The author briefly introduces to the Czech public the little known Hungarian philosopher Ágnes Heller. After sketching her philosophical and political development (including her role as a significant figure in central European critical social theory), the author puts the question of moral conflicts into the wider contexts in which Heller developed her ethico-moral conception and her assumptions in a theory of justice. She emphasises the meaning of plurality in the ethical sphere, stemming from the fact that in post-traditional societies one cannot be guided by a substantial conception of good, nor by the connected ideas of a given collection of morals in the sense of Hegelian “Sittlichkeit”. The moral and evaluative orientation of people here must be always examined anew and checked, since man realises his idea of the good, or rather a life of integrity, in many different ways. This pluralisation also affects the area of virtues and their relation to values; the author especially appreciates Heller’s analyses of the social virtues under the conditions of non-freedom of the individual where normal virtues become “military”, as the basic values of freedom and life are threatened. The plurality of the ethical universe is transmitted into the area of moral conflicts where, for the most part, concern is with “powerful” conflicts between various positive possibilities of moral conduct. The author appreciates Heller’s minute analyses of the various ways of using reason in these conflicts, the role of judgement (phronésis) above all. He also treats as important the interpretation of the ambivalent position of consequentialism and utilitarianism in moral decision-making. At the same time a critical attitude is expressed towards Heller’s interpretation of the instrumentalist-teleological model in analysing Kant’s application of the categorical imperative, which is treated as “pointillistic”. The author looks upon Heller as a significant, critical representative of the humanistic project of the enlightenment.
CS
Autor stručně představuje české veřejnosti málo známou maďarskou filosofku Ágnes Hellerovou. Po načrtnutí jejího filosoficko-politického vývoje (i jako významné představitelky středoevropské kritické teorie společnosti) zasazuje problematiku morálních konfliktů do širších souvislostí, v nichž autorka promýšlí svou eticko-morální koncepci a její předpoklady v teorii spravedlnosti. Zdůrazňuje význam plurality v etické oblasti, vyplývající z toho, že v posttradičních společnostech není možno vycházet z nějaké substanciální koncepce dobra a s ní souvisejících představ daného souboru mravů ve smyslu hegelovské „Sittlichkeit“. Morální a hodnotové orientace lidí musí být v těchto společnostech vždy znovu testovány a prověřovány, neboť člověk realizuje svou představu „dobrého“, resp. řádného života rozmanitým způsobem. Pluralizace se dotýká i oblasti ctností a jejich vztahu k hodnotám; autor oceňuje zvláště analýzy sociálních ctností v podmínkách nesvobody individua, kde se podle Hellerové běžné ctnosti stávají „vojenskými“, neboť jsou ohroženy základní hodnoty svobody a života. Pluralita etického univerza se promítá do oblasti morálních konfliktů, kde se jedná povýtce o „silné“ konflikty mezi různými pozitivními možnostmi mravního jednání. Autor oceňuje minuciózní analýzy, jejichž prostřednictvím Hellerová prezentuje různé způsoby užití rozumu v těchto konfliktech, především roli soudnosti („fronésis“). Za přínosnou považuje i interpretaci ambivalentní pozice konsekvencialismu a utilitarismu v mravním rozhodování. Zároveň se kriticky vyslovuje k interpretaci instrumentálně-finálního modelu, k níž Hellerorvá dospívá při rozboru Kantovy aplikace kategorického imperativu. Tuto interpretaci autor považuje za „pointilistickou“. Á. Hellerovou autor oceňuje jako významnou kritickou stoupenkyni humanistického projektu osvícenství.
This paper employs the work of Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér as a characterization of a contemporary critical theory. Critical theory is not “an argument across the ages” nor another attempt at traditional metaphysics. Like modern thinkers G.W.F. Hegel and Karl Marx, influenced by the French Revolution, the critical theory tradition endeavours to practically engage with the present and inches towards an undetermined future. Ágnes Heller and György Márkus fuse knowledge of the modern sciences with a historical anthropology that becomes an agent of practical transformation. These émigrés from Budapest took the opportunities of the capitalist West against modern societies’ fault lines to theorize a potential better future. They marshal modern knowledge against existing social reality towards a present, still typically irrational society. Contemporary critical theory has this intent and occupies this space.
Rather than considering those thinkers identified with the Budapest School in institutional terms, this paper suggests that the notion of friendship is a more appropriate way to consider the thinkers formerly associated with such a “school.” This paper explores the condition and disposition of friendship through the works of Ágnes Heller and Immanuel Kant, especially, to throw light on the notion and practice of modern friendship in the context of the historical dissolution of philosophical schools, including the Budapest School. This paper explores how modern friendship – its cultivation and dispositions – might be understood.
The Budapest School of philosophers and sociologists formed around the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukács in the 1960s and dissipated when many of its members went into exile from Hungary in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A number went to Australia, and the last collective works of the Budapest School were produced there just as the cooperative intellectual impetus of the group dissolved. One of the Budapest School philosophers, Ágnes Heller, took up a lecturing post at La Trobe University where she supervised the PhD of the author of this paper, Peter Murphy. The paper explores Heller’s trajectory out of group philosophy into an existential view of philosophy as a “truth for me,” and Murphy’s philosophical relationship with Heller, with the idea of a school of philosophy, and with the notion of a personal philosophy.
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