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Practice and the social factor in cognition: Polish Marxist epistemology since Kołakowski

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Abbreviations

SF:

Studia Filozoficzne

MF:

Myśl Filozoficzna

Notes and references

  1. ‘Karl Marks i klasyczna definicija prawdy’,SF 1959, 2, 43–67; later in a collection of essays entitledKultura i fetysze, Warsaw 1967. An English translation is available inTowards a Marxist Humanism, New York, Grove Press 1969, 38–66; this text will be cited here.

  2. E.g. T. M. Jaroszewski,Rozwazania o praktyce. Wokoł interpretacji filozofii K. Marksa, Warsaw: PWN 1974, Jan Kurowicki:Poznanie i spoleczenstwo, Warsaw: PWN 1977; cf. below references to Eilstein. A recent critique of Kołakowski's interpretation is by G. Markus, ‘Über die erkenntnistheoretischen Ansichten des jungen Marx’, inBeiträge zur marxistische Erkenntnistheorie, Hrsg. v. Alfred Schmidt, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt a/M. 1972, 18–72.

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  3. Kołakowski,op. cit.,, p. 58.

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  4. ‘Aktualność sporu o powszechniki’,MF 1956, 2, (22), 3–32.

  5. Ibid., pp. 20–25.

  6. Ibid., p. 27.

  7. ‘Indywiduum i nieskończoność materialna w metafizyce Spinozy’,MF 1957, 2 (28).

  8. Ibid., p. 163.

  9. Ibid., p. 10.

  10. ‘Karl Marx ...’,loc. cit., p. 52.

  11. Ibid., p. 53.

  12. ‘Karl Marx ...’, p. 56.

  13. Kolakowski repeats the essentials of this interpretation inMain Currents of Marxism, Vol. 1:The Founders, Clarendon, Oxford, 1978, developing in subsequent volumes its affinity to those of Gramsci, Korsch and Lukács.

  14. ‘Karl Marx ...’, p. 46.

  15. Ibid., p. 56.

  16. Ibid., p. 51.

  17. ‘O stylu filozofowania L. Kolakowskiego tudżiez o “mlodomarksowskiej i Engelsowsko-Leninowskiej” teorii odbicia’,SF 1959, 6, 157–199; Eilstein, at one time editor ofSF, left Poland in 1968.

  18. Ibid., p. 183.

  19. Ibid., p. 164.

  20. Ibid., p. 181.

  21. Ibid., p. 182.

  22. Ibid., p. 183.

  23. Eilstein, p. 187ff.

  24. Kolakowski calls such a philosophy a ‘transcendental’ one and identifies Engels and Soviet philosophy as proponents; cf. ‘Le marxisme de Marx, le marxisme de Engels’, inContemporary Philosophy, ed. by R. Klibansky, Vol. 4, Firenze, 1971, 401–423.

  25. Kurowicki has published:Poznanie i społeczeństwo, Warsaw, PWN 1977;Wyprawa w krainę oczywistości, Wroclaw, Ossolineum 1978.

  26. ‘Kilka tez o materializmie historycznym’, inŚwiadomość i historia, op. cit., p. 14f.

  27. ‘Materializm historyczny a poznanie’, inŚwiadomość ..., p. 37.

  28. Ibid., p. 37.

  29. ‘Epistemologia diachroniczna. Zarys problematyki’,op. cit., p. 17. Rainko notes that Kołakowski conducted a seminar in 1966 on Mannheim. It may be the basis of his article ‘The Epistemological Significance of the Aetiology of Knowledge: A Gloss on Mannheim’, inA Leszek Kołakowski Reader, Tri-Quarterly, 22, Fall 1971, 221–238.

  30. Ibid., p. 29ff.

  31. ‘Materializm historyczny a poznanie’,op. cit., p. 38f.

  32. ‘Epistemologia diachroniczna’,op. cit., p. 33f.

  33. ‘Filozofia nieinterwencji’,MF 1953, 2 (8);Filosofia pozytywistyczna. Od Hume's do Koła Wiedenskiego, Warsaw, PWN 1966 (English translationThe Alienation of Reason, op. cit.).

  34. My translation: ‘Le Marx d'Althusser’, inL'esprit révolutionnaire suivi deMarxisme — utopie et anti-utopie, Bruxelles, Ed. Complexe 1978, p. 183.

  35. From the Preface toA Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, inThe Marx-Engels Reader, ed. by Tucker, New York, Norton 1972, p. 5.

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  36. Cf. L. Nowak, ‘Wymiary praktyki’,SF 1973, 10, 129ff.

  37. Kmita distinguishes more than one kind of correspondence; cf.Szkice z teorii poznania naukowego, op. cit., and ‘Praktyka społeczna jako podstawowe pojęcie epistemologii historycznej’,SF 1977, 11, p. 5ff.

  38. The expressions ‘states of nature’ and ‘matter’ are taken from the interesting study by Serge Moscovici:Essai sur l'histoire humaine de la nature, Paris, Flammarion 1977.

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  39. Kołakowski offers these conclusions in his illuminating chapter on Stanislaw Brzozowski inMain Currents of Marxism. Vol. 2:The Golden Age, op. cit., esp. p. 238.

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  1. Fribourg

    Edward Swiderski

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Swiderski, E. Practice and the social factor in cognition: Polish Marxist epistemology since Kołakowski. Studies in Soviet Thought 21, 341–362 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00819104

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