202 Kant and Eastern Europe

philosophers, as Rozgonyi’s preferred thinkers, since they were partly the

foundation of his critique of Kant. The most influential representative of their
reception in Hungary was Guszt‚v Szontagh (1793–1858), who can be seen as the
originator of “Hungarian harmonistics”. He and his philosophical orientation
can be regarded as part of Rozgonyi’s philosophical legacy by virtue of the
constant references to Scottish philosophy in his numerous reviews of works by
Hungarian philosophers. His thought was focused (although he was in-
sufficiently aware of this) on bringing the Scottish school ever closer to Kant. He
marks the beginning of an effort that characterised the whole of the 19th century
in Hungarian philosophy, namely to reconcile the more or less utilitarian ethical
view in political philosophy with Kant’s ethics. In the 1850s and some years later
this led to results that display a degree of similarity with American pragmatism,
and prepared the way for the reception of John Stuart Mill in Hungary in the 19th
century, and for similar efforts on the part of K‚roly Böhm (1846–1911) and his
followers in social philosophy.34

Translated by John Jamieson

Károly Böhm – System Building and Value Theory

by Imre Ungvári-Zrínyi

K‚roly Böhm (Karl Boehm), was a Neo-Kantian philosopher and one of the most
prominent figures in Hungarian philosophy at the turn of the 19th century. He
was the author of the first fully-fledged philosophical system written in Hun-
garian and was born on the 17 September 1846 in Beszterceb‚nya (Bansk‚
Bystrica/Neusohl) in the county of Zûlyom in the Kingdom of Hungary. His
parents were Gottlieb Böhm, a farrier and Anna Zsufay.
Böhm, before becoming a student at the Theological Faculty of Pozsony,
(Bratislava/Pressburg) attended the Beszterceb‚nya Evangelical Gymnasium
and the Evangelical Lyceum of Pozsony between 1852 and 1865. After his
graduation he attended various courses in German universities studying phi-
losophy and theology. During the period 1867–1869, at the University of Göt-
tingen, he attended the courses of such well-known professors of that period, as
Rudolf Hermann Lotze (teaching Psychology) – who is considered “a key figure
in the philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century, influencing
practically all the leading philosophical schools of the late nineteenth and the
early twentieth century, including the Neo-Kantians”.35 He also attended courses
given by the proto Neo-Kantian evangelical theologian Albrecht Ritschl
(teaching dogmatics) and Heinrich Ritter (teaching history of modern philos-
Károly Böhm – System Building and Value Theory 203

