Abstract

It is generally agreed that the major contribution of Lukács to twentieth century thought is to have foregrounded in philosophical inquiry the questions of alienation and reification. However, while the secondary literature on the question has been almost exclusively focused on Lukács's early work, History and Class Consciousness, the present article addresses the wealth of innovative perspectives to be found in his Aesthetics, and in particular in his Ontology of Social Being. The second part of the article addresses the affinities with the Sartrean philosophy and proposes a confrontation with the Heideggerrian analysis of alienation, which is rarely granted a critical treatment in its own rights.