Eugene Kamenka (4 March 1928 – 19 January 1994) was an Australian political philosopher and Marxist scholar.

Biography

Kamenka was born in

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

in 1928 and migrated to Australia with his parents in 1937. He was educated at the

Sydney Technical High School Sydney Technical High School (STHS) is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for boys, located in Bexley, a southern suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1911 as part of Sydney Technic ...

, and after interrupting his studies went to Jerusalem where he married his first wife Miriam Mizrachi and with her encouragement he returned to Sydney University to complete his degree and begin work on his later published thesis "The Ethical Foundations of

Marxism Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...

" for the Australian national university, publ 1962. Professor John Anderson of Sydney University was a key influence in his early career. Kamenka lectured in philosophy at the

University of Singapore The National University of Singapore (NUS) is a national public research university in Singapore. Founded in 1905 as the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States Government Medical School, NUS is the oldest autonomous university in the ...

where he met his second wife,

Alice Tay Alice Erh-Soon Tay (1934–2004) was an Australian academic lawyer, an eminent jurisprudence and comparative law scholar. She was president of the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission from 1998 to 2003. Early life and educa ...

and went on to lecture and research around

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

, North America, and

Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...

. He was a Professor and the Head of the History of Ideas Unit at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Australian National University, and lived in Canberra. Together with Tay, a professor of jurisprudence at Sydney University and scholar of comparative and Asian legal systems, he authored several works in philosophy of law and comparative law. He died in Canberra.

Works

*''Marxism and Ethics'' (1969) *''A World in Revolution?'' (1970) *''The Philosophy of

Ludwig Feuerbach Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced gene ...

'' (1970) *''Nationalism: The Nature and Evolution of an Idea'' (1976) *''The Portable Karl Marx'' (1983) *''Bureaucracy'' (1989)

References

External links

The Ethical Foundations of Marxism
by Eugene Kamenka (1962)

by Eugene Kamenka (1965) {{DEFAULTSORT:Kamenka, Eugene 20th-century Australian philosophers Marxist theorists 1928 births 1994 deaths University of Sydney alumni Australian National University alumni Australian National University faculty National University of Singapore faculty Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Australia Jewish socialists

Biography

Works

See also

References

External links