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|]tltjtiHI SS PUStlStlIttS . Mrlscuw 'l'. l. (,lrrrmrn lr r (lorrupondlng Mrnrbar ol lhr At,nrtmry ol Sr.k.nces ol tha llt{!{ll trtl urthor ol n number ot rlr.lslhrl riutllen ol thc hlriory of Dro-Mrrxlrt, Mnrxlnt nrrrl r.urrk.nrllorary luturgcolr phllonoph.v. !Jr.vr.rnt ol hlr lxxlkr lrulr. br.rrr trnrrllrrk rl. 'l'lrc I,'or'- tttttliott rrl' Mitt'risl l'ltrkrsoltlrv hrs bocrt puhllnhr,rl lll (i(.rrnurt. J11llrrrr.sr., t'ollrh trtttl lltttrgarltttr. Alrcrrirlion ils it llistor- tt'rl (lut(,H!)l'y, lJ:rsit' Stirgcs in the I)r'vr,luptttt.ttt oI l't't.-Mirrxist. I)hilosophy ntrtl 'l'lrt, l'ltilosoplr.v ol' Ilcgcl havt also rp;x.trr.d lrr (ir.rnrnu, irnd various other wrrrks lrt l.lngtish, l,'rt nch, Slrarrish, llulgrrlrrr, (lhlrrcst. ('zt ch rnd Greek. Itlolllt'rrrs ol llrt' I listoly of Philosophy lr rr tht ort llt'nl ilrquiry into the process ol rk vekrpnrent of phllosophical krrowl- trl,ar. u'hlch has led traturally to the rtnr(tr,{(tlr(:(. of tho Marxist scientillco- phllosollhlcnl world view. Orr [he basis of rrrrngrorltlve analysis of the philo- rrrDhl('trl rlo<'trlrres of pas[ and present thr. uulhor delineates the speciflcally phlkrsophlcol form of knowledge, the rtaturr. ol phllosophlcal problems, the crrien(!1. ol phllosophkral controversy, the bmkr fr.oture of phllosophlcal argu- mentuilon rnd the relatlonshlp of phl- lorotlhy to other fornrs of social con- rcloulnellll. end io rveryday &nd his- iorh'rl r.xDerlen(e, 'l'he dlve rgence of phlltttutphlctl dor.trlnen ond lhelr po- l*rlrtllon lnto the opponlte trends of mrlr.rlnllrm srrd ldenll!.rn ln followed riap by ria1l. Itr erlultry ihr. obJecilve tteccrrlly for lhe rrlenllllrro-phlkrrophl- r,rl world vlew. lho [uahor trncel the rrhrrrtlnf rirtur ol phllorophy ln the iytafltr ol rclanlllle hrrowledgrr of na- turr. trrtd rorloiy, ihe rolrilonrhlp be- twron Dhllorophy rnd lhe rperrlollred u'lorttrr, lho tl+votopnront ol lha nub- Jrtt't-tttrltrr ol DhlloroDhy, rrnd ltr ldc- olnlk,tl rttnttotra tnd runollou.
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MOSCOW Translated frbm thi Russian CONTENTS by Robert Daglish
INTRODUCTION
O hapter One l_ryq_]]ovE oF wrsDoM. oRrcrN oF THE T. OR3EPIIAH NOTION OF "PHILOSOPHY" IIpo6ueuu ltcroptrKo-Q[nocoQcrofi l. Secqlarisation of "Divine', Wisdom l8 HayKts 36 3. A New,Age and a New Ideal of philosophical Ha auetufrcrcon aswxe p."Uiir"'rf^nowledge 'as' 'Real 'probiem 42 l. Wirao* a : . 52 ()hapter Tao ,.WHAT r[E4rtr]tc oF THE QUESTTON rS I'IIILOSOPHY?''
