The concept of dialectics in Lukács

Abstract

The cover of the unprecedented Brazilian edition of Mészáros' book originally released in English in 1972 and written between 1967-8 is the reproduction of part of a canvas by the Russian painter Vasili Vereshchagin, entitled “The Field of Chipka” (1878-9). In it we see several artillery soldiers killed during the Russian-Turkish war (1877-8), “taking with their bodies and equipment the gap that separates them from the enemy” so that the cavalry would be able to march towards victory (p .92). Lukács saw in this painting a metaphor for the condition of thought of his time: the “recognition of the limits imposed on man by an unfavorable time [...] which allows him to find [...] a relatively wide 'field of maneuver' for activity present, as effective and valid as possible for an overall vision [...]” (p.92).