Gegenständlichkeit—From Marx to Lukács and Back Again

Abstract

As one of very few authors in the Anglo-American tradition, Andrew Feenberg, has pointed out, the early development of critical theory and Lukacs’ philosophy cannot be understood without reflecting on the historically rich network between phenomenology, Neo-Kantianism, and social theory. Moreover, in contradistinction to many contemporary critical theorists, Feenberg, following Lukacs, is not hostile to epistemological and ontological questions in social theory. In this vein, the main term that Feenberg introduces in his interpretation of Lukacs is Gegenstandlichkeit (objectivity). Although I agree with Feenberg’s claim that this term is central for understanding Lukacs’ understanding of social entities as culturally meaningful entities, I argue that we can find this broader social meaning of entities already foreshadowed in Chap. 1 of Marx’s Capital if we read Capital as a theory of society. Unfortunately, traditional Marxist discourses tend to reduce Capital to an “economic” theory and Feenberg seems to follow this tradition, that is, he seems to dismiss the critique of political economy as the primary horizon for a critical theory of society. However, as I will demonstrate, Marx’s project cannot be reduced to a labor theory of value and, instead, it should, from the beginning, be understood as a social theory based on social categories; and Gegenstandlichkeit serves as the central element for translating epistemological concepts into social concepts.