History and Class Consciousness
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ISBN 0-262-62020-0 | |
History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics (
The book helped to create Western Marxism and is the work for which Lukács is best known. Nevertheless, it was condemned in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and Lukács later repudiated its ideas, coming to believe that in it he had confused Hegel's concept of alienation with that of Marx's. It has been suggested that the concept of reification as employed in the philosopher Martin Heidegger's Being and Time (1927) was influenced by History and Class Consciousness, though such a relationship remains disputed.
Summary
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Lukács attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism, stressing the distinction between actual class consciousness and "ascribed" class consciousness, the attitudes the
In the essay "What is Orthodox Marxism?", Lukács argues that methodology is what distinguishes Marxism: even if all its substantive propositions were rejected, it would remain valid because of its distinctive method.[5] According to Lukács, "Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders."[6]
Lukács maintains that it is through Marx's use of the dialectic that capitalist society can be seen as essentially reified and the proletariat viewed as the true subject of history and the only possible salvation of humanity. All truth, including Marx's materialist conception of history itself, is to be seen in relation to the proletariat's historical mission. Truth, no longer given, must instead be understood in terms of the relative moments in the process of the unfolding of the real union of theory and praxis: the totality of social relations. This union must be grasped through proletarian consciousness and directed party action in which subject and object are one.[3]
History and Class Consciousness was republished in 1967 with a new preface in which Lukács described the circumstances that allowed him to read Marx's newly re-discovered Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 in 1930, two years before their publication. After reading them, Lukács concluded that in History and Class Consciousness he had made a basic mistake, that of confusing Hegel's and Marx's respective concepts of alienation. To Hegel, alienation is the objectivity of nature, but for Marx, it refers not to natural objects but to what happens to the products of labor when social relationships make them commodities or capital.[7]
Reception
History and Class Consciousness is influential and the work for which Lukács is best known.
The political scientist David McLellan maintains that the publication of Marx's key earlier writings vindicated Lukács's interpretation of Marx.[1] The philosopher Lucio Colletti believes that although the publication of those writings disproved some of Lukács's assumptions, the problem of the nature of alienation remained valid.[7] The critic Frederick Crews writes that in History and Class Consciousness, Lukács "made a fatefully ingenious attempt to abolish, through metaphysical prestidigitation, the newly apparent chasm between Marx's historical laws and the triumph of Bolshevism."[10]
History and Class Consciousness was a crucial text for the French Situationist theorist Guy Debord,[11] although Debord maintained that Lukács, by arguing that the Bolshevik party provided a mediation between theory and practice that enabled proletarians to determine events within their organization instead of being spectators of them, was describing the opposite of how it functioned in reality.[12] Others influenced by History and Class Consciousness include the philosopher Jürgen Habermas, whose initial understanding of Marx came through the book,[13] and the evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, the neurobiologist Steven Rose, and the psychologist Leon Kamin.[14] The philosopher Tom Rockmore has described History and Class Consciousness as "brilliant."[13] The economists M. C. Howard and J. E. King praise the sophistication of Lukács' Hegelian understanding of how to specify the interests of the proletariat.[15] The philosopher Slavoj Žižek describes the Lukács of History and Class Consciousness as "the philosopher of Lenin's historical moment". Žižek credits Lukács with bringing together the topic of commodity fetishism and reification with the topic of the Party and revolutionary strategy.[16]
Some writers have compared Lukács to the philosopher Martin Heidegger, though the existence of any relationship between the two has been disputed.
See also
- Cultural hegemony
- False consciousness
- György Lukács bibliography
- Lukacs and Heidegger: Towards a New Philosophy
- The Society of the Spectacle
References
- ^ a b c d McLellan 2005, p. 547.
- ^ Žižek 2011, p. 320.
- ^ a b c d e Bien 2017, p. 616.
- ^ Fromm 1975, p. 69.
- ^ a b Wright, Levine & Sober 1992, pp. 103–104.
- ^ Lukács 2000, p. 1.
- ^ a b Colletti 1992, pp. 16–17.
- ^ McLellan 1995, p. 443.
- S2CID 248065063.
- ^ Crews 1986, p. 142.
- ^ Hussey 2001, p. 214.
- ^ Debord 1995, pp. 81–82.
- ^ a b Rockmore 1989, p. 110.
- ^ Rose, Lewontin & Kamin 1990, pp. 76, 296.
- ^ Howard & King 1992, p. 39.
- ^ Žižek 2011, pp. 196–197, 330.
- ^ a b Steiner 1989, pp. 74–75.
- ^ a b Hemming 2013, pp. 33–34.
- ^ Slavoy Zizek (2000). From History and Class Consciousness to the Dialectic of Enlightenment... and Back, New German Critique, No. 81, autumn, 2000, Duke University Press, pp. 107-123
- ^ Andrew Feenberg, Lukacs, Marx, and the Sources of Critical Theory, Oxford University Press, 1986
- ISBN 978-94-010-1110-5.
- ^ Adorno, Theodor W., Negative Dialektik (1966 German edition), Suhrkamp, pp. 130-134
- ^ Trebitsch 2014, pp. 13–14.
Bibliography
- Bien, Joseph (2017). "Lukács, Georg". In Audi, Robert (ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition. Cambridge: ISBN 978-1-107-64379-6.
- Colletti, Lucio (1992). "Introduction". Early Writings. London: ISBN 0-14-044574-9.
- Crews, Fredrick (1986). Skeptical Engagements. New York: ISBN 0-19-503950-5.
- Debord, Guy (1995). The Society of the Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. ISBN 0-942299-79-5.
- Fromm, Erich (1975). Marx's Concept of Man. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8044-6161-9.
- Hemming, Laurence Paul (2013). Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue Over the Language of Humanism. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 978-0-8101-2875-0.
- Howard, M. C.; King, J. C. (1992). A History of Marxian Economics Volume II, 1929-1990. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-38814-3.
- Hussey, Andrew (2001). The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord. London: Jonathan Cape. ISBN 0-224-04348-X.
- Lukács, Georg (2000). History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-62020-0.
- McLellan, David (1995). Karl Marx: A Biography. London: Papermac. ISBN 0-333-63947-2.
- McLellan, David (2005). "Lukács, Georg". In Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Second Edition. Oxford: ISBN 0-19-926479-1.
- Rockmore, Tom (1989). Habermas on Historical Materialism. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-32709-1.
- Rose, Steven; Lewontin, Richard C.; Kamin, Leon J. (1990). Not in Our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature. London: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-013525-1.
- Steiner, George (1989). Martin Heidegger. Chicago: ISBN 0-226-77232-2.
- Trebitsch, Michel (2014). "Preface". Critique of Everyday Life. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-78168-317-0.
- Wright, Erik Olin; Levine, Andrew; Sober, Elliott (1992). Reconstructing Marxism: Essays on Explanation and the Theory of History. London and New York: ISBN 0-86091-554-9.
- Žižek, Slavoj (2011). "Afterword: Lenin's Choice". In Žižek, Slavoj (ed.). Revolution at the Gates: Selected Writings of Lenin from 1917. London: Verso. ISBN 978-1-84467-714-6.