ophy). This crucial Göttingen period was followed in 1869 by a semester in

Tübingen with Otto Liebmann (teaching history of the philosophy of nature),
whose Kant und die Epigonen (1865) “heralds” the rise of the Neo-Kantian
movement,36 and Hubert von Luschke (teaching anthropology).
After his studies in Germany, in 1870 Böhm became extraordinary professor
of Philosophy, History of Philosophy, and Theology at the Lyceum and at the
Theological Faculty of Pozsony. He also published a series of critical studies in
the literary supplement of the daily paper Ellenőr [Controller], concerning
mostly the aesthetic writings of his Hungarian contemporaries (Ýgost Greguss,
Mih‚ly Zsilinszki, L‚szlû N¦vy, K‚lm‚n Babics).37 Among the writings of that
period there is also proof that Böhm observed closely German philosophical life,
e. g. by writing a study on Eduard von Hartmann’s Die Philosophie des Un-
bewußten.38
After his Pozsony (Bratislava/Pressburg) period, from 1873 Böhm moved to
Budapest becoming professor at the Evangelical High School. In this period he
was very active both as the founder of philosophical institutions and also as a
philosopher. He was a leading figure in high school reform and also a member of
the Philosophy Circle [Filozûfiai T‚rsaskör], which later became the Philo-
sophical Society. He was also the founder of the Hungarian Review of Philosophy
[Magyar Philosophiai Szemle, 1882]. Among his philosophical works are to be
found high school manuals, such as Experiential Psychology [Tapasztalati L¦-
lektan] (1888), and Logic [Logika] (1889), lectures delivered at the philosophical
society, such as The Physiology of Memory [Az eml¦kezet fiziolûgi‚ja], and also
papers published in the Hungarian Philosophical Review and in other period-
icals, such as The Formal Character of the Essence [A l¦nyeg formais‚ga] (1881),
Instinct and its Satisfaction [Az ösztön ¦s kiel¦ged¦se] (1881), The Basic Con-
tradiction of Realism [A realizmus alapellenmond‚sa] (1882), Criticism and
Positivism [Kriticizmus ¦s positivismus] (1883) and The System of Positive Phi-
losophy [A positiv philosophia rendszere] (1884).
Due to the acquaintances made during his German period of studies, Böhm
made his debut in German philosophical life by collaborating with the Leipzig
based philosophical review Philosophische Monatshefte during 1876–1878.39
Despite his collaboration, and his editor’s interest in his work, Böhm refused to
allow the publishing of his main work in German, because of his project to create
the first philosophical system in Hungarian.
In 1883 Böhm published Man and his World. Philosophical Investigations.
Part One: Dialectics or Fundamental Philosophy [Az ember ¦s vil‚ga. Philoso-
phiai kutat‚sok, I. r¦sz, Dialektika vagy alapphilosophia],40 inspired by Kant and
Fichte. In his foreword, Böhm considers himself a Kantian philosopher who
preserves Kant’s basic position and dedicates all his work to the service of its
confirmation. In his conception, Kant and Comte complete each other and both
204 Kant and Eastern Europe

Fig. 5: M‚rkû Laci, K‚roly Böhm, bronze plaque in the courtyard of the Protestant diocese,
Klausenburg (2012)

are examples of the avoidance of dogmatism and of philosophy based on crit-

ically established principles.41 The subject of this introductory and foundational
volume consists of the aims, field, method and categories of philosophy. Böhm’s
position, in accordance with Kant’s, is that: philosophy aims at an under-
standing of knowledge, i. e. the interpretation of modalities in which knowledge
occurs. Knowledge, according to Böhm, appears in consciousness in projected
“meaningful images”. This implies a conscious reconstitution of the uncon-
sciously projected image. He asserts: “knowledge, regarding both its content and
form, is subjective. Knowing and understanding images is one and the same
thing”.42 This way of thinking corresponds to both the Kantian view of the
necessity that knowledge is grounded in experience, and Kant’s claims that the
formal (rational) conditions of sensibility should be given in the constitution of
cognitive faculties themselves.43 The idea of placing the initial experience in the
phenomenon of projection, a direct effect of the spontaneity of consciousness,
comes from Fichte. The unavoidability of projection is for Böhm the source of
the objectivity of the cognitive image. This intention of approaching Kant from
Fichte’s “more consistent Kantianism” was fairly common with Neokantian
thinking, e. g. in the philosophy of Wilhelm Windelband, founder of the Baden
School.
The Fichtean orientation in Böhm’s work is more prominent in the second
Károly Böhm – System Building and Value Theory 205

