Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez

Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez (September 17, 1915 – July 8, 2011) was a Spanish-born Mexican philosopher, writer and professor born in Algeciras, Andalucia.

Biography

After studying philosophy at the University of Madrid, Vázquez emigrated to Mexico in 1939 with thousands of other intellectuals, scientists and artists following the defeat of the Republic in the Spanish Civil War, in which he participated as editor of the central publication of the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (JSU) “Ahora”. Sánchez was appointed a full-time professor of philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 1959, becoming a professor emeritus of the university in 1985.[3] Sánchez also held honorary doctoral degrees from the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla and the University of Cádiz (Spain). 

He embraced Marxism, although an open, renovating, critical and non-dogmatic version of it. His fresh interpretation of Marxism ran parallel to that of the Frankfurt School. In fact, The Philosophy of Praxis was published at around the same time as Herbert Marcuse was writing his One Dimensional Man]]. In regard to ethics, he opposed normativism.

"Έτσι αγαπάμε εμείς την Ελλάδα"

Kυκλοφορεί: Οκτώβριος 2016

Η έκδοση αυτή παρουσιάζει για πρώτη φορά τα πλήρη πρακτικά των δύο δικών του Ν. Μπελογιάννη και των συντρόφων του, μεγάλο μέρος από τα σήματα Βαβούδη, τα υπομνήματα μετατροπής της θανατικής ποινής των Μπελογιάννη, Μπάτση και Καλούμενου σε ισόβια κάθειρξη, σχολιασμό για τον τρόπο διεξαγωγής καθώς και το ιστορικό πλαίσιο μέσα στο οποίο πραγματοποιήθηκαν οι δίκες.

Το περιεχόμενο των ιστορικών ντοκουμέντων συμβάλει στο να αποκτήσει ο αναγνώστης τη δική του οπτική απέναντι στα συγκεκριμένα δραματικά γεγονότα. Σε κάθε περίπτωση όμως δεν μπορεί να παρακάμψει καθοριστικούς παράγοντες διαμόρφωσης των ιστορικών εξελίξεων όπως ο ρόλος των ΗΠΑ (η στάση των οποίων παρουσιάζεται μέσα από τη χρήση των αρχείων του Foreign Office) το πλαίσιο μέσα στο οποίο κινήθηκε η ηγεσία του ΚΚΕ, και ιδιαίτερα ο Ν. Ζαχαριάδης αμέσως μετά την ήττα στον εμφύλιο, η αμφιθυμική στάση των κομμάτων του Κέντρου και προσωπικά του Ν. Πλαστήρα, ο ρόλος του Θρόνου και του Στρατού. 

Karel Kosik

Region  Western Philosophy Notable ideas  pseudo-concrete Role  Philosopher		School  Marxism, Neomarxism Name  Karel Kosik Influenced  Reception theory
Born  26 June 1926 Prague, CzechoslovakiaEra  20th-century philosophy Main interests  Social philosophy, Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics Died  February 21, 2003, Prague, Czech Republic Education  Charles University in Prague Children  Irena Kosikova, Antonin Kosik Books  Dialectics of the concrete, The crisis of modernity Similar People  Karl Marx, Gyorgy Lukacs, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Herbert Marcuse

La naturaleza irremplazable de la cultura popular

La naturaleza irremplazable de la cultura popular[1]

Por Karel Kosík[2]

En las discusiones sobre cultura compartimos, de hecho, la ilusión de los reformistas, pero nos falta la amplitud y profundidad de su comprensión. Debido a eso, el movimiento de una mano sobre “reforma” como un episodio desmedido es prematuro. Aún hoy día vivimos en su ingenuidad e ilusiones, vivimos en ellas también cuando, intencionadamente o por ignorancia, rompemos los vínculos del siglo XIX. La mentalidad reformista es, sobre todo, la ilusión con respecto a la omnipotencia de la cultura. El utopismo cultural se consola a sí mismo con la presunción de que la cultura puede influenciar y resolver todo, aunque la sobria experiencia plantea que la cultura puede resolver muy poco e influenciar en pocas personas. Mucho más notable es la impotencia de la cultura, debido al hecho de que nunca ha logrado ser exitosa en humanizar el poder, esclarecer a los gobernantes, o llegar al corazón de las prácticas relaciones humanas cotidianas, para que el hombre pueda vivir “poéticamente” en la tierra. ¿Es en ese “poco” que la cultura resuelve o ese “aún menor” en el cual influencia tan significativamente que su sentido no puede estar sujeto a los indicadores cuantitativos, mientras que “ese poco” y “aún menor” pueden ser todo para el hombre?

A beautiful photo of the philosopher

On Czech Marxism

On Czech Marxism: An interview with Ivan Landa and Jan Mervart

LeftEast’s James Robertson speaks with Czech scholars Ivan Landa and Jan Mervart about their current project collating and translating some of the key texts from the history of Czech Marxism.

see the full  interview here

The Democracy and the Myth of Cave

The Democracy and the Myth of Cave

Karel Kosík

The 20th century, which began with shots being fired in Sarajevo in 1914 and in our time is ending with the disintegration of the Soviet empire amid gunfire in that very same Sarajevo, is sometimes also called the century of Franz Kafka (“le siècle de Franz Kafka”)—and this is entirely justified.

Kafka described the essence of this period with extraordinary insight. While it seemed to some of his contemporaries that his texts were dreamlike visions, poetic hyperboles and phantasmagorical hallucinations, today we have come to realize with awe the accuracy and sobriety of his descriptions. Kafka reached the conclusion, and in my view that is where his profound discovery lies, that modern times are hostile to the tragic, eliminating it and replacing it with the grotesque. That is why the century of Franz Kafka is at the same time a period whose quintessence is personified by one of his characters—Greta Samsa. Greta Samsa is the anti-Antigone of the 20th century.

SOURCE

Karel Kosík, “Demokracie a mýtus o jeskyni,” Století Markéty Samsové, Český spisovatel, Prague 1993, p. 11–21.