Overview

Georg Lukács’s philosophy of praxis, penned between 1918 and 1928, remains a revolutionary and apocryphal presence within Marxism. His History and Class Consciousness has inspired a century of rapture and reprobation, perhaps, as Gillian Rose suggested, because of its ‘invitation to hermeneutic anarchy’. In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López radicalises Lukács’s famous return to Hegel by reassembling his 1920s philosophy as a conceptual-historical totality. This speculative reading defends Lukács while proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique. While Lukács’s concept of praxis approaches the shape of Hegel’s Absolute, it tragically fails to bear its weight. However, as López argues, Lukács’s failure was productive: it raises crucial political, methodological and philosophical questions for Marxism, offering to redeem a lost century.

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Reviews

“For a long time Lukács’s detractors presented his early Marxist work as an idealist and subjectivist distortion of revolutionary Marxism. According to this critique, Lukács remained too much a Hegelian, willing to substitute the proletariat for the world spirit. Recent studies question this standard interpretation by pointing out neo-Kantian and phenomenological elements in Lukács’s early philosophy that significantly deviate from Hegelianism. Instead, Daniel Lopez radically reverses the interpretative focus: What if the young Lukács was too less a Hegelian? Adopting a higher, Hegelian philosophical standpoint, Lopez’s meticulous scholarly study offers a charitable reading of History and Class Consciousness and, at the same time, criticizes its theoretical limitations. A much needed, substantial contribution to an emerging critical discussion on Lukács and Hegelian Marxism.” - Konstantinos Kavoulakos, University of Thessaloniki “Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, by Daniel Andrés López, is an outstanding piece of scholarship. His knowledge of Lukács' writings and of the vast secondary literature is simply impressive. As a philosophical reading of History and Class Consciousness (HCC), López proposes a much deeper and more systematic interpretation than most, if not all, previous works on Georg Lukács. The result is a remarkably rich and dense body of philosophical reflection; the whole is a brilliant essay in high theory, but with a strong historical and political dimension. It is a polemical piece, and makes a powerful refutation of the innumerable commentators who have criticised HCC - including Lukács himself, in his (in)famous 1967 ""self-criticism"". At the same time, it is not an un-critical piece, since López aims at an immanent critique of Lukács on the basis of his own viewpoint. While I may not agree with all its conclusions, Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute is a bold and original re-interpretation of Lukacs, which appears as a major contribution for rethinking the Marxist philosophy of praxis.” - Michael Löwy, Centre national de la recherché scientifique “A fine study written with a Lukácsian attentiveness to the give-and-take of subjective and objective life - Daniel Lopez is touchingly sympathetic and incisively critical in equal parts.” - Esther Leslie, Birkbeck ‘10 Questions On Georg Lukács’, published on the Progress in Political Economy (PPE) website

For a long time Lukacs's detractors presented his early Marxist work as an idealist and subjectivist distortion of revolutionary Marxism. According to this critique, Lukacs remained too much a Hegelian, willing to substitute the proletariat for the world spirit. Recent studies question this standard interpretation by pointing out neo-Kantian and phenomenological elements in Lukacs's early philosophy that significantly deviate from Hegelianism. Instead, Daniel Lopez radically reverses the interpretative focus: What if the young Lukacs was too less a Hegelian? Adopting a higher, Hegelian philosophical standpoint, Lopez's meticulous scholarly study offers a charitable reading of History and Class Consciousness and, at the same time, criticizes its theoretical limitations. A much needed, substantial contribution to an emerging critical discussion on Lukacs and Hegelian Marxism. - Konstantinos Kavoulakos, University of Thessaloniki Lukacs: Praxis and the Absolute, by Daniel Andres Lopez, is an outstanding piece of scholarship. His knowledge of Lukacs' writings and of the vast secondary literature is simply impressive. As a philosophical reading of History and Class Consciousness (HCC), Lopez proposes a much deeper and more systematic interpretation than most, if not all, previous works on Georg Lukacs. The result is a remarkably rich and dense body of philosophical reflection; the whole is a brilliant essay in high theory, but with a strong historical and political dimension. It is a polemical piece, and makes a powerful refutation of the innumerable commentators who have criticised HCC - including Lukacs himself, in his (in)famous 1967 self-criticism . At the same time, it is not an un-critical piece, since Lopez aims at an immanent critique of Lukacs on the basis of his own viewpoint. While I may not agree with all its conclusions, Lukacs: Praxis and the Absolute is a bold and original re-interpretation of Lukacs, which appears as a major contribution for rethinking the Marxist philosophy of praxis. - Michael Loewy, Centre national de la recherche scientifique A fine study written with a Lukacsian attentiveness to the give-and-take of subjective and objective life - Daniel Lopez is touchingly sympathetic and incisively critical in equal parts. - Esther Leslie, Birkbeck

For a long time Lukacs's detractors presented his early Marxist work as an idealist and subjectivist distortion of revolutionary Marxism. According to this critique, Lukacs remained too much a Hegelian, willing to substitute the proletariat for the world spirit. Recent studies question this standard interpretation by pointing out neo-Kantian and phenomenological elements in Lukacs's early philosophy that significantly deviate from Hegelianism. Instead, Daniel Lopez radically reverses the interpretative focus: What if the young Lukacs was too less a Hegelian? Adopting a higher, Hegelian philosophical standpoint, Lopez's meticulous scholarly study offers a charitable reading of History and Class Consciousness and, at the same time, criticizes its theoretical limitations. A much needed, substantial contribution to an emerging critical discussion on Lukacs and Hegelian Marxism. - Konstantinos Kavoulakos, University of Thessaloniki Lukacs: Praxis and the Absolute, by Daniel Andres Lopez, is an outstanding piece of scholarship. His knowledge of Lukacs' writings and of the vast secondary literature is simply impressive. As a philosophical reading of History and Class Consciousness (HCC), Lopez proposes a much deeper and more systematic interpretation than most, if not all, previous works on Georg Lukacs. The result is a remarkably rich and dense body of philosophical reflection; the whole is a brilliant essay in high theory, but with a strong historical and political dimension. It is a polemical piece, and makes a powerful refutation of the innumerable commentators who have criticised HCC - including Lukacs himself, in his (in)famous 1967 self-criticism . At the same time, it is not an un-critical piece, since Lopez aims at an immanent critique of Lukacs on the basis of his own viewpoint. While I may not agree with all its conclusions, Lukacs: Praxis and the Absolute is a bold and original re-interpretation of Lukacs, which appears as a major contribution for rethinking the Marxist philosophy of praxis. - Michael Loewy, Centre national de la recherche scientifique A fine study written with a Lukacsian attentiveness to the give-and-take of subjective and objective life - Daniel Lopez is touchingly sympathetic and incisively critical in equal parts. - Esther Leslie, Birkbeck '10 Questions On Georg Lukacs', published on the Progress in Political Economy (PPE) website

Author Information

Daniel Andrés López, Ph.D. (2018), La Trobe University, is an Honorary Research Associate with the Thesis Eleven Forum for Social and Political Theory. He is a regular contributor to the journal Historical Materialism. His writing also appears regularly in Jacobin Magazine.

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