Abstract

Against the background of the European debates about humanism and realism, in the 1930s and 40s Lukács developed a certain notion of humanist philosophical anthropology, regarding the interrelation of human capacities. Was it really, as Ferenc Fehér once suggested, a "traditional" concept of humanism, that was re-activated by Lukács? Trying to answer this question, the article examines his humanist anthropology at that time. Even though Lukács's notion epistemologically is characterized by its rationalist approach, it would not simply prefer the capacity of reason to all other capacities, but rather emphasized a Spinozist-inspired insistence on a "harmony of emotion, understanding, and reason", as Lukács formulated it in Das wirkliche Deutschland, an article, written in 1941/42, which has only recently been published in German. In his essays referring to Goethe as well as, famously, to Gottfried Keller's Der grüne Heinrich, (but also, among others, to Lessing), Lukács interpreted their concepts of humanism through their formations of (especially female) characters. Particularly the role of emotions played a decisive part in these interpretations. Emotions, rather than being understood merely as immediate realizations of the self, or as expressions of an inner core, also, and more importantly, were conceived as serving certain present – reasonable or non-reasonable – interests, reaffirming or at least flattering them. Alongside with his remarks in Der historische Roman, Lukács thus gave instructive hints concerning the concepts of 'instinct', 'intuition', and 'genius', which would neither lead to a 'tyranny of reason', nor to a 'tyranny of emotion' – nor, for that matter, of understanding.