I. PJrilos_ophy as a Problem for Itself 65 2. How P_hilolnnhl Delimits, Cognises and Deter- mines Itself 'Form 76 s. Fir;a Airi"ri""f of Tneoretical' Knowl-' 82 4. Philosophy as an Alienated Form of Social Lionscrousnenss . 88 5. q".i;i- 's.i."..r C;;;;i;"';.'; o. . . : : : 97 6. Criticism of the Existentialist Inteipritaiion of 107 Clmltter Three First printing 1979 AS A SPECTFTC lllr-LoloBHY(IOGNITION FORM OF
@ Translation into English. l. Qualitative Diversity of Knowledge l15 Progress Publishers 1975 !. $neculation, Logic, iracts .". . : . r20 3. Intuition, Truth, Creative Imagination . 136 4. lnterpretation as a Mode oT philosophical Union ol Sortiet Soci,alist rnqulry 148 Printed in the 5. Theoretical ReBublics Synthesis of Diverse Conteni 166 Chapter Four Introduction DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY AS A PHILOSOPHICAI, PROBLEM l.- Difficulties of Defining Philosophy Drle to the F.."tiu. Nature of its Histoiical Develop- ment 178 2. Diversity of 191 3. Philosophy 219
ChaPter Fiae NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEMS l. Ouestions That Cannot Be Left lJnanswered 237 i. F Old and New, Eternal and Transient"lti*t, 273
Chapter Six THE SUBJECT-MATTER OF PHILOSOPHY 1 The Subject-Matter of Philosophy as a Pro- This book is part of much more comprehensive blem 287 study which the author hopes to complete 302 within 2. Fundamental Philosophical Themes - ' . ' thc next few-years. Dialectical and E-v9n so, though nol embracing s. Til;- srtjict-Mattei of the problems Historical Materialism cc, lll implied in the title. it does dea"l with the specific nature of philosophical know- ChaPter Seoen ItdS.,. its sub,stance, form aird strircture, from PHILOSOPHY AS THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS historical angle and may, therefore, be described OT TgT HISTORICAL EPOCH its a historico-philosophical studv. l. Role of the Personality in the Development of Historico-pfiilosopliical studies come 344 in various Philosophv s}apes and sizes. of them investigate the 2. t;;;il'6 Philosophv and Socio-Economic 6 discover an absolute recording seneralisation of the historico-philosophical proc- Any attempt to "ess system is iust as futile in the history of philo- --iirir"at'tothat is at work throughout the world. sophy as in physics. It immediately gives itself reason thit these criteria (and the aiai, as a c-laim to complete impartiality, and methods of inquiry they entail) may prove com- no real philosopher can be completely impartial, pletely unsatisiactory ii the- historian .of philos- philosophical position any-view. mor-e than-he can be without his own point oohv'adoots a sec[arian of The adepts of impartiality ignore the uird'uttrri.t, for example, that only Thomas obvious fact that historians of philosophy place Ai"i"ut created a svsteri of absolute philosophi- forerunners- (with different value on one and the same doitrine, .ii tr.rths, whereas'his great-Aristotle) and this happens not because they,have been the oossibie exception of languished in remiss in studvins their sources and facts or be- darkness and th6 philosophers of any later pe-- cause thev have"departed from the scientific ,'iod have merely departid from. the-true. path standards'demanded by historiography. The crux laid down for ttrem by-Marxism, "Doctor Angelicus". of the matter lies much deeper. The philosophv of however, does No exposition can be a word-for-word repe- urovide^ u ,eui theoretical basis for a scientific tition of what a particular philosopher wrote. At iristorv of philosophy, since it scientifically sum- the very least it will be a ietelling in one's own rnaris6s th6 whol6 development of philosophical words. But what serious investigator of the his- thought up to the time of the emer-gence of Marx- torical process of the development of- philoso-phy ism ind continues to do so as subsequent stages would 6onfine himself to a mere retelling, which itrc reached. This also means that dialectical ahd does not usually imply understanding?- Under- historical materialism is not only historically but standing and in[erprdtition are inseparable from llso logically'iriticilly based on the history of philosophy, each ot[er and the student of the history of phi- which analyses the manifold - c-oncep- losophy must strive for a scientifically obiective tions of nhilosophv and formulates as a deduction undirslanding of his subject, which is quite- in- l'rom its whole development (and that of scientific compatible w:ith refusal io take up any definite cosnition in general) the basic premises of dia- theoretical and, hence, conceptual position. For lciiical and historical materialism. In this sense, this reason the demand that one should remain it may-as be said that the scientific history of philos- utterly dispassionate in writing the history of ophy a theoretical conception of the develop- nhilosbphv-is merelv an invitation to remain in rnent of philosophical knowledge iq an organic iiruEr"'"*et t with dneself, with one's theoretical .o-pore.rt of the philosophy of Marxism. The consiience. Science is impossible without criteria con&pt "philosopliy of Marxism". is wider in of scientificality, but in philosophy and th-e history rcope'than the coircept "dialectic-al'and historical of philosophy ihere is no unanimity on this ques- rnaterialism", because it also embraces the scien- tiori. Hisforico-philosophical science has there- lific history of philosophy as well as certain disciplines (ethics, aesthetics, fore to work oui critefia for the evaluation of other -philoiophicil philosophical doctrines, proceeding from critical ctc.). I Dialectical and historical materialism is funda- rlried solutions and formulas, but