The Philosophical Foundations of Soviet Aesthetics: Theories and Controversies in the Post-War Years

241 Pages·1979·15.51 MB·English

by  Edward M. Swiderski (auth.)

THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF
SOVIET AESTHETICS
SOVIETICA
PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS
OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST-EUROPEAN STUDIES AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG/SWITZERL'AND AND
THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA
AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND THE SEMINAR
FOR POLITICAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
Founded by J. M. BOCHENSKI (Fribourg)
Edited by T. J. BLAKELEY (Boston), GUIDO KUNG (Fribourg), and
NIKOLAUS LOBKOWICZ (Munich)
Editorial Board
Karl G. Ballestrem (Munich) Bernard Jeu (Lille)
Helmut Dahm (Cologne) George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr)
Richard T. DeGeorge (Kansas) T. R. Payne (Providence)
Peter Ehlen (Munich) Friedrich Rapp (Berlin)
Michael Gagern (Munich) Andries Sarlemijn (Eindhoven)
Felix P. Ingold (St. Gall) James Scanlan (Columbus)
Edward Swiderski (Fribourg)
VOLUME 42
EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI
Institute of East European Studies, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
THE PHILOSOPHICAL
FOUNDATIONS OF
SOVIET AESTHETICS
Theories and Controversies in the
Post -War Years
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT: HOLLAND / BOSTON: U.S.A.
LONDON:ENGLAND
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Swiderski, Edward M. 1948-
The philosophical foundations of Soviet aesthetics.
(Sovietica ; v. 42)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Aesthetics, Russian. 2. Communist aesthetics.
3. Dialectical materialism. I. Title. II. Series.
BH221.R93S95 111.8'5 79-12856
ISBN-13: 978-94-009-9436-2 e-ISBN-I3: 978-94-009-9434-8
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-9434-8
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
Lincoln Building, 160 Old Derby Street, Hingham,
Mass. 02043, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright © 1979 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover I st edition 1979
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any informational storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix
INTRODUCTION xi
0.1. General Description of the Problematic xi
0.2. Purpose of the Study and Its Intrinsic Interest xii
0.3. literature and Method xvi
PART I
CHAPTER I / THE OBJECT AND METHODS OF SOVIET
AESTHETICS 3
1.1 The General State of Soviet Aesthetics 3
1.2. The Object of Aesthetics 6
1.3. Aesthetics as a Science 13
1.31. Aesthetics and Marxist-Leninist Philosophy 15
1.32. Aesthetics and Methodology 19
1.321. A Periodization of the Dominant Approaches
to Aesthetics 22
1.322. 'Vulgar' or Extreme Sociologism 23
1.323. 'Vulgar' or Extreme Gnoseologism 27
1.324. 'Acadernism', 'Empiricism' and 'Historism' 29
1.325. Methodological Pluralism 31
1.4. The Sub-divisions of the Aesthetic Problematic 41
CHAPTER II / THE SOURCES AND ORIGINS OF MARXIST
LENINIST AESTHETICS 47
2.1. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels 47
2.2. Lenin 54
2.3. Plekhanov 60
2.4. Russian Revolutionary Democrats 64
v
vi T ABLE OF CONTENTS
PART II
CHAPTER III / THE AESTHETIC: CHRONOLOGY OF THE 1956-
1966 DISCUSSIONS AND ITS PHILOSOPHICAL FRAMEWORK 71
3.0. General Survey of the Esteticeskoe Discussion 71
3.1. Initial Formulations 72
3.11. The Societalists 73
3.12. The Naturists 75
3.13. The Polemic 76
3.14. Subsequent Transitions and Developments 77
3.2. The Philosophical Framework of the Esteticeskoe Discussion 77
3.21. The Essential Questions 78
3.22. Three Basic Biases and Their Correlations 81
CHAPTER IV / THE AESTHETIC: THE SOCIETALISTS AND
NATURISTS 87
4.1. The Essence of the Aesthetic 87
4.11. The Objectivity of the Aesthetic 87
4.12. Aesthetic Qualities or Properties 88
4.121. Content and Form. The Essence of the Aesthe-
tic According to the Societalists 92
4.13. Harmony and the Laws of Matter. The Naturist Con-
ception 96
4.2. The Aesthetic Categories 102
4.21. The Naturist Theory of the Categories 104
4.22. The Societalist Theory of the Categories 107
4.3. The Aesthetic Relation 114
4.31. Fluidity of the Concept 114
4.32. Appropriation vs. Cognition 115
4.33. The Specificity of the Aesthetic Relation 118
4.331. Characteristic Features of the Aesthetic Experi-
ence 120
4.34. Aesthetic Evaluation and Judgement 125
4.341. Aesthetic Taste and Judgement 127
4.342. The Aesthetic Ideal 129
4.4. The Aesthetic and The Question of Art (the Artistic) 130
4.41. The Question of the Specificity of Art 132
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
4.42. The Object of Art 134
4.43. The Societalist Theory of the Object of Art 136
4.44. The Specificity of the Content of Art 138
CHAPTER V / THE AESTHETIC: THE STRUGGLE OVER THE
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS 144
5.1. The Traditional Attitude Toward the Young Marx 144
5.2. Aesthetic Passages in the Manuscripts 147
5.3. Practice 154
5.31. Excursus: Non-natural Needs and the Social Mediation
of Nature 157
5.32. The Human Senses and Practice 162
5.4. Social Being 166
5.5 . Realism and the Socio-human Object 173
5.6. The 'Laws of Beauty' 176
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 182
NOTES AND REFERENCES 190
BIBLIOGRAPHY 210
INDEX OF NAMES 220
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 223
.:,"
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is indebted to at least the following persons: Prof. T. J. Blakeley,
Boston College, for introducing me to research in Soviet philosophy, en
couraging my initial efforts and guiding this study to publishable form; Prof.
Emeritus J. M. Bochenski, FribouFg, who braved the unknown when he took
