ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE AESTHETICS OF THE YOUNG LUKACS 69 4.1 would like to speak about the Theory of the Novel as a later attempt of an anthropology. THE ANTINOMIES OF THE SELF IN LUKACS'S LIFE Lukacs started writing his diary on the 25th April, 1910 after he broke with his first love, Irma Seidler. One of his first notes is': I love her therefore I see even in the best hours that this kind of togetherness is not for me. Lukacs placed his relationship with Irma in the aesthetic phase of his life and decided not to marry Irma because he wanted to enter the ethical phase and turn into a systematic philosopher.2 In the Diary Lukacs conveys that he expects philosophy to involve all his human qualities, to overcome the dichotomy between knowledge and belief. He describes his work on epistemology as "painful vegetation", "frivolity", because it involves him "only" in his intellectual capacity. His criticism of positivism was also the fragmentation of knowledge. Lukacs identifies his needs in the Diary as a desire for "substance" and a "hunger for reality". I cannot tolerate an inessential life and I still live because I have not given it up completely. The Diary is not the explication of one single principle. It preserved the young Lukacs's attempts at cultural self-interpretation and his search for an "adequate" life. The Diary displays the dialectical distance from himself, the objectivity that Lukacs observed in the middle of the contradictions, the possibilities and the various choices that were part of the dynamics of his human relationships. It also shows how the phenomenological method of looking at himself served to overcome banalities ("the opposites of happiness-unhappiness, optimism-pessimism") and helped him to understand reality beyond triviality. Lukacs's idea of friendship was based on a theory of reflection. Observation and participation, differentiation and integration are noted down in the Diary. He records how Irma and Leo Popper relate to his inner development. The image reflected by his friends interpenetrates his growth and integrates various aspects of his character and his personality develops further like a plant. It would be nice if there was somebody - but who? Somebody who would be strong enough to be a mirror (should not let the rays through) but only a mirror. I see it more and more that strong and interesting intellectuals (Simmel and Bloch) offer almost nothing to me. I am not