https://emsenn.net/tags/socialontology/ Recent content in SocialOntology on emsenn.net Hugo en-us Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/humanities/domains/philosophy/domains/western/domains/marxism/texts/reification-and-totality-in-modern-critical-theory/ Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://emsenn.net/library/domains/humanities/domains/philosophy/domains/western/domains/marxism/texts/reification-and-totality-in-modern-critical-theory/ <p>In twentieth-century critical theory, <a href="../terms/totality.md" class="link-internal">totality</a> and <a href="../terms/reification.md" class="link-internal">reification</a> form a paired diagnostic framework. Reification names how social relations appear as thing-like facts; totality names the method required to undo that appearance by reconnecting parts to the structured whole [@lukacs-sep-2023].</p> <p>The pairing is methodological, not decorative. If reification is named without totality, critique stops at denunciation. If totality is named without reification, analysis risks abstract system-talk detached from lived forms of domination.</p> <h2 id="lukácsian-contribution">Lukácsian contribution</h2> <p>Lukács&rsquo;s contribution is to make this pairing central to social intelligibility under capitalism: fragmented appearances are not merely epistemic mistakes but socially produced forms of experience [@lukacs-sep-2023].</p>