Lecture 1: Poznań School of Methodology: Genesis – Achievements – Significance

The aim of this lecture is to introduce students to the main ideas and concepts of the Poznań School of Methodology, as developed by its founders Jerzy Kmita, Leszek Nowak and Jerzy Topolski as well as to its importance and role in the post-war development of philosophy in Poland. Problems discussed in this lecture are: humanistic interpretation, idealizational theory of science, socio-regulative theory of culture, adaptive interpretation of historical materialism, non-Marxian historical materialism, integrating explanation in history, historical narratives.

Lecture 2: From Interpretation to Refutation of Marxism: On Leszek Nowak's non-Marxian Historical Materialism

The aim of this lecture is to outline the theory of historical processes as developed within the framework of the Poznań School of Methodology, mainly by Leszek Nowak and a team of his co-workers. The first part of this lecture reconstructs the meta-philosophical and meta-theoretical assumptions of the Poznań school and contrasts them with those of western analytical Marxism. The central part of the lecture discusses the main propositions regarding an adaptive reconstruction of historical materialism and non-Marxian historical materialism. The lecture concludes by considering problems regarding the reception of Leszek Nowak's theory.