in its ability to mentally opposed to any group limitations or guide inquiry into the development of philosophy narrowness. One has cinly to recall how the foun- ulong a truly scientific path. ders of Marxism-Leninism criticised not only Since it applies what Engels called the "logical vulgar but also metaphysical, mechanistic mate- method", historico-philosophical science is itself rialism, and also the anthropolosical materialism a philosophical theory. It investigates such spe- of Feuerbach, or how highly they valued the bril- cific features of philosophy as the forms of cogni- liant ideas contained in the idealist teachings of lion, its basic types, structure, problems, and de- Plato, Aristotle, T bibnitz, Rousseau and Hegel. vclopment, its relation to other forms of social From this we realise that Marxism is the philo- <:onsciousneqs (particularly science, art, religion), sophy in which objectivity and partisanship are lhe nature of philosophical controversy, change organically united. in the subiect of philosophy and the affirmation The philosophy of Marxi-sm, while rejecting on of scientific philosophical knowledge, thus an- principle the idea of a perfect and complete phi- swering the question of the nature of philosophi- losophical system (absolute science, as Marx called cal knowledge. it), is constantly in motion, in development, on If the basic question of any philosophy is ulti- the road to new discoveries. It is constantly aware rnately the question of the relation of the spiri- of and grappling with its unsolved problems and, Iual to the material, is not the question "What is while criticising its ideological opponents, also philosophy?" the basic question of historico- criticises itself, recognising that it is limited by the philosophical science? boundaries of knowledge achieved not only in The significance of this apparently elementary the philosophical but also in the general scientific r;uestion becomes obvious to anyone who can fields. Marxist philosophy is also the history of 1>erceive even in the most general form the dis- philosophy, and particularly the history of tinction between philosophy and the specialised Marxist philosophy, of its progressive develop- sciences, and who asks himself why different ment, a history that provides the theoretical pre- philosophical systems existed and continue to requisites and method for the investigation of cxist, while there are no fundamentally different, any philosophical doctrine. Like any system of incompatible systems of mathematics or phys- scientific knowledge, the philosophy of Marxism rcs. regards its scientific propositions only as an ap- This is, of course, not merely a matter of de- proximate reflection of reality, as the unity of finition, which would be of purlly formal signifi- relative and absolute truth, the latter being un- cance, but of making a critical generalisation of derstood dialectically, i.e., relative within its own the development of philosophy, which to no small frame of reference. The significance of dialecti- rlegree determines its social status and scientific cal and historical materialism for the scientific p-restige- and enables it to solve correctly pro- history of philosophy is not to be found in any blems.that w-ere posed by philosophy in tlie past claim to offer the history of philosophy cut-and- but still confront it today. Hence we reach the l0 ll direct conclusion that the maior problem of his- tivclyproposed by Windelband. Is not philosophy, torico-phrlrsophical science is ihe irroblem of phi- lrc asks, in the position of Shakespeire's King losophy..To under-stand this amizing phenorne- l,car, who gave iway all his posses'sions to hii non.o.f ttre spirit-ual life of society, th-e history of rlaughters and was himself cast out into the street mankind's intellectual development, to under- irs a useless and troublesome old man? stand this specific form of knowledse and self- 14,t al-l events, philosophy now has to win its knowledge", it-s necessity-, its irremdvability, its light of citizenship in fhe' republic of science, not immediately obvious-but ever growing iigni- although it has foimally nevei been deprived of ficance in the intellectual developm"ent of"the"in- lhis right. This- is an inner necessity f6r philo- 6irr;6'r-al, to_ discover its role in the ideological sophy, a necessity that it must feel in the fice of struggle which today, more than ever iri the rrny other science, no matter how restricted its past, is a struggle between world views, to disclose licld of reference. the potential possibilities of -anphilosophy and how Philosophy's right to full citizenship is called to realise them-all this is u.geni necessity in questio-n first of all by everyday corisciousness, n-ot o-nly for the historians of philosophy bui sccondly by certain exponenti of'the specialised also for anyone to whom the questioo of th. sciences and, thirdly, by some philosopLers. The meaning of his own life does not appear utterly t'vcryday arguments usually boil down to the as- pointless. scrtion that philosophy doei not inspire confidence Philosophy has suffered a strange fate. A lrccause it does not always take into account the synonym of science in the ancient world, it now rlcmands of common sens-e. In the past many rep- seeks to achieve recognition as a science on a lt'sentatives of the positive sciences supportid t6is level with newly emiiged sciences of modern cornmonplace argument, but nowaday-sl since the times. How has this come about? Is it because cleation of the theory of relativity and quantum phil-osophy,-on account of its great age, has fal- ruechanics, they are more inclined to aEiee with len behind its younger comrades