Georg Lukács
| Georg Lukács | |
|---|---|
| Identity | |
| Lifespan | 1885–1971 |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Epistemic Position | |
| Tradition | Western Marxism, Critical Theory |
| Methodology | Marxist philosophy, Literary theory |
| Fields | Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Social Theory |
| Conceptual Payload | |
| Core Concepts | Reification, Class Consciousness, Totality, Mediation
|
| Associated Concepts | Ideology, Alienation, False consciousness, Realism, Dialectics |
| Key Works | History and Class Consciousness (1923), The Theory of the Novel (1916), Soul and Form (1911) |
| Theoretical Cluster | Ideology, Subjectivity, Alienation |
| Psychoanalytic Relation | |
| Lukács's theorization of reification and totality provided a conceptual matrix for later psychoanalytic accounts of subjectivity, ideology, and alienation. His work on the dialectical structure of consciousness and the critique of bourgeois subjectivity prefigured and informed Lacanian and post-Lacanian approaches to the social determination of the unconscious. Lukács's influence is especially evident in the psychoanalytic appropriation of Marxist categories to analyze ideology and the formation of the subject. | |
| To Lacan | Structural influence via the concept of reification and mediation; mediated through French Hegelianism and Marxist theory. |
| To Freud | Indirect; Lukács's critique of bourgeois subjectivity and alienation resonates with Freudian themes of repression and the divided subject. |
| Referenced By | |
| Lineage | |
| Influences | |
| Influenced | |
Georg Lukács (1885–1971) was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary theorist whose concepts of reification, class consciousness, and totality fundamentally shaped twentieth-century critical theory and exerted a structural influence on psychoanalysis, particularly in Lacanian and post-Lacanian engagements with ideology, subjectivity, and the social determination of the unconscious.
Intellectual Context and Biography
Early Formation
Lukács was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Budapest and received his education at the universities of Budapest and Berlin, where he encountered the philosophical traditions of German idealism and neo-Kantianism. Early intellectual influences included Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and the literary modernism of Central Europe. Lukács's pre-Marxist writings, such as Soul and Form and The Theory of the Novel, reflect a deep engagement with the crisis of modernity, the fragmentation of experience, and the search for ethical totality.[1]
Major Turning Points
Lukács's conversion to Marxism during the upheavals of the early twentieth century marked a decisive turn in his thought. His involvement with revolutionary politics and his subsequent exile after the failure of the Hungarian Soviet Republic led to the composition of History and Class Consciousness (1923), a work that would become foundational for Western Marxism and critical theory.[2] Lukács's later career was marked by polemics with orthodox Marxism, engagement with literary realism, and a complex relationship to Soviet Marxism.
Core Concepts
Reification
Lukács's concept of reification (Verdinglichung) designates the process by which social relations, under capitalism, assume the character of things, obscuring their historical and social origins.[3] Reification is not merely an economic phenomenon but a transformation of consciousness, in which the subject experiences itself and others as objects, alienated from the processes that produce social reality.
Class Consciousness
For Lukács, class consciousness is the capacity of a social class, particularly the proletariat, to apprehend its historical situation and revolutionary potential.[4] This consciousness is not reducible to individual awareness but is a collective, dialectical process that can overcome reification and alienation.
Totality
The notion of totality is central to Lukács's dialectical method. Totality refers to the interconnectedness of social phenomena and the necessity of grasping individual elements within the context of the whole.[4] Lukács opposed the fragmentation of bourgeois thought, insisting that only a dialectical approach could reveal the underlying structures of social life.
Mediation
Lukács emphasized the importance of mediation (Vermittlung) in understanding the relationship between individual experience and social structures.[5] Mediation is the process through which subjective and objective dimensions are dialectically related, allowing for the possibility of transformative praxis.
Relation to Psychoanalysis
Lukács's influence on psychoanalysis is primarily structural and mediated, rather than direct. While Freud and Lukács operated in parallel intellectual milieus, their direct engagement was minimal. However, Lukács's theorization of reification, alienation, and the dialectical structure of consciousness provided a conceptual framework that would later be appropriated and transformed by psychoanalytic theorists, especially in the French context.[6]
Structural Influence on Lacan
Jacques Lacan's engagement with the problem of ideology, the subject, and the symbolic order drew upon a tradition of Western Marxism in which Lukács was foundational.[7] The Lacanian concept of the subject as constituted by the symbolic order and alienated in language resonates with Lukács's account of reification and the alienation of consciousness under capitalism. The mediation of Lukács's influence occurred through figures such as Alexandre Kojève, Jean Hyppolite, and the early French reception of Hegel and Marx, which shaped the intellectual environment of Lacan's seminars.[8]
Mediation and Ideology
Lukács's analysis of ideology as a form of false consciousness and his insistence on the dialectical mediation of subject and structure prefigured later psychoanalytic accounts of the unconscious as structured by social and symbolic forces.[4] Louis Althusser's theory of ideology and the interpellation of the subject, for example, draws upon Lukácsian categories, which are then further radicalized in Lacanian theory.[9]
Freud and the Problem of Alienation
While Freud did not engage Lukács directly, the Freudian problematic of repression, the divided subject, and the social determination of psychic life finds a structural echo in Lukács's critique of bourgeois subjectivity and alienation.[10] Both traditions interrogate the ways in which social structures are internalized and reproduced at the level of the subject.
Reception in Psychoanalytic Theory
Lukács's concepts have been variously appropriated, critiqued, and transformed within psychoanalytic theory. Slavoj Žižek has foregrounded the Lukácsian legacy in his synthesis of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Marxist theory, particularly in the analysis of ideology, fantasy, and the structure of the subject.[11] Fredric Jameson and Julia Kristeva have also drawn upon Lukácsian categories in their respective engagements with psychoanalysis, literature, and ideology.[12] Debates persist regarding the adequacy of Lukács's dialectical method for psychoanalytic theory, with some critics emphasizing the limitations of his account of subjectivity and others highlighting the enduring relevance of his critique of reification.
Key Works
- Soul and Form (1911): Early essays exploring the relationship between literary form, subjectivity, and ethical life; anticipates later concerns with alienation and totality.
- The Theory of the Novel (1916): Analyzes the novel as a literary form expressive of modernity's fragmentation and the search for totality; influential for theories of narrative and subjectivity.
- History and Class Consciousness (1923): Lukács's most influential work, introducing the concepts of reification, class consciousness, and totality; foundational for Western Marxism and critical theory, with significant implications for psychoanalytic accounts of ideology and the subject.
- The Meaning of Contemporary Realism (1957): Defends literary realism as a mode of apprehending social totality; relevant for psychoanalytic approaches to literature and ideology.
Influence and Legacy
Lukács's impact extends across philosophy, literary theory, and the social sciences. His concepts of reification, totality, and class consciousness have become central to critical theory and have shaped the psychoanalytic interrogation of ideology, subjectivity, and the unconscious. The structural affinities between Lukács's dialectical method and Lacanian psychoanalysis have enabled a productive dialogue between Marxism and psychoanalysis, particularly in the analysis of the social determination of psychic life. Lukács's legacy endures in contemporary theory, where debates over alienation, mediation, and the critique of ideology remain vital.
See also
References
- ↑ Andrew Arato and Paul Breines, The Young Lukács and the Origins of Western Marxism (London: Pluto Press, 1979).
- ↑ Michael Löwy, Georg Lukács: From Romanticism to Bolshevism (London: NLB, 1979).
- ↑ Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness (1923), trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971).
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Georg Lukács, History and Class Consciousness (1923), trans. Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971).
- ↑ Andrew Feenberg, Lukács, Marx and the Sources of Critical Theory (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1981).
- ↑ Martin Jay, Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
- ↑ Jacques-Alain Miller, "Action of the Structure," in The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance, ed. Bruce Fink (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).
- ↑ Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971).
- ↑ Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: New Left Books, 1971).
- ↑ Russell Jacoby, Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (Boston: Beacon Press, 1975).
- ↑ Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989).
- ↑ Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981).