Herbert Marcuse's "The Aesthetic Dimension" - review and summary

Herbert Marcuse's "The Aesthetic Dimension" is a philosophical treatise in which Marcuse explores the role of art and aesthetics in society. He argues that art has the ability to transcend the dominant norms and values of a society, offering a space for individuals to imagine and critique the world in new and different ways.

Marcuse contends that art has a unique and important function in society, as it allows individuals to escape the constraints of their everyday lives and to explore alternative ways of being and thinking. He suggests that art can serve as a form of resistance to dominant social and political structures, offering a space for individuals to critique and challenge these structures.

Furthermore, Marcuse argues that the aesthetic dimension of art is crucial to its ability to transcend social norms and offer a critical perspective. He contends that the formal elements of art, such as color, form, and composition, have the ability to create a sense of distance and detachment from the everyday world, allowing individuals to see the world in a new light.

Overall, Marcuse's "The Aesthetic Dimension" offers a provocative exploration of the role of art in society. It suggests that art has the power to transcend the dominant norms and values of a society, offering a space for individuals to imagine and critique the world in new and different ways.

Read more:

Here you can find a ummary of Marcuse's One Dimensional man and some more to read about the Frankfurt School and on Marcuse's Repressive Tolerance and Eros and Civilization.

Heidegger's Being and Time - Summary and Overview

Being and Time is Martin Heidegger's most influential book and one of the most important books in 20th century philosophy.  

In "Being and Time" Heidegger attempts to reshape the way in which philosophy thinks about the concept of "being". The book critically reviews different methodological currents in philosophy to demonstrate their shortcoming in answering the question of being. According to Heidegger, philosophical prejudices not only shape the entire intellectual history of the West, but also determine our everyday understanding of ourselves and the world.

  

The Meaning of Being

The main topic of "Being and Time" is the "Question of the meaning of being in general".  Heidegger asks about ontological being, i.e. about what is. But he also asks what it means to say that something "is", what it means to be. "Being" for Heidegger is something mutual to all different phenomenological appearances, and that thing is meaningful references. For example, a hammer and a nail are things which gain meaning by the manner in which people incorporate them into their purposeful actions. In asking about the meaning of being Heidegger aims to uncover the relationships underlying all individual meaningful references in everyday life. 

"Being and Time" does not answer the question of the meaning of life, but rather engages with the meaning of meaning as related to existence. Heidegger's main question is therefore: "why is there anything at all rather than nothing?". According to Heidegger, Western philosophy has given different answers in its tradition as to what it understands by being, but it has never posed the question of being in such a way that it asked about the meaning of being. Heidegger criticizes previous philosophical understandings which described being as something individual. However, by just stating that something is, one cannot understand what something is. If one takes the hammer merely as an existing piece of wood and iron, its relation to the nail cannot gain meaning.

 

The Relation between Being and Time

For Heidegger, the failure of philosophical tradition to grasp existence is largely due to disregarding its relation to time. Being is not just something which is present but also something with a past and future. In "Being and Time" Heidegger tries to prove that time is an essential condition for an understanding of being, since it sets an horizon of understanding against which things can find meaning in relation to one another. For example, the hammer is used to drive nails into boards to build a house that will protect people from future storms. So it can only be understood in relation to people and in the context which makes the hammer more than just connected pieces of wood an iron.

The bottom line of Heidegger's "Being and Time" is that thinking must be understood on the basis of new principles. There is a need for a "fundamental ontology" to account for the question of being and why thing are.

 

See also: 

Introduction to Martin Heidegger's Philosophy

What is Phenomenology? Introduction and Summary

Heidegger and The Question of Being in "Being and Time"

Ontological Difference

Concept of Dasein

Concept of Mitsein 

Best Books by Nietzsche - Recommended Reading List

Nietzsche is by no doubt one of the most profound and inspirational thinkers to read, but also one of the hardest to grasp. To make life easier to those interested in getting to know Nietzsche, we compiled a list of some of his top books, and best places and order to start reading him. 

 

Where to start reading Nietzsche?

Our best suggestion for your first Nietzsche book is his famous Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One. This book is more poetic and perhaps chaotic than others, but it's one of the best Nietzsche reading experiences which manifests much of his mature philosophy 

The Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer is Nietzsche's declaration of war on the philosophy of his time. Take care not to let the philosophic hammer hit you on the head.

The Gay Science is where Nietzsche is perhaps at his best, and also the place where he tells us (for the first time) that God is dead.

Another popular choice is Beyond Good and Evil which sums up in its title Nietzsche's moral stance. This is a central book for everyone who wants to understand Nietzsche. This can be read along with On the Genealogy of Morals.

The Will to Power is another suggestive title for one of Nietzsche's most important books, dealing with what drives us humans forward.  

