Themes in Soviet Marxist Philosophy: Selected Articles from the ‘Filosofskaja Enciklopedija’

238 Pages·1975·4.76 MB·English

by  Blakeley

THEMES IN SOVIET MARXIST PHILOSOPHY
SOVIETICA
PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS
OF THE INSTITUTE OF E AST-EUROPE AN STUDIES AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG/SWITZERLAND 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
N ikolaus Lobkowicz (Munich)
Editorial Board
Karl G. Ballestrem {Munich) George L. Kline {Bryn Mawr)
Helmut Dahm {Cologne) T. R. Payne {Providence)
Richard T. DeGeorge {Kansas) Friedrich Rapp {Berlin)
Peter Ehlen {Munich) Andries Sarlemijn {Eindhoven)
Michael Gagem {Munich) James Scanlan {Columbus)
Felix P. Ingold {St. Gall) Edward Swiderski {Fribourg)
Bernard Jeu {Lille)
VOLUME 37
THEMES
IN SOVIET MARXIST
PHILOSOPHY
Selected Articles from the ‘Filosofskaja Enciklopedija’
Edited by
T. J. BLAKELEY
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S. A.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Themes in Soviet Marxist Philosophy.
(Sovietica ; v. 37)
1. Dialectical materialism—Addresses, essays, lectures.
2. Philosophy, Russian—Addresses, essays, lectures. I.
Blakeley, Thomas J. II. Filosofskaia entsiklopediia. III.
Series.
B809.8.T47 146.3 75-28254
ISBN-13:978-94-010-1875-3 e-ISBN-13:978-94-010-1873-9
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-1873-9
Translated from the Russian by T. J. Blakeley
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.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
English translation copyright © 1975 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1975
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publisher
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE DC
ABBREVIATIONS XI
l. ljaxoveckij and v. tjuxtin / The Basic Question of
Philosophy 1
A. spirkin / Dialectical Materialism 5
i. The Object of Dialectical Materialism 5
ii. The Origins of Diamat 6
m. The Leninist Stage in the Development of Diamat 11
IV. Matter and Consciousness 15
V. The Dialectic of the Cognitive Process 17
VI. The Dialectic as Logic and Theory of Knowledge 21
VII. The Categories and Laws of the Dialectic 22
VIII. Dialectical Materialism and Modem Science 31
IX. The Unity of Diamat and Histomat 35
X. Diamat and Histomat as Conceptual Tools of the Marxist
Party 36
XI. Diamat and Contemporary Bourgeois Philosophy 38
XII. Diamat and the Present 42
v. bibler and n. ovcinnikov / Matter 48
a. spirkxn / Consciousness 59
I. The History of Views on Consciousness 60
II. The Material Base and the Ideal Essence of Consciousness 62
III. The Activity of Consciousness. Consciousness and Reality 64
IV. The Structure of Consciousness. Psyche and Consciousness.
Consciousness and Self-Consciousness 66
V. The Emergence of Consciousness and Its Biological Pre­
requisites 69
VI. The Social Essence of Consciousness. Individual and Social
Consciousness 71
VI TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. BOGOMOLOV, P. KOPNIN, A. LOSEV, E. SITKOVSKIJ, and
a. spirkin / Dialectical Logic 74
I. The Object of Dialectical Logic and Its Tasks 74
II. The History of Dialectical Logic 76
III. Dialectic Logic in Bourgeois Philosophy at the Turn of This
Century 86
IV. Dialectical Logic in Soviet Philosophy 93
V. The Basic Principles and Laws of Dialectical Logic 94
VI. On the System of Dialectical Categories 99
VII. On the Dialectic of Categories 101
a. leont’ev, m. j aroSevskij, and a. petrovskij / Psychology 105
i. The History of Foreign Psychology 110
ii. The History of Soviet Psychology 117
b. kedrov and a. spirkin / Science 122
I. The Concept of ‘Science’ 122
II. The General Characteristics of Science 122
III. The Object, Methods and Structure of Scientific Knowledge 126
IV. The Social Essence of Science 131
V. The Laws of the Development of Science 138
VI. Conditions and Tendencies in the Development of Contem­
porary Science 140
f. Konstantinov / Historical Materialism 147
I. The Social-Economic Presuppositions of the Emergence of
Histomat 147
II. The Conceptual Presuppositions of the Emergence of His­
tomat 149
III. Diamat and Histomat. Specificity of the Laws of Social Life 153
IV. The Social-Economic Formation 157
V. The People as Creator of History 161
VI. The Historical Laws and Conscious Human Activity. Neces­
sity and Freedom 164
VII. The Leninist Stage in the Development of Histomat 169
VIII. Histomat’s Partisanship. Histomat and Modern Bourgeois
Sociology 173
IX. The Idealist and Reactionary Character of Bourgeois Soci­
ology 176
TABLE OF CONTENTS VII
l. leont’ev / Political Economy 179
O. DROBNICKIJ / Ethics 185
I. The Origin of the Term and the Notion 185
II. The Object and Tasks 185
III. The Basic Problems of Ethics and Types of Ethical Theory 189
IV. Marxist Ethics 192
a. losev / Esthetics 200
i. The History of Esthetics 200
ii. Esthetics in Russia 209
h i. Emergence and Development of Marxist Esthetics 211
IV. The Esthetic as Object of Esthetics 214
INDEX OF NAMES 220