and l')ngels, rpho_ "Only ii no longer"Or wrote: sound co-m"o, ,.nse, fit to compete in the Marathon of knowledge? rcspectable fellow that-he'is, in the homely realm perhaps there is no riddle at all and the answer ol'his own four walls, has very wonderful'adven- is simply that what was a science in ancient times Irrrcs directly he ventures out into the wide world cannot by its very nature be a science today? As ,,l research."l Francis Bacon remarked, the ancients werl but Some scientists reproach philosoohv for not children while we are people of a new age, enter- lrcing able to answerlhe quesiions th^at'are put to ing upon our maturity. But it is doubtfu[ whether il or, worse still, for answering questions'with the concept of maturity can be applied uncondi- rlucstions to which the specialised iciences, thor- tionally to the human race at any stage of its ,rugh though they may bt, are unable to find an development. Man always has everything ahead iurswer. All these questions (whether they are of him, in the future. There is, admittedly, anoth- er explanation of this delicate situation, tenta- I Ir. Engcls, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1g69, p. Bl. t2 asked by science or philosophy), are difficult ones on the actual achievements of modern science".t but it a[ least can be said in defence of philosophy 'Ihe statements by Albert Binstein, Max Plank, that the people who ask the questions which it Louis de Broglie, Max Born and other outstand- fails to answer cannot answer these questions ing men of science, criticising neo-positivist scep- either. On the other hand, if philosophy, instead of ticism and substantiating materialist (and essen- aaswering question, asks one itself, we should tially dialectical) views, have convincingly demon- -whet[era consider the question is well formulated. strated that philosophy is vital to theoretical If it is, philosophy has-already made some contri- natural science. The relevance of philosophical bution to the problein. problems has thus been testified by non-philosoph- Philosophy's most dangerous enemies, however, ers who have devoted themselves to philosophical are to be found within its own ranks. The biggest problems and made a considerable contribution to hue and cry was raised by the neo-positivists, who- the development of philosophical thought. This declared ail the historically evolved problems of naturally opens up promising vistas before the philosophy illusory and non-existent in reality, historians of philosophy. wmte the'trtr,or1.si-philosophical process was pre- In the past 10-15 years Marxist-Leninist his- sented as a history of continuous misapprehen- torico-philosophical science has been enriched by sion. In making their c1aim, the neo-positivists numerous researches. The six-volume History of failed to notice the fact that the mistakes of the Philosophy (Moscow, 1957-1965) was the first at- great philosophers were great mistakes, and the tempt to make a global study of the development neo-poiitivist-campaign against philosophy has of all philosophy from the time of its incepiion ende-d in inglorious defeat. They themselves have to the present day. Naturally this collective work, been compe"lled to admit the unavoidability--of in which many Marxist historians of philosophy "metaphyslcal" (philosophical) problems. The from other countries besides the Soviet Union orobldmi thev callEd pseudoproblems-which have turned participated, sums up a considerable number of ^out to be reil probldms to neo-positivism specialised historico-philosophical studies. The nu- has found no poiitive approach. ruerous works of Soviet historians of philosophy, The neo-poiitivists idquired partially deserved concerning separate philosophical trends, schools influence wiih their special studies in logic, which :rnd systems, undoubtedly contribute not only to have no direct bearing on their obviously sub- historico-philosophical science but also to the de- jectivist and agnostic philosophical teaching. The vclopment of dialectical and historical material- irisis of neo-positivism is largely dy. to an ism. "At the present time," P. N. Fedoseyev awareness of fhis now quite obvious fact. Neo- writes, "the transition from a predominantly des- positivism was opposed by the natural scientists, t'r'iptive stage of historico-philosophical science to including so*e *i-o for a iime had been under its highly important fact because influencd. This is a t I. G. Petrovsky, "In Lieu Introduction" Philo- as of in neo-positivism, unlike-other idealist doctrines, ,,,p\ry of Marxism anil Neo-positiaism, Moscow, 1963, p. 4 I. G. Petrovsky notes, "parasitises to a great extent (irr liussian). 14 l5 Dialectical and historical into the logic of the develop- materialism is a de- analvtical inquirv veloping philosophical science in which, as in any *""i of philoiophical thought is becoming increas- "paves wqv for the science, there are unsolved problems. They shoulil i;;i; .fi4;"i;i Atl this the not be left the background. of- the funda- in Rather, we should ;;:d-;ii; th;ot.ii.ul inveitigation Epl^tH' I P. N. Fedoseyev, "Philosophy and the M-odern i" oitiiii aiiiiiitii o"i Sct'ittfic Progress' Moscow' 1e67' Vol. II, p. 380 (in Russian)' l6 Chapter One 'no.r, boirt os,'son oi rnritoi,trl i,fliu*t THE LOVE OF WISDOM. O.t' augurs, one to_whom aere hnoan things'past ORIGIN OF THE NOTION And present and to come. He throuph ihi art OF *PHILOSOPHY" Ot' diaination, zahich Abollo saue. IIad guided ihe ships iy GrZrre.'