Tom Rockmore

Is There a Marxist Ontology?

This book by Tom Rockmore is a history of Lukács' changing views on Marxist Rationalism and Bourgeois Irrationalism. There are basically four phases, according to our author. The first is best exhibited in "History and Class Consciousness". The second is (what Rockmore considers) the early Stalinist phase (see "The Young Hegel"). The third is the 'late Stalinist' phase, which includes "Existentialism or Marxist" and "The Destruction of Reason." The last phase our author finds in the largely unpublished (and partly unfinished) "On the Ontology of Social Being." (Henceforth, 'The Ontology'.) And it is this late work that will concern us in this review. Rockmore specifically considers 'The Ontology' only in the final chapter of this book.

Rockmore, unlike the few (and especially Marxist) commentators that I have seen, is excited by this late work. Why? György Lukács tones down what had been his carefully maintained strict separation of Marxism and non-Marxism. (As an aside I will note that we saw Sartre complain of Lukács inability to simply see what was on the page of non-Marxist texts in Sartre's "Search for a Method". But Rockmore says of Lukács' Ontology that the "development of a critical attitude toward the main figures of Marxist orthodoxy transforms his capacity to not only appreciate, but even to accept the value of non-Marxist views.") Rockmore points out that a main theme of 20th century philosophy was ontology, - and Marx left no ontology. 'The Ontology', which began as a mere introduction to an Ethics, grew into a 1400+ page manuscript!

It was not well received even by his students. (More on that later.) Lukács wrote a 324 page prolegomena to defend his work to the tiny few who had seen (all or parts of) it. Rockmore argues that by abandoning the idolatry of Marxist Orthodoxy, the demonization of non-Marxists, and the notion that Marxist thought is primarily economic, Lukács transforms his whole understanding of Marxism. When I was young, it was typical to think of Heidegger, Lukács and Wittgenstein as the 'Big 3' of twentieth century philosophy. But no one outside of Marxism even thinks of Lukács today! I believe, as does Rockmore, that a full translation of 'The Ontology' will help make both him and Marxism interesting again to those outside the Marxist orbit.

[For those interested, we only have the following volumes (really, chapters) of 'The Ontology' published in English:
Ontology of Social Being, Volume 1. Hegel
Ontology of Social Being, Volume 2. Marx
Ontology of Social Being, Volume 3. Labour
This amounts to not even half of 'The Ontology'. (I have read both the Hegel and Marx volumes.) Another problem is that the secondary literature in English is very scanty. Besides this book we are reviewing, there are three essays in a collection by Lukács' former student Agnes Heller called "Lukács Revalued". None of them appreciative. The only full length study in English is "Lukacs' Last Autocriticism: The Ontology" by Ernest Joós. Joós, a non-Marxist, is quite critical, if not hostile.
In Joós book we do learn the names of the missing chapters:
Neo-Positivismus und Existentialismus
Nikolai Hartmanns Vorstoss zu einer echten Ontologie
Die Reproduktion
Das Ideelle und die Ideologie
Die Entfremdung
Die Prolegomena
Die gegenwartige Problemlage
'Die Prolegomena' was written last to convince students and friends of the soundness of the Ontology. I really would like to see the Prolegomena translated next. (More on Joós book later.)]

As a student of the history of philosophy what interests me in 'The Ontology' is that Lukács (as in "History and Class Consciousness") now sees less rupture and more "continuation through development" between German Idealism and Marxism. By this Rockmore means that Lukács sees Marx's thought "as preserving in itself all that is of value in preceding philosophy but going further than prior thinkers." This is similar to Lukács understanding in his early phase. I believe that the Stalinoid notion of rupture between Marxism and philosophy was a calamity. If there is, or ever were, a deep (or an _entire_) break in any development (of thought or activity) Dialectical Theory itself would be falsified and in ruins! But now, Lukács sees Marxism (correctly, in my opinion) as part of the philosophical tradition.

Lukács finds in Marx an Ontology that is Historical. This is a novelty; but not a radical break with the philosophical tradition. Work remains the defining characteristic of Man. "Lukács believes that the essence of human social being lies in teleological positing (teleologische Setzung)". (Rockmore complains that Lukács does not define this term. But in the notes Rockmore does remind us that Setzen is "the German equivalent of the Greek tithemi, as in the term 'hypothesis'.") Rockmore explains the term saying that things "do not change in and of themselves; rather, they change as the result of conscious positing in which the result corresponds to the aim. We can understand human society through the notion of teleological positing more precisely as following from the effort to achieve value through goal-directed activity." That seems right.