PREFACE
The Soviet philosophical scene has experienced remarkable growth
since the innovations of the 50’s and the renovations of the 60’s. This
volume of Sovietica is intended by the editors as a finger on the pulse of
the Marxist-Leninist corpus philosophicum as we enter the 1970’s.
Published in the years between 1960 and 1970, the Filosofskaja en-
ciklopedija (FE) has replaced the Kratkij filosofskij slovar * (Short Philo­
sophic Dictionary: 1939, 1941, 1951 and 1954) and the Filosofskij
slovar ’ (Philosophic Dictionary: 1963). It is an impressive work - 2994
pages in five volumes (I, 1960, 504 pp.; II, 1962, 575 pp.; Ill, 1964,
584 pp.; IV, 1967, 591 pp.; V, 1970, 740 pp.), with the editors and authors
representing all the contemporary Soviet philosophers of note. The FE
has been extensively reviewed in Kommunist (1972, 5, 119-127) and in
Studies in Soviet Thought [beginning with SST 12 (1972) 4].
Restrictions of space have forced us to omit much that was originally
to be included. The same limitations have obliged us to deviate from the
initial methodological rule which was ‘to include only complete, un­
abridged articles’ - in order to avoid distortion by selection. Only two
articles have been shortened: only the basic portion of ‘science’ has been
included; we have dropped ‘natural science’, ‘sciences on man and
society’, and ‘classification of sciences’ (a total of thirteen pages in
Russian) - this last with regret and with apologies to Professor Kedrov.
Secondly, we have omitted all the derivative forms of ‘psychology’
(‘child psychology’, ‘psychology of labor’, ‘engineering psychology’,
‘space psychology’, ‘war psychology’, ‘comparative psychology’, ‘psy­
chology of creativity’ - a total of three pages in Russian). In all cases,
we have omitted the bibliographies which follow each article.
The articles in this volume have been chosen with an eye to giving the
reader an idea of the current state of the mainstream of contemporary
Soviet philosophy. Therefore, we have not included any horrendous
hack-work. On the other hand, we have left out much of the very
sophisticated Soviet work on logic, information theory, etc.
X PREFACE
The translation has pursued informativeness rather than rigid re­
production of sentences. The transcription is that of SST. Wherever
possible, quotations have been rendered from existing translations (for
example, from Tucker’s Marx-Engels Reader, Norton).
Where we have had to do our own version of e.g., Lenin, the reference
remains to the Russian (e.g., Soc., t. 21, s. 35). A list of abbreviations
follows. We would like to thank Ms. Kathleen Wright for her editorial
assistance. Professors Richard T. DeGeorge and George L. Kline were
kind enough to offer helpful suggestions for revising the translations.