. . . The mythological view of the world, which im- rucdiately precede4 the first philosophical doc- trines of Ancient Greece, was t-he ideology of the 1>rimitive communal system. The develoiinent of rrrythology, its transfoimation into a kind^ of ,,art- istic religion]', the emergence of theogonic, cos- l. SECULARISATION ruogonic and cosmologicil notions, wlich were OF'DIVINE" WISDOM subseguently.n_aturalistically interpieted by the lirst,Greek Greeks first philosophers, reflected the basic itages In the davs when the ancient of development pre-class there was- presu- of the society. In t"his coined the t6rm "philosophy" society the individual poisessed ai to what should be con- no world view of mablv no disasreement his own. ?hilos_ophy c6uld not yet wisddm. Anything incomprehensible, exist because, sider6d rrs A. F. Losev has written, "heie it was the tribe wliich had not existed blfore-(such as philosophy), that thought, in the tra- that set its goals, and there was no fell into the category of things *!ri+, obligation upon the indiriidual mythol6gy, were regarded to think. because dition of -as -perfectly lhe tribe was the element of life and the and beyond all argum,ent or- doubt. element obvious of life worked in the individual spontaneously, was attributed to the gods (or at least Wisdom i.e., instilctively, not as consciously articulatdd to some of them). Athene was worshipped as the lhought".l soddess of wisdom. She was portrayed in sculp- The emergence of ancient philosoohv coincides [ure with an owl perched at hei feet, the owl being with the period of the formation of^cliss societv. regarded as a saired bird, presumably because it when mythology was still the dominant 6f see in the dark. for- social consciousness. In fact, the first philosophers ".,"rld then regarded as wisdom was know- What men wcre philosophers iust because they' ca-e'into ledge of things of which they ig-norant or t'onflict -were Ac- with the traditional mythological/ ---o---- view of couTd not undirstand, particularly prophecy. thc world. cording to mythology, the god-s endowe.d the orac- mythology still held sway over men's les i"d'' other'choseiindiviiluals with wisdom' Like .W-hilg rrrrnds they never thought of asking themselves all outstanding human virtues,-wisdonllya! the gift 'in - , of t[. gods. Book One of. The lliad Homer a. I,o sev, History of Ancient Esthetics, Moscow, says of Calchas, the suPreme augur: -f,107 (in Russian). .].,*,t. 1E l9 wisdom?"'- MytholgSl the question, "What is lcnce of thought that cannot establish question, and manv besides, itself inde- ;;il.;;a afis -others pcndently".l The development of philosophy signi- ili[; ;;ta unequivocal manner. The rise of phi- and oracular prophecy Iied a progressive departure from mythology, parti- i.tr"iru i.oliced mvths cularly the mythological notion of the supernatu- own thinking about the world and ;ith';""'; ral origin of wisdom. It was for this reason, as independent df any extraneous author' h;"; life, I Iegel wrote, that "the place of the oracle was ii"l F."ot.' appeared who could astonish others that no one had ever now taken by the self-consciousness of every L; ;;il;i"s'ibout things thinking person".2 dared t"o call in question before' tfi"r"ti-"t"it or It is hard to say who first called himself a phi- piopte at first, no dou-bt, regarded as tfr.i. were losopher. Probably it was Pythagoras. According ;;a;;. they called themselves philosophers, i'e', the philosophers, then to Diogenes Laertius, Le6n, tyrant of Phliontes, i"r.it *isdom. First came asked "i appeared, and after that Pythagoras who he was and Pythagoras i[L-"urn. ';philosopher" replied, "I am a philosopher". The word being the: term "philosophy". exist- unfamiliar to his questioner, Pythagoras offered ft ut"t iraintaiirei that everything -which an from water. According to Ana- explanation of the neologism. "He compared .a frua otisinated life to the Olympic Games," Diogenes Laertius only all things but- even the .qods ;il;;;t, ;;t writes. "There were three types among 6rowd come from-air. The cosmos, He- the ih;;;fi;had attending the Games. Some came for the contest, taught, had given birth to both mortals ;;;iffi some to trade and some, who were wise, to satisfy ThesJ assertions were revolution- u"a i*-o.iuls. themselves by observation. So it was in life. Some ;; ;; thrf established a critical mo'le of think- of mythological and religious were born to be slaves of glory or the temptation t"; ;e.P.ndent of riches, others who were wise sought only tradition. know whether the contempo-raries truth."3 We do not This account suggests that Pythagoras inter- of the earlv Greek philosophers actually believed ir,ri-ir," tltil[v Wdv was-the sprinkled milk of preted wisdom as something reserved for the ii..u.-g"i *h.t D.*ocritus dlclared it to be r:hosen few. According to some other sources, how- than a conglomeration of stars, we may cver, he maintained that only the gods possessed no more wisdom. all events, the teaching most p-eople thought- this- was blas- At of Pythagoras b; ;;. that lcveals only general irusotu*, who claimed that the Sun was a tendency towards seculari- ;ir;; At sation of "divine" wisdom. o? ,o.k, btorght persecution on his I-frt}. -utt Thus, the emergence of ancient Greek philo- '--ff,"head. sophy simultaneously implied the growing fact that the teachings of the early Greek con- free from elements of thinkers were still not I tlegel, Works in 14 volumes, Vol. p. 139 (in to overshadow 2, -"ift"i"n, should not be allowed li rrssian). anti-mvtholocig.al^ tendencv' I Ibid., p. 77. iiilir triiia"mental :r i\rltlh, said Hegel, is an expression "of the impo- DiogEn La6rce, Aie, doctrines et sentences des 1'ltilosophes illustres, Paris, 1965, p. 127. 