While his general ontology remains rather underdeveloped and is not informed by much knowledge of concurrent philosophical developments (apart from the mentioned discussion of Hartmann), Lukács’ theory of social reality has more contemporary relevance. Social reality, Lukács claims, differs from the other levels of reality insofar as it is, in contrast to them, not only governed by causal, non-teleological laws. Social reality also contains an element of teleology as a result of “teleological positing” (GW 13: 20; 1971c: 12ff.). Due to their ability to perform labor, humans can “posit” functions or goals that are to govern the natural, causal processes that they manipulate. By choosing one of the potential results of the employment of their natural and technological capacities as the correct one, individuals can create a distinction between successful and unsuccessful execution of their intended actions in labor. This, Lukács’ argues, introduces normative distinctions or values into the world (see 1971b: 75f and 153–156; 1968: 140). This not only explains “use value” in the sense of economic utility, but—because the economic development of society over time necessarily produces forms of social reality which are independent from the economy—Historical Materialism can also allow for forms of socially instituted value that are irreducible to utility (1971b: 153). In particular, Lukács claims that the objectification of human intentions in institutions enables us to understand the existence of objective values as products of social-historical developments without sliding into historical relativism. However, as some of his own students notice, this explanation remains too unclear to solve the problem of normativity for Marxism (see Fehér et al., 1983). The same doubts remain in regard to Lukács’ further claim that there is one fundamental, immanent value of social history, namely the unfettered development of human capacities (GW 14: 153).