I started by reading Lukacs' book, Lenin: A Study on the Unity of his Thought. I am only about half finished, and want to wait to talk about that (because this actualization thing is puzzling me, right now).

I thought, since we had the rather lengthy discussion a while back regarding the issues surrounding object/subject phenomena where Lukacs was referred to often, that I would look into Lukacs views on this. I will share some of what I have been reading and hope for help.

This is from The Antinomies of Bourgeois Thought ch. 2:


I may be permitted to devote a few words – as a sort of excursus – to the views expressed by Friedrich Engels on the problem of the thing-in-itself. In a sense they are of no immediate concern to us, but they have exercised such a great influence on the meaning given to the term by many Marxists that to omit to correct this might easily give rise to a misunderstanding. He says: [36] “The most telling refutation of this as of all other philosophical crotchets is practice, namely, experiment and industry. If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the ungraspable Kantian ‘thing-in-itself’. The chemical substances produced in the bodies of plants and animals remained such ‘things-in-themselves’ until organic chemistry began to produce them one after another, whereupon the ‘thing in-itself’ became a thing for us, as, for instance, alizarin, the colouring matter of the madder, which we no longer trouble to grow in the madder roots in the field, but produce much more cheaply and simply from coal tar.”

Above all we must correct a terminological confusion that is almost incomprehensible in such a connoisseur of Hegel as was Engels. For Hegel the terms ‘in itself’ and ‘for us’ are by no means opposites; in fact they are necessary correlatives. That something exists merely ‘in itself’ means for Hegel that it merely exists ‘for us’. The antithesis of ‘for us or in itself’ [37] is rather ‘for itself’, namely that mode of being posited where the fact that an object is thought of implies at the same time that the object is conscious of itself

Okay, I am certainly no Hegel scholar (by any stretch), but I never took a "thing-in-itself" to mean a "thing-for-us". A "thing-in-itself" is not antithetical to a "thing-for-itself", to my untrained ear, those sound almost interchangeable (almost) . But I will admit that I may be approaching this from too simplistic an avenue. The "thing-in-itself" seems much more antithetical to a "thing-for-us", as Engels seems to say. And also, does Hegel use the term "thing-for-itself" as oppositional to "thing-in-self"? And does "thing-for-itself" really imply self-consciousness?

And here Lukacs loses me, altogether (probably not that hard to do):


But Engels’ deepest misunderstanding consists in his belief that the behaviour of industry and scientific experiment constitutes praxis in the dialectical, philosophical sense. In fact, scientific experiment is contemplation at its purest. The experimenter creates an artificial, abstract milieu in order to be able to observe undisturbed the untrammelled workings of the laws under examination, eliminating all irrational factors both of the subject and the object. He strives as far as possible to reduce the material substratum of his observation to the purely rational ‘product’, to the ‘intelligible matter’ of mathematics. And when Engels speaks, in the context of industry, of the “product” which is made to serve “our purposes”, he seems to have forgotten for a moment the fundamental structure of capitalist society which he himself had once formulated so supremely well in his brilliant early essay. There he had pointed out that capitalist society is based on “a natural law that is founded on the unconsciousness of those involved in it”. [40] Inasmuch as industry sets itself ‘objectives’ – it is in the decisive, i.e. historical, dialectical meaning of the word, only the object, not the subject of the natural laws governing society.

Someone needs to help me on this passage. If neither experimentation or production can be considered praxis, then what is praxis? Engels, to me, did not mean "industry" as "capitalism", but rather "industry" as creative work: "If we are able to prove the correctness of our conception of a natural process by making it ourselves, bringing it into being out of its conditions and making it serve our own purposes into the bargain, then there is an end to the ungraspable Kantian ‘thing-in-itself’."

Maybe Lukacs is just too far over my head, here. In much else that he writes, I find little to disagree with, then he seems suddenly to make these turns.

Later in this same chapter he expounds on Kants problems with "freedom and necessity":


The freedom (of the subject) is neither able to overcome the sensuous necessity of the system of knowledge and the soullessness of the fatalistically conceived laws of nature, nor is it able to give them any meaning. And likewise the contents produced by reason, and the world acknowledged by reason are just as little able to fill the purely formal determinants of freedom with a truly living life. The impossibility of comprehending and ‘creating’ the union of form and content concretely instead of as the basis for a purely formal calculus leads to the insoluble dilemma of freedom and necessity, of voluntarism and fatalism. The ‘eternal, iron’ regularity of the processes of nature and the purely inward freedom of individual moral practice appear at the end of the Critique of Practical Reason as wholly irreconcilable and at the same time as the unalterable foundations of human existence. [44] Kant’s greatness as a philosopher lies in the fact that in both instances he made no attempt to conceal the intractability of the problem by means of an arbitrary dogmatic resolution of any sort, but that he bluntly elaborated the contradiction and presented it in an undiluted form.

I go back to Plekhanov on this issue, freedom and necessity are not an "insoluble dilemma", but are part of a complete equation within conscious action. Plekhanov said that "freedom" was the recognition of "necessity. I really like that. Anyway, I will continue to read and hope to get a better handle on this stuff.

Lukacs calls it a "terminological confusion" because he doesn't agree with Marx that "the point of philosophy is not to explain the world but to change it". What is more, Engels does not somehow mangle thing-in-itself vs thing-for-us -- he says that the latter allows us to dispense with the former. It seems to me that Lukacs is simply WRONG about what the KANTIAN "thing-in-itself" designates here (remember that Hegel heavily criticizes Kant's definition)

At any rate, the passage by Engels that is under the microscope is a famous POPULAR exposition of materialism. Engels is saying that "thing-in-itself" = beyond our comprehension but yet our industry (!= capitalism) allows us to make these things comprehensible.

