marcuse thought the satisfaction of mankind for the material needs is falserather than real. Because the false needs are that the special social benefits aim togovern someone and impose on his need. In the developed industrial society, it is toinduct the people’s consciousness and control their life，to combine them with theexisting order, to make them into one-dimensional men and make the society intoone-dimensional through producing and satisfying the false needs. But Marcuse is notan absolute pessimist and he thought accomplishing the freedom greatly depends on thedevelopment and progress of science&technology. Thus, he analyzed the rule of thenon-repressive civilization and hoped to eliminate the captive state among people andfree form the trap. However, Habermas had the idea that the modern industrial societyhad turned up the following tendencies: science&technology have two roles, namelythey are both productive forces and ideology; the object of critique changed from theideology to science&technology. His critical theory mainly aimed to the overflowingof using the instrumental rationality.He said that technological rationality changed therationality of ruling the people by the capitalism because the technology showed thefeatures of techno-scientization in the late capitalism society, which included improvingthe labor productivity and interfering in communicative action. Science&technologyhave become a new kind of controlling, pervaded the consciousness of non-politicalpeople. This control has the characteristics of controlling, cheating and speaking for thesociety. He devoted himself to study the communicative rationality in order to avoidingthe pervasion from the instrumental rationality and technical rationality. But Habermasregarded the rationality of science&technology as the controlling rationality, regarded the oppressing and ruling the people as the inner mechanism of science&technologyand overlooked their positive meaning.In conclusion, through the comparing and analyzing the views of science&technology between Marcuse and Habermas, it may help us to see clearly the real roleof science and technology in the society and deal properly with the new social problemsfrom the application of them.