Georg Lukacs Reconsidered: Critical Essays in Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics

264 Pages·2011·3.15 MB·English

by  Michael J. Thompson

Georg Lukács Reconsidered
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Georg Lukács Reconsidered
Critical Essays in Politics,
Philosophy and Aesthetics
Edited by
Michael J. Thompson
Continuum International Publishing Group
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© Michael J. Thompson and Contributors 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
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any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-0876-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Georg Lukács reconsidered: critical essays in politics, philosophy, and aesthetics / edited by
Michael Thompson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN: 978-1-4411-0876-0
1. Lukács, György, 1885–1971. I. Thompson, Michael, 1973-
B4815.L84G39 2011
199'.439–dc22 2010033560
Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Contents
Contributors vii
Introduction: Recovering Lukács’ Relevance for the Present 1
Michael J. Thompson
Part I: Lukács’ Philosophical Legacy
Chapter 1 Lukács and the Dialectic: Contributions to a Theory
of Practice 13
Stephen Eric Bronner
Chapter 2 Lukács and the Recovery of Marx after Marxism 33
Tom Rockmore
Chapter 3 Georg Lukács’ Destruction of Reason 50
Stanley Aronowitz
Chapter 4 Revolutionary Dialectics against “Tailism”: Lukács’ Answer
to the Criticisms of History and Class Consciousness 65
Michael Löwy
Part II: Extending Aesthetic Theory
Chapter 5 The Theory of the Novel and the Concept of Realism in
Lukács and Adorno 75
Peter Uwe Hohendahl
Chapter 6 Time—The Corrupting Principle: A Short Apology for
Georg Lukács’ Poetics of the Novel 99
Werner Jung
Chapter 7 Art’s Struggle for Freedom: Lukács, the Literary Historian 110
János Keleman
Chapter 8 The Modern Meaning of Georg Lukács’ Reconstruction of
Walter Scott’s Novels of Premodern Political Ethics 128
Norman Arthur Fischer
vi Contents
Part III: Perspectives on Critical Theory
Chapter 9 Back to History? Reinterpreting Lukács’ Early Marxist Work
in Light of the Antinomies of Contemporary Critical Theory 151
Konstantinos Kavoulakos
Chapter 10 Reifi cation and its Critics 172
Andrew Feenberg
Chapter 11 Returning to Lukács: Honneth’s Critical Reconstruction
of Lukács’ Concepts of Reifi cation and Praxis 195
Timothy Hall
Chapter 12 Living Form and Living Criticism 211
Katie Terezakis
Chapter 13 Ontology and Totality: Reconstructing Lukács’ Concept
of Critical Theory 229
Michael J. Thompson
Index 251
Contributors
Stanley Aronowitz is Distinguished Professor of Sociology at CUNY Graduate
Center. Author or editor of 26 books; The latest is Against Schooling: For an
Education that Matters (Paradigm, 2008). His book on C. Wright Mills will be
published in 2011 by Columbia University Press.
Stephen Eric Bronner is currently Distinguished Professor (II) of Political
Science and Director of Global Relations at the Center for the Study of
Genocide, Confl ict Resolution, and Human Rights as well as a member of
the Executive Committee of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers
University. His works have been translated into a dozen languages. They
include: Socialism Unbound: Principles, Practices, Prospects (Columbia University
Press), Camus: Portrait of a Moralist (University of Chicago Press), Critical Theory:
A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press); Of Critical Theory and Its
Theorists (Routledge), A Rumor about the Jews: Anti-Semitism, Conspiracy, and the
‘Protocols of Zion’ (Oxford University Press); Reclaiming the Enlightenment: Toward
a Politics of Radical Engagement (Columbia University Press); Blood in the Sand:
Imperial Fantasies, Rightwing Ambitions, and the Erosion of American Democracy
and Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation
(University Press of Kentucky).
Andrew Feenberg is Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology in
the School of Communication of Simon Fraser University. He is the author of
Transforming Technology, Questioning Technology, Alternative Modernity, Heidegger
and Marcuse, and Reason and Experience, co-author of When Poetry Ruled the Streets,
and co-editor of Technology and the Politics of Knowledge, Modernity and Technology,
and The Essential Marcuse. He has taught at Duke University, San Diego State
University, the University of Paris, and the University of Tokyo.
Norman Arthur Fischer is Professor of Philosophy at Kent State University. He
teaches and writes about Marxism, the relation between English and German
intel lectual history, animal ethics, aesthetics and philosophy of literature, and
free speech and due process issues.
Timothy Hall is a Senior Lecturer in International Politics at the University of
East London. His recent publications include “Reifi cation, Materialism and
viii Contributors
Praxis: Adorno’s Critique of Lukács” in Telos (2011) and “Novelty or Identity?
Lukács’s Concept of Critical Social Theory” in Georg Lukács: The Fundamental
