Katie Terezakis

György Lukács first published the original Hungarian language version of Soul and Form in 1910. It included eight of the ten essays later to be published in subsequent German, Italian, and English editions. This current centennial edition adds to the mix one additional Lukács essay, "On Poverty of Spirit", written at roughly the same time as the others and bearing a vital relationship to them. Finally, in this edition we have added to the Lukács material an important introductory essay by Judith Butler, as well as a concluding essay, by Katie Terezakis, which draws out connections between the Lukácsian concept of form and its elaboration and critique in Lukács’s own work and in works of critical theory and philosophy up to the present.

This study rationally reconstructs Novalis’s linguistic theory. It traces Novalis’s assessment of earlier linguistic debates, illustrates Novalis’s transformation of their central questions and uncovers Novalis’s unique methodological proposal. It argues that in his critical engagement with Idealism, particularly regarding problems of representation and regulative positing, Novalis recognizes the need for both a philosophy of language and the artistic language designed to execute it. The paper contextualizes Novalis’s linguistic appropriation and repudiation of Kant and explains how, even while Novalis’s linguistic theory issues Kantianism such a challenge, it also begins to demonstrate the application of Kantian designs to linguistic philosophy. The modernity and potential of Novalis’s proposal is evaluated and its significance for discussions in linguistic philosophy and aesthetics is advocated