Thing-for-us is not a technical usage by Engels by the way, it is a term he adopts for popular use in Ludwig Feuerbach And The End of Classical German Philosophy. Still, Engels is FOLLOWING Hegel not departing from him by pointing to how perception allows us to open up the world rather than separating us from it. Remmeber, Kant's original problem was that you can't extrapolate from perception to the underlying thing -- you can never know the "thing-in-itself", only your perceptions of it.

This is the stuff from Lukacs that makes you throw up your hands and say 'fuck this guy'

This is the stuff from Lukacs that makes you throw up your hands and say 'fuck this guy'.

Yeah, I know, but I can almost get what he is talking about...most of the time...well, some of the time. In his book on Lenin and "actuality", he practically deifies Lenin - and I get that, up to a point. There is no one else who is on Lenin's level as far as theory and/or action goes and as Lukacs says (paraphrase), 'Lenin acted in accord to theory and theorized in action.' (Or something like that). And I get that Lukacs was hot to excuse anything Lenin might have been criticized for, but criticized by whom? The wimpy hand-wringers who anguished over war communism? It always struck me that almost all the people Lenin needed were with him - and he was more than equal to any task before him.

And Engels being the practical materialist just brings so much into perspective - it is hitting the nail on the head. I knew there was some reason I loved Freddy!

I thought it was weird that Lukacs almost always goes back to Kant, almost ignoring Hegel - he even praises Kant for being able to leave unanswered questions on the table, contradictions that (I guess) could not be fathomed. Yeah, "fuck this guy" is where you wind-up...

Yeah, I know, but I can almost get what he is talking about...most of the time...well, some of the time. In his book on Lenin and "actuality", he practically deifies Lenin - and I get that, up to a point. There is no one else who is on Lenin's level as far as theory and/or action goes and as Lukacs says (paraphrase), 'Lenin acted in accord to theory and theorized in action.' (Or something like that). And I get that Lukacs was hot to excuse anything Lenin might have been criticized for, but criticized by whom? The wimpy hand-wringers who anguished over war communism? It always struck me that almost all the people Lenin needed were with him - and he was more than equal to any task before him.

And Engels being the practical materialist just brings so much into perspective - it is hitting the nail on the head. I knew there was some reason I loved Freddy!

I thought it was weird that Lukacs almost always goes back to Kant, almost ignoring Hegel - he even praises Kant for being able to leave unanswered questions on the table, contradictions that (I guess) could not be fathomed. Yeah, "fuck this guy" is where you wind-up...

One of the most easy to understand examples is Maxwell's equations and the concept of the EM field leading to the discovery of radio waves. But for the equations, what indicator was there for such a thing to exist? Remember, mathematics represents an extension+enhancement of our senses as much as anything else you could name (and all this philosophizing has done is demonstrate to us the abiding need to sharpen and hone our systems with as many tools as we possibly can.."raw perception" is fooled WAY too easily..but we can find ways to improve upon it)

Nikos told me once that he didn't look very far into Kant. Maybe that was a demure way to say "the hell with Kant".

Makes sense to me.

Lukacs calls it a "terminological confusion" because he doesn't agree with Marx that "the point of philosophy is not to explain the world but to change it". What is more, Engels does not somehow mangle thing-in-itself vs thing-for-us -- he says that the latter allows us to dispense with the former. It seems to me that Lukacs is simply WRONG about what the KANTIAN "thing-in-itself" designates here (remember that Hegel heavily criticizes Kant's definition)

At any rate, the passage by Engels that is under the microscope is a famous POPULAR exposition of materialism. Engels is saying that "thing-in-itself" = beyond our comprehension but yet our industry (!= capitalism) allows us to make these things comprehensible.

Thing-for-us is not a technical usage by Engels by the way, it is a term he adopts for popular use in Ludwig Feuerbach And The End of Classical German Philosophy. Still, Engels is FOLLOWING Hegel not departing from him by pointing to how perception allows us to open up the world rather than separating us from it. Remmeber, Kant's original problem was that you can't extrapolate from perception to the underlying thing -- you can never know the "thing-in-itself", only your perceptions of it.

This is the stuff from Lukacs that makes you throw up your hands and say 'fuck this guy'

Kiddo, you've been eating your Wheaties... either that or you are reading some good commentaries. This is dead nuts on.

Kant is very important, by the way, as is this point.

The thing is that he infuriates everyone afterwards with his "thing-in-itself" thingie: OK, we get that there has to be an anthesis to the phenomenal (knowable, perceptable, etc.), but Kant's thingie is a special case - how the fuck do we know it is unknowable through perception? That is one thing that we know... right?

This is Kant's escape capsule, and everybody else who has something to peddle afterwards ends up using it.

This is the Kantian step up to the edge of the abyss of materialism: 'Thus far and no further'... Hegel too, I guess, but on different and more usable terms.

Are we really all there is?

Yep.

I have endeavored to take your advice and try to stay away from the commentaries except when it comes to critiquing them if/when they are thrust in my face (which they are -- Gramsci, Lukacs, etc). I did double check to make sure I wasn't missing some nuance of "thing-for-us" and to my surprise I discovered that MIA mostly has the right of this question (check their glossary).

I agree that Kant is important. Still a little baffled that Nikos avoided him completely, to be honest but I may be reading too much into things.