Date

Spring 5-3-2020

Document Type

Honors Project

First Advisor

Vasey, Craig

Department Chair or Program Director

Romero, Joe

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Major or Concentration

Philosophy (Pre-Law Concentration)

Department or Program

Classics, Philosophy, and Religion

Abstract

This project focuses on how the working class experience is affected by a capitalist society, mainly in how their subjectivity is reduced. I also am investigating whether or not the Lukácsian term “reification” is contemporarily applicable. By doing so, I focus on Lukács’ theory of reification and how that is different from Marx’s “commodity fetishism.” This discussion is mainly informed by thoughts from secondary source essays in Tom Rockmore’s Lukács Today. We see that reification is referring to an experiential aspect of being in capitalism. Next, we talk about Heidegger’s discussion of anxiety as a lived experience and how Lukács critiques Heidegger. Anxiety is important for the discussion of reification because Heidegger is responding to positivism, like Lukács. After this, I illustrate how Marcuse rectifies Existential Phenomenology into a Marxist framework. From Marcuse, we also see a better example of reified time for the worker. Lastly, I evaluate the claim from my introduction about the modern relevance of “reification.”

Language

English

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