Irrationalism: Lukacs and the Marxist View of Reason

Notes

NOTES INTRODUCTION I. See Herbert Schnadelbach, Philosophy in Germany, I83I-I933, trans. Eric Matthews (Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 1984). 2. For a comparative discussion of Marxism and other possibilities, see Tom Rockmore, William J. Gavin, James G. Colbert, Jr., and Thomas J. Blakeley, Marxism and Alternatives: Towards the Conceptual Interaction among Soviet Philosophy, Neo-Thomism, Pragmatism, and Phenomenology (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1981). 3. A striking example of this widespread tendency to reduce Marxist philosophy to merely Marxist politics is provided by Kolakowski. He is a main contributor to philosophical Marxism, but in his important recent survey of Marxism, his interpretation of Marxism as a mere political fantasy represents a regrettable refusal to acknowledge its philosophical insights . See Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism: Its Rise, Growth and Dissolution, trans. P. S. Falla, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978). 4. Cohen's work, which largely began so-called analytical Marxism, is distinguished by its nearly total neglect of Marx's relation to Hegel, precisely the main theme of traditional Marxism's understanding of Marx and itself. See Gerald A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defense (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1978). 5. See Georg Lukacs, Zur Ontologie des gesellschaftlichen Seins, ed. Frank Benseler, 2 vols. (Darmstadt and Neuwied: Luchterhand, 1984). 6. See, e.g., Andrew Feenberg, Lukacs, Marx, and the Sources of Critical Theory (Totowa, N.].: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981). 7. See Werner Jung, Georg Lukacs (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1989). 253 Copyrighted Material NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION 8. For a good discussion of the development of Lukacs's position in its pre-Marxist and early marxist phases, see Lee Congdon, The Young Lukacs (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1983). 9. For a useful account of his aesthetic views, see Nicolas Tertulian, Georges Lukacs: Etapes de sa pensee esthhique (Paris: Sycomore, 1980). See also Bela Kiralyfalvi, The Aesthetics of Gyorgy Lukacs (Princeton, N.].: Princeton University Press, 1975). 10. All of these views are present in well-known primers of Marxism. See Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, ed. C. P. Dutt (New York: International, 1941). I I. For general discussions of this concept, see Patrick Gardiner, "Irrationalism ," in The Encylopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York and London: Macmillan and Free Press, 1967), vol. 3, pp. 213219 . See also Jean Wahl, "Irrationalism in the History of Philosophy," in Dictionary of the History of Ideas, ed. Philip Wiener (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1973), vol. 2, pp. 634-638. 12. See Benedict de Spinoza, The Ethics, in The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, trans. R. H. M. Elwes (New York: Dover, 1951), vol. 2, part 2, proposition 7, p. 86. 13. See John Burnet, Greek Philosophy, part I: Thales to Plato (London : Macmillan, 1928), p. 52. 14. It is said that Hippasos of Metapontion was drowned for revealing this secret. See John Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy (Cleveland and New York: World, 1982), p. 105. 15. For interesting, comparative discussion of the concept of irrationalism in the positions of Lukacs and Heidegger, see Istvan M. Feher, "Heidegger und Lukacs: Eine Hundertjahrebilanz," in Wege und Irrwege des neueren Umgangs mit Heideggers Werk: Ein deutsch-ungarisches Symposium, ed. I. M. Feher (Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, forthcoming ), and Istvan M. Feher, "Lukacs e la filosofia contemporanea: la problema della ragione," Giornale di Metafisica 10, no. 2 (May-August): 269-298. 16. Moltmann is clearly influenced by Heidegger in his view of modernity . "Les crises qui surgissent a l'interieur du monde scientifique et technique peuvent etre rationalisees; mais l'univers scientifique et tech254 Copyrighted Material NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION nique lui-meme devient une puissance irrationelle; on ne peut plus l'embrasser du regard, parce qu'il n'est plus capable de Ie depasser du regard en direction d'un autre avenir possible. Voila qui pose une autre question: la conception de I'histoire qui identifie 'l'histoire' avec 'crise' est-elle suffisante ? Et la science historique, qui abolit l'histoire en l'etudiant, rend-elle justice a l'historicite de l'histoire et a l'historicite-eventuelle-de sa propre connaissance?" Jiirgen Moltmann, Theologie de l'esperance (Paris: Cerf-Mame, 1970), p. 256. 17. The view of so-called bourgeois thought as intrinsically irrational is basic to Marxism. For some examples in the writings of a leading representative of Marxism-Leninism, see the following works by T...