Lukács: The antinomies of bourgeois philosophy and the absolute

Abstract

I reconstruct Lukács’s immanent critique of German Idealism, found within his essay ‘Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat’ (in History and Class Consciousness), in order to foreground his philosophical reflection on the concepts of mediation, logic, genesis and praxis. I situate this reflection within his philosophy of praxis as a whole before highlighting the dialectical development of these terms within it. They are posited initially as abstract, methodological demands and are subsequently concretised and enriched, via Lukács’s critical evaluation of the antinomies he discovers in Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel. My reconstruction is both exegetical and critical. I demonstrate that Lukács’s concept of praxis (as the culmination of mediation, logic and genesis) is explicitly intended to both bear the weight of Hegel’s Absolute and overcome it. On this basis, I propose a novel immanent critique of Lukács’s philosophy of praxis, suggesting that while Lukács wishes his concept of praxis to express a living, present and ontologically novel truth, his insight is won – in the fashion of Hegelian philosophy – after the historical event upon which it is built, as a philosophical reflection. Lukács’s self-contradiction is that while he regards his philosophy of praxis as having overcome speculative, Hegelian philosophy, in fact, the position he generates remains firmly but unconsciously within it. Consequently, Lukács’s philosophy of praxis possesses a theological dimension and must be regarded as an example of the kind of ‘conceptual mythology’ he sought to overcome.