The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music is one of Nietzsche's early work dealing with ancients powers of creativity. 

Human, All Too Human is a highly varied book with hundreds of aphorisms in which Nietzsche expresses both a personal crisis and his mature thought.

 

Nietzsche Collections and Readers

Another good option for your first Nietzsche book is one of the introductory collections and readers. Here are some of the available options:

Nietzsche summaries and explanations

To help you along the way of reading Nietzsche we have some summaries and explainers of his books and ideas. Start with Nietzsche Explained Simply and move on to the following articles:

Nietzsche book summaries:

On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

The Birth of Tragedy

The Gay Science

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Nietzschian concepts:

Nietzsche on the Apollonian and Dionysian 

Nietzsche's "Death of God" Explained

Nietzsche's meaning of "Will to Power" 

Eternal return

last man

Music and Tragedy

Best Books by and on Karl Marx- a reading list

Karl Marx is one of the most influential social and political thinkers in modern times Here is a reading list and a recommended reading order to some of the most important books by Marx and on him. To learn more about Marx's philosophy before going into his books read our summary of Marx's ideas. (links in the following reading list take you to Amazon, doesn't cost you any extra but helps us a bit, thanks!). 

 

Books by Karl Marx

The best place to start reading Marx is the communist Manifesto (translation available online). This short and concise text is aimed at explaining much of what Marx wanted to say (here is a summary of the Communist Manifesto).

If you want to start with a good understanding of where Marx is coming from his Early Writings are a good place to start. Pay special attention to the wonderful and insightful The German Ideology.

Marx's most significant book is The Capital. But before reading The capital bear in mind that this is a very ardious and lengthy reading which isn't always very rewarding. Still, you can't really know Marx without reading The Capital (there is also an Abridged Edition).

 

Another option for the first Marx book on your shelf is one of these collections: 

  

 

Recommended Books on Karl Marx

One of the classic books on Karl Marx and the top of any reading list is Isaiah Berlin's intellectual biography titled simply Karl Marx. This book will give you a good overview of Marx's theory as well as an in-depth understanding of it.

Another biographical option is Michael Heinrich's Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society: The Life of Marx and the Development of His Work . For a focus on Marx's personal life try Karl Marx: A Life From Beginning to End.

It should always be remembered that Marx is more than anything a philosopher of history, and for that end we have Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History and García-Quesada's Karl Marx, Historian of Social Times and Spaces dealing with Historical Materialism. 

For the academics we have The Cambridge Companion to Marx and the pricy Oxford handbook of Karl Marx, both full of high-end research and insight,

For two great books by other philosophers writing about Marx check out Louis Althusser's For Marx and Reading Marx by Slavoj Žižek.

 

Summaries, reviews and explanations to help you with reading Marx

Class Consciousness

False Consciousness

Dictatorship of the Proletariat

Alienation

fetishization of commodities

Means of Production

Karl Marx – The German Ideology – summary, review and analysis

A Short Summary of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels

An Extended Summary of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels 

Ideology according to Marx – definition and explanation

Marx's Materialist Theory of History - Summary and Explanation

Class Conflict - short summary and definition

Capitalism and Exploitation - Summary

Commodity - Summary and Explanation

Human Nature, Alienation and The Structures of Capitalist Society - summary

The Dialectic and the Dialectical Method - Summary

Marx's Perception of History in The German Ideology: praxis, property and the division of labor

The German Ideology: Alienation and Ideology – summary and analysis

Marx's Dialectical Approach and Materialist Interpretation of History

Class Struggle

alienation and freedom

Value and Surplus Value theory

The Reserve Army of Labor / Unemployed 

 Law of Increasing Concentration of Capital

Contradictions of Capitalism

The Crises of Capitalism 

The Proletarian Revolution 

The dictatorship of the Proletariat 

Summary: chapter 2 in What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

Chapter 2: Observation as practical intervention

Observation according to Chalmers is not passive à range or things are done to establish the validity of a perception

-   If validity of perceptions is doubted à take action to remove the problem (e.g. touch, taste and dissect the object of observation)

-  Action can be taken to explore the adequacy of claims put forward as observable facts, so subjective aspects of perception need not be an intractable problem for science. Observable facts objective but fallible

- An observation statement constitutes a fact worthy of forming part of the basis for science if it is such that it can be tested by the senses and withstands those tests à emphasis on tests brings out active, public character of the vindication of observation statements

Observations suitable for constituting a basis for scientific knowledge are both objective and fallible. They are objective insofar as they can be publicly tested by straightforward procedures, and they are fallible insofar as they may be undermined by new kinds of tests made possible by advances in science and technology.

Back to:  What Is This Thing Called Science? / Alan Chalmers

additional summaries in  philosophy of science

Some books about philosophy of science to consider: