what does lukacs mean by totality? how does it relate back to marxs idea

Georg Lukács

Konstantinos Kavoulakos, Patrick Eiden-Offe

• Final MODIFIED: 26 May 2021
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780190221911-0108

Introduction

Georg (György) Lukács (b. xiii April 1885–d. 4 June 1971) was a Hungarian philosopher and literary theorist of Jewish origin. His piece of work substantially determined the 20th-century theoretical electric current of Western Marxism. Lukács had a long and ofttimes turbulent life due to his constant (not necessarily successful) efforts to unify theory and political practise. Consequently, his intellectual trajectory is marked past important theoretical shifts—a fact that makes information technology impossible to refer to central themes of his work without simultaneously distinguishing its main periods. At that place is, of course, a central idea, which permeates his investigations throughout his work. It is the critical assay of the domination of subjectivism in mod society and culture that causes men's alienation from their historical reality. I can distinguish 3 main periods in which Lukács was occupied by this question in different ways and on different levels: Lukács's early on work divided into his early on pre-Marxist menses, ranging from his immature age to his plow to Marxism at the end of 1918, and his early revolutionary Marxist work of the 1920s (the nearly representative and influential of it being the collection History and Course Consciousness (1923)); his middle Marxist period, from his emigration to Moscow in 1930 to his return to Republic of hungary in 1945; and his later Marxist period (among others, his mature works on aesthetics and social ontology). Lukács'southward early (pre-Marxist and Marxist) work substantially influenced intellectuals of the wider tradition of critical theory, such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Lucien Goldman, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Leo Löwenthal Jürgen Habermas, Michael Löwy, Andrew Feenberg, Cornelius Castoriadis, and others. His eye and later on piece of work had an of import impact on his disciples, the members of the Budapest schoolhouse (Ágnes Heller, Ferenc Fehér, György Márkus, Mihály Vajda). Later on a catamenia of vivid interest in Lukács in the 1960s and 1970s, a more subterranean process of reception of his work followed. Since 2010 a significant revitalization of the international interest in his work has been observed. At the same time, his works on realist literature are often considered as part of the catechism of literary studies. Bibliography of and on Lukács is vast; therefore, its presentation has to be selective. This bibliography emphasizes the general overviews and collective volumes that offering multifaceted analyses of his work. Equally for the original works and the relevant special secondary literature nosotros prioritize writings published in English language.

General Overviews

Most of the general introductions to Georg Lukács's life and work are published in High german. Dannemann 1997 represents a systematic introduction to the chief aspects of Lukács's life piece of work. Jung 1989 works out the unity of Lukács's piece of work throughout his life. Herman 1986 offers a narrative of Lukács's life, while Raddatz 1972 combines narrative parts with quotes and photographical textile. Benseler 1984 offers introductory comments and original texts by Lukács from different periods. In English it is worth mentioning George Lichtheim's slim introduction to Lukács'southward life and work (Lichtheim 1970), and Arpad Kadarkay's biography—the just detailed biography of Lukács that is available to date (Kadarkay 1991). One tin can also consult the relevant chapters on Lukács by Martin Jay and Leszek Kolakowski (Jay 1984, Kolakowski 1978). The chapter on Lukács in Jameson 1971 is of particular interest since it offers an overview of Lukács's literary theory throughout his work. Lukács himself delivered an autobiographical sketch and an interview published in Lukács 1984.

• Dannemann, Rüdiger. Georg Lukács. Zur Einführung. Hamburg, Deutschland: Junius, 1997.

  The orientation of this introduction is not biographical just systematic. Dannemann poses the question of the actuality of Lukács's thinking. In his search for an answer he does not follow the chronological order of Lukács'southward evolution but reconstructs the key themes of his overall work: aesthetics, the theory of reification/breach, the history of literature and philosophy, and ethics. He alludes to Lukács's influence on Peter Bürger, Jürgen Habermas, and Agnes Heller.

• Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Course. Twentieth-Century Dialectical Theories of Literature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971.

  Affiliate 3 of this study presents Lukács's life work as a persistent reflection on narration understood as a privileged means to admission reality. Jameson highlights the Hegelian conceptual framework Lukács used in his studies on literature from his early Theory of the Novel to his later works on realism. He interprets History and Grade Consciousness as a Marxist attempt to recall through the issues of narration raised throughout his work.

• Jay, Martin. "Georg Lukács and the Origins of the Western Marxist Image." In Marxism and Totality. The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas. By Martin Jay, 81–127. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.

