Neo-Kantianism as an entanglement of intellectual cultures in Central and Eastern Europe

Erik Martin, Michał Mrugalski, and Patrick Flack (eds.)

Edited volume, 2022

Erik Martin, Michał Mrugalski, and Patrick Flack, Neo-Kantianism as an entanglement of intellectual cultures in Central and Eastern Europe. Neukantianismus als Verflechtung von Wissenskulturen Mittel-und Osteuropas, Genève-Lausanne : sdvig press, 2022.

The present volume, which constitutes the proceedings of the eponymous conference held in May 2019 at the Polish Institute in Berlin, offers a series of detailed insights into the profoundly networked forms and practices of Neo-Kantian philosophy. Although far from exhaustive, the materials and perspectives gathered here establish beyond doubt that the scope and impact of Neo-Kantianism in the landscape of European culture and ideas can only ever be properly understood if one takes into account not just its main German “schools” (Marburg, Baden) but also its inter-disciplinary and cross-cultural dissemination in other contexts, not least in Poland and Russia. Conversely, this volume also underscores how the broad and diverse influence exerted by Neo-Kantian philosophy in its relatively long period of dominance constitutes a crucial element in the dynamics and evolution of European ideas and intellectual cultures, in particular the fundamental methodological break with the positivist traditions of the 19th century and the slow rise of “new” human sciences or Geisteswissenschaften (anthropology, cultural-historical psychology, linguistics, literary theory, sociology, cultural studies) around 1900.

The book is available open access here.