Adam Takács Lunchtime Talk: Democracy, Fascism, and the question of Socialist Society in Georg Lukács’s Post-War Political Writings
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Arendt Center
12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
This event occurred on:
Wed. October 31, 12 pm – 1 pm
Democracy, Fascism, and the question of Socialist Society in Georg Lukács’s Post-War Political Writings
The question of ‘socialist democracy’ remained a perpetual object of reflection in Georg Lukács’s political writings. These reflections received new impetus when between 1945 and 1951 Lukács engaged in the project of evaluating the post-war European political situation with regard to its democratic traditions and legitimacy as well as its potential to bring about a new form of socialist democracy. This talk seeks to reconstruct Lukács’s arguments against liberal representative democracy and his claims about the necessity of bringing into life a socialist one, along with his evaluation of fascism as a political movement that played a fundamental role in discrediting the former. In doing so, I will also confront Lukács’s ideas and claims with those of Hannah Arendt and Caude Lefort on the relationship between democracy, socialism, and fascism.
Adam Takács is Senior Lecturer in philosophy and humanities at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and currently Senior Fellow at the Central European University Institute for Advanced Study. He received his PhD from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 2009. His researches cover the areas of phenomenology, contemporary French thought, Marxism, and theory of history. His major publications includeLe fondement selon Husserl (Paris, 2014); Heidegger en France et en Hongrie (ed. Paris, 2014), L'actualité de Georg Lukács (ed. Paris, 2013), and “Marxism in Revolution: Georg Lukács’s History and Class Consciousnessand Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy” (In: Jean-Michel Rabaté ed., 1922. Literature, Culture, Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Invitation Only
Please RSVP to [email protected]
Democracy, Fascism, and the question of Socialist Society in Georg Lukács’s Post-War Political Writings
The question of ‘socialist democracy’ remained a perpetual object of reflection in Georg Lukács’s political writings. These reflections received new impetus when between 1945 and 1951 Lukács engaged in the project of evaluating the post-war European political situation with regard to its democratic traditions and legitimacy as well as its potential to bring about a new form of socialist democracy. This talk seeks to reconstruct Lukács’s arguments against liberal representative democracy and his claims about the necessity of bringing into life a socialist one, along with his evaluation of fascism as a political movement that played a fundamental role in discrediting the former. In doing so, I will also confront Lukács’s ideas and claims with those of Hannah Arendt and Caude Lefort on the relationship between democracy, socialism, and fascism.
Adam Takács is Senior Lecturer in philosophy and humanities at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, and currently Senior Fellow at the Central European University Institute for Advanced Study. He received his PhD from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 2009. His researches cover the areas of phenomenology, contemporary French thought, Marxism, and theory of history. His major publications includeLe fondement selon Husserl (Paris, 2014); Heidegger en France et en Hongrie (ed. Paris, 2014), L'actualité de Georg Lukács (ed. Paris, 2013), and “Marxism in Revolution: Georg Lukács’s History and Class Consciousnessand Karl Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy” (In: Jean-Michel Rabaté ed., 1922. Literature, Culture, Politics. Cambridge University Press, 2015).
Invitation Only
Please RSVP to [email protected]