Overview of all pages with the tags #György Lukács

Rejoinder to David Black

On Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy

February 26, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

DAVID BLACK’S VALUABLE COMMENTS and further historical exposition (in Platypus Review 18, December 2009) of my review of Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy (Platypus Review 15, September 2009) have at their core an issue with Korsch’s account of the different historical phases of the question of “philosophy” for Marx and Marxism. Black questions Korsch’s differentiation of Marx’s relationship to philosophy into three distinct periods: pre-1848, circa 1848, and post-1848. But attempting to defeat Korsch’s historical account of such changes in Marx’s approaches to relating theory and practice means avoiding Korsch’s principal point. [Read More]

David Black György Lukács History of the Left Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Max Horkheimer Rosa Luxemburg The Left Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky

Book review: Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy

September 3, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

[Marx wrote,] “[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence.”1 This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]

notes on Adorno in 1968-69

May 26, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some very brief notes on Adorno’s last writings from 1968-69, the “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis,” “Resignation,” “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society? (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”),” and the Adorno-Marcuse correspondence of 1969. The center of Adorno’s critique of the 1960s New Left was their romantic opposition to capitalism, found, for example, in their desideratum of the unity of theory and practice. Rather, Adorno asserted the progressive-emancipatory aspect of the separation of theory and practice. [Read More]

/20th Century Chris Cutrone crisis critical theory Discussion György Lukács Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Rosa Luxemburg the Left Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

Notes on Lukács, "Standpoint of the Proletariat"

April 27, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some very brief notes on the 3rd part of Lukács’s essay “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” “The Standpoint of the Proletariat,” which is very important for Platypus’s grasp of the self-understanding of the revolutionary Marxism in 1917-19 that Lukács was trying to theoretically digest.—In a certain sense, this piece by Lukács is the culmination of all the prior readings we have done by Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Lukács and Korsch. [Read More]

Chris Cutrone critical theory Discussion György Lukács

notes on Lukács

March 9, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some brief, partial notes from our discussion at UChicago at yesterday’s (Sun. 3/8/09) reading group, on several essays from György Lukács’s 1923 book History and Class Consciousness. I want to emphasize and discuss in particular a couple of passages, from the (original, 1922) Preface, and the essay “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919). Specifically, I wish to discuss Lukács’s use of categories, “materialist dialectics,” and his meaning of Marxism as a “method,” which might otherwise prove confusing or tricky. [Read More]

Chris Cutrone Discussion György Lukács Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Hegelian Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Theodor W. Adorno Walter Benjamin

Capital in history

The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left

October 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Deutsch, Español, Ελληνικά

The following is a talk given at the Marxist-Humanist Committee public forum on The Crisis in Marxist Thought, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago on Friday, July 25th, 2008. I want to speak about the meaning of history for any purportedly Marxian Left. We in Platypus focus on the history of the Left because we think that the narrative one tells about this history is in fact one’s theory of the present. [Read More]

1789 1930s 1960s 19th Century Bourgeois Capital Capitalism Class consciousness Crisis Degeneration Domination Friedrich Engels Freedom French Revolution György Lukács Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel History History of the Left Industrial Revolution Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Marxism Marxist-Hummanist Committee Modern Moishe Postone Politics Proletariat Regression Revolt of the Third Estate Rosa Luxemburg The Left Theodor W. Adorno Leon Trotsky Walter Benjamin

Walter Benjamin

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

WALTER BENJAMIN OCCUPIES a unique place in the history of modern revolutionary thought: he is the first Marxist to break radically with the ideology of progress. His thinking has therefore a distinct critical quality, which sets him apart from the dominant and “official” forms of historical materialism, and gives him a formidable methodological superiority. This peculiarity has to do with his ability to incorporate into the body of Marxist revolutionary theory insights from the Romantic critique of civilization and from the Jewish messianic tradition. [Read More]

Anarchism Bolshevism Critical theory Frankfurt School French Revolution György Lukács Historical materialism History Ideology Karl Marx Marxism Profiles Progress Theology Theory Violence Walter Benjamin

"Let the dead bury the dead!"

Response to Principia Dialectica (UK) on May 1968

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE NEW MAYDAY MAGAZINE (UK) and Platypus have been in dialogue on the issues of anarchism and Marxism and the state of the “Left” today in light of history. (Please see “Organization, political action, history and consciousness” by Chris Cutrone for Platypus, and “Half-time Team Talk” by Trevor Bark for Mayday, in issues #2, February 2008, and #4, April-May 2008, respectively.) Principia Dialectica, another new British journal, also has taken note of Platypus (see “Weird gonzo leftoid journal,” April 15, 2008), specifically with our interview of Moishe Postone on “Marx after Marxism” (in issue #3, March 2008). [Read More]

1968 Anarchism Exchanges György Lukács Marxism Mayday Moishe Postone Principia Dialectica Theodor W. Adorno Trevor Bark Walter Benjamin

The Left is dead! Long live the Left!

Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and possibilities for emancipatory social politics today

November 1, 2007 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Ελληνικά

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852) The theorist who intervenes in practical controversies nowadays discovers on a regular basis and to his shame that whatever ideas he might contribute were expressed long ago – and usually better the first time around. —Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual Taboos and the Law Today” (1963) [Read More]

19th Century /20th Century capitalism consciousness counterrevolution crisis Vladimir Lenin Critical Theory defeat depoliticization emancipation György Lukács Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel History History of the Left humanity ideology Imperialism Industrial Revolution Iraq Karl Korsch liberalism Marxism Karl Marx Moishe Postone Negative Dialectics New Left Friedrich Nietzsche opportunism Philosophy Political economy Politics postmodernism Revolution Robert Pippin Rosa Luxemburg Social Democracy Social Democratic Party of Germany SPD Socialism society Stalinism Theodor W. Adorno utopianism Walter Benjamin war