The Genesis of the Philosophy of History Lukács's Critique of Fichte Revisited
In his 1923 work History and Class Consciousness,Georg Lukács regards Fichte's tran-scendental philosophy as representative of modem philosophy of subjectivity,and critiques it for ulti-mately leading to the irrationalization of the world.From Fichte's perspective,the gap between subject and object has already been overcome through the mechanism of the duplication of transcendental knowledge-production,thus invalidating Lukács's criticism.Lukács's critique of Fichte is actually strongly influenced by contemporary neo-Kantian thinker Emil Lask and Lutheran theologian Emanuel Hirsch,both of whom point out that the essence of the irrationalization of the world lies in the issue of individuality,and the key to addressing the issue of individuality lies in constructing a new philosophy of history.From this perspective,the dimensions missed in Lukács's critique of Fichte may perhaps contain the possibility of a new philosophy of history.