A Hegelian Theory of Reification

György Lukács introduces the concept of “reification” in History and Class Consciousness, describing it as the social phenomenon whereby “a relation between people takes on the character of a thing” under capitalism. Its existence, he argues, is implicit in Marx’s analysis of the fetish character of commodities. Despite offering a compelling description of the subjective and objective aspects of reification, Lukács – following his political convictions – dismisses the possibility of either being the result of a more general problem with object and conceptual relations, not just capitalism per se. However, following a detailed reading of the works of Marx’s dialectical predecessor, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, it is evident that the latter not only had an intuitive awareness of the phenomenon before Marx or Lukács, but also offers a more detailed and convincing exposition of how and why it takes place. Rather than being a social pathology that emerges from the central structure of capitalism, Hegel – on my reading – conceptualises reification as a historical occurrence that begins as a form of conceptual misidentification before the misappropriated object or idea assumes an autonomous and causal presence in society and the lives of human beings. My ambition in this thesis is to identify and unpack the historical development of Hegel’s understanding of the concept with the view to present a more convincing alternative to the models presented so far.