Subject-object and objectification: note on Lukács’ paradigm

Abstract

A traditional criticism of History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923 by Georg Lukács, is meaningless, if we take into account its status as a classical text in Marxism. However, and exactly because of this status, it is important to grasp its suppositions and arguments, in order to understand the kind of influence it had on a certain Marxism. This is the purpose of the present article, which discusses some central themes of that book, like “orthodoxy” or “method”, in order to understand also the self-criticism of Lukács in the second edition of the book, in 1967. On this ground, the article aims at an interpretation of the mature thought of Lukács, i.e., to grasp in what measure the “ontological” perspective actually breaks with the Hegelianism of the period distinguished by History and Class Consciousness.