Xia Shaoguang: The Concept of History in Lukacs’ Reification Thought and its Anti-Historicism Characteristics

About the Author: Prof. in Nanjing University

Abstract: While expounding his Reification thought, young Lukacs made great efforts to reveal the manifestation of reification in bourgeois thought, especially the methodological defects of bourgeois thought, and attributed it to “non-historical, anti-historical beings” (ungeschichtliche, antigeschichtliche Wesen). At the same time, Lukacs put forward his redefined concept of history as the entity and methodological principle to overcome reification.

However, we can see that the concept of history in Lukacs’ reification thought has the characteristics of anti-historicism which he wanted to criticize but failed.

If we analyze Lukacs’ writings the subject of Reification is not the proletariat existing in real history, and the process of overcoming reification is just a speculative activity beyond history, which leads to the idea that reification cannot be overcome in the end. The root of this mistake lies in Lukacs’ unclear definition of the connotation of reification. This paper attempts to reveal this feature and explore its reasons.

Keywords: Lukacs; Reification; history; anti-historicism characteristics

In his representative work (History and Class Consciousnes) which Lukacs studied Reification and proletarian consciousness, Lukacs explained his historical dialectics with the help of the explanation of Reification. This concept of history is endowed with the status of overcoming Reification and methodological principles. Many scholars have noticed the importance of the concept of history in Lukacs’ Reification thought.

For example, Professor Zhang Xiping pointed out that “the concept of history is at the center of Lukacs’ system and is the cornerstone of all his theories”. The studies on Lukacs’ concept of history often focuses on the comparison of external ideological styles and the exploration of Hegel factors in Lukacs’ thoughts, which shows that he “finally falls into the quagmire of historical idealism unconsciously”.

However, few people have noticed that, starting from Lukacs’ definition of the concept of history, there is a contradiction in the internal stipulation of the historical concept contained in Lukacs’ Reification thought.

This concept of history in Lukacs’ Reification thought has obvious characteristics of anti-historicism. On the one hand, Lukacs argued that the bourgeois thought influenced by Reification thought has “non historical and/or anti historical essence”, thus Lukacs put forward the concept of history and gave it a new meaning, regarding it as the substantive and methodological principle to overcome Reification thought; But on the other hand, Lukacs’ concept of history contradicts his own definition of history concept, and in a certain sense, it exactly reproduces the anti historical and non historical characteristics of bourgeois thought that he pointed out before.

This paper is mainly divided into four parts. First, it introduces Lukacs’ Reification thought, from the presentation of Reification to its concrete performance.

Secondly, it introduces the manifestation of Reification in bourgeois thought, especially the methodological defects.

Thirdly, it introduces the concrete connotation of the historical concept put forward by Lukacs to overcome Reifcation, and the specific methods to overcome Reification.

Fourthly, this paper points out the anti-historicism characteristics and performance of the historical concept in Lukacs’ Reification thought, and tries to analyze the reasons for this failure.

Chapter I.  Reification and its performance in the field of real life

Lukacs introduced the concept of Reification around the commodity fetishism put forward by Marx. Lukacs thought that the commodity problem “manifests itself as the core and structural problem in all aspects of capitalist social life”.

Thus, with the help of in-depth analysis of commodity problems, we can“ In the structure of commodity relations, it is found that all the object forms of capitalist society and the principle of all subjective forms corresponding to it. “The basis of commodity structure is” the relationship between people obtains the nature of things, and thus obtains a kind of “ghost like objectivity”,

With its strict, perfect and reasonable self-discipline, this kind of objectiveness conceals its basic essence and all traces of the relationship between people. The basic definition of Reification is that once the essence contained in this commodity structure develops into fetishism, “people’s own activities and their own labor, as some objective things, some things that do not depend on people, some things that control people through different self-discipline, are opposite to human beings. “

Specifically speaking, this is reflected in both subjective and objective aspects. The objective aspect is” to produce a world composed of ready-made objects and the relationship between objects. Although its laws are gradually recognized by people, it still stands opposite to people as an irreducible and self-acting force even in this case “.

 In the subjective aspect, it is that “human activities are opposite to human beings themselves and are objectified and become a kind of commodity. This kind of commodity obeys the natural law of society, which is different from the objectivity of human beings. It is just like any consumer goods turned into commodities, and it is bound to carry out its own movement without relying on human beings”.

Workers are the most common and important practical field affected by Reification.

In industrial production, the principle based on is the principle of rationalization, that is, to adjust according to calculability, to quantify the activities of workers with qualitative content as human beings, and to become and only become the digital form that can be visualized directly. The impact of this on industrial production activities and workers lies in the following aspects: first, the overall identity of the production process has been destroyed, and the local operations have been divided in time and space.

Secondly, the workers who are the main actors of production activities are also divided into many parts, and lose the autonomy of the labor process, and are added to the production process as accessories. Man’s natural relation is replaced by the rational Reification relation.

Although the typical fate of Reification is workers, it is the general fate of bourgeois society. Therefore, in other fields of social life, although the specific appearance is different, the appearance in these fields shows the most basic principle of Reification, that is, according to the principle of rationalization, A system established on the basis of calculable, predictable and often quantitative relations is often regarded as something that has been completed forever, fixed and accurately determined, and thus can function independently, as opposed to individual things in social life. However, the real individual differences of human beings are gradually eliminated, which is dominated by the new abstract and generalized “material nature”. In these forms, the relationship between people hidden in the direct commodity relationship and between people and the real object that meets their practical needs gradually disappears, so these relations must become the real representatives of the social existence of Reified consciousness.

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