Franjo Marković (or Franjo pl. Marković; July 26, 1845 in
Križevci – September 15, 1914 in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...
) was a
Croatian philosopher and writer.
He was an academician, the first professor of philosophy at the renovated
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...
in 1874. He defended the identity of philosophy as a
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
discipline, as opposed to
scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Ca ...
on one side, and
positivism
Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...
and
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
on the other side.
His greatest philosophical work is the ''Razvoj i sustav obćenite estetike'' ("The development and the system of general aesthetics"), which heavily influenced the development of Croatian philosophical thought due to its extensive and all-encompassing overview of the history of
aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
in
Croatian, and the introduction of new philosophic terms. He is the founder of the research of Croatian philosophic heritage.
As a writer, he is noted for his lyric-reflexive poetry, epic compositions and dramas. He is a characteristic
Romanticist ("national-romantic spirit"), and his poetry was greatly influenced by
Adam Mickiewicz.
Biography
Born in a noble family to father Antun and mother Josipa (b. Šugh), he attended the
gymnasium at the Nobility Boarding School in Zagreb. In 1862 he left for a study of
classical philology and
Slavic studies
Slavic (American English) or Slavonic (British English) studies, also known as Slavistics, is the academic field of area studies concerned with Slavic peoples, Slavic peoples, languages, literature, history, and culture. Originally, a Slavist or ...
in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. He graduated in 1865, and the next year he passed his gymnasium professorship exam. He worked as an assistant and soon became a full professor at gymnasiums in Osijek and Zagreb. In 1870, after a political protest, he left his service and went to Vienna to study philosophy, and soon to Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Paris, receiving his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1872.
In 1874, he was appointed the first head of the independent department for philosophy in Zagreb and the dean of the
Faculty of Philosophy. That year the renovated
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...
was founded, and within it, the Faculty of philosophy (then called ''Mudroslovni fakultet''), and in it, the Department for Philosophy (''Stolica za mudroslovje teoretično i praktično sa povjestnicom''). He served as a rector of the University in the academic year 1881/1882. He continued to teach until his retirement in 1909.
He served as the editor-in-chief of ''
Vijenac'' in the period 1872–1873. He was also a member of
Matica hrvatska from 1875, and a full member of
JAZU from 1876.
He served as a representative of the
Križevci county in the Parliament of Croatia and Slavonia in the last two decades of the 19th century (at the period of ban
Dragutin Károly Khuen-Héderváry). As a member of a mild opposition, he operated by his own principles, insisting on ethical principles in politics. As a "typical representative of Croatian minor nobility" he defended Croatian interests against Hungarian imperialistic pretensions and advocated for constitutional protection, political freedom, and the "spiritual prospect and material development" of the common people.
Teaching of philosophy
Marković held lectures on all philosophic disciplines (
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure o ...
,
psychology
Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
,
physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
,
metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...
,
ethics
Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...
,
aesthetics
Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...
,
epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
,
pedagogy
Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...
and the
history of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the systematic study of the development of philosophical thought. It focuses on philosophy as rational inquiry based on argumentation, but some theorists also include myth, religious traditions, and proverbial lor ...
). In his era, the concept of "philosophy" also encompassed history, geography, linguistics, anthropology, pedagogy, natural sciences and mathematics, which were taught by other professors.
In his pedagogy, he adhered to the system developed by
Johann Friedrich Herbart
Johann Friedrich Herbart (; 4 May 1776 – 14 August 1841) was a German philosopher, psychologist and founder of pedagogy as an academic discipline.
Herbart is now remembered amongst the post-Kantian philosophers mostly as making the greatest ...
, which at the period (after the revolutionary 1848, which was much contributed to by young
Hegelianists, so the authorities were intent to suppress Hegel's and
Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
's influence) was generally accepted in Germany and
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...
. His system had pedagogic qualities for the development of consistence and strictness in conceptual thought and was hence fit to be "propedeutics of philosophical spirit at us".
Albert Bazala, which inherited in 1909 Marković's department, abandons Herbart's system). He monitored all current spiritual movements, read German, French, English and other authors, and made his students known with their works, even if they were not sanctioned by him.
As the first professor of philosophy with a systematic teaching record, translating and writing in vernacular language (and not Latin or German), Marković made a substantial impact on the development of Croatian philosophical terminology.
In 1880 he promoted
Đuro Arnold as the first Ph.D. in philosophy, who finally joined him in 1894 as a full professor. Arnold had, along with the philosophical teachings, lead the department of pedagogy. In 1904, he habilitated
Albert Bazala as a private ''docent'' of philosophy.
Philosophical orientation
Marković, the first Croatian professor of philosophy that was not a priest, cherished self-consciousness of philosophy as opposed to the
scholastic tradition and
neo-scholasticism, which was promoted at that time in vernacular writings by the professors of the Faculty of Theology and other
theologians
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
. On the other side, defending the metaphysics he was confronted with materialism and positivism, which reached Croatia at that period, and where he is followed by his disciple
Albert Bazala. "Nothing valuable is produced by human labour without the vigorous, logical, aesthetic and ethic tendency, i.e. without philosophic tendency."
Herbart's school
In his lectures and writings he continued the metaphysical tradition of European school of thought, following essentially
Herbart's formalism, which provides a compromise between the exactness of natural sciences and the metaphysical speculation, with an emphasis on the strictness of conceptual thought. He emphasized psychology as a starting point of philosophy (
psychologism
Psychologism is a family of philosophical positions, according to which certain psychological facts, laws, or entities play a central role in grounding or explaining certain non-psychological facts, laws, or entities. The word was coined by Joh ...
): "Her
f a philosophyinfinite, ultimately never reachable goal is a prudential system of cogitations and within it organised sentiments and aspirations."
Herbart's school, as hence the Marković himself, insist on maintaining diversity and irreducibility of psychic and material nature, especially contradicting materialist reducibility of former to the latter. He deems that "rational psychology and cosmology bear witness in favor of spiritism", i.e. against materialism: the matter is not sentient and free, and thus not subject to the law of causativity, so man's consciousness and freedom cannot possibly be a result of matter, but of higher and perfected being, i.e. the spirit.
Aesthetics
Aesthetically he's a formalist: aesthetic is only the form, not the content; this is where his scholarly personality suppressed his artistic predilections. The art must provide aesthetic pleasure; it should aspire to panhuman ideal, rise above the reality to the value. Therefore, Marković is not particularly supportive of naturalism and realism: naturalism simply depicts abject and vicious sides of life. The object of art must be beauteous not only by its form, but also venerable by its content. Illustrious artists are "folk teachers, the creators of life".
Ethics
In
ethical
Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied e ...
issues he mostly diverged from formalistic confines of Herbart's school, taking interest into positivist and sociological currents and expressing his own, intensive ethical sentiment. He denounced
naturalism,
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
and
Darwin's theory of evolution, which lead to the "bankruptcy of ethics", giving prominence to either
egoism
Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or , as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normativ ...
, or "benefit to society, as understood by the public". Albert Bazala criticizes narrow-minded ethical principles of his teacher quite voluminously, and so does
Gjuro Arnold.
Critical spirit and rising of the people
Marković applied Herbart's glorification of philosophy as a bellwether of culture to Croatian circumstances. He emphasizes the significance of industrious labor on the cognition and cultivation of critical spirit. Philosophy has a long-term educational task of rising people to the fulfillment of its potential. Philosophy is the "sentient cultural spirit", which metamorphosises and sets path towards prosperity of the nation and its "life style" in general. It creates "spiritual homeland", the "homeland of thoughts", which is the defender of material homeland. By learning from other nations, one has to develop distinctiveness and peculiarities at a path to the cognition of the ideal of truth, goodness and beauty. That is a duty not only to the people, but to the human kind itself: philosophy already brings individuals closer, and given enough time it shall unite even the nations.
Literary work
Marković published a series of literary works, most important of which are the epics and the dramas in national-romanticist tradition. As opposed to the formalistic and racionalist conception of philosophy, "Marković his personal aspect, his sentimentalism and desireful ponderings ensconces under the veil of poetry."
Mostly dealing with the historical motifs, Marković engaged in the ongoing battle for the affirmation of Croatdom against Hungarian and German domination. Idyllic epic ''Dom i svijet'' ('The home and the world') elaborates on contemporary themes. Epic ''Kohan i Vlasta'' ('Kohan and Vlasta') portrays a battle of old Slavs and Germans on the Baltic. The tragedy ''Karlo Drački'' depicts man's suffering in the struggle for panhuman ideal of freedom against the Rome and Magyar feudal lords. The tragedies ''Benk bot'' and ''Zvonimir'' display vices and rapacity of Hungarian landlords and court. Marković also wrote poems, literary critics and studies. He composed lyrics for quire version of the song ''
U boj!'' from the opera ''
Nikola Šubić Zrinski''.
Philosophic works
Occupied by lecturing and literary work he published few pieces in philosophy. He published the book ''Razvoj i sustav obćenite estetike'' (1903).
His major books and general works published during his lifetime include:
*''Estetička ocjena Gundulićeva "Osmana"'', Zagreb, 1877.
*''O piscih filozofijske struke a hrvatskoga roda'', "Vienac", 44/1881. (inaugural speech as a rector)
*''Filosofijski rad Rugjera Josipa Boškovića'', Zagreb, 1887.–1888.
*''Etički sadržaj naših narodnih poslovica'', Zagreb, 1889.
*''Prilog estetičkoj nauci o baladi i romanci'', Zagreb, 1899.
*''Razvoj i sustav obćenite estetike'', Zagreb, 1903.
In 1970 his selected works (''Izabrana djela'') were published in the edition ''Pet stoljeća hrvatske književnosti'' ('Five centuries of Croatian literature'), vol. 44.
A bulk of his lecture manuscripts has been preserved,
some of which have been processed and published in the periodical ''Prilozi za istraživanje hrvatske filozofske baštine''.
Notes
References
*
*
*
*
* (the chapter on Marković was written by
Ivan Čehok
Ivan Čehok () (born 13 September 1965) is a Croatian politician who served as mayor of Varaždin from 2001 to 2011, and from 2017 to 2021. He was a prominent member of the Croatian Social Liberal Party (HSLS).
Čehok was born in Korenjak (part ...
)
Further reading
*
External links
Franjo Marković biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Markovic, Franjo
1845 births
1914 deaths
People from Križevci
Croatian philosophers
Philosophers from Austria-Hungary
Rectors of universities in Austria-Hungary
Rectors of the University of Zagreb
Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Representatives in the Croatian Parliament (1848–1918)
Academic staff of the University of Zagreb
Burials at Mirogoj Cemetery