On the Critique of Everyday Life to Metaphilosophy : Henri Lefebvre's Philosophical-Political Legacy of the Cultural Revolution

Abstract

Henri Lefebvre (1901–91), philosopher and sociologist, is, together with Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin and Ernst Bloch, one of the most relevant representatives of the first generation in Western Marxism. His engagement with Marxism led him to analyse everyday life in post-war France in order to decipher the possibilities of, and chances for, real social change and not only the exchange of functional elites and dominant powers. His intention was to deal with Marx's critique of political economy and undergird it with the concrete elements of the life of the people. He extended the theoretical elements of Capital to the real experiences of the people. He took everyday life — rehabilitating it in the process — as the starting point for all other activities of human beings. Complementary to this, he reconstructed the philosophical tradition within his concept of metaphilosophy. Therefore we can speak of a mediation between a sociological and a philosophical task or challenge, which develops content and perspective for a revolutionary change of our society, i.e. a cultural revolutionary approach which means changing not only some social structures but all the conditions of human experience from an emancipatory perspective. This article reconstructs the analytical approach of Lefebvre, and discusses his foundations and aims in relation to how he developed the idea of cultural revolution.

No knowledge of (global) society without critical knowledge of everyday life in the way it implants itself — with its organisation and its privatisation, with the organisation of its privatisation –in the middle of this society and its history. No knowledge of everyday life without critical knowledge of the (entire) society. (Lefebvre)