Lukacs and Heidegger

Last updated
Lukacs and Heidegger: Towards a New Philosophy
Lukacs and Heidegger, French edition.jpg
Author Lucien Goldmann
Original titleLukacs et Heidegger
LanguageFrench
Subjects György Lukács
Martin Heidegger
Published1973
Publication placeFrance
Media typePrint
Pages140 (2009 Routledge edition)
ISBN 978-0415564595 (2009 Routledge edition)

Lukacs and Heidegger: Towards a New Philosophy (French : Lukacs et Heidegger) is a book by Lucien Goldmann published after his death in 1973.

Contents

Summary

Goldmann tries to bring together the Marxist concept of reification from György Lukács and the existential concept of Dasein from Martin Heidegger. He argues that the concept of Being in Heidegger was already present in the concept of Totality in Lukács. Lukács's critique of the alienation inherent in capitalism, is thus present in Dasein as an ontological concept. Both Lukács and Heidegger critique the reification or thing-ification of the human dasein. Inauthentic dasein is parallel to the failure of the historical subject to awaken to praxis. [1]

Goldmann argues that the concept of reification as employed in Being and Time (1927) showed the strong influence of Lukács's work History and Class Consciousness (1923). [2]

The fundamental goal of both Heidegger and Lukács was to overcome the traditional subject-object dichotomy of Western Philosophy. [3]

Reception

Laurence Paul Hemming, writing in Heidegger and Marx (2013), finds Goldmann's suggestion that Lukács influenced Heidegger to be highly unlikely at best. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Heidegger</span> German philosopher (1889–1976)

Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. His work covers a wide range of topics including ontology, technology, art, metaphysics, humanism, language and history of philosophy. He is often considered to be among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th century, specially in the continental tradition.

Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied, or put into practice. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practising ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paulo Freire, Murray Rothbard, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms.

Being-in-itself is the self-contained and fully realized being of objects. It is a term used in early 20th century continental philosophy, especially in the works of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and the existentialists.

"Dasein" is a technical term in the philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Adopted from the ordinary German word Dasein meaning "existence", Heidegger used it to refer to the mode of being that is particular to human beings. It is a form of being that is aware of and must confront such issues as personhood, mortality, and the dilemma or paradox of living in relationship with other humans while being ultimately alone with oneself.

<i>Being and Time</i> 1927 book by Martin Heidegger

Being and Time is the 1927 magnum opus of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. Being and Time is among the most influential texts of 20th century philosophy. It had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many other fields. Though controversial, its stature in intellectual history has been compared with works by Kant and Hegel. The book attempts to revive ontology through an analysis of Dasein, or "being-in-the-world." It is also noted for an array of neologisms and complex language, as well as an extended treatment of "authenticity" as a means to grasp and confront the unique and finite possibilities of the individual.

Existential phenomenology encompasses a wide range of thinkers who take up the view that philosophy must begin from experience like phenomenology, but argues for the temporality of personal existence as the framework for analysis of the human condition.

Lucien Goldmann was a French philosopher and sociologist of Jewish-Romanian origin. A professor at the EHESS in Paris, he was a Marxist theorist. His wife was sociologist Annie Goldmann.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antihumanism</span> Philosophical and social theory, critical of traditional humanism

In social theory and philosophy, antihumanism or anti-humanism is a theory that is critical of traditional humanism, traditional ideas about humanity and the human condition. Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology and its concepts of "human nature", "man" or "humanity" should be rejected as historically relative, ideological or metaphysical.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sociology of literature</span> Aspect of sociology

The sociology of literature is a subfield of the sociology of culture. It studies the social production of literature and its social implications. A notable example is Pierre Bourdieu's 1992 Les Règles de L'Art: Genèse et Structure du Champ Littéraire, translated by Susan Emanuel as Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (1996).

