Publication Details

Abstract

In the 1960s two concepts of philosophy clashed in Slovak philosophy: the concept of philosophy as a hand-maid of ideology and the concept of philosophy as an open system. This process took place as a prolonged controversy with dogmatism on one hand and as an inner differentiation of Marxist philosophy on the other hand. The attempts at a redefinition of the subject and meaning of Marxist philosophy resulted in trying to make it more scientific as well as to make Marxism more humanistic. The representative of reformed Marxism (who did not stop to believe in Marxism as an exclusive philosophy) were not intended to go beyond the limits of current discourse - all they wanted was to make it more authentic. But this modernization project, whose aim was to make Marxism an open system through making it more scientific and humanistic, did not bring about a new paradigmatical alternative. This was due to its own inner contradictions as well as the brutal arrival of normalization in Slovakia.