Adam Schaff
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Adam Schaff (March 10, 1913, Lwów – November 12, 2006) was a Polish Marxist philosopher.
[edit] Life
Schaff studied law and economics at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques et Economiques in Paris, and philosophy in Poland, specializing in epistemology. In 1945 he obtained a philosophy degree at Moscow University, and in 1948 he returned to Warsaw University. He has been considered the official ideologue of the Polish United Workers' Party. He also suggested that Wojciech Jaruzelski should obtain the Nobel Peace Prize.
After Stalin's 1953 death, Schaff became close to Leszek Kolakowski's school, which had more of an existentialist and phenomenological slant. Through some of his latter works, he attempted to reconciliate marxist historical determinism with Sartre's existential indeterminism, arguing that man could only become free and able to shape his own life and history as he became conscious of the determinisms to which he is subject. Schaff was a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences and of the Club of Rome.
[edit] Works
- Word and Concept
- Language and Cognition
- Problems of the Marxist Theory on Truth
- A Philosophy of Man