Another important point that Rockmore makes is that for Lukács "Marx's position is not fully complete, but requires additional development. The criterion of acceptable theory is no longer mere allegiance to a view, such as Marx's theory. For Lukács, in this study even Marx's thought is finally interesting insofar as it contains the resources necessary to permit the development of a social ontology toward which Marx only pointed." Marxist theory must be further developed, like any philosophical theory, - otherwise one inevitably ends up with scribes attempting to always show that nothing significant has changed since the advent of (the final form of) 'The Theory'. Another change is that Lukács steps back from the Marxist notion that economics is the bedrock of Marxist thought. Economics is embedded in the historical character of Social Being. That is to say, economics itself is now treated as Epiphenomenon!

According to Rockmore, one can even say that "at the close of his career Lukács returns to his early quasi-Spinozistic understanding of thought and existence as different aspects of the same process, now identified as historical." Of course, Rockmore does not fail to mention that Heidegger, 'in a rather different fashion', also finds ontology to be historical. Indeed, one of the really novel points of 'The Ontology' to my thinking was Lukács notion that the "relevant difference lies in Marxism's insight that history is the history of categorical change. It follows, as Marx stresses, that even the categories undergo change over time." Of course, now we are here speaking of ontological categories! Typically in philosophical ontology, Being is thought of as Ground. Here, in Lukács late thought, the Ground moves! So we see that in Marx, according to Lukács, everything moves - and now with Lukács even the categories of Being. This is really new.

Now, with Heidegger, Being is also historical. But (I think) for Heidegger, we can only Know within the framework of each separate 'gift' of Being. So all we know is 'contemporary circumstances' (the epoche in which we live, which may of course last many ages). But with Marx (/Lukács), I believe we are intended to have real Knowledge of Being; - but this knowledge changes as Being endlessly unfolds. Thus one can perhaps say that there are now no ontological invariants (at least vis-à-vis human knowing) with either thinker. Once Being and Time are seen to be entwined, this becomes an extremely probable understanding of ontology. The largest stumbling block to 'The Ontology' in the book by Joós (mentioned above) is precisely the fact that in Lukács the categories themselves refuse to stay still!

Now, Joós mentions something in his book that I would like someone to pin down. He says, "I do not want to attribute much importance to insinuations that the Ontology has been tampered with. (p. 62-63, Joós, Lukacs' Last Autocriticism".) The note hanging off this sentence (note 52, p.121, Joós) reads 'Spiegel, 14 June 1971.' While Joós dismisses the possibility, I have seen Heller (in the book mentioned above) speak of 'The Ontology' as if it was in some sense a collaborative effort between Lukács and his students. If my memory is not faulty regarding this, it would not surprise me at all if at the masters death the students sought to 'tidy' things up a bit. Joós dismisses the possibility because in such a complex ontological work any tampering would be noticeable.

But Rockmore here notes that the editor of the Prolegomena (which was itself written after the rest of 'The Ontology' and seen by those outside the circle of students, therefore impossible to 'tidy' up) suggests that the prolegomena differs from the rest of the book in its avoidance of the rigid dualism characteristic of its historical and systematic parts. It further exhibits an increased freedom from Marxist orthodoxy, for instance in a salutary tendency, unprecedented in Lukács's earlier Marxist writings, to criticize all the main figures of classical marxism." By 'dualism', I believe it is also meant the strict delimitation between Marxist and non-Marxist that occurs throughout Lukács' oeuvre. If this is true, then the only tampering that could have been done would have been of a political/ideological nature (i.e., to rid 'The Ontology' -minus the Prolegomena- of the "increased freedom" regarding Marxist dogma) and not of a philosophical/ontological nature. Again, if anyone knows more about this please leave a note.

Why should anyone be interested in 'The Ontology' today? Rockmore and Joós are not Marxists but they are knowledgeable; that is something. Rockmore's chapter on the Ontology is quite positive and appreciative in tone. In the end, Joós thinks Lukács failed with this his last project. That is not in itself surprising; - where are the successful ontologies? Each 'ontologist' changes something. No one is an Aristotelian, a Husserlian or even a Heideggerean tout court. Marxists should not be expected to be Lukácsian ontologists purely and simply either. I wish Marxists (or ontologists) would write about this (almost) forgotten work. I am in the habit of telling people that the two greatest dialecticians of the last century, Lukác and Merleau-Ponty, ended their lives working on Ontologies. Dialectical thought (and ontology) has to face this eventually...

And that is why 'The Ontology' remains relevant today. Four stars for Rockmore's book. While it will not satisfy Marxists (non-Marxists never do) I thought it quite good. The neo-Kantian of Lukács thought may be a bit overplayed early on and in the middle chapters but I did not find it annoying. I will warn my Marxist and anti-Marxist friends that Rockmore approaches Lukács as a philosopher, not merely as a Marxist political thinker or marxist ideologue. If you expect the latter, perhaps it is best to find another book.

