Totality Reconsidered

Lukács'sHistory and Class Consciousnessa Century On

Bibliographic Data

ID4070682
AuthorsJette Gindner (corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume50
Issue2
Pages71-99
Publication date2023-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNew German Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-033X • E-ISSN: 1558-1462
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/0094033x-10459954
OpenAlexW4385727852
LanguageEN
References cited26

Georg Lukács's essay collection History and Class Consciousness (1923) remains a foundational text of Western Marxism and a vital influence on contemporary German studies, not least by way of the Frankfurt School. Yet Lukács's positing of the proletariat as the historical agent of revolutionary change raises difficult questions for radical Left theory and praxis in our rapidly deindustrializing world. Who or what is that working class that would redeem Lukács's vision today? This article argues that the main concept for actualizing History and Class Consciousness is totality rather than class or reification. However, we should understand totality in a strictly negative sense, as a feature of capitalist coercion to be overcome in a free society

Class (philosophy) · Class conflict · Class consciousness · Consciousness · Epistemology · Philosophy of history · Political science · Politics · Praxis · Proletariat · Reification (Marxism) · Sociology · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political theory and Gramsci