Herbert Marcuse's Argument Analysis

Scholars and philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Descartes to name a few purused new found knowledge by questioning what is reality, what holds truth and how does one acquire wisdom. They came across such questions by presenting conflicting points of views. They understood that the saying “there are two sides to a story” holds truth. In fact, Herbert Marcuse drawing from Friedrich Hegel, coined this concept “dialectical thinking.” In the Age of Reason, skepticism and cynicism relating to historical facts, previous cultural assumptions and personal biases were encouraged in order to present an argument and therefore, refute an argument ultimately pursuing a new perspective on society and how it is ever changing. With the turn of the century,
the notion of dialectical thought has deviated and the influence of mainstream ideologies have overtaken the mindset of contemporary society, Marcuse witnessed this change and feared what Hegel called the “mental faculty which is in danger of being obliterated.”