On Tue, 3 Nov 1998 01:52:47 -0500 Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
> If Patrick Murray has Hegel's influence on Marx's
conception of science right, then the late Marcuse's Great
Refusal represents a severing in that Marcuse no longer
understands science as the searching out of reality's
capacities for upheaval and for the satisfcation of previoulsy
unmet needs and aspiration; that is Marcuse has given up the
model of change through self contradiction that impels Hegel's
Phenomology. See Patrick Murray profound Marx's Theory of
Scientific Knowledge.
Thanks for the ref, I suspect we swim in different theoretical circles. The problem with science is that it was and never can be pure world-disclosure. There is always an emphatic element - an element which 'forces' its way into how the world *should* be. It is no coincidence that the procedural forms of science are almost identical with the procedural forms of law an democracy (Habermas's writings on law and democracy are nice examples of this). When you talk about Marcuse giving up self-contradiction this is similar to the democratic compromise (majoritarian rule). This 'praxis' is offensive first, because procedures are ground in undeterminable variables (hence any formal procedure is tautological) and, if followed through, the reconciliation(s) achieved through democratic (slow) reform remain a dialectics under (procedural) duress.
Marcuse's 'great refusal' is therefore an 'evil' ethical position.
He is saying 'NO!' precisely to violate and contradict the prevailing tendencies of scientific hegenomy (democratic or not). For Marcuse to say 'yes!' this is an ethical or correct way of life is to commit ethical suicide. To some extend Marcuse did this in his later work when he identified the kernel of liberation in the socialists women's movement. He reified women and sacrificed the possibility of ethical responsibility.
ken