The Research Of Lukacs’ Anti-Reification Aesthetics Theory

Georg Lukacs (1885-1971), one of the most influential philosophers in the 20th century, is known as the founder of western Marxism. His legendary life left a rich spiritual wealth to human society. In his famous book "History and Class Consciousness", he put forward the famous Reification theory.This theory played the same important role as the "Alienation" theory discovered in the early stage of Marxism later on. Lukacs was ranked as the greatest Marxist right after Marx. He got the name because he adhered to Marxism, yet he was not constrained by Marxist Classics, and he rebuilt Marxism theory with a completely different approach.The theoretical development of Lukacs theory absorbed both the source of Marxism and the influence of new Kantianism, the life philosophy of Wilhelm Dilthey, and Max Weber. Lukacs is not only a philosophical theorist but also a famous activist of international communism. His unique experience is a concentration of European intellectual history of the 20th century. Therefore, the theoretical system of Lukacs merged together the various cognition of western Marxism and contained social critical theory against social practicality of western capitalist society. In this paper, the author digs deeper into the connotation of Lukacs’ Anti-reification Aesthetics from the perspective of Ethical Discourse from the fields of literary aesthetics, literary theory, political aesthetics, and social ethics theory, rediscovers the root causes of reification in the level of ideology and cultural criticism, establishes a cultural logic and theoretical need to run through Lukacs’ aesthetic thoughts, and therefore guides people to explore Lukacs aesthetic theory’s enlightenment to contemporary aesthetes construction and significance in the entire history of western Marxism Aesthetics. This paper is divided into seven parts.The first part is the analysis of the source of Lukacs’main ideas. Marx’s Commodity Fetishism Theory is the most direct source of Lukacs Reification Theory. Lukacs paid great attention on capitalist social critical theory in the mature period of Marxism represented by Marx’s "das capital". In Lukacs "apprentice Marxist period", except for the influence of Marx, he was also greatly affected by new Kantianism, Dilthey’s philosophy of life, and Max weber and so on. Such logic combination of thought is also a embodiment of harmonious co-existence of various contemporaneous ideas. Based on the root of Lukacs’important thoughts, this part explores how Lukacs became a Marxist and became mature ultimately.The second part takes "History and Class Consciousness" as a text and explains Lukacs’concept of Reification and Reification Consciousness. Lukacs insisted on inherited relations of Marxism Theory and used the objective law of social and history development with the analytical method in Marx’s "das capital" in analyzing reification concept. He not only focused on the effect of reification on social system, but also paid more attention on the effect of reification on human consciousness, namely the formation of materialized consciousness. Through the analysis of generative mechanism of reification consciousness, this part explains how reification dominate human spirit and psychological activities through internalized existing structure. It also reveals the fact that reification consciousness maintains the irrationality of capitalism by means of the methodology of worshiping of "facts"The third part mainly analyzes "reification" nature of art. As a unique cultural phenomenon of human society, art is essentially human material production and social structure manifested from ideology. Lukacs, as an aesthete studying the history of sociology, takes ideology theory as his basic concept of art and pattern of art criticism. He repeatedly clarified that literature is a kind of ideology in need of joining the tide of social and historical movements and that literature is to observe social and historical movements and to reflect their effects.The fourth part mainly analyzes the literary realism. Art creation belongs to dialectical materialism and "true art" is to reflect real life without distorting the true nature of reality. Lukacs argued that realism literature has the nature of "reification" because really great realists never take the reification as true reality. Lukacs’realistic view of literature and art and his holistic theory have both inner wholeness and spirit of dialectics, featuring a strong flavor of humanity.The fifth part focuses on humanitarian. Lukacs had the view that Marxist theory was different from bourgeois science in that the former was comprehensive rather than simply explain history from the aspect of economic incentive. Such kind of philosophical thinking is actually based on people’s subjective consciousness and is the subjectivity thoughts of humanitarian spirit of aesthetics and literature when alluding to literature and aesthetics. This part digs into the foundation of Lukacs’social criticism against reification---humanitarian principles, reflecting Lukacs’insist on subjective artistic aesthetic judgment on art. Meanwhile, by means of criticizing capitalist culture and from the perspective of historical Philosphy, Lukacs found that human is to pursue self-realization and finally to go toward the Utopia beyond experience.The sixth part is to explore the approach to eliminate the phenomenon of reification and to realize the return of human nature. Although Marx and Lukacs differed in theory because of their different backgrounds and theoretical focuses, they proposed their theories to solve problems emerged out of specific times and backgrounds. They were not purely puting forward a theory out of phenomena. This part summarizes Marx’s communism scheme and Lukacs’scheme for proletarian revolution and reveals the fact that the two schemes aimed to eliminate alienation and reification consciousness and to finally realize the return of man’s social essences. At the same time, by analyzing the theoretical basis and features of Lukacs’view of democracy, the paper points out that democracy is one of the conditions towards free kingdom and it plays an important role in human’s freedom and liberation.The seventh part mainly analyzes the inheritance of Western Marxism and new Marxism in Eastern Europeon on Lukacs’reification theory. With the spread of reification theory, the Western Marxism inherited and carried forward the theory of Marx’s alienation and reification theory. This part mainly explores dialectics of enlightenment, tools rational theory, one-dimensionality theory, communicative action theory, develops and discards of Lukacs’reification theory, and to proceed the criticism of capitalist.Lukacs is a legend. As a Marxist theorist, he profoundly interpreted the depth and the complexity of Marxist philosophy and joined radical political movements of proletariat; standing on the position of the proletariat of radical political movements. As a philosopher, he cared about humanism tradition and called for the return of human nature with the influence of life philosophy. As a literary critic, he criticized art works reflecting the then political background. As an aesthete, he answered important questions on Marxism in the field of aesthetics in 20th century and viewed human social life and ethics from the perspective of reification, which laid foundation for the construction of western Marxist aesthetic system. The comment on Lukacs is controversial. Yet, he was a special Marxist and had special charm in that he refused common sense and normal social moral standard. Maybe it is because he had quite different ideas from contemporary thoughts and theories, his ideas became quite significant nowadays.