Lukács in the 1930’s: notes and hypothesis on the ontological turn towards aesthetics

Abstract

The present text examines the turn undergone by Georg Lukács’s trajectory in the 1930s, when he took the decision to settle in the Soviet Union. This rupture –commonly referred to as the “ontological turn”– reorients his thought toward aesthetics. The article argues that this redirection cannot be explained as a retreat to less contested theoretical ground but should be read as a far-reaching strategic wager. Against the background of Blum’s Theses, Popular Frontism, and the discovery of Marx’s 1844 manuscripts, Lukács articulates the notion of “living objectivity” that sets in motion a theoretical practice I propose to call “aesthetic Leninism.” This notion, which will expand throughout his philosophy, manifests itself in the primacy of the concrete and in a new theory of objectivity that breaks with History and Class Consciousness and turns toward particularity. The essay seeks to demonstrate the methodological continuity between his political praxis and his aesthetic politics; attention to labor, mediation, and action mark the transition to aesthetic categories (the typical, realism, a culture of sentiment) that run through his later work and presage his influence on the Budapest School and the New Left