Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 22:27:29 -0400 From: Spoon Collective <spoons> Subject: Re: Lukacs (fwd from Hans Despain) --- Forwarded mail from hans despain <hgd9230-AT-u.cc.utah.edu> Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 20:01:16 -0600 (MDT) From: hans despain <hgd9230-AT-u.cc.utah.edu> To: marxism2-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU Subject: Re: Lukacs Recently i have been pursuing reading Lukacs and about Lukacs. Incidentally, i read what Meszaros has to say about Lukacs's *Destruction of Reason*, which is not too much (although the index is all but worthless). But what he does say is that it is a work to self-clarify methodological commitments and especially to self-critique his (Lukcas's) Weberian fallacies and rid himself of his Hegelian hangover (Meszaros *Beyond Capital: Towards a Theory of Transition, 1995:368ff). Also the three or four books i have been thumbing through about Lukacs i have been keeping my eye open for reference to Blake, which i have seen none. Perhaps the most interesting article i have read is Janos Kelemen's "Philosophy of Science and Its Critique in Georg Lukacs's *History and Class Consciousness*" in *Georg Lukacs: Theory, Culture and Politics edited by J. Marcus and Z. Tarr, Transaction Publishers: New Brunswick (1989). Kelemen argues that Lukacs's *History and Class Consciousness* is a gem for philosophy of science issues. He places Lukacs within the anti-positivist tradition. Although Kelemen himself does not point out, this is especially significant (i.e. Lukacs's anti-positivism), in that Lukacs is writing during the very emergence of Logical Positivism and the Vienna Circle. Logical Positivism develops, not only in protest toward the Bolsheviks's victory in Russia -- but closer to home -- the brewing of Fascism across Europe. In this sense, the Soviet Marxists, Western Leftists, and conservatives alike were embracing (if not directly involved in creating) various versions of Positivism as The method of science. However, at the same time Lukacs has befriended Max Weber, Karl Polanyi, Michael Polanyi and (especially) Karl Mannheim, all of whom where anti-postitivist and early contributors to the conception of a sociology of knowledge. All of whom not only pre-date Thomas Kuhn's book (1962), but are perhaps more successful and philosophically more careful than is the Kuhnian sociology of knowledge. But in any event, Kelemen points out that Lukacs does in fact accept positivism as the method of natural science, but claims it is not applicable to social science. Hence, Lukacs can be understood to be an early contributor to the Hermeneutic tradition (e.g. Hans-Georg Gadamer). To support this Kelemen quotes Lukacs: "When the ideal of scientific knowledge is applied to nature it simply furthers the progress of science. But when it is applied to society it turns out to be an ideological weapon of the bourgeoisie" (Lukacs 1971[1923]:10). "Thus," claims Kelemen "the emancipation of proletarian class consciousness presupposes the independence of societal knowledge from natural science" (Kelemen 1989:43). More specifically, Lukacs argues just before this quote the "scientific" method (of positivism) "rejects the idea of contradiction and antagonism in its suject matter" (Lukacs 1971:10). And when contradictions do emerge, it is the theory that must be wrong. For Lukacs (and the Marxist tradition) contradiction is part of reality itself, whereby, social science requires a less restrictive methodology, namely, the (Hegelian) dialectic. But of course in its "out Hegeling Hegel" applicaiton (see Lukacs's 1967 preface:xxiii). Or as Lukacs puts it: "in the case of social reality these contraditions are not a sign of the imperfect understanding of society [as positivism would have it]: on the contrary, they belong to *the nature of reality itself and to the nature of capitalism* (Lukacs 1971:10). The last two sections of the article deals with Lukacs's emphasis of totality and reality (i.e. [social] ontology). These points must wait for a second post. hans despain --- End of forwarded message from hans despain <hgd9230-AT-u.cc.utah.edu> --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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