20 teaching viction that wisdom as the supreme ideal of know- - _Th. of the materialists of the city of ledse (and conduct), without which human life Milftus was directly continued by Heraclitus, who Le neither worthv nor honest and would tleclared that "wisdom lies in speaking the lruth, be"orid virtually wasted, coirld be achieved through heeding the voice of Nature and actirig in accor- one's own efforts. This meant that the source of r merely-a O.Ma.kovelsky, P re-S ocratics, Kazan, lgl4, part I, In mythology the word "wisdom" signifies p. -1^-A,.(in rather than discussed. In l6l Russian). certain no[ion that is expounded 2 Ibid. philosophy it is not merely a word but a concept, which 3 beginning o[ This dialectical understanding of the inust b'e understood and difincd. This is the rrature .elementary knowledge, the epistemological roots of the of knowledge was Iost in subsequent ceituries by the theory of lhc creators the debate in which philosophy becomes a problem for itself. of metaphysical systems-of absolute know'- ^this social It'rlge under the influenct of the iriumphs of mathematics The deepest source of argument is -prggress, and knowledee and science to faith and the natural science of the new aee' which looked as which counterooses i[ thcy were going reliEion, As Y, P. Frantsev irites, "the facts indicate that to be able to obtain'exhaustive know- philosophical thought emerges when lcrlge of all that existed. The idea of the omnipotence of in luman history lrrrman reason belongs certain knowledge his accumulated thaicomes inio conflict -farentirely -holdin.q to modern times. The ;rrrcient Greeks were from with traditional beliefs. Religious notions are based on 'l any such notions. thought, matter how feeble its hc ultimate expression of ancient" Greek wisdom is faith. Philosophical no Srrcrates' conviction development, is based on-knowledge as opposed to blind "I know that I know nothins". philosophical thought is the beginning Vicwcd from this standpoint Plato, who believed his sSul faith. The birth of Ir;rrl spent (Y. The Sources so Iong in the transcendental realm of ideas that of the struggle againit faitli." P. Frantsev, lrr could Religioi'antJ Free Thinhing, Moscou', 1959, p' 501, in describe this realm, is no heir to the Socratic of ( r,n( ('l)tion of wisdom. Russian). oct 23 follo* the uniaersal, But what is the universal? etc. No wonder, then, that the first works of the It is fire, whose nature is a state of eternal flux' ancient Greeks and also the Chinese and Indian It is also Logos-absolute necessity-, fate, which philosophers, took as "first principles" the sen- is sometimes iientified with eternal fire and some- sually observable things that were familiar to all, times separated from it. The universal is in- but to which a very special significance was at- firrit"tv vlried. It pervades everything, gives birth tached. Even the basic, "substantial" properties to cv6rvthins anii destrovs evLrything. Nothing of these things were also drawn from everyday can deviate Jrom the universal. People do not experience, the properties of heat and cold, love understand the uriiversal and fail to appreciate and hate, the male and female genital principles, its limitless power even when they hear of it from etc. the lips of ihe philosopher, because their own Wisdom, or rather the quest for it, was seen isnorince seems to them to be "their own com- by these early philosophers as the ability to reach o-rehension". Heraclitus'remarks bitterly, "Most a judgement about all manner of familiar things, ^men have no understanding of the things they proceeding from recognition of their intransient encounter, and cannot be made to understand- by essence. Understanding of the universal reveals to instruction, and yet it seems to them that they the human mind that which is eternal, infinite and know."1 united in the countless numbers of transient, finite, Thus we find that wisdom presuPPoses above all multiform things. Thus not all knowledge (know- understanding of what the majority of nqen encou,n- ledge of one thing, for example) could be consider- ter, of what iI knoutn to thernin general, i.e.,-what ed wisdom. Even knowledge of many things, Her- thev see. hear and know but cannot comprehend. aclitus adds, does not augment our wisdom. The This nolion of wisdom is organically connected path of wisdom, which no man shall ever travel with the age of the formation o{ philosophy, when in its entirety, is understanding of that which is there weri still no special scientific disciplines, most powerful in the world and therefore the discovering through ipecial investigation- directly most important for our human life. unobserva6le pheiornena and the relations be- According to Heraclitus, the most important, to powerful thing is uni- tween them. As yet the -thatpl,rilosopher was able the most and unavoidable arsue onlv abouf thines all could observe: versal change, the disappearance of all that ap- thE Earth,'the Sun, the-stars, plants, animals, day, pears, the conversion of all things into their op- nisht. cold. heat, water, air, fire, and so on. The posites, their unity in eternal fire, from which the to everything else oh"ilosophei applied his powers-in of reasoning Ilarth, air, soul and is derived. 