The reason, btw, I have not gone in depth into our authors understanding of Lukács is because I've read so little of 'The Ontology' or the secondary literature to judge it. From a distance 'The Ontology' seems a very important work. However, I usually like reading the whole book and more of the secondary literature before coming to conclusions. I believe this work may be quite important, but the dearth of studies of a book almost fifty years old belies that. Perhaps that has to do with Lukács students downplaying the importance of the work and convincing other marxists to ignore it. Also, I think Lukács decision to ignore the well-known school of phenomenology (he wants to avoid their subjectivism) and use the little read realist ontology of Nicolai Hartmann also contributes to the obscurity of Lukács Ontology. (It may be that his notion of categorical change derives from Hartmann. But the Hartmann chapter of Lukács book would need to be translated before I could assert that.) And since after the fall of the Soviet Union non-marxists tend to think of Marxism as dead a dog, they have no interest in Lukács either. To the best of my knowledge, there are only a few books on 'The Ontology' in English:
Lukács Revalued, Agnes Heller (ed.) (3 chapters only)
Lukacs' Last Autocriticism: The Ontology, Ernest Joos
The Ontology of Georg Lukacs: Studies in Materialist Dialectics, Fariborz Shafai (very difficult to find, scarce)
The Place of Law in Lukács World Cpncept, Csaba Vaega (a very specialized study published, in English, in Budapest.)
I am not aware of any others. You see this list is very short. I am sure there are more essays in academic journals, but I am not in academia and know next to nothing about that.… (más)

Rockmore's book on Marx appears to be very promising. On the back cover it states that Rockmore seeks to recover Marx' philosophical ideas and his relation to Hegel, and that he wants to do this free of "Marxism" (by which writers these days usually mean the official Leninist party line). So far, so good. But unfortunately, Rockmore fails to write even one page that is not either stating the obvious or clearly false.

Most of the book itself can be skipped entirely, since it consists of a recap of Hegel's philosophy of history and then an overview of the works of Marx. It's not clear why this was included in its entirety in Rockmore's work and it is certainly superfluous considering the very large amount of philosophical overviews of Marx' collected work in print today, but apparently it's quantity that counts here. Rockmore's analysis itself is not particularly bad, it must be granted, though nothing special either. Instead of reading these chapters, one might do better to read for example Allen Wood's book on Marx: that also gives an overview of Marx focusing on his philosophy, and is also written by a general opponent of Marx (though not an unsympathetic one, but Wood is a Kant specialist).

The first chapter and the final two are the extent of Rockmore's actual thesis. In this, he defends three points:
- Marx did not entirely abandon philosophy at any point in his career;
- Marx was a Hegelian;
- Marx was an idealist.
This of itself is already very odd, considering that the first is very well-known and not really disputed by anyone. Certainly writers such as Lukacs feel that Marx went beyond philosophy, but this means philosophy as mere abstract contemplation such as Kant or the scholastics, not philosophy as 'abstract thought of any kind'.

The second claim is muddled by Rockmore's tendency to go on the defensive where Hegel is involved, wanting to save him from his harshest critics who claim Hegel merely conceived of history in a theological manner. This may or may not be a correct criticism, but in any case it has little to do with Marx, who rejected Hegel for misunderstanding the nature of the relation between civil society, the economy and the state in history. At some points Rockmore does mention this, but in the last two chapters he suddenly beats a hasty retreat and simply states that anyone who reasons in a historicist manner can be considered "Hegelian", and that, therefore, Marx was a Hegelian. Why this is triumphantly presented as a discovery and why we should consider this a meaningful analysis in the first place is left to the reader.

The same approach also characterizes Rockmore's analysis in his third and most bizarre claim, the one where Marx appears as an idealist. He sets out by correctly stating that idealism can mean various things, and that the idealism of Berkeley and Plato is not the same as that of Kant or Hegel (though he overstates the difference). Then he quotes Marx as saying that the only way man can perceive the world is through his mind. Just like with the claim about the "Hegelianism" of Marx, this is suddenly adequate to call someone meaningfully an idealist, and voilà, Rockmore has established that Marx was really an idealist all the time! The whole issue of the analytical priority of mind or matter, or the question of theology vs economy, etc. are forgotten entirely.

It may sound hard to believe that this is really all there is to the book, especially considering the positive reviews of the other readers here on Amazon, but that can't be helped. I'm quite baffled as to why this was published. Any undergraduate student paper could do what Rockmore did, and smart students can do better.… (más)