<i>Search for a Method</i> 1957 book by Jean-Paul Sartre

Search for a Method or The Problem of Method is a 1957 essay by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, in which the author attempts to reconcile Marxism with existentialism. The first version of the essay was published in the Polish journal Twórczość; an adapted version appeared later that year in Les Temps modernes, and later served as an introduction for Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. Sartre argues that existentialism and Marxism are compatible, even complementary, even though Marxism's materialism and determinism might seem to contradict the abstraction and radical freedom of existentialism.

Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis that originates in the works of 19th century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism analyzes and critiques the development of class society and especially of capitalism as well as the role of class struggles in systemic, economic, social and political change. It frames capitalism through a paradigm of exploitation and analyzes class relations and social conflict using a materialist interpretation of historical development – materialist in the sense that the politics and ideas of an epoch are determined by the way in which material production is carried on.

Tom Rockmore is an American philosopher. Although he denies the usual distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, he has strong interests throughout the history of philosophy and defends a constructivist view of epistemology. The philosophers whom he has studied extensively are Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Lukács, and Heidegger. He received his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University in 1974 and his Habilitation à diriger des recherches from the Université de Poitiers in 1994. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Duquesne University, as well as Distinguished Humanities Chair Professor at Peking University.

Christian Lotz is a German-American professor of philosophy at Michigan State University. Lotz's work primarily focuses on 19th and 20th Century European philosophy, continental aesthetics, critical theory, Marxism, and contemporary European political philosophy.

<i>Main Currents of Marxism</i> 1976 book by Leszek Kołakowski

Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origins, Growth and Dissolution is a work about Marxism by the political philosopher Leszek Kołakowski. Its three volumes in English are The Founders, The Golden Age, and The Breakdown. It was first published in Polish in Paris in 1976, with the English translation appearing in 1978. In 2005, Main Currents of Marxism was republished in a one volume edition, with a new preface and epilogue by Kołakowski. The work was intended to be a "handbook" on Marxism by Kołakowski, who was once an orthodox Marxist but ultimately rejected Marxism. Despite his critical stand toward Marxism, Kołakowski endorsed the philosopher György Lukács's interpretation of the philosopher Karl Marx.

Marxist humanism is an international body of thought and political action rooted in a humanist interpretation of the works of Karl Marx. It is an investigation into "what human nature consists of and what sort of society would be most conducive to human thriving" from a critical perspective rooted in Marxist philosophy. Marxist humanists argue that Marx himself was concerned with investigating similar questions.

In Marxist philosophy, reification is the process by which human social relations are perceived as inherent attributes of the people involved in them, or attributes of some product of the relation, such as a traded commodity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">György Lukács</span> Hungarian philosopher and critic (1885–1971)

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, literary historian, literary critic, and aesthetician. He was one of the founders of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Soviet Marxist ideological orthodoxy. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.

Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an interpretation of Marxism distinct from classical and Orthodox Marxism and the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union.

<i>History and Class Consciousness</i> 1923 book by György Lukács

History and Class Consciousness: Studies in Marxist Dialectics is a 1923 book by the Hungarian philosopher György Lukács, in which the author re-emphasizes the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's influence on the philosopher Karl Marx, analyzes the concept of "class consciousness," and attempts a philosophical justification of Bolshevism.

The Worker: Dominion and Form is a 1932 book by the German writer Ernst Jünger.

References

  1. Cohen, Mitchell (8 December 2015). The Wager of Lucien Goldmann: Tragedy, Dialectics, and a Hidden God. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-1-4008-2126-6.
  2. Hemming, Laurence Paul (31 January 2013). Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue Over the Language of Humanism. Northwestern University Press. ISBN   978-0-8101-2875-0.
  3. Kellner, Douglas (January 1984). Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism. University of California Press. ISBN   978-0-520-05176-8.
  4. Hemming, Laurence Paul (2013). Heidegger and Marx: A Productive Dialogue Over the Language of Humanism. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press. pp. 33–34. ISBN   978-0-8101-2875-0.