The antinomies of man and the detotalization of thinking: escaping from Marxism towards Kant in Hungarian philosophy in the 1970–1980s

Abstract The present paper focuses on a case of a Marxist “return to Kant” which played an important role in shaping the philosophical landscape during the final two decades of state socialism in Hungary. We intend to explore the ideological underpinnings and interpretative opportunities that sparked the Marxist Kant renaissance from the early 1970s onward, and to showcase the ways it evolved into one of the most advanced segments of Hungarian philosophical research at the time. Besides outlining the ideologically driven but quickly shifting theses of Marxist interpretations of Kant, our objective will be to examine how the engagement with various aspects of Kantian thought led to theoretical approaches that increasingly promoted the progressive and professional study of philosophical issues. Against this backdrop, we will argue that by the 1980s, strategies aimed at circumventing or neutralizing traditional Marxist perspectives were willingly embraced within this field. These strategies sought to escape the tutelage of Marxist ideology precisely in the name of adhering to the standards of academic professionalism.