Normativity and Totality: Lukács’ Contribution to a Critical Social Ontology

Abstract

The chapter contextualizes Lukacs's Ontology of Social Being within current social ontological debates. It identifies two problems for a critical social ontology: the totality issue (in how far social entities are part of an integrated totality in society) and the normativity issue (in how far social entities are constituted by social norms). The chapter first argues that Lukacs' solution to the normativity problem - grounding normativity in human labor - can best be understood as resting on a theory that grounds the normativity of intentions in the mutual recognition of needs. Second, it argues that Lukacs's claims of totality can be reconstructed by adopting an social externalist analysis of intentions.