In my bachelor thesis, I have dealt with the theme of revolt throughout the history of philosophy. I focused on the works of Herbert Marcuse, one of the essential authors of the Frankfurt school, and the intellectual founder of the student protests of the 1960’s. He unified the fundamental concepts of Marx and Hegel under the concept of negative thinking: how to think paradoxes and conflicts within the established order, and the act, which would refute and eliminate them, with the intention of further realising man’s potential for total freedom. However, revolt as an element of the social process has also been present in earlier social theorists, which is why I have also included the social contract theories of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau. What I have found in the comparison of these two groups of authors, is that only the dialectic branch of philosophy argues revolt as a necessary element towards achieving mans’ freedom in society. However, as history shows us, revolt was necessary in the realisation of the democratic as well as the Marxist visions of freedom. The intention of my thesis has been to find out the conceptual differences between these two groups of authors that would support the notion above.
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