LUKACS & ADORNO & Co. on (un)reason

[Ralph Dumain]

I'm reading chapter 4 of Lukacs' THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON, on vitalism.
Everybody reviles this book, but I'm getting such a kick out of it.  If
anything, this book is an exemplar of external critique.  There is nothing
immanent about it at all.  It seems that some of the connecting links in the
argument are missing, but otherwise the basic notion that everybody hates,
i.e. that the development of irrationalist lebensphilosophie has a linkage
to the unwillingness of intellectuals to accept the validity of the workers
movement, is fundamentally a sound idea.  How I envy Lukacs for socking it
to these vile shits like Dilthey, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.

Now, I'm wondering how the various Frankfurters responded to this book,
given that they, just like the young Lukacs, were subjected to the same sort
of influences that Lukacs here repudiates.  I think I'm most interested in
Adorno's reaction, but also Marcuse's, since he was in early life influenced
by Dilthey and Heidegger, and even Horkheimer's, who wrote about reason as well.

I'm also curious as to any comments Lukacs might have made on Adorno's books
on Kierkegaard and Heidegger.