Dissonance of Existence (Continuum Press, 2011), a collection of essays on Lukács
which he is co-editing with Timothy Bewes.
Peter Uwe Hohendahl, Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of German and
Comparative Literature and Former Director of the Institute of German
Cultural Studies at Cornell University. He is author of numerous books and
articles, including: Prismatic Thought. Theodor W. Adorno. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1995; Öffentlichkeit. Geschichte eines kritischen Begriffs
(with R. Berman, K. Kenkel, and A. Strum) Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000; Critical
Theory. Current Status and Future Prospects (ed. and co-author) New York: Berghahn
Books, 2001; Heinrich Heine: Europäischer Schriftsteller und Intellektueller. Berlin:
Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2008.
Werner Jung teaches at Duisburg-Essen University in Germany. His area of
research is 18th through 21st century literature. He has published 15 books,
three of which are on Georg Lukács. His most recent books are Poetik.
Eine Einführung (2008), and Zeitschichten und Zeitgeschichten. Essays über
Literatur und Zeit (2008).
Konstantinos Kavoulakos studied sociology and social and political philosophy
in Athens. He is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Philo-
sophy and Social Studies of the University of Crete (Greece). His primary
research interests are located in the areas of modern and contemporary social
and political philosophy, Kant and German Idealism, theories on democracy,
and the history of critical theory. He is the author of the following books
(in Greek): Jürgen Habermas: The Foundations of Reason and Critical Social Theory
(Athens, 1996), Beyond Metaphysics and Scientism. The Interdisciplinary Materialism
of Max Horkheimer (Athens, 2001). He is the editor of Critical Theory: Tradition
and New Perspectives (Athens, 2003), Immanuel Kant: Practical Reason and Moder-
nity (Athens, 2006), G. Lukács: From Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art to Revolutionary
Marxism (Hypomnema 6, Athens, 2007), Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. Inter-
pretative Approaches (Athens, 2009). He has translated books of J. Habermas,
A. Honneth, A. Wellmer, and G. Lukács (Reifi cation and the Consciousness of the
Proletariat, Athens, 2006) into Greek. He has also published numerous articles
in Greek, English, and German philosophical journals.
János Keleman From 1970 teaches Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy
of the Faculty of Humanities of the University ELTE, Budapest. From 1984, is
full professor of philosophy (ELTE) and Doctor of the Hungarian Academy
of Sciences. From 1986 to 1990, and then from 1997 to 2008, was head of the
Department of Philosophy (ELTE). From 1995 to 1997, was also head of the
Department of Italian Language and Literature of the University of Szeged.
Contributors ix
From 1990 to 1995, has been the director of the Hungarian Academy in Rome.
From 2004 is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is author of
about 20 books, monographs, and collections of essays published in Hungary
and Italy, on different philosophical problems and Italian literary history
(among others on G. A. Moore, Benedetto Croce, Georg Lukacs, Dante, and
linguistic philosophy).
Michael Löwy, born in Brazil in 1938, lives in Paris since 1969. Presently
Emeritus Research Director at the CNRS (National Center for Scientifi c
Research), and lecturer at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales,
Paris. His books and articles have been translated into twenty-nine languages.
Among his main publications: Georg Lukacs: From Romanticism to Bolchevism,
Verso, 1981; Romanticism against the Tide of Modernity (with Robert Sayre), (Duke
University Press, 2001); Fire Alarm. Reading Walter Benjamin’s ‘On the Concept
of History,” (London: Verso, 2005); Franz Kafka, rêveur insoumis (Paris: Stock,
2004).
Tom Rockmore is McAnulty College Distinguished Professor and Professor of
Philosophy at Duquesne University. He is the author of many books, most
recently Kant and Idealism (Yale University Press, 2007) and Kant and Phenome-
nology (University of Chicago Press, 2010).
Katie Terezakis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of
Technology. She is the author of The Immanent Word: The Turn to Language in
German Philosophy 1759–1801 (Routledge, 2007), the editor of Engaging Agnes
Heller: A Critical Companion (Lexington, 2009), and the co-editor of Lukacs’
Soul and Form (Columbia University Press, 2010).
Michael J. Thompson is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William
Paterson University. His most recent books include The Politics of Inequality
(Columbia University Press, 2007), Fleeing the City: Studies in the Culture and
Politics of Antiurbanism (Palgrave, 2009), and Rational Radicalism and Political
Theory (Lexington, 2010). His next book, The Republican Reinvention of Radicalism,
is forthcoming with Columbia University Press.