A Study On The Idea Of Progress In Nietzsche, Heidegger, And Critical Theory

Jean-Francois Lyotard defined postmodernity as “the collapse of grand narratives” that understand history as a unitary and progressive movement. Tassone (philosophy, U. of York, UK) attempts to rescue the Enlightenment project of human liberation and emancipation from the philosophies of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Noting “there is no theory of progress without a philosophy of history,” he seeks to counter their thought through a two-fold process. He argues that a deep reading of both Nietzsche and Heidegger reveals that both of them at base rely on a dialectical concept of history that, superficially, they rejected. To counter the two of them, Tassone argues for the embracing of Herbert Marcuse’s materialist-dialectical framework of historical totalization, as mediated through the works of other Frankfurt school thinkers such as Adorno and Horkheimer. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)