79 DOI: 10.17234/ZGB.29.5 CROSBI: izvorni znanstveni rad ZGB 29/2020, 79–102 Daniel Andrés López | La Trobe University (Australia), d.lopez@latrobe.edu.au The Absolute and the Relative in Lukács and Simmel 1. Lukács and Simmel, a Century Later As the once-bitter disputes within and between 20 th -century Marxist theory have receded in- to the gallery of historical images of spirit, the distance of time has allowed us to see beyond the shallow and often uncharitable reception of Lukács’s work. 1 Indeed, his philosophy has been brought back to life, although not necessarily as a unitary whole or even a succession of coherent positions. Rather, as readers have discovered new conceptual structures, aporias, occluded connections and historical meanings, Lukács’s life work – via the mediation of sensitive and thoroughgoing scholarship – has proven capable of generating new truth. The most significant contributions – by Andrew Feenberg, Konstantinos Kavoulakos and Richard Westerman – have read Lukács’s pre-Marxist and 1920s works in light of his con- temporary neo-Kantian philosophical influences in order to recover his own philosophy of praxis, 1 For a critical resumé of the 20 th -century reception of Lukács, see López: Lukács, pp. 1–46. This chapter builds on the author’s earlier Hegelian critique of Lukács’s philosophy of praxis by construing a conceptual dialogue between Lukács and his one-time mentor, Georg Simmel. It is argued that Lukács’s philosophy in the 1920s was partially formed as a metacritique of Simmel’s absolute relativism, as expressed in The Philosophy of Money. However, Lukács’s alternative generates a conceptual mythology that can be diagnosed in Simmelian terms and sublated by the philosophy of life outlined in The View of Life. By situating it in the present, this may de-reify Lukács’s concept of praxis, allowing it to satisfy its ethical and rational duty.