Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish Beginnings of 'Western Marxism'

ISBN-13: 9780198273288 / Angielski / Twarda / 1989 / 360 str.

Andrzej Walicki

Opis

This book introduces the English-speaking reader to the thought of Stanislaw Brzozowski (1878-1911), an outstanding Polish philosopher and literary critic. Although little known in the West, Brzozowski is an important forerunner of the intellectual tradition of "Western Marxism" most commonly associated with Georg Lukacs and Antonio Gramsci. Walicki argues that Brzozowski's antinaturalistic approach resulted in a radical reinterpretation of Marxism that dealt with many of the problems of the revolt against positivism in European philosophy, and that it was Brzozwski, not Lukacs, who initially conceived of the retrieval of the philosophical and humanist aspect of Marxism and its separation from the Engels school of "scientific Marxism."
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Spis treści

Biographical note; On some specific features of early Polish Marxism; `Scientific Marxism' and `Philosophy of action': The early phase of Brzozowski's thought; The critique of `Scientific Marxism'; Idealism as philosophy of action; The first outline of a new interpretation of Marxism; Marxism as an Anti-Engelsian `Philosophy of Labour': Knowledge, nature, and history; The ideal of autocreation; The encounter with the Russian `Neo-Marxists'; Beyond marxism: From anti-Engelsian Marxism to a re-evaluation of Marx's thought: New inspirations and confrontations; The further development of Brzozowski's `Philosophy of Labour'; Continuity and change in Brzozowski's thought; The intelligentsia and the working class: Different conceptions of the intelligentsia and its calling; The intelligentsia and revolution; The paradoxes of the intelligentsia; The working class, socialism, and syndicalism; The working class and the nation; Culture and Society: Individualism and sociologism; The social tasks of art and literary criticism; Sociological criticism and the critique of sociology; The illusion of consciousness; National cultures; Religion: From religious individualism to militant atheism; The greatness and weakness of Catholicism; Towards transcendence; Instead of a conclusion; Brzozowski's works