Mihailo Markovic - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Mihailo Marković, PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

(Serbian Cyrillic: Михаило Марковић) (24 February 1923 – 7 February 2010) was a Serbian

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

philosopher. He was born in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. In the 1960s and 1970s he gained prominence as a proponent of the Praxis School

Praxis School

The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical movement. It originated in Zagreb and Belgrade in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s.Prominent figures among the school's founders include Gajo Petrović and Milan Kangrga of Zagreb and Mihailo Marković of Belgrade...

, a Marxist humanist

Marxist humanism

Marxist humanism is a branch of Marxism that primarily focuses on Marx's earlier writings, especially the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 in which Marx espoused his theory of alienation, as opposed to his later works, which are considered to be concerned more with his structural...

movement that originated in SFRY.

A co-author of the SANU Memorandum

Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts was a draft document produced by a 14-member committee composed by members of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1985 to 1986, presided by Kosta Mihailović...

, during late 1980s and 1990s Marković was a prominent supporter of Slobodan Milošević

Slobodan Milošević

Slobodan Milošević was President of Serbia and Yugoslavia. He served as the President of Socialist Republic of Serbia and Republic of Serbia from 1989 until 1997 in three terms and as President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000...

. He died in February 2010 in Belgrade, Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

Early life

Marković became a member of the youth organization of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1940, and in 1944 he became a member of the KPJ itself. As a partisan he actively participated in the struggle for liberation of Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

Academic career

Marković took a doctorate in philosophy first at the University of Belgrade

University of Belgrade

The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...

Faculty of Philosophy

University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy

The University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in Serbia, founded in the early 19th century within the Belgrade Higher School...

in 1955, and then another in 1956 at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

. There he studied logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

under A.J. Ayer, and wrote his thesis on The Concept of Logic. In 1963 he became a full professor of philosophy at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Philosophy, 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

International Humanist and Ethical Union

The International Humanist and Ethical Union is an umbrella organisation embracing humanist, atheist, rationalist, secular, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations worldwide. Founded in Amsterdam in 1952, the IHEU is a democratic union of more than 100 member organizations in 40...

(1975–1985). He has been a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...

since 1963 and a full member since 1983.

In his honour, a collection of articles entitled Philosophy and Society was published in Belgrade in 1987.

Social critic

After the Resolution of the Informbiro

Informbiro

Informbiro was a period in the history of Yugoslavia characterized by conflict and schism with the Soviet Union...

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

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 Research until his retirement in 1986.

As a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU) in 1986, Marković, together with Vasilije Krestić

Vasilije Krestic

Vasilije Krestić is an intellectual and historian, and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.As a historian, he focuses on the history of the Serbs of the Habsburg Monarchy...

and others, wrote the SANU Memorandum

Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts

, a document that has formulated the central tenets of Serbian nationalism. While the document has been viewed in some neighbouring former Yugoslav republics as a preparation for full scale Greater Serbian expansionism, many Serbs considered it a realistic depiction of the Serbian position within Yugoslav federation.

Socialist Party of Serbia

Marković was vice-president of the Slobodan Milošević

Slobodan Milošević

's Socialist Party of Serbia

Socialist Party of Serbia

The Socialist Party of Serbia is officially a democratic socialist political party in Serbia. It is also widely recognized as a de facto Serbian nationalist party, though the party itself does not officially acknowledge this...

from 1990 to 1992, as well as its one time chief ideologue. At other times, he was a vocal critic of the official SPS party line. In November 1995 he was released from all duties in the party.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.