The anthropological (humanist) tendency within Marxist philosophy in Poland

Bibliographic Data

ID12190064
AuthorsMonika Woźniak (0000-0002-0137-5109, Czech Academy of Sciences, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume77
Issue4
Pages645-667
Publication date2024-12-17
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueStudies in East European Thought (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0925-9392 • E-ISSN: 1573-0948
PublisherSpringer Nature (PUBLISHER • SG)
DOI10.1007/s11212-024-09686-7
OpenAlexW4405498274
LanguageEN
References cited18

The history of Polish Marxism has often been described as divided between two schools: scientistic (neopositivist) and humanist (anthropological).The awareness of that plurality of subcurrents within Marxism first appeared in the context of the Polish Thaw.In the early 1960s, it was described by Stanisaw Krajewski, a representative of the "scientists," and Bronisaw Baczko, a representative of the "humanists" (Krajewski 1963; Baczko 1965a).It was later acknowledged in discussions of the essence of Marxist philosophy that took place at the end of the 1960s, when it was often criticized (e.g., Szewczyk 1969; Dziamski 1969), and later appeared in many commentaries, including texts written after 1990 (Krajewski 1982;Chudy 1989;Winczewski 2021).The anthropological current in Polish Marxism was not a philosophical school in the same sense as the Yugoslav Praxis School or, to look for more local traditions, the Pozna Methodological School.Its representatives were not closely connected institutionally or generationally, and they did not leave behind any kind of manifesto or programmatic text.They shared, however, common philosophical interests and an understanding of philosophy-a wider paradigm or, as Bronisaw Baczko called it, a "style of philosophizing" (Baczko 1965a).This turn towards humanist discourse and anthropological issues is often viewed as a phenomenon inherently linked to revisionism, where emphasizing the human dimension of Marxism served a critical rather than a legitimizing role in relation to the system (see e.g., Satterwhite 1992).However, as I demonstrate in detail, Polish anthropological Marxism transcended the distinction between official and revisionist Marxism.The anthropological framework was employed by both ardent critics of the regime and authors who did not challenge it in any way.Because of this, I closely examine the evolution of this current, showing how its initial critical impulse gradually

Critical theory · Epistemology · Humanism · Marxist philosophy · Modern philosophy · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Theology · Western philosophy · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Law · Philosophy

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