Zwei Rezensionen von Herbert Marcuses Vernunft und Revolution

Zusammenfassung

Only a few studies have been made on the very interesting and impor¬tant transition from Hegel to Marx, from »reason« to »revolution«, though F. Engels already had challenged the German professors by the paradoxical statement that the German labor movement was to be the heir of Hegel’s philosophy. A stimulus for the renewal of these studies, presented by J. Plenge (1911), G. Lukács (1923), and S. Hook (1935), was the first publication of the full text of Marx’ earlier manuscripts and of Hegel’s Jenenser Real-Philosophie. The difficulties which these texts offer, by their conceptual language as well as by their content, are so great that one cannot expect Marcuse’s effort to transform the German of Hegel and Marx into English to give pleasure even to the most patient and intelligent reader. On the other hand the poor sense of common sense is no criterion of abstract philosophical terms. Hegel and Marx are as concrete as one can be in analyzing a phenomenon thoroughly. But unfortunately the evidence, fullness, and even beauty of Hegel’s terms is lost in the English translation — however correct it may be — because it is almost impossible to preserve in another language the associations, implications, and connotations of the spoken lan¬guage which remain at the root of these terms like a natural atmosphere and nourishing soil.