CONTRADICTION, CRITIQUE, AND DIALECTIC IN ADORNO A ...

has to give way to a different social order because it ought to express the essence of
humanity better. So, the current social order, initially defined as ‘essence,’ is
transformed into ‘appearance’ through its dialectical opposition with the essence of the
human being. Note that Marcuse’s call for the transformation of society is grounded in a
specific, positive conception of essence (the human essence), and a call for it to be better
realized. This means that the higher dialectical concept here is essence, not appearance,
and the realization of a different social order in which the ‘essence’ of the human being is
finally actualized would just be the concrete sublation [Aufhebung] of the one-sided
determinations of appearance and essence in reified society under a higher conception of
essence.
Even though Marcuse’s formulation of the initial determinations of essence and
appearance in reified society corresponds to Adorno’s (where essence refers to exchange
relations as fully determining the social totality and appearance to the ideological and
distorted contents of ordinary consciousness), Marcuse’s deployment of a positive
concept of the human essence changes the structure of the dialectic of essence and
appearance. For Marcuse, the ‘higher’ dialectical concept is the concept of essence, the
human essence, and it is on the ground of this positive conception of essence that he
decries the existing social order. 177 Whereas for Adorno the dialectic of appearance and
177 Marcuse says that the positive concept of the essence of the human being “als Leitidee und
Vorbild hinter allen kritisch-polemischen Unterscheidungen von Wesen und Erscheinung steht. Von ihm
aus werden alle Kategorien, welche die gegebene Gestalt des Daseins als eine historisch vergängliche
beschreiben, zu ‚ironischen’ Begriffen, die ihre eigene Aufhebung enthalten” [The positive concept of
essense sustains all critical and polemical distinctions between essence and appearance as their guiding
principle and model. All categories that describe the given form of existence as historically transient
become ‘ironic’concepts that contain their own negation (translation modified)] (Ibid., 37). By placing
other dialectical pairs in relation to the positive concept of essence, existing conditions are shown to be
‘bad’ but also to contain the possibilities and tendencies toward a transformation into a free society.
Marcuse claims that “[d]ie materialistischen Begriffe enthalten alle eine Anklage und eine Forderung” [the
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