Adam Schaff

File:SCHAFF GESTYKULUJE upeC205.jpg

Adam Schaff, 1945

Adam Schaff (March 10, 1913 – Nov. 12, 2006) was a Polish Marxist philosopher, and Professor at the University of Warsaw.

Quotes

• Humanism does not exist in itself, just as man taken in himself and for himself does not exist. Only concrete man exists, man set in a particular age, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular social class, representing a particular tradition and particular personal ideals.
  • Adam Schaff (1947), cited in: Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio (2007) "Adam Schaff: from Semantics to Political Semiotics." 9th World Congress of IASS/AIS. 2007.

• Neglect of the problem of the human individual leads to impoverishing Marxism at the theoretical level and to distorting it at the practical level. In this mistake lies the deep secret of Stalinism. This is why the protagonists of “true” Marxism — where the individual is absent—are so dangerous. I am referring not only to those who put Stalinism into practice, but also to its theorists, whose various political lucubrations and theoretical mistakes have resulted in the thesis that Marxism is anti-humanism. If this were the case, we would have to fight it. But it is a pure lie: Marxism is humanism, and it is the concern of Marxists to fight in the name of such humanism. This has always been my firm belief, as a Marxist and as a Communist. And this fact explains the choice of the lietmotif of my philosophical works.
  • Adam Schaff (1967) in: "Conversation with Ponzio," in Ponzio 2002; as cited in: Petrilli and Ponzio (2007)

Introduction to semantics, 1962

Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 88-89

• Semantics (semasiology) is a branch of linguistics. The questions which are of particular interest in this connection are — with what is that branch of linguistics concerned, and in what does it see the distinction between itself and the semantic problems found in contemporary logic.

To begin with the term itself: it comes from the eminent French linguist Bréal and is genetically connected with linguistics. In the late 19th century Michel Bréal published his Essai de semantique. Science des significations.

• p. 3

• For Bréal, semantics was the science the subject matter of which was study of the cause and structure of the processes of changes in meanings of words: expansion and contraction of meanings, transfer of meanings, elevation and degradation of their value, etc.

Such a delineation of semantics as a branch of linguistics is maintained to this day, for all the differences between the various schools in linguistics. Such degree of uniformity is not confined to the definition of semantics alone. Not all authors give such a definition; some of them approach the issue from a different point of view as regards general classification... but all schools of linguistics engage in the study of the meanings of words and their changes. Thus all of them, in one way or another, engage in semantics as understood by Breal.

• p. 4

• De Saussur... develops the concept of semiology as the science which studies the functioning of signs in society, and treats linguistics as a branch of such a general science of signs.
  • p. 4

• Carnap : a language, as e.g. English, is a system of activities or, rather, of habits, i.e., dispositions to certain activities, serving mainly for the purposes of communication and of co-ordination of activities among the members of a group.

Gardiner : As a first approximation let us define speech as the use, between man and man, of articulate sound-signs for the communication of their wishes and their views about things.

Morris : A language in the full semiotical sense of the term is any intersubjective set of sign vehicles whose usage is determined by syntactical, semantical, and pragmatical rules.

Szober : We shall call phonic language the set of sounds used for the purpose of establishing communication with one's milieu or reproduced in one's mind for the purpose of clearly realizing one's own thought.

• p. 314 footnote

Quotes about Adam Schaff

• Adam Schaff... was a Polish Marxist philosopher with a special interest in philosophy of language and semiotics, in theory of knowledge and political economy. He focused on problems of semantics, theory of ideology, the relation between language and reality, formal logic, and dialectics. But he also showed a great interest in ethics dealing with the problem of the human individual and the relation between humanism and Marxism. Concerning this aspect he evidenced the connection between the interpretation of Marxism and translation of Marxian terminology, showing the influence of ideology in the practice of translation. As a polish philosopher, Schaff oriented his analysis in a semiotic sense, examining in particular the symptomatology of today's social politics. During the 1980s, he promoted a series of meetings in different countries throughout Eastern and Western Europe to analyze and compare the different versions in different languages of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 from a semiotic perspective. Certain of the topical relevance of his work in semiotics, in this paper we examine a series of issues at the center of Schaff's attention such as the conception of the human individual, the relation between language and knowledge, language and dialectics, the influence of ideology in translation, linguistic fetishism and stereotypes, critique of Chomskyian theory of language, and of hypostatization of such concepts as “structure” and “structuralism.”
  • Susan Petrilli and Augusto Ponzio (2012). "Semantics and critique of political economy in Adam Schaff." Semiotica Vol. 2012, Issue 189 (Apr 2012): 133-168; Abstract