volume of Man and his World entitled The Life of the Spirit [A szellem ¦lete]
(1892),44 which describes man’s whole life as being the process of the “self-
affirmation of the self-positing spirit”. The self positing activity consists in
man’s all unconscious (“instinctual”) and conscious, self-governing psycho-
logical manifestations (“manifestations of higher degree”). Together, the first
and the second volume are considered by Böhm to constitute his “Ontology”
representing “the hemisphere of the real” as opposed to the later developed
axiological volumes of the system which represent the “hemisphere of the
ought”.
Böhm’s axiological period coincides with his professorship in Transylvania
from 1896 until his death in 1911, at the Franz Joseph University [Ferenc Jûzsef
Tudom‚nyegyetem] in Kolozsv‚r (Cluj-Napoca/Klausenburg). The foundational
work for this period is Axiology or the doctrine of value [Axiolûgia vagy ¦r-
t¦ktan] (1906),45 the third volume of the main work which continues Böhm’s
Kantian train of thought by differentiating classes of values, starting from the
sorts of pleasures and judgements that are experienced.46 Values, in Böhm’s view
have a transcendental status which derives from their role in creating, main-
taining and validating the spiritual unity of the “autoposition” of the autono-
mous Ego.
The last three volumes are dedicated to the problems of specific axiological
disciplines (Logic, Ethics and Aesthetics). The Doctrine of Logical Value [A
logikai ¦rt¦k tana] (1912),47 the 4th volume, treats “the value of science” i. e. the
transcendental meaning of cognition, the ways of producing meaning and their
relations with the forms of thinking, alongside the spiritual self-projection of the
Self. Here, the sense of logical value is considered as in Kant’s Critique of Pure
Reason, to which Böhm refers explicitly as a work aiming, in Kant’s terms, “to
supply the touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all cognitions a priori”.48
The Doctrine of Moral Value [Az erkölcsi ¦rt¦k tana] (1928)49 reveals the
conditions of application of the moral appreciation of human activities on the
basis of the self-appreciation of conscience. Its fundamental principle is “the
principle of subjecting the singular wishes to self-position, in its totality”. In
doing so, the subject also conforms to the absolute priority of reason stated by
Kant and maintained by Böhm in the formula “In morality we must bow before
the sublimity of Reason, we must recognize it as higher and more grandiose, and
set it out for ourselves as an imperative task”.50
Finally The Doctrine of Aesthetic Value [Az eszt¦tikai ¦rt¦k tana] (1942)51
deduces the origin of different arts from the system of human faculties. It also
underlines the significance of aesthetic categories, by way of the analysis of their
effect upon the individual, designating their value in accordance with their
contribution to the dialectics of the Self. In the interpretation of aesthetic cat-
egories alongside the ideas of aestheticians contemporary with Böhm, such as
206 Kant and Eastern Europe

Hermann Lotze, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, Theodor Lipps, Johannes Volkelt

and Max Dessoir, the most often cited is Kant and his arguments related to the
differences between the beautiful and the sublime.
The Böhmian philosophical heritage remained a pertinent spiritual frame in
Transylvanian and Hungarian culture, constituting the basis for a specific moral
and cultural attitude attached to Neo–Kantianism and Axiology. This attitude
was maintained by his disciples (György Bartûk, B¦la Tankû, L‚szlû Ravasz,
S‚ndor Makkai, B¦la Varga, S‚ndor Tavaszy – most of them theologians) who
considered themselves members of “The Böhmian School”, or members of “The
School from Kolozsv‚r”. Their spiritual position could be described as a sort of
openness to transcendental philosophy and the questions of axiology, but also as
a sort of “Neo-Kantian and Value-Theology”.52

Károly Böhm’s and Bernát Alexander’s Hungarian Neo-Kantianism

by László Perecz

The aim of this essay53 is to present in parallel two outstanding personalities of

Hungarian philosophical culture at the transition from the 19th to the 20th cen-
turies and into the early 20th century. K‚roly Böhm (1846–1911) features within
Hungarian philosophical consciousness as the formulator of the first Hungarian
philosophical system, while Bern‚t Alexander (1850–1927) is seen as the creator
of Hungarian philosophical institutionalism; both thinkers are indebted to the
idea of Hungarian “national philosophy”. Both of them were simultaneously
influenced by positivism and neo-Kantianism: while working on his system,
Böhm moved from an attempt to integrate positivist and Kantian ideas towards a
philosophy of values related to the programme of the Baden school, while
Alexander, through his activities as a teacher, editor and translator, founded a
significant number of institutions, and adopted an eclectic and impressionistic
philosophical stance, focused on bringing the different tendencies into agree-
ment with one another.
This essay compares the traits and philosophies of the two thinkers, and is
divided into two parts. The first outlines the sociocultural and intellectual
background to the careers of both thinkers, and raises the issue of a change of
identity and commitment to the reception of western European philosophies.
The second outlines the motivations defining the direction of their philosophy,
focusing on its positivistic and Kantian elements.