Lukacs and Expressive totality

[R Pearson]

At 11:44 AM 9/30/96 +0100, you wrote:
>Lukacs doesn't use the term expressive totality as far as I know. In his
>theory of realism *intensive* and *extensive* totality designate,
>respectively, the totality achieved by, for instance, Balzac in the realist
>novel, and the social totality. 
>
>Expressive totality sounds far more Althusserian, but I don't know a source.
>
>Giles
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Yep, as I mentioned in an earlier mail, the phrase refers to Hegel's idea of
totality and originates with Althusser-  In _Reading Capital_ Althusser
writes that an expressive totality is "a totality all of whose parts are so
many *total parts* each expressing the others, and each expressing the
social totality that contains them, because each in itself contains the
immediate form its expression the totality itself" RC:94, cited in Robert
Young _White Mythologies_ 1990:56 .

Althusser's resolute anti-Hegelianism means that he will have none of this!

Someone cited Jay's work on Totality in an earlier mail. White supports
Jay's view that Althusser's intervention "effectively destroyed the
Lukacsian notion of totality." 1990:53

This, IMO, this is hogwash...
Lukacs' concept of totality is far richer than Althusser's caricature, but
then as I pointed out ealier, Jameson sees the real target as Lucien
Goldmann's idea of *homology*.

Russell