“The last Mohican of Marxist orthodoxy”. Jarosław Ładosz and the problem of philosophical orthodoxy in post-Stalinist Poland

Abstract

As philosophical orthodoxy is difficult to define in the post-Stalinist period, this article proposes to delineate it by focusing on a universally recognized “prototype” of an orthodox Marxist. In Poland, this label belongs to Jarosław Ładosz. I reconstruct his intellectual biography and analyse his views in epistemology, the philosophy of mathematics, and social philosophy. I argue that his position continues three central pillars of Marxism-Leninism: in epistemology, reflection theory with its objectivist and realist framework; in methodology and logic, dialectics centred on contradiction; and in social philosophy, a focus on material production. At the same time, Ładosz significantly reconceptualizes these elements, cleansing them of naïve and passive empiricism, schematicism and mechanicism, as well as technological determinism. This philosophical approach proves most fruitful in epistemology, especially in the epistemology of mathematics, which he portrays as an abstraction from collective human activity. The article also discusses the limitations of Ładosz’s account of state socialism and the reasons behind the peripheral role of his philosophy within Polish Marxism.