Eros and Civilization : A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud by Herbert Marcuse, ISBN-13: 978-0807015551

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Eros and Civilization : A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud by Herbert Marcuse, ISBN-13: 978-0807015551

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• Publisher: ‎ Beacon Press; 8th edition (September 15, 1974)
• Language: ‎ English
• 304 pages
• ISBN-10: ‎ 9780807015551
• ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0807015551

In this classic work, Herbert Marcuse takes as his starting point Freud’s statement that civilization is based on the permanent subjugation of the human instincts, his reconstruction of the prehistory of mankind – to an interpretation of the basic trends of western civilization, stressing the philosophical and sociological implications.

Table of Contents:

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

INTRODUCTION 3

PART I: UNDER THE RULE OF THE REALITY PRINCIPLE

1. The Hidden Trend in Psychoanalysis 11

Pleasure principle and reality principle

Genetic and individual repression

“Return of the repressed” in civilization

Civilization and want: rationalization of renunciation “Remembrance of things past” as vehicle of liberation

2.The Origin of the Repressed Individual (Ontogenesis) 21

The mental apparatus as a dynamic union of opposites

Stages in Freud’s theory of instincts

Common conservative nature of primary instincts

Possible supremacy of Nirvana principle

Id, ego, superego

“Corporealization” of the psyche

Reactionary character of superego

Evaluation of Freud’s basic conception

Analysis of the interpretation of history in Freud’s psychology

Distinction between repression and “surplus-repression”

Alienated labor and the performance principle

Organization of sexuality: taboos on pleasure

Organization of destruction instincts

Fatal dialectic of civilization

3. The Origin of Repressive Civilization (Phylogenesis) 55

“Archaic heritage” of the individual ego

Individual and group psychology

The primal horde: rebellion and restoration of domination

Dual content of the sense of guilt

Return of the repressed in religion

The failure of revolution

Changes in father-images and mother-images

4. The Dialectic of Civilization 78

Need for strengthened defense against destruction

Civilization’s demand for sublimation (desexualization)

Weakening of Eros (life instincts); release of destructiveness

Progress in productivity and progress in domination

Intensified controls in industrial civilization

Decline of struggle with the father

Depersonalization of superego, shrinking of ego

Completion of alienation

Disintegration of the established reality principle

5.Philosophical Interlude 106

Freud’s theory of civilization in the tradition of Western philosophy

Ego as aggressive and transcending subject

Logos as logic of domination

Philosophical protest against logic of domination

Being and becoming: permanence versus transcendence

The eternal return in Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche

Eros as essence of being

PART II: BEYOND THE REALITY PRINCIPLE

6. The Historical Limits of the Established Reality Principle 129

Obsolescence of scarcity and domination

Hypothesis of a new reality principle

The instinctual dynamic toward non-repressive civilization

Problem of verifying the hypothesis

7. Phantasy and Utopia 140

Phantasy versus reason

Preservation of the “archaic past”

Truth value of phantasy

The image of life without repression and anxiety

Possibility of real freedom in a mature civilization

Need for a redefinition of progress

8.The Images of Orpheus and Narcissus 159

Archetypes of human existence under non-repressive civilization

Orpheus and Narcissus versus Prometheus

Mythological struggle of Eros against the tyranny of reason — against death

Reconciliation of man and nature in sensuous culture

9. The Aesthetic Dimension 172

Aesthetics as the science of sensuousness

Reconciliation between pleasure and freedom, instinct and morality

Aesthetic theories of Baumgarten, Kant, and Schiller

Elements of a non-repressive culture

Transformation of work into play

10. The Transformation of Sexuality into Eros 197

The abolition of domination

Effect on the sex instincts

“Self-sublimation” of sexuality into Eros

Repressive versus free sublimation

Emergence of non-repressive societal relationships

Work as the free play of human faculties

Possibility of libidinous work relations

11. Eros and Thanatos 222

The new idea of reason: rationality of gratification

Libidinous morality

The struggle against the flux of time

Change in the relation between Eros and death instinct

EPILOGUE: Critique of Neo-Freudian Revisionism 238

INDEX 275

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) was born in Berlin and educated at the universities of Berlin and Freiburg. He fled Germany in 1933 and arrived in the United States in 1934. Marcuse taught at Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis, and the University of California, San Diego, where he met Andrew Feenberg and William Leiss as graduate students. He is the author of numerous books, including One-Dimensional Man and Eros and Civilization.

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