The Ontology of Social Being, Volume 2: Marx

Ontologia do Ser Social #2

by György Lukács

A study of essential philosophical categories in Marxism.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

György Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian and critic. He is a founder of the tradition of Western Marxism, an interpretive tradition that departed from the Marxist ideological orthodoxy of the Soviet Union. He developed the theory of reification, and contributed to Marxist theory with developments of Karl Marx's theory of class consciousness. He was also a philosopher of Leninism. He ideologically developed and organised Lenin's pragmatic revolutionary practices into the formal philosophy of vanguard-party revolution.

His literary criticism was influential in thinking about realism and about the novel as a literary genre. He served briefly as Hungary's Minister of Culture as part of the government of the short-lived Hungarian Soviet Republic.

Reviews

[Sergio Corchete · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gracias Manuel Ballestero por traducir esto pero al mismo tiempo me cago en mis muelas Manuel ballestero qué dolor, qué barroquismo y qué sobreuso del punto y coma.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another small part of Lukacs' Ontology published in English, this one begs for rereading. It is much more complex that Lukacs' analysis of Hegel in the first volume, or perhaps I am so used to Lukacs' analysis of Hegel that I simply find it easily comprehensible now compared to his analysis of other things. In this volume, Lukacs' continues his investigation into Marxist ontology and the primacy of the concept of social being in Marx's thought. Much of this retreads basic concepts of Marxism that any Marxist would be familiar with, but in their philosophical dimension: political economy, the nature of historicity in the Marxist framework, the usefulness and limits of theoretical generalizations, uneven development, etc.

The most key concept introduced here, attacking the mechanical inheritances from the Second International, is that of "the alternative," the historical possibility of an alternative choice in the individual actions which make up the course of human history, or the possibility of these choices creating a historical alternative to the historical development of capitalism in Western Europe as analyzed by Marx. I cannot help but think, despite his never saying it out loud, that Lukacs is gesturing towards a "non-capitalist development" possible in the Global South, appealing for the recognition of historical path available to those nation which rejects neoliberalism and capitalism without having to rely on developmentalist models which embrace them. That might be a significant stretch—he does, for example, continue pushing the Asiatic mode of development for analyzing Chinese and Indian history, which is simply a historical falsehood.

This volume is very complex. It begs for rereading.