Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez

Adolfo Sanchez Vazquez, who lived from September 17, 1915 to July 8, 2011, was a Spanish born Mexican philosopher born in Algeciras, Andalusia, renowned for his critical interpretation of Marxist theory and his contributions to aesthetic philosophy. He emigrated to Mexico in 1939 after the Spanish Civil War, during which he had edited the publication of the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas, earned advanced degrees from Mexico's National Autonomous University, and became a full time professor of aesthetics and philosophy there in 1959, achieving emeritus status in 1985. His major works, The Aesthetic Ideas of Marx in 1965, The Philosophy of Praxis in 1967, and Aesthetics and Marxism in 1970, developed an open, renovating, critical and non-dogmatic version of Marxism paralleling the approach of the Frankfurt School, and his work also addressed ethics, arguing against strictly normative approaches to the discipline; he received Mexico's National Prize for Arts and Sciences in 2002 and Spain's Grand Cross of Alfonso X the Wise.