I have read the paper and took fairly extensive notes which I had planned to write up into a summary, so I am really sorry that I dragged my feet on posting about the paper. Was definitely unfair of me since I suggesting we go ahead and read the paper straightaway.
Addressing some of your points....
So I might say that Lukacs criticism of existentialism comes from a couple of different levels. One is that existentialism does not reflect reality, and another is that existentialism does not present any new method but rather has roots in Kantian enlightenment era thinking — Moliere
I find the methodological points quite interesting. Nowadays, there's a tendency to use the term "existentialism" to refer to 19th century philosophers who take a specific stand on "life" from the perspective of their individual experience (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche) and 20th century non-technical philosophers who do the same (Camus, Jaspers), which we tend to distinguish from phenomenology as a movement starting with Husserl, through Levinas, etc. Then we have the term "existential phenomenology" getting thrown around for some of these thinkers who, following Heidegger, are influenced by the 'non-technical' individual-taking-a-stand-on-existence side of existentialism and the 'technical' side of phenomenology as logical analysis of the nature of experience.
Lukács lumps existentialism and phenomenology together, claiming that they are expressions of a particular sort of methodology. This methodology gains traction, philosophically, in the attempt to overcome the debate between
materialism (being) and idealism (consciousness) through the development of new philosophical techniques.
This is in my opinion the most disappointing aspect of the paper. He posits that (a) one needs to take a stand on materialism versus idealism, because this is the inescapable debate at the heart of philosophy; (b) the "third way" attempts one finds in 'existential' or 'phenomenological' thinkers is generated by a breathtakingly bourgeois motive -- to overcome taking a stand on real issues by looking for comfortable solutions which will incorporate obdurate antagonisms into the bourgeois order. Let's call this the bourgeois having your philosophical cake and eating it too.
(This leads him to make some eye-raising claims like Nietzsche is essentially a bourgeois working in service of the status-quo and the increasing focus on the role of embodiment is motivated by bourgeois self-absorption.)
since epoch-making philosophies are characterized by a novelty in method, existentialism is not epoch-making but rather a fad which has become popular because of the social conditions of the time in which it was written. Existentialism appeals to the feelings and needs of certain intellectuals and so escapes criticism, according to Lukács. — Moliere
Interesting! So I take him to be saying that the jury is still out on the extent to which "existentialism" (which we must keep in mind is essentially used as a stand-in for "Neo-Kantianism" and "Phenomenology" since all three are expressions of the same underlying way of going about things) will define the twentieth century. I think you're right that he thinks existentialism isn't epoch-making in the philosophical sense -- it doesn't open up the possibility of a new world the way that Kantian and Marxist philosophy did -- but I think he does genuinely worry that it might define the epoch insofar as it could aid decades of bourgeois grandstanding and avoidance of taking a stand on the era's meaningful philosophical and social conflicts.
I thought it was really interesting in our own context to be reading this with the historical knowledge that existentialism, phenomenology and marxism will all become marginalized very quickly by both postmodern thought and an increasingly trenchant capitalist system.
On a secondary level, I think, Lukács also notes how this philosophy helps bourgeois and reactionary political actors by isolating the individual from their. social relationships. But I really think the core of his argument has more to do with the above -- he isn't just saying that existentialism does not agree with Marxism, and helps the enemy, but rather that it fails on its own from proper philosophical considerations: it fails as a third-way, but is just a rehashing of transcendental idealism for the times it was written in. — Moliere
Mostly, I agree. I'm not sure the details matter because this is certainly the weakest aspect of his argument. He essentially hunts for the weakest thinkers then reads their neo-Kantianism into much stronger thinkers like Heidegger.
There was one point in the essay that made me think I'd like to hear more from Lukács where he said ,"A very specialized philosophical dissertation would be required to show the chains of thought, sometimes quite false, sometimes obviously sophistical, by which Sartre seeks to justify his theory of negative judgment." -- but, hey, then this wouldn't be so brief either :D. — Moliere
This is funny! I had the opposite reaction. That is the sort of thing I insert into an essay when I want to attack some big author or theme. I just sort of took that as short hand for "I think Sartre is b.s. but I have to acknowledge that I'm treating his arguments pretty flippantly." It would be interesting to know if he was sincere in thinking Sartre is worthy of a dissertation or not.
One thing I was hoping he might jump onto is the relationship between Nietzsche's interest in "positive judgments" (what we would now probably call "value monism") and Sartre's focus on "negative judgments".
It seems that he focuses mostly on Sartre at the end because he was the philosopher at the time most associated with popularity, one, and I suspect he focuses on Sartre too because he was a communist -- so that one couldn't say "well, even one of your own is an existentialist, so surely this is not a reactionary philosophy" — Moliere
I am pretty sure that he is writing before Sartre's turn to Marxism and essentially encouraging that turn.
One take-away that I really liked from the essay was Lukács' observation that absolute responsibility is only a shade away from a total lack of responsibility -- and similarly so for freedom -- so that one could feel that one both is responsible yet act cynically. I thought there was some truth to that. — Moliere
Yeah, I think this comes from the larger focus on neo-Kantianism. If you start with isolated individual experience and expand outwards you will inevitably distort the matter in question. The world is for your consciousness. The world is your responsibility. Your freedom determines the world.
Again, a lot of this is not all that complicated or difficult to understand. But the fact that he locates all of these problems in
fetishism is extremely interesting and I definitely want to re-read that section and post about that idea specifically.
I'm not sure I totally agree with Lukács criticism, though. While I do think of phenomenology, at least, as a kind of "third way" between idealism and materialism, I don't think it's a way between as much as it passes over such questions as not worth asking -- at least, not with respect to phenomenology. — Moliere
I agree. In my view, I think there is a "third way" between materialism and idealism, which is best exemplified by Wittgenstein's work. To an extent I sympathize with Lukács's criticisms because I think he's right about the bad Kantianism that pops up time and again in a variety of thinkers in the early/mid twentieth century. (Hubert Dreyfus's attacks on Sartre mostly mimic Lukács here and went a long way to killing off interest in Sartre in the anglophone world.)
I suppose it would depend on just how serious you took phenomenology when considering questions of ontology, but it seems to me that one could easily be a phenomenologist and a materalist without tension. — Moliere
Yeah. Or, you know, perhaps we could actually just overcome the stupid materialism/idealism debate by drawing on phenomenology! Lukács merely posits the notion that this debate is necessary without offering much in the way of defense. And he attacks the 'third way' attempts to overcome this debate by dissecting and attacking inferior thinkers who, to my mind, exemplify the most feeble-minded aspects of the phenomenological tradition.