'evervthins thit- occurred human life and that It is this omnipresent unity of the infinite multi- *u.'kt o*"r, to everyone: birth, childhood, youth, formity, the coincidence of opposites, that the phi- age, death, unhappiness, happiness, love, hate, losopher seeks to understand as supreme truth pointing the right path in life. This path lies in <'ontempt passing things, awareness the r A. O. Makovelsky, Pre'souatics, Part I, p. 150 (in for of Russian). lelative nature of all blessings, all distinctions and 24 opposites, understanding of the all-embracing became the founders of rhetoric, and they consi- and the all-determining. Although love of wisdom dered it to be an essential part of their insiruction is separated from wisdom, which in itself is to teach the free citizen of the city state to reason, unattainable, it is quite clear that this selfless love to argue, to refute and prove, in'short, to defend and the knowledge imparts interpreted as it are his own _interests by the power of words, argu- attributes of absolute wisdom and in this sense ment and eloquence. (mainly because of their incompleteness) as rela- The Sophists identified wisdom with knowledge, tive wisdom. with the ability to prove what one considered Heraclitus's conc'eption of the ideal of human to be necessary, correct, virtuous, profitable and wisdom and conduct has an aristocratic and pes- so on.l Such knowledge and abilities were un- simistic bias. At the moment, however, we are doubtedly needed by the citizen of Athens for not concerned with these features of the "weep- taking part in public meetings, court sessions, de- ing philosopher", nor even with his dialectics, bates, affairs of trade and so on. By their activi- which is not a specific attribute of philosophical ties as teachers of rhetoric, by their iheories which thought. The point is that his conception of wis- overthrew apparently immutable truths and sub- dom reveals features which not only in ancient stantiated often quite unusual views, the Sophists tintes but in subsequent epochs have been regarded lurtlgLed th-e development of logical thoughl and as inherent only in philosophical knowledge and tlexibility of concepts, which made it posiible to the philosophical attitude to the world. bring together and unite things that seemed at Ancient Greece, where the concept of philosophy first -glance to -be quite incompatible. Logical as love of wisdom (relative, human wisdom) first proof was regarded as the basic quality of tiuth. took shape, became the motherland of another and essentially different understanding of the r-Plato, meaning and purpose of philosophy, which was expounding the views of Protagoras, describes io Theaetetus his understanding of wisdom as follows: to exercise a substantial influence on all its sub- "... I do not call wise men tadpoles: far from it; I call sequent development. I have in mind the t.hem 'physicians' and 'husbandmen' where the human body Sophists. The word "sophist" is derived from the and plalts are concerned." In the field of politics, accord- same root as the words "sophia" (wisdom) and ing to ?lato, Prota_goras held that "the wise and good rhctoricians make the good instead of the evil to ieem "sophos" (wise man), and also means "craftsman" just to ,states; for whatever appears-regarded to each state to be or "artist". The Sophists were the first in the iust and fair, so long as it is as such, is iust history of philosophy to emerge as teachers of rrnd fair to it; and what the wisJ man does is to ciuse utisdom, thus rejecting the understanding of phi- good to appear, and be real, for each of them instead of cvil". (The Dialogues of Plato, Oxford, 1958, Vol. III, losophy that goes back to Pythagoras. The Soph- 1t. -265.) This. understanding,of wisdom as uorldly knoa- ists were the first encyclopaedists of the ancient lcdge comes into direct conflict with the previous concep- world. They studied mathematics, astronomy, tions of wisdom. However, the Sophists only take to its physics, grammar, not so much as scholars, but logical conclusion- the anti-mythological conception of lruman wisdom, which arose with philosophy and- was the rather as teachers, and paid teachers at that. They Iirst attempt to understand its specific con[ent and purpose. 26 The Sophists were the first to attempt the com- The universal flexibility of concepts which made plete secularisation of wisdom, to make acces- its first appearance in the philosophy of the Soph- it sible anyone who acquired the necessary edu- ists was markedly subjective character. To to in cation. This democratic tendency the Sophists, prove meant to convince or persuade. The Soph- of however, went hand in hand with an oversimpli- ists came to believe that it was possible to prove prove, eveniually Iication of the tasks of philosophy, with disregard anything they chose to and this philosophy's quest "sophism" and "soph- of for understanding of the made the words "sophist", quintessential universal istry" insulting to any man of learning. and in everything that cxists, understanding of that which is most im- The Sophists usdally stressed the subjectivity portant in and human life. These basic fea- and relativity of the evidence of the senses and for tures of the Sophists' teaching were harshly criti- of any deductions made from them. They were cised Socrates and particularly Plato, who the first to grasp the fact which seems so obvious by again raised philosophy to a pedestal beyond the today that arguments can be found support to reach of the mass of the people.l anything. This truth was partly interpreted by them in a spirit of philosophical scepticism and 'f" tfr" aialogue "socrates' Apology" Plato expounds relativism, and partly in the form of recognition through Socrates the understanding of wisdom which was perceptions, propounded by the first Greek philosophers. In seeking to of the possible truth of contradictory acquire wisdom, Socrates relates, he first of all sought it notions and judgements. In short, the Sophists among men of state. After talking to one of them, Socrates taught a type of thinking that refuses to commit rcached the conclusion that "... I am at least wiser than itself to any unconditional postulates except those this fellow-for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; neither