Ethics and Class Consciousness

György Lukács and the possibility of “revolutionary dialectics” in History and Class Consciousness

Abstract

Disputes over (or against) “orthodoxy” in relation to Marx’s thought played a fundamental role in the theoretical and political field of the communist movement at the beginning of the 20th century. In “What is Orthodox Marxism?”, Lukács resituated the terms of the discussion by declaring his orthodoxy to Marxism as a fidelity to the method. Marx’s method, which Lukács calls revolutionary dialectics, is presented on the basis of the unity between theory and practice, as the theoretical expression of revolutionary praxis. Precisely for this reason, Lukács sustains the controversial thesis that the condition of possibility of Marxist dialectics and the overcoming of reification is the standpoint of the proletariat as the identical subject-object of history. In the 100 years that have elapsed, the thesis of the standpoint of the proletariat has been the object of important criticisms. Faced with this, some authors have chosen to resignify and reinterpret this idea, while others have chosen to separate the critique of reification as an independent aspect from the political proposal of the revolutionary proletariat. The problem is that these formulations tend to distort the unity of theory and practice that is at the basis of Lukács’s formulation. After exposing Lukács’s critique of the phenomenon of reification and explaining succinctly what he understands by dialectical method, this article offers a reflection on the conditions of possibility of revolutionary dialectics, starting from a re-reading of the concept of class consciousness that emphasizes its ethical structure.