The paper situates Ágnes Heller’s thought within the context of the Budapest School around György Lukács. After a brief overview of the School’s main intellectual goal as well as its personal composition, some of Lukács’s decisive influences on his students will be highlighted. Second, the paper provides a cursory look at two other significant members of the School, György Vajda and György Márkus. Finally, the more detailed part of the talk is devoted to Heller’s theory of modernity, with particular emphasis on her central idea of the gift and burden of freedom.

Bio:

Csaba Olay is currently a professor and director of the Institute of Philosophy at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest. Having studied philosophy, mathematics, and physics at Eötvös Loránd University Budapest, he obtained his PhD in philosophy at Freiburg University (Germany). He has been teaching at Eötvös Loránd University since 2001, where he was appointed as a full professor in 2015.

His main research areas include 19-20th century continental philosophy, hermeneutics, Heidegger, Gadamer, Hannah Arendt, and Frankfurt School. He has published books and articles, among others Hans-Georg Gadamer: Phänomenologie der ungegenständlichen Zusammenhänge (Königshausen & Neumann 2007); Regional and national identity: a hermeneutic approach (L’Harmattan 2022), Art and mass culture: Frankfurt School, Arendt and after (L’Harmattan 2024). He also edited collections of essays in these fields, among others (with Jean-Claude Gens) Charles Taylor - Interpretation, modernity, and identity. Charles Taylor – Interprétation, modernité et identité. 

 (Le Cercle herméneutique 2014).