Introduction to Lukács: Essence, Phenomena and Temporality

Abstract

This chapter introduces the thought of Georg Lukács, focussing on his ideas related to temporality, and the distinction between the essential and real life. The influence of Aristotle and Plato, particularly Platos’s ‘Theory of the Forms’, is also considered, and the chapter charts Lukács’s move from Platonism to Phenomenology, and the evolution of his key concepts of ‘soul’ and ‘form’.