Stanislaw Brzozowski and the Polish beginnings of "Western Marxism" / Andrzej Walicki.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walicki, Andrzej.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Brzozowski, Stanisław, 1878-1911.

Brzozowski, Stanisław.

Communists--Poland.

Communists.

Communism--Poland--History.

Communism.

History.

Poland.

Physical Description:

viii, 349 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1989.

Summary:

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 Luk'acs 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 Luk'acs, who initially conceived of the retrieval of the philosophical and humanist aspect of Marxism and its separation from the Engels school of "scientific Marxism."

Contents:

1. On Some Specific Features of Early Polish Marxism 38

2. 'Scientific Marxism' and 'Philosophy of Action' 76

(1) The Early Phase of Brzozowski's Thought 76

(2) The Critique of 'Scientific Marxism' 88

(3) Idealism as Philosophy of Action 94

(4) The First Outline of a New Interpretation of Marxism 101

3. Marxism as an Anti-Engelsian 'Philosophy of Labour' 111

(1) Knowledge, Nature, and History 111

(2) The Ideal of Autocreation 124

(3) The Encounter with the Russian 'Neo-Marxists' 133

4. Beyond Marxism: From Anti-Engelsian Marxism to a Re-evaluation of Marx's Thought 141

(1) New Inspirations and Confrontations 141

(2) The Further Development of Brzozowski's 'Philosophy of Labour' 155

(3) Continuity and Change in Brzozowski's Thought 169

5. The Intelligentsia and the Working Class 176

(1) Different Conceptions of the Intelligentsia and its Calling 176

(2) The Intelligentsia and Revolution 183

(3) The Paradoxes of the Intelligentsia 187

(4) The Working Class, Socialism, and Syndicalism 199

(5) The Working Class and the Nation 212

6. Culture and Society 223

(1) Individualism and Sociologism 223

(2) The Social Tasks of Art and Literary Criticism 231

(3) Sociological Criticism and the Critique of Sociology 243

(4) The Illusions of Consciousness 254

(5) National Cultures 267

7. Religion 275

(1) From Religious Individualism to Militant Atheism 275

(2) The Greatness and Weakness of Catholicism 288

(3) Towards Transcendence 300.

Notes:

Includes index.

Bibliography: pages [339]-344.

ISBN:

0198273282 :

OCLC:

18290377