The end (and persistence) of subjectivity
Lukács with Adorno, Adorno with Lukács
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7093795 |
|---|---|
| Authors | A Bueno (0000-0001-8705-7613, University of Passau, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 435-454 |
| Publication date | 2024-07-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Distinktion Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1600-910X • E-ISSN: 2159-9149 |
| Publisher | Routledge (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/1600910x.2024.2381469 |
| OpenAlex | W4401156546 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 15 |
This paper revisits Lukács’s and Adorno’s analyses of reification to articulate a diagnosis that accounts both for its tendencies towards authoritarianism and its emancipatory potentials. Despite their divergences, Lukács’s conception of the proletariat as ‘identical subject-object of history’ and Adorno’s diagnosis of ‘the end of psychology’ in the authoritarian masses seem to converge on a similar outcome. Through opposite paths, they both culminate in the elimination of the subject-object distinction, leading the critique of reification to a political impasse. However, this alternative is rooted in partial interpretations of Lukács’s and Adorno’s arguments. As I contend, one can reconstruct Lukács’s analysis in a way that portrays emancipatory subjectivity not as hostile to otherness but as driven by the material limits of reification, or what Adorno termed the non-identical. Correspondingly, in light of Lukács, Adorno’s diagnosis can be read in a way that the end of psychology, far from negating the possibility of emancipation, serves as its driving force
Aesthetics · Authoritarianism · Critical theory · Democracy · Emancipation · Epistemology · Object (grammar · Political science · Politics · Proletariat · Reification (Marxism · Sociology · Subject (documents · Subjectivity · Critical Theory and Philosophy · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |