Bla Mester: A 19th-century Nation as a Philosophical Project and the Model of Gentry

Politics in the Hungarian Nation Building

Gentry Heritage in East-Central Europe, Budapest, Pepita, 3 October 2016
(0) The aim of my lecture is to offer an analysis of the contribution of the philosophy for the
19th-century Hungarian nation building process. My researches are between two wellformulated fields of research, nationalism studies, and history of philosophy, somewhere in a
no-mans land. The methodological problems emerged from this position are similar to the
problems of the 19th-century Hungarian philosophers and historians of philosophy, who are
the topics of my researches. In our investigations we cannot avoid the interpretations of the
phenomenon called national philosophy emerged in the beginning of the 19th century. At
first it must be describe the 19th-century concept of national philosophies. This term signs a
malleable, essentially contested concept (ECC). ECC is a term introduced by Walter Bryce
Gallie into the political philosophy in the middle of the last century; ECC-based discourses
need always new and newer definitions of their fundamental categories, such as democracy,
liberty, etc. However, national philosophy is an ECC of the history of philosophy; it is
possible to distinguish it from the similar expressions of the 20th-century discourse of the
national characteristics, at least, in the Hungarian case. (There are instances for the useage of
the term of national philosophy within the mainstream philosophical discourse in the early
20th century, in the interwar period and sporadically after the fall of Communism, for example,
in the Czech philosophy.) The Hungarian case seems to be clear from this point of view, we
can put the term of national philosophy into the context of the 19th-century nation-building
processes, and the interwar period discourse of the Hungarian way of thinking makes a
different narrative, in a different segment of the scholar public sphere. The emergence of the
phenomenon of the national philosophy will be interpreted in the first part of my lecture as
an answer for the structural change of the scholar public sphere in the turn of the 18th and 19th
centuries, focussed on its consequences for the European, and especially for the Hungarian
philosophical lives, based on the classical interpretation of Immanuel Kant, and on the
specific case of the Hungarian Debate on Kant. In the second section there will be detailed
two functions and two concepts of the national philosophies; the first one has appeared from
the effects of the modern national culture applied passively for the philosophical life, the
second one is an active contributor of the cultural nation building process. This approach of
the 19th-century national philosophy touches the interrelations of the modern nation, national
culture and philosophy. Another question is the self-interpretation and self-representation of
philosophy in the new framework of the modern national cultures. The first type of them is
the series of the future-oriented manifestoes and visions about a planned, ideal way of
national philosophy; the second one is a synchronic systematisation of the philosophical life,
especially its scholar vocabulary, and its diachronic, historical canonisation as a part of the
new-born historical national sciences. In the Hungarian case, the second one was the
dominant form, because of the institutional background of the Hungarian Scientific Society,
later, until now, called Hungarian Academy of Sciences. This structure of the transition of the
Hungarian concept of the nation from an early modern commonwealth to a modernised
political community demonstrates hidden elements of the heritage of political identity. Its first
element is the institutional formulation of the nation as a well-organised commonwealth of the
elites as the privileged representatives of the whole population. The Hungarian Academy of
Sciences in its classical epoch has defined itself as the board of the intellectual elite of the
nation, and the symbolic representation of the nation in the field of the culture. The patterns of
the historiography of the mediaeval nation of noblemen are used in the new nation-level
history of philosophy, as well, by the evidence of the first serious history of Hungarian
philosophy sponsored by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. It is the beginning of the
transition from the roles of the noblemen to the roles of the intelligentsia.
(1) In the following part I will offer an analysis of the new structure of the public
sphere both by Kants formulation and by its consequences for the Hungarian philosophy and
for its role within the framework of the national culture. By my hypothesis, the change of the

structure of this public sphere is the root of the phenomenon of the so-called national
philosophy, as well, in its 19th-century meaning. The change of the structure of the academic
public sphere in Central Europe was in synchrony with the rise of Kantianism. In the
following I will mention several reflections of Immanuel Kant to the turn of the public sphere
of the academic life. After that I will show their unexpected consequences in the European
philosophy in general, and I will quote special Hungarian instances. As it is known, Kants
reflections on the changing structures of the public sphere of the community of philosophers
from our point of view contain two main formulations. The first one is the distinction between
philosophia in sensu scholastico and philosophia in sensu cosmopolitico, and the second one
is the distinction between the private and public usage of ones (human) reason. However,
Kant talks about the historical determination of philosophia in sensu scholastico, and in
several places he defines it as a historical type of knowledge, in opposite of the philosophy in
its strict sense; it is clear that he is conscious of the institutional background. His formulation
of a mere historical knowledge of philosophy presumes an alternative system of institutions
for philosophical knowledge. However, Kant always talks about the individuality of the usage
of the reason; thinking has not lost actually its social aspects. The end of philosophical
thinking is not an individual satisfaction, but the humankind. Solution of the institutional
restriction of the private, individual usage of the reason of individuals is hidden in the
community; it is the publicity of thinking, or the liberty of the public usage of the same
human reason. In the following we will observe the consequences of this Kantian concept of
the publicity of philosophy in the time of the next generations in the different national cultures
of Europe. Historians of philosophy rarely emphasise that the changed public sphere has
enlarged the importance of national vernaculars in philosophical discourse. In Kants cultural
environment, in German philosophy the importance and the consequences of this change of
languages were not clear at the first glance because of the highly large German speaking
audience of philosophy. In a more detailed analysis, 18th-century German reflections of the
new structure of the academic public sphere mirror more difficult picture than a nave
admiration of the new intellectual openness by the humans of this epoch. A distinguished
German Kantian thinker, Professor Born in Leipzig, has written in his correspondence with
Immanuel Kant that the critical philosophy is a fundamental turn in the history of the Western
philosophy, consequently its masterpieces should not remain in the domestic vernacular of the
Germans, it must be available in Latin for the international audience. He has promptly
translated and published the main works of the Kantian critical philosophy. In smaller
Central-European cultures the new structure of the public sphere has more clear
consequences: discourse on the world philosophy and the nation-level discourse about the
role of some philosophical elements in national cultures have become evidently different; as it
has become clear in the Hungarian case in the time of the Debate on Kant (17921822). Its
first phase was characterised by the dominantly Latin language, an endeavour for the
participation in the European philosophical discourse and it was focused on the Kantian
epistemology. The language of this debate has gradually turned to the Hungarian; and its
argumentation has focused mainly on the ethics, from the beginning of the 19th century. The
first phase is divided two parts by the event of the prohibition of the Kantianism in the
Habsburg Empire; both parts are characterised by a Latin book written not exclusively for the
Hungarians, but for the whole scholar community of Europe. The communicational turn from
the narrow, elite (but international) scholar discourse to the wider, more democratic (but
national) public sphere, and from Latin to Hungarian has happened in the middle of the
Debate on Kant. The roots of the national philosophy are hidden in this communicational trap.
(2) Within a few decades, a significant amount of the philosophical texts has been
created in this trap of communication, addressed for the whole humankind, but written in a
national language. The authors of these works have often formulated the position of the new
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philosophical sphere created by them using Kantian terms applied for their special situation.
The clearest formulation of this problem offered in a regular meeting of the Department of
Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has introduced the expression of
Hungarian philosophy as a national philosophy in 1847; the title has referred the
possibility of a Hungarian philosophy, and the argumentation of the proposal has used the
term national philosophy. (It is a relatively late phase of the discussion of the national
philosophy; I will quote it because of its clear usage of the Kantian concepts applied for the
Hungarian situation.) By the evidence of the academic records, the proposal has suggested to
use a modified set of the Kantian concepts of the forms of the modern philosophical activity,
detailed above. Between the Kantian counter-concepts of school philosophy and world
philosophy must be two additional forms by the Hungarian scholars, these are the personal, or
individual, and national philosophies. The former one is a series of creative notes, remarks for
the philosophical traditions and for the contemporary trends of philosophy, both of them
incarnated in the school philosophy as an institution. In this terminology, the majority of the
articles, written, and the lectures, read by us, are the parts of this genre. The later one, by its
endeavours, is similar to the Kantian cosmopolitan, or world philosophy. By their form, both
the world- and national philosophies are public philosophies; however, a national philosophy
cannot touch a global audience, because of the vernacular used in its works. In this new,
national intellectual environment of philosophy, we can formulate the concept of national
philosophy from two approaches. First of them is a historical description of the influence of
the national frame for philosophy. In the Hungarian case, it is focussed on the development of
the Hungarian philosophical language as a part of the language wars of the Hungarian
Reform Era, almost regardless to the content of the analysed works, and to their endeavours
within the national cultural, political, intellectual and economic life. It is the traditionally
mainstream approach of the historiography of philosophy. The second one is a selfidentification of our 19th-century philosophers as important contributors, sometimes centres of
the nation building process. Philosophy as an active element of the history of nationalism can
be appearing in two forms in the 19th-century East-Central Europe. The dominant form of the
philosophical self-interpretations of the new, modern national cultures that has used a concept
of national philosophy was the publication of visions and manifestoes about the
philosophical thought of a nation in the future. The neighbouring national cultures are
abundant in these manifestoes, it is enough here to mention the classics of the Czech and
Slovak histories of philosophy, Augustin Smetana and udovt tr, with the frequent usage
of the world future in their writings, and book-titles. Hungarian philosophy has much more
moderated works in this genre in the middle of the 19th century, amongst them the most
influential ones were the so-called Propylaea of a significant critic and public philosopher of
the Hungarian Reform Era, Gusztv Szontagh; the first one for the whole of philosophy, the
second one for the social and political philosophies. Szontaghs proposals have not generous
conceptions and speculations of philosophy of history. These Hungarian documents of the
conscious planning of the future of the Hungarian philosophy have focussed on the role of
philosophy in the Hungarian culture as the tool of the theoretical critics in the creation of the
conscious self-reflection of a new-born national culture of the modernity. In the Hungarian
culture, in comparison with our neighbours, the dominant form of the national philosophy
was the creation of a national narrative of the regional philosophical past, for the usage of
the whole national culture. By my hypothesis, the causes of this peculiarity of the Hungarian
case have rooted in the special Hungarian institutional background, concretely in the existence
and policy of research management and publication of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
(3) In the followings, it will be discussed three elements of the peculiarities of the
Hungarian case of the 19th-century national philosophy from the point of view of the noble
legacy. At first it will be discussed here the new concept of the nation offered by a political
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philosophy, secondly it will be analysed the structure of the modern transformation of the
culture exemplified by the edition of the dictionary of philosophy, and thirdly the survived
ancient features of the narrative of the national history in the new national narrative of
philosophy. Discussing the first topic, the political philosophy within the framework of the
national philosophy will be exemplified by Gusztv Szontaghs Propylaeum for a Social
Philosophy, with Regard to the Present Situation of our Country, which was mentioned above
as a typical work of the national philosophy. In this writing, Szontagh has offered a
formulation of the nation in its modern, 19th-century form. It is a political community, which
is different from the people as an ethnic group (Volk), and as the aggregate of the lower
classes (plebs). The institutional, in the ideal case, constitutional background is an important
element of this concept of the nation; however, it means a noblemens commonwealth in his
epoch, Szontagh has transformed it to the political community of a modern elite, called
intelligentsia, as a representative of the nation. His work is full of the references for the
importance of the intelligent part of the nation, the intelligentsia of the nation, and for the
political roles and preferences of this new elite. His ideal seems to be the nation as a modern
meritocracy built on the parliamentary traditions of the noblemens commonwealth as a frame
fulfilled by new content, via a cautious extension of political rights till the slowly enlarging
borders of the representatives of the modern national culture. The second topic within this
section is the transformation of the Hungarian culture focussed on the 19th-century
philosophical life, exemplified by the Hungarian dictionary of philosophy, published in 1834.
The Department of Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences has listed the relevant
Hungarian philosophical texts by the names of the authors of books and the titles of the
periodicals. This strictly formulated text-corpus is a basis of any scholarly work of
lexicography, on the one hand, and a formulation of the electorate of the borough of
philosophers of a meritocratic republic of letters, on the other. The elite of the writers has a
restricted liberty in the usage of the recommendation of the dictionary of philosophy, edited
by a board, which has regarded itself as a representative body of the Hungarian philosophy.
The pattern, which was followed by them, is that of the Feudal county conventions and diet;
but they have established a modern meritocratic republic in the field of a segment of the
intellectual life. Our third topic, after the investigation of the synchronic systematisation of
the present Hungarian philosophy is the analysis of the diachronic canonisation of the past of
the philosophy in Hungary as a kind of the creation of a narrative of the tradition, exemplified
by the first serious work of this genre, by the writing of Pl Almsi Balogh. At first he had to
place the sources of Hungarian philosophy into the grand narrative of world history of
philosophy. Almsi Baloghs skill at negotiating this task successfully is evident in using
one of the most characteristic tools of the historiographers trade: when he quotes Greek
sources about Scythian thinkers or interprets the Cynics as Cumans (kunok), he operates
with the topic of barbarian philosophy, originally retained by Jacob Bruckner, in order
to trace the roots of Hungarian philosophy back to the dawn of world philosophy. His
achievement was to find place for the intellectual pre-history of the new nations of
Europe in the decline of the antiquity. It is a similar method to the way of thinking of the
medieval chronicles, which identifies a mythical ancestor of a pagan tribe with a
Scriptural figure Nimrud in the Hungarian case for creating a unified global history of
the humankind within the framework of the Christianity. Almsi Balogh has derived from
these elements a history of the Hungarian philosophy, which has its origins in the Greek
wisdom, creating a basis for the fundaments of the identity of the Hungarian nobles, the
inborn political wisdom of the Hungarians, and for the ancient constitution of Hungary.
(4) In my lecture I have offered an overview of the contribution of philosophy for
th
the 19 -century nation building in the Hungarian case, from the point of view of the
survival of the gentrys political tradition, focussed on the concept of the national
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philosophy. It was discussed the transformation of the structure of the open sphere in the
lifetime of Immanuel Kant, as a root of the national philosophies, and the Hungarian
reflections for the communicational trap of the cosmopolitan philosophy written in a
national vernacular, in the first section. A passive and an active approach of the
descriptions of the national philosophies, and their future-oriented and past-oriented,
historic forms were the topics of the second section. The survival of the noble intellectual
legacy in the three elements of the Hungarian case of the national philosophies was the
topic of the third section, in details, in the political philosophy of the Hungarian Reform
Era, the method of the edition of the Hungarian dictionary of philosophy, and the first
scholar narrative of the history of the Hungarian philosophy. In all these cases of the
transitions from the values of the noblemens commonwealth to the modern political
community has been detected a conservation of several frames of the previous structures.
The role of the privileged noblemen has been replaced by the new, meritocratic elite of
the intelligentsia. The survived elements are clearest in the case of the historiography of
the Hungarian philosophy, where the link between the noble ideal of the Scythian heroes
and the intellectual ideal of the Scythian Sages as ancestors is explicit. The transition
from the societal role of the noblemen to that of the intelligentsia and the survival of the
gentrys ethos in the new elite of intelligentsia is the topic of our planned follow up
research project, and that of the contribution of the next speaker, Gbor Kovcs.