  This affiliate tin can office as a critical introduction to Lukács's early on (pre-Marxist and Marxist) writings. Jay traces back, in Lukács's early on work, the concept of totality that determined the formation of the Western Marxist paradigm. He investigates similar conceptualizations in Lukács'southward pre-Marxist works, before turning his attending to History and Class Consciousness and criticizing the idealist thought of totality equally the expressive product of a universal subject field of history.

• Jung, Werner. Georg Lukács. Stuttgart: Verlag J.B. Metzler, 1989.

  DOI: 10.1007/978-iii-476-03953-eight

  Jung's introduction to Lukács'due south life and work aspires to depict "the whole Lukács" (p. ten) past interpreting his unlike periods and theoretical elements as dialectical "moments" of a unitary development. Thus, information technology is non surprising that he starts from the stop, Lukács'south later Ontology and Aesthetics, and continues with a flash back to the periods that preceded. Compared to other biographers, Jung puts more than weight on analyzing Lukács'south major writings.

• Herman, István. Georg Lukács. Sein Leben und Wirken. Vienna and Cologne, Germany: Böhlau, 1986.

  As a former disciple of Lukács, Herman gives a sympathetic biographical narrative with details that are not always well documented. The narrative ranges from Lukács's childhood to his revolutionary period, his compromise with the new regime in the 1930s–1940s and his postwar Budapest catamenia, the author had experienced himself. Herman likewise interposes brief elaborations on Lukács's master writings.

• Kadarkay, Arpad. Georg Lukács. Life, Thought, and Politics. Cambridge, MA, and London: Basil Blackwell, 1991.

  This long study represents the just comprehensive and detailed biography of Lukács to date. Drawing upon previously unknown documents from the Lukács Archive in Budapest and other repositories, Kadarkay depicts Lukács'due south turbulent and often dramatic life in "an historic period of collapsing empires and ascent revolutions" (p. xi). At the same fourth dimension he makes dense references to Lukács's writings, particularly his major works in philosophy and literature.

• Kolakowski, Leszek. "Georg Lukács. Reason in the Service of Dogma." In Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origin, Growth, and Dissolution. Vol. 3, The Breakdown. By Leszek Kolakowski, 253–307. Translated P. Southward. Falla. Oxford: Clarendon Printing, 1978.

  This chapter gives a coherent reconstruction of Lukács's Marxism from the standpoint of the liberal denouncement of Marxism in general. Kolakowski locates Lukács's positive contribution in the correct interpretation of Marx's approach, to denounce, however, the latter's espousal by Lukács. For Kolakowski, Lukács's theory is insuperably "irrational" and "anti-scientific" (p. 300) because it confuses descriptive and normative theoretical elements. Consequently, it involuntarily conforms with political authoritarianism.

• Lichtheim, George. Georg Lukács. London: Fontana/Collins, 1970.

  Written at a time when the English bibliography of and on Lukács was rather poor, Lichtheim's study serves the apprehensive purpose of facilitating "access to an important author" (p. 9). Lichtheim briefly reconstructs the wider historical and intellectual context of Lukács'southward early opting for a kind of neo-Platonic metaphysics and his shift to revolutionary Marxism. He also focuses on Lukács's after studies on the history of literature and on his aesthetics.

• Lukács, Georg. Record of a Life. An Autobiographical Sketch. Edited past István Eörsi. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. London: Verso, 1984.

  Autonomously from the editor's preface, the book contains two main texts: (a) the autobiographical interview Lukács gave to István Eörsi and Erzsébet Vezér, and (b) Lukács'due south autobiographical notes, on the basis of which the interview was conducted. Both texts comprehend Lukács'due south whole life from his childhood and youth to revolutionary politics, exile, and his tardily years in Budapest.

• Raddatz, Fritz J. Georg Lukács in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Reinbek, Germany: Rowohlt, 1972.

  Raddatz uses quotes from Lukács's writings and photographs to document and supplement his cursory biographical narrative. He focuses on Lukács'southward "style to Marx" and on his intellectual and political activeness under actually existing socialism.

• Benseler, Frank, Ed. Revolutionäres Denken—Georg Lukács. Eine Einführung in Leben und Werk. Darmstadt and Neuwied, Germany: Luchterhand, 1984.

  Apart from brief introductory comments and a biographical sketch by the editor Frank Benseler (at that time he was besides the principal editor of Lukács's collective works), this book contains selected original texts of Lukács from different periods of his work, organized effectually iv axes: autobiographical notes, history and theory of literature, political theory and practice, and philosophical aspects of historical materialism.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to run across the full content on this folio. Please subscribe or login.

How to Subscribe

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available past subscription and perpetual admission to institutions. For more data or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.

carterefuldrew.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780190221911/obo-9780190221911-0108.xml

Share this post