The Budapest School

Beyond Marxism

By

J.F. Dorahy

/ S /6 8 3

BRILL

LEIDEN | BOSTON Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

PART 1 The Early Budapest School and the Critique ofAlienation i 'Back to Marx!' 13 1 Marxism and Philosophy 14 2 Work as the Species-Activity of Man 15 3 Freedom and Universality in History 17 4 Alienation and the Marxist Theory of Revolution 20 5 On the Phenomenology of Everyday Life 22 6 Individuality as the Unity of the Particular and the Universal 7 The Budapest School's Marxist Humanism: Critical Reflections 8 Prague '68 and the Search for a Critical Theory 33

PART 2 György Markus: From the Critique ofProduction to The Philosophy of Culture

2 Markus Contra Marx: Production, Economy and the Problem of HistoricalTeleology 43 1 Philosophical Debates in Post-War Critical Theory 44 2 The Paradigm of Production: A Conceptual Analysis 47 3 Reification and the Antinomies of Production 52 4 On the Utopian Character of Marxian Socialism 61 5 Culture and Enlightenment 63

3 Marxism, Modernity and the Dynamics of Culture 69 1 Marxism and Culture (1)—the Base/Superstructure Metaphor 2 Marxism and Culture (11)—the Theory and Practice of Ideology Critique 73 3 Towards a Pragmatics of Cultural Production 80 VI CONTENTS

4 On the Autonomy of Culture 84 5 The Arts, Sciences, and the Paradoxical Unity of Modern Culture 86 6 The Dynamics of Cultural Modemity: Enlightenment and Romanticism 94 7 On the Aktualität of Markus' Post-Budapest Project 97

PART 3 Agnes Heller and Ferenc Feher: Reflexive Stages in a Post-Marxist Radicalism

4 Towardsa New Form ofHistoricalConsciousness 105 1 The Confusion ofHistorical Consciousness 106 2 Philosophy of History as the Consciousness of Reflected Universality 109 3 The Antinomies of Universal History (1): Historicity and Universality 112 4 The Antinomies of Universal History (11): Freedom and Necessity 116 5 Marxism and History ng 6 Between Science and Critique 122 7 Reflected Generality as a Task, or, the Imperatives of Postmodemity 124

5 Multidimensional Modemity 128 1 Modemity, Socialism, and Democracy 128 2 Three Logics of Modemity? Some Critical Remarks 133 3 The Essence of Modemity (1): The Dynamics of Modemity 137 4 The Essence of Modemity (11): The Modem Social Arrangement 141 5 Excursus: Is Heller a Convergence Theorist? 143 6 Heller, Heidegger and the Modem Imagination 147 7 Modemity and Redemption 154

6 Contingency, Choice and Dissatisfaction 158 1 The Dissatished Society 158 2 Reflective Postmodemism: A Preliminary Account 162 3 'On the Railway Station' 164 4 Contingency as Infinite Possibility 166 5 From Contingency to Destiny 168 CONTENTS VII

6 To Become What One Is: Heller on the Physiognomy of Existential Choice 170 7 Satisfaction Beyond the Choice of the Good 176 8 On the Meaning of Heller's Postmodern Radicalism 178

Conclusion 183

Bibliography 193 Index 202