The Social Reproduction in Lukács: the essence of Social Being and the possibility of
human emancipation.
Human essence; Social Begin; Labor; Social Reproduction; Historicity; Continuity.
This paper aims, based mainly on a study about Social Reproduction in Lukács'
Ontology, to discuss the issue of “human essence” and its modern comprehension as a "selfish
nature" in order to support the capitalist mode of production as the only possible alternative
for the human’s history. In this perspective, based on theoretical-bibliographic research and
grounding in Marx’s methodological legacy, the historical-materialism, we treated, in a first
moment, about the emergence of the sphere of “Social Being” from organic nature and Labor
complex’s role has inside this process, considering that, through the “Teleological Position”
that unfolds within it, emerges a way to respond the demands of existence much more
complex than the mere instinctive reaction that happens inside the organic being. Supported
by that, we investigated through which legalities this new sphere of being reproduces itself,
emphasizing the “ontological priority” of the economical’ complex and the “totality of society”
as the “predominant moment” of this becoming. In a second moment, we intended
demonstrate how these legalities operate inside of the historicity of the social’ world, always
highlighting the relationship that unfolds between individual and society in each historical
moment and the form that the human’ essence was understood in each one of them. This
situation led us to try to demystify, through the demonstration of by which processes human
beings make their own histories (and their own nature), the form that the human essence
assumes within capitalism as a “selfish nature” and the way that it try to justify the eternity of
this mode of production.