Lukács’s Destruction of Reason: Then and Now (with Ali Yalçın Göymen)

More than seven decades have passed since the publication of The Destruction of Reason by Georg Lukács. To this day, the book remains highly controversial. Many critics disapprove of its allegedly dogmatic framework and its harsh treatment of various strands of 19th and 20th century German philosophy. In our discussion, we seek to contextualize The Destruction of Reason, examining its methodology as a work of intellectual historiography and understanding it as part of a larger philosophical project rather than merely as a symptom of dogmatic rigidity. We also aim to explore whether the book offers relevant insights for understanding the ideological resurgence of authoritarian populism and neo-fascist movements in the 2020s.