ABSTRACT
Ernst Bloch and Georg Lukacs are influential members of an anti-capitalist intellectual tradition in twentieth-century history of ideas. Several generations of left-wing intellectuals have regarded their works as obligatory theoretical points of reference. Bloch expressed this in one of his late letters to Lukacs, when he wrote: 'Circumstances have placed us in a better and truer relationship with each other than we ourselves ... have managed to do. We have almost exactly the same friends, pupils, "followers". Together we are regarded as the representatives of the intelligentsia who have made apparent in the most unmistakable way the high standards and perspectives that make up the wealth of knowledge and humanity of Marxism.' 1
The relationship between Max Weber and this anti-liberal school of thought in the younger generation would have required investigation, even if there had been no direct contact between them. But a personal relationship did exist: Lukacs and Bloch turned up in Heidelberg in 1912, took part in the Webers' Sunday gatherings and, with absences of varying duration, remained in Max Weber's immediate vicinity in Heidelberg untill915, in Bloch's case, and until the end of 1917, in Lukacs's. 2 Honigsheim was the first to point out that these two curious figures, 'Ernst Bloch, Jewish Apocalyptist, along with his acolyte Lukacs', belonged to Max Weber's Heidelberg circle as much as did Friedrich Gundolf of the Stefan George circle. 3 They feature in the most diverse memoirs as young Eastern philosophers, apocalyptic metaphysicians, gnostics who aired their theosophical fantasies among friends, and were regarded by some as saints. 4 A joke by Lask makes fun of their portentous behaviour: 'Who are the four Evangelists? Matthew, Mark, Lukacs and Bloch.' 5 They are also mentioned among potential Habilitanden (post-doctoral students) who, seeking enlightenment, flocked from all over the world to Heidelberg, the unofficial intellectual capital of Germany. 6 Above all, they added new splashes of colour to the intellectual life of the town, which was receptive to anything new and modern. 'At that time Heidelberg was like Noah's Ark: it possessed one example of every new variation of intellect', wrote Radbruch. 7 In similar vein, Lask comments in a letter on Lukacs's appearance in Heidelberg: 'so that, in addition to the Stefan George circle with Gundolf at its head, we shall see the most varied circles and schools of thought gathered here.' 8
Some saw them as representative of certain fashionable trends, a decisive anti-liberalism and a new religious mentality: 'a rejection of the bourgeois life-style, big city life, instrumental rationality, quantification, academic specialization and whatever else was abominated at the time.' 9 'It was the time
when religion began to become fashionable - in salons and cafes - when one naturally read the mystics and "Catholicized", and when despising the eighteenth century ... was the done thing.' 10 In the name of a liberalism that had been put on the defensive, Honigsheim noted disapprovingly: 'like almost every movement of those days, this one made ripples in the house in the Ziegelhauser Landstral3e.' 11
Many have seen in Weber's receptiveness to this movement another symptom of a tendency to favour the extraordinary and the extreme, revealed also by his attitude to modernism, Bohemianism and anarchism, and by his statement that he would admit only Russians, Poles and Jews to his seminar. 12 In my opinion, Weber was interested in the influential intellectual movements of the day, in ideas and their effects, regardless of whether or not he identified with them. This was true of his relationship with the George circle, and must also have been true in the case of Bloch and Lukacs. 13
Weber himself classified Bloch and Lukacs as 'figures from the opposite pole' 14 - opposite to that represented by Stefan George. Weber wrote in a letter to Lukacs: 'quite by chance I mentioned your name as a representative of German eschatologism and the opposite pole to Stefan George.' 15 Marianne Weber interprets this contrast as follows: 'These young philosophers were moved by eschatological hopes of a new emissary of the transcendent God ... The ultimate goal is salvation from the world and not, as for George and his circle, in it.' 16
Where did these young 'Eastern' philosophers come from, and in what sense is Lukacs to be regarded as an acolyte of the metaphysical Apocalyptist, Bloch? They had come from the Simmel circle in Berlin, where they had been admitted to Simmel's Privatissimum [exclusive tutorial]. They had been among his favourite students, 'members of the younger generation of thinkers with a real gift for philosophy, who wanted to be more than intelligent or diligent scholars in a narrow field'. 17 Lukacs always emphasized that his meeting with Bloch had been of great importance to him. Many years later he wrote: 'A philosophy in the classical style (and not in the pale imitative style oftoday's universities) has been revealed to me by Bloch's personality, and has thus also opened up for me as a path through life.' 18 Immediately after their first meeting he noted: 'Just now somebody of the greatest value to me was here-Dr Bloch.>~9
Some of the people close to Lukacs, members of his circle of friends in Budapest, were of a different opinion in this respect. 'An intellectual Condottiero', wrote Bela Balazs of Bloch in his diary, 'who is only likeable because he is also a Don Quixote - and a child. He has a strongly hypnotic effect on Gyuri, which makes me uneasy. He is bad for Gyuri - he is not to be relied upon.' 20 Balazs, who found the new religion that accompanied each cigar rather disreputable, concentrated more on the amusing aspects of the whole affair. Admitting that Bloch inspired an extraordinary productivity in Lukacs, he described Messianism as 'Gyuri's new philosophy' and a homogeneous world as the ultimate goal of redemption. But he thought that Lukacs behaved unconvincingly when with Bloch: 'The role of a prophet, a visionary, does not suit Gyuri's basically thorough and sober way of thinking, because he does not believe in it enough, because he hesitates a little and is anxious, as if he were in a strange house.' 21
Lukacs and Bloch had a common aim: to overcome Simmel's philosophical
impressionism, which strongly influenced their own way of thinking. They were not satisfied by his pluralism, his 'perhaps-philosophy', and regarded him as a collector of many points of view circling around the truth, who did not want to, or could not, possess it. Bloch wrote that 'calling him a relativist on principle is treating him with too much terminological stringency'. 22 Lukacs and Bloch were looking for an unequivocal, fixed world-view, a definite answer to the ultimate question. I see this as the basis of their various philosophical attempts, sometimes extreme, to find a solution.
