by Ivan Landa, Czech Academy of Sciences

The next event in the MODERNITAS lecture series will focus on Marxism as a fundamental philosophical movement and political ideology that shaped the face of Central and Eastern Europe for a significant part of the 20th century. And this time, thanks to our guest, Dr. Ivan Landa from the Czech Academy of Sciences, we will have the opportunity to explore this historical phenomenon through the perspective of archival research.

It’s not long ago since the historiography of Central East European (and Soviet) Marxism used to be the domain of Sovietologists. Then, it gradually came under the scrutiny of historians of political ideas as well as intellectual historians. Only relatively recently it has become the object of interest to philosophers and historians of philosophy, who focus on ideas and theories. Although philosophers and historians of philosophy mostly pay attention to published texts and work with critical editions, as they are interested in a final form of a thought, they are at the same time increasingly taking in account archival materials. There are various reasons for this: archives are considered to be an additional source of information, supplementing the published texts, containing unpublished texts and other material such as reading notes, sketches of ideas and arguments, diary entries, correspondence. All this material gives a better glimpse into the philosophical theories and enables to map the intellectual networks, etc. In my talk I will focus on how archives can deepen our understanding of what was happening in Central East European Marxism between 1948 and 1989 in a slightly different sense, keeping my eye on Czechoslovak case. I will show that archives do not solely provide an insight into the philosopher’s laboratory, and do not give an authoritative hermeneutical key to the philosophical theories in their final, i.e. published form. Jacques Derrida has rightly criticized this approach that is based on the oppositions “unpublished/published”, “unfinished/finished”, “private/public” etc. in his lectures Archive Fever (1995). Instead, I’ll argue that the archive confronts us with methodological questions, especially those concerning the emergence of philosophical problems and insights, the ways in which ideas are elaborated and arguments construed. They allow – as Dieter Henrich puts it in his book Werke im Werden: Über die Genesis philosophischer Einsichten (2011) – to understand the philosophical creativity and to reconstruct the logical space in which past thinkers were situated, being philosophically creative. I will address these issues by using the examples of the archive of Czech Marxist philosopher Karel Kosík (and partly of Lubomír Sochor and Vítězslav Gardavský).

Ivan Landa currently works as a researcher at the Institute for Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where he leads its Department for the Study of Modern Czech Philosophy since 2016. He held different teaching appointments at several Czech universities, like Technical University in Liberec, University of Pardubice or Charles University in Prague. His long-term research interests include the history of East Central European Marxist philosophy and on continuities and discontinuities between Marxist and dissident thought. In parallel, the study of Hegel and German idealism also covers his field of interest.

Wednesday 11th October 2023, 2pm - 4pm

Salle de réception
Bâtiment DE1 - Niveau 3 - Salle R.3.105
Avenue Antoine Depage 1
1000 Bruxelles

Free entrance

Contact: Barbora Svobodová