Searching for Glimmers in the Dark Night of Reification: The Unfinished Dialogue between Lukács and Mannheim on Subjectivity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54097/4fe16s86Keywords:
Proletariat, Subjectivity, Critique of Reification, Sociology of Knowledge, Digital AlienationAbstract
The intellectual confrontation between Lukács and Mannheim over the proletarian subjectivity constitutes an unfinished exploration of modernity’s critique. This essay, set against the backdrop of twentieth-century intellectual history, delves deeply into the fundamental opposition between these two theoretical pathways: Lukács’ Hegelian Marxism views class consciousness as the pivotal force for breaking free from the constraints of capitalism, while Mannheim’s sociology of knowledge deconstructs revolutionary narratives into hidden spaces of utopia. By examining the philosophical conflicts between the “dialectics of totality” and “perspectival truth,” the retheorization of the role of intellectuals, and the dual test of the digital capitalism era, this essay reveals that proletarian subjectivity is neither an inevitable historical destiny nor a hollow game of relativism, but a continuous dialectical relationship between power structures and cognitive breakthroughs. The legacy of this intellectual dialogue provides contemporary critical theory with a perspective of “weak totality”: in the barren lands of algorithmic rule, it both rejects the promise of absolute redemption and resists the fragmentation of cognition.
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