Georg Lukács» early Marxist philosophy of the 1920s laid the foundations of Critical Theory. However the evaluation of Lukács» philosophical contribution has been largely determined by one-sided readings of eminent theorists like Adorno, Habermas, Honneth or even Lukács himself. This book offers a new reconstruction of Lukács» early Marxist work, capable of restoring its dialectical complexity by highlighting its roots in his neo-Kantian, »pre-Marxist» period.
In his pre-Marxist work Lukács sought to articulate a critique of formalism from the standpoint of a dubious mystical ethics of revolutionary praxis. Consequently, Lukács discovered a more coherent and realistic answer to his philosophical dilemmas in Marxism. At the same time, he retained his neo-Kantian reservations about idealist dialectics. In his reading of historical materialism he combined non-idealist, non-systematic historical dialectics with an emphasis on conscious, collective, transformative praxis. Reformulated in this way Lukács» classical argument plays a central role within a radical Critical Theory.