Marxism as an Event in Philosophy: Slovenian and Yugoslav readings of Marx between 1960–1990


Field: Philosophy
Project leader: Lea Kuhar
Starting year: 2024
Project type: Postdoctoral project
Total funding: SEK 2,852,000

The proposed research project addresses the question of the relationship between Marxism and philosophy, a complex issue that has been addressed by many philosophers in the 20th century in various ways. The project brings an innovative approach to this question by examining it from the perspective of Slovenian and Yugoslav history of Marxism and philosophy, which has not been adequately researched to date. The objective of the proposed research project is twofold. Firstly, it will provide a detailed analysis of the conceptual development of Slovenian and Yugoslav philosophical readings of Marx, focusing on three periods: the Marxist-humanist philosophical movement of the Praxis School (1960-1970), the Slovenian philosophical readings of Marxism-Leninism (1970-1980), and the emergence of the philosophical school known as the Ljubljana Lacanian School (1980-1990). The project will argue that these three philosophical readings present three different ways of addressing the specificity of Marx’s thought in the Slovenian and Yugoslav contexts. Secondly, the project will show that the Yugoslav and Slovenian official Marxist doctrine, primarily dialectical materialism, produced the opposite of what it intended: instead of creating a new materialist science that would surpass the need for philosophy, it generated a completely new approach to philosophical thinking. In this regard, the project will follow Étienne Balibar’s thesis that Marxism is an event in (Slovenian) philosophy.