me into the Institute of East European Studies, and whose scholarly rigor has
always been a model to follow; Prof. Guido Kung, Fribourg, who accepted
this study as a doctoral dissertation and created the conditions conducive to
research; Doc. Dr. Bohdan Dziemidok, Lublin, Poland, who generously put at
my disposal his library and expertise in Marxist aesthetics; the personnel of
the Polonijne Centrum, Lublin, Poland, who veritably outdid themselves in
arranging for access to much needed materials; Marthe Jacquat, who under
took the difficult task of typing under particularly trying circumstances; my
wife, Martha, who assisted in the preparation of the fmal copy and who
throughout the long period provided moral support and a sense of purpose.
ix
INTRODUCTION
0.1. GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEMATIC
This study is devoted to an examination of a concept of crucial significance
for Soviet aesthetics - the concept of the aesthetic (esteticeskoe). Soviet
aestheticians have for some time already been trying to design a concept of
the aesthetic that would satisfy, on the one hand, the requirements of aesthe
tic phenomena, and, on the other hand, the principles of the Marxist-Leninist
world view.
The first part of this work shows how the concept of the aesthetic has
been and continues to be problematic for Soviet aestheticians. This task is
carried out by dwelling, first of all, on the controversies among Soviet aesthe
ticians concerning meta-aesthetic issues, viz, the nature and scope of aesthetics
as well as its place among other philosophical and non-philosophical disci
plines. A particularly clear view of the problems that have traditionally pre
occupied Soviet aestheticians is provided by an examination of what they
standardly call the 'method of aesthetics', where 'method' is understood in
the sense of an explanatory framework rather than in the strict logico-scien
tific sense of the term. This discussion will provide the occasion to pass in
review the main periods of Soviet aesthetics and the characteristic aspects of
each.
The chapter on the sources of contemporary Marxist-Leninist aesthetics
brings into relief the lack of a homogeneous tradition in the question of the
nature of the aesthetic and other related problems. The main issue among
those examined in this chapter will have to do with conflicting elements in
the doctrines of the forbears of contemporary Soviet aesthetics.
Lest the reader wonder why the chapter about the sources of Soviet aes
thetics falls in second place, it should be stressed here, that, as far as the
author is concerned, the 'aesthetics' of Marx, Engels and Lenin has to be
interpolated into their writings. Accordingly, the defmitions of aesthetics and
its methods in the first chapter provide the standards with which to assess the
Soviets' claims about the allegedly developed aesthetic views of the 'Classics'.
Furthermore, this approach reveals that Soviet aestheticians took different
portions of the 'classics" doctrines at different periods, depending on the
xi
xii INTRODUCTION
prevailing point of view on meta-aesthetic issues (e.g. the defmition of the
object of aesthetics and its relation to Marxist-Leninist philosophy).
At the end of the first part it should be clear that the problems confront
ing Soviet aestheticians as to the nature and scope of their discipline are to a
large extent dependent on the solution of the philosophical question concern
ing the nature of the aesthetic as such.
The second part of the study is concentrated on the first, and so far most
intensive Soviet discussion of the philosophical foundations of aesthetics,
viz. the discussion that took place from 1956 to circa 1964-1965. The
conceptions of the two most important schools of thought of that period, the
societalists (obscestvenniki) and the naturists (prirodnikl), are set forth and
analyzed in Chapter Four. In order to illuminate the characteristic bent of
their thinking, however, the preceding chapter is devoted to the essential
questions undertaken by all sides in the controversy. Here it will be important
to bring out as clearly as possible the philosophical framework within which
Soviet aestheticians of the day had to work. The last chapter, fmally, comes
back to the leading philosophical differences that caused the split among the
aestheticians into the two aforementioned schools of thought.
The conclusion will be a summary as well as an attempt to assess the im
pact of the esteticeskoe discussion on the more recent Soviet treatments of
similar questions.
0.2. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY AND ITS INTRINSIC INTEREST
The main purpose is to show how and why Soviet aestheticians have encoun
tered considerable difficulties in resolving the question of the aesthetic in the
context of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. The various options open to Soviet
aestheticians in this regard - e.g. to name the most obvious ones, to consider
aesthetics in the light of the Leninist reflection theory of knowledge as a
doctrine about art truthfully reproducing reality, or in the light of Marxian
socio-economic doctrine as a theory about art as form of social consciousness
or as a theory of the differentiation of social practice into artistic activity,
etc. - are examined from the Soviet perspective as they have been employed
singly or in combination to explain the aesthetic.
Notwithstanding Marxist Leninist methodological directives, Soviet aesthe
ticians increasingly came to the realization that the very essence of the phe
nomena they were concerned with had so far eluded them. One important
reason they offered for that state of affairs was precisely their traditionally
great dependence on the philosophical axioms of their world view. It had