https://classletters.org/authors/gy%C3%B6rgy-luk%C3%A1cs/Recent content in György Lukács on Class LettersHugoen-usFri, 29 Sep 2023 02:07:16 +0000https://classletters.org/posts/lukacs/studies_in_european_realism/Fri, 29 Sep 2023 02:07:16 +0000https://classletters.org/posts/lukacs/studies_in_european_realism/<p>The articles contained in this book were written some ten years ago. Author and reader may well ask why they should be republished just now. At first sight they might seem to lack all topicality. Subject and tone alike may appear remote to a considerable section of public opinion. I believe, however, that they have some topicality in that, without entering upon any detailed polemics, they represent a point of view in opposition to certain literary and philosophical trends still very much to the fore today. Let us begin with the general atmosphere: the clouds of mysticism which once surrounded the phenomena of literature with a poetic colour and warmth and created an intimate and ‘‘interesting’’ atmosphere around them, have been dispersed. Things now face us in a clear, sharp light which to many may seem cold and hard; a light shed on them by the teachings of Marx. Marxism searches for the material roots of each phenomenon, regards them in their historical connections and movement, ascertains the laws of such movement and demonstrates their development from root to flower, and in so doing lifts every phenomenon out of a merely emotional, irrational, mystic fog and brings it to the bright light of understanding.</p>https://classletters.org/posts/lukacs/crisis-of-bourgeois-philosophy/Sun, 05 Mar 2023 01:59:10 +0000https://classletters.org/posts/lukacs/crisis-of-bourgeois-philosophy/<p>Written in 1948.</p> <p>The fact of the crisis has been stated not only by us Marxists. The concept of “crisis” has long taken root in bourgeois philosophy. When, for example, Siegfried Marck, a famous neo-Hegelian, wanted to define Rickert’s place in the development of philosophy, he called him a thinker of the “pre-crisis era.” Indeed, if we carefully trace the development of bourgeois philosophy in recent decades, we will see that literally every two years the foundations of philosophy are again and again called into question. It is no coincidence that this development was initiated by Nietzsche’s program: a reassessment of all values. This continues endlessly in modern philosophy; a year during which a crisis did not break out in some area of philosophy is a year without any events.</p>