This paper offers an overview of the philosophical reflections for the change of structure
of the scholar public sphere in the 18th and 19th centuries, focussed on the Hungarian
examples, with the idea of urbanity in the centre. After the overview of the Scottish
Enlightenment, and the Kantian and Herderian approaches, it will be discussed the
Hungarian case, within and after the controversy on Immanuel Kant (1792–1822). The
topic of urbanitas was often touched both as an ideal-typical environment of the philosophical
activity, and the real environment of the authors under conditions of an industrialised
machinery of the cultural production. The next topic is the specific features of the
same turn of the structure of the scholar communication in East-Central Europe, where
the change of the languages of the publications has characteristic consequences and
the gap between the spheres of the school philosophy and the public philosophy was
deeper. The features of the specialities of the philosophies of East-Central Europe
in their self-understanding within the new context after the communicational turn
is the last topic, focussed on the Hungarian case, especially on the usage of the
concept of urbanity in the Hungarian creative discourse about the public philosophy,
and national philosophy.
