Frankfurt School Marxism and the Ethical Meaning of Art: Herbert Marcuse's The Aesthetic Dimension

This article takes up the ethical meaning of Herbert Marcuse's aesthetics, especially as espoused in his last book, The Aesthetic Dimension (1978). In it, Marcuse responds at both an ethical and aesthetic level to three versions of Marxist/Frankfurt school theory of art: realism, negation theory, and formalism. The first part of my article situates The Aesthetic Dimension in a tradition; the second part lets it speak for itself as a synthesis of the three ethical/aesthetic traditions; and the third part queries and develops Marcuse's synthetic efforts.