Mihailo Marković

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Mihailo Marković
Mihailo Marković

Mihailo Marković (born 24 February 1927, Belgrade) is a Serbian philosopher. In the 1960s and 1970s he gained prominence as a proponent of the Praxis school, a Marxist humanist movement that originated in SFRY.

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[edit] Early life

Marković became a member of the youth organization of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) in 1940, and in 1944 he became a member of the CPY itself. He actively participated in the struggle for liberation of Yugoslavia during World War II.

[edit] Academic career

Marković took his PhD in philosophy first at the University of Belgrade and then in London at University College, where he studied logic under A.J. Ayer, and wrote his thesis on The Concept of Logic. He became a professor of philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Belgrade, and the dean of the faculty in the period 1966 - 1967. From 1960 to 1962 he was the president of the Yugoslav Society of Philosophy. In the 1970s, he taught at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and was a director of the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade. Marković was a co-Chairman of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (1975-1985). In his honour, a collection of articles entitled Philosophy and Society was published in Belgrade in 1987.

He has been a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts since 1963 and a full member since 1983.

[edit] Social critic

After the Resolution of the Informbiro condemning the Yugoslav communist regime, Marković took part in a fierce debate against Stalinist dogmatism, becoming one of the fiercest critics of the Stalinist philosophical theses. His Revision of the Philosophical Bases of Marxism in the USSR, published in 1952, was the first major attack on the Stalinist philosophy in Yugoslavia.

In the 1960s Marković became a major proponent of the Praxis school of Marxist interpretation, which emphasized the writings of young Marx, and their dialectical and humanist aspects in particular. He also actively contributed to the international journal Praxis. Due to his critical observations, together with seven other professors from the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, Marković was suspended in January 1975, and finally lost his job in January 1981. After that, Marković worked in the Institute of Social Researches until his retirement in 1986.

[edit] The Memorandum and the Balkan Wars

As a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1986 Marković, together with Vasilije Krestic and others, wrote the "Memorandum of the SANU", a document that has formulated the central tenets of Serbian nationalism. While outside of Serbia, the document has been viewed as a preparation for full scale Greater Serbian expansionism, many Serbs consider it to realistically depict the position of Serbia in the Yugoslav federation.

During the 1990s he played a role in the Balkan conflict. He was a vice president of the Socialist Party of Serbia until 1995 and a one time chief ideologue and executive of Slobodan Milošević's SPS. At other times, he was a vocal critic of the official SPS party line.

[edit] Major works

  • Revision of the Philosophical Bases of Marxism in the USSR (1952)
  • Logic (1956)
  • Formalism in Contemporary Logic (1957)
  • Dialectical Theory of Meaning, Belgrade 1961
  • Humanism and Dialectics (1967)
  • Dialektik der Praxis, Frankfurt, 1968
  • Att utveckla socialismen, Stockholm, 1971
  • From Affluence to Praxis (Philosophy and social criticism), Ann Arbor, 1974
  • The Contemporary Marx, Nottingham, 1974
  • Philosophical Foundations of Science, Belgrade 1982
  • Selected Works in eight volumes, Belgrade, 1994
  • Freedom and Praxis, Belgrade 1997
  • Social Thought at the Border of Milenia, 1999

[edit] External links

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