Rosa Luxemburg, the Legacy of Classical German Philosophy and the Fundamental Methodological Questions of Social and Political Theory

In last three or more decades there have been different presentations of Rosa Luxemburg's work. She was even presented to us as a champion of representative democracy. The overall aim of this article is to propose a solution to these controversial receptions of her work. To do this I explore philosophical and methodological aspects of Rosa Luxemburg's work. In doing so I show that there is a philosophical foundation in Luxemburg's work, which must be taken into account. In her philosophical, methodological and theoretical works, Luxemburg attacks neo-Kantians and shows their weaknesses. According to Luxemburg, I argue, this new tendency in philosophy serves the need of bourgeois classes in their decline. As opposed to neo-Kantians, Luxemburg put forward the Hegelian dialectic of contradiction and theory of change. The article addresses then the question of how Luxemburg draws the line between Hegelian and Marxian philosophy. At the end of the article there are some hints as to how Luxemburg's work may be understood in relation to mainstream academic debates.

Keywords

• Kant,
• Neo-Kantians,
• Hegel,
• Marx,
• Methodology,
• Dialectics