Rüdiger Dannemann

Georg Lukács’s Vision for an Institute for Historical Materialism in 1919 and 1923

Radica Philosophy Review

ONLINE FIRST published on September 19, 2024

https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev2024918143

In this paper I discuss Lukács’s lecture “Functional Change of Historical Materialism” as a programmatic text that only rarely receives attention, offering an analysis that shows a connection with Horkheimer’s equally programmatic and well known 1931 lecture on “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research.” I show that an absolute focus on the reification essay alone is just as problematic as reducing Lukács to an orthodox dogmatist. Above all, it should become clear that and to what extent a research institute that operates in the spirit of Lukács could—and should—have represented an alternative to the research institutions we know.