Hungary, philosophy in

The situation of Hungarian philosophy can be best illustrated by two sayings: ‘there are Hungarian philosophers, but there is no Hungarian philosophy’, and ‘a certain period of Hungarian philosophy stretches from Descartes to Kant’. The two ideas are closely connected. Thus on the one hand, there is such a thing as Hungarian philosophy: there are scientific-educational institutions in philosophical life and there are philosophers working in these institutions. On the other hand, there is no such thing as Hungarian philosophy: it is a history of adoption, largely consisting of attempts to introduce and embrace the great trends of Western thought. After some preliminaries in the medieval and early-modern periods, Hungarian philosophy started to develop at the beginning of the nineteenth century. As a result of the reception of German idealism – the so-called Kant debate and Hegel debate – the problems of philosophy were formulated as independent problems for the first time, and a philosophical language began to evolve. After an attempt to create a ‘national philosophy’ – and after some outstanding individual achievements – the institutionalization of Hungarian philosophy accelerated at the end of the century. The early years of the twentieth century brought the first heyday of philosophy to Hungary, with the rapid reception of new idealist trends and notable original contributions. In the period between the two wars the development stopped: many philosophers were forced to emigrate, and Geistesgeschichte (the history of thought) became prevalent in philosophical life. Following the communist take-over, the institutions of ‘bourgeois’ philosophy were eliminated, and Marxism-Leninism, which legitimated political power, took a monopolistic position. During this period, the only significant works created were in the tradition of critical Marxism and philosophical opposition. The changes in 1989 regenerated the institutional system, and the articulation of international contemporary trends – analytic philosophy, hermeneutic tradition and postmodernism – came to the fore. Besides some works by thinkers in exile, Hungarian philosophy has produced only one achievement which can be considered significant at an international level: the oeuvre of György (Georg) Lukács.