know nor think that know." Having he I I a man needs for the achievement of the aim spoken with poets, Socrates saw that ". .. not by wisdom sets himself. They strove to make commonplace do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspi- notions and concepts versatile and to overcome ration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say their incompatibility that had become rigidly many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them". .,. Finally Socrates turned to ordinary people, to established by everyday usage. On this path some the craftsmen, and realised that "they did know many Sophists drew the conclusion that there was only things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly a relative contradiction between good and evil, wcre wiser than I was". But he went on ". . . because they that religious beliefs were illusory, and that it wcre good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them bvershad- was a mistake to believe, as most people did in owed their wisdom". . . . (The Dialogues ol Plato, pp. 345, those days, that the opposition between slaves and 347). Thus, while not wholly rejecting the worldly *isdom free mi:n was fixed by nature. trpheld by the Sophists, Socrates sought merely to prove Some of the Sophists were the ideologists of that human wisdom was incomplete, mixed with ignorance :tnd therefore not to be compared with divine, absolute slave-owning democracy, others were its oppo- wisdom, Hence in "Protagoras" Socrates defines human nents, but both understood philosophy as worldly wisdom as the transcending of one's own limitations: "The wisdom, and knowledge, as the art of rhetoric inferiority of a man to himself is merely ignorance, as educated man could ile superiority of a man to himself is wisdom." (TDe with the help of which the l)iologues of Plato, "Protagoras", p.186.) always overcome the uneducated and the ignorant. 28 Plato argued that neither true knowledge nor cupy the place assigned to him, whether he be true virtue could be acquired extraneousl-y, by t:raftsman or farmer, guardian or ruler-philoso- means of education whiih at best would hi:ip ttr pher. The theoretical substantiation of this reac- bring -out the knowledge that was in a man's ioul tionary Utopia, which reflected the crisis of the but of which he remained unaware, having ob- Athenian state, Iies in the notion of achieaed. wis- tained it during the soul's sojourn in an-other dom, which radically distinguishes Plato from his world. predecessors and from later philosophers of the Thus Plato reinstated that aristocratically in- ancient world.l tellectual understandins of philosophv as a-love The point of departure of Aristotle's teaching of wisdom for its own Jake, inhereni only in cho- is his criticism of Plato's doctrine of ideas and sen natures, which had fully emerged in the first cntails a revision of the Platonic conception of pe1i9d of -ancient Greek philosophy. According wisdom as knowledge of the transcendental. io -h-is teaching, wisdom liei in unfeistanding thE Aristotle rehabilitates reality as that which is abiding transcendental reality, the realm of iieas, received by the senses and strives to explain and above all the absoll,telf iust, absolutely true the qualitative variety of the material world, and absolutely beautiful, and- in examining from proceeding from the notion of the forms inhe- this supersensual position all natural things and rent in things, which in most cases are also per- numan attarrs. ceived by the senses. Admittedly, Aristotle rec- Inasmuch as Plato aspires to create a system of ognises, besides sensually perceived forms, the 'absolute knowledge (an essential difference be- "form of forms" and the piime mover, since he tween him and Socrates), he departs from the orig- can see no other way of explaining the world inal conception of philosophy as'love (quest) for as a whole. Aristotle's idealism, however, differs the unattainable ideal of knowledge and life. His cssentially from that of Plato, who interprets criticism of the Sophists'worldly wisdom turns out philosophy as an ascent from this world to the in the fina1 analysis to be mereiy a repudiation of next. Aristotle, on the contrary, believes it to be the earthly basid of wisdom. Li(e the Sophists, he 1 seeks to be a teacher of wisdom, although he makes It is highly characteristic that Democritus, a major the reservation wisdom propon-ent_ of ancient Greek materialism and a contempo- that cannot be taught rary of Plato, sees wisdom as understanding of the inttr- to those whose souls have not been initiated. rral structure, the unity of nature, of matter, and as the Plato's teaching thus emerges as a system of wis- correct i,nterpretation of duty in human life. According to dom, not only in its theoretical but also in its prac- llrc,teaching of Democritus, "three abilities spring from wisdom, tical aspects. the ability to take excellent decisions, to enun- riate them correctly and to do what is necessary", Plato's idbal of the state is a doctrine of the l)cmocritus' conception of wisdom is connected with his wise management of society ensuring the perfect conception of the need to observe moderation: "Beautiful embodiment of absolute justice, absolute truth and is due moderation in everything." The worldly wisdom absolute o[ Democritus, whose political ideal is the slave-owning beauty, thanks to which a social system rlcmocracy, is equally alien both to the philosophy oracular - will be established in which every man wiil oc- ol'Plato and to the subjectivism of the Sophists. 80 3l the task of philosophy to examine the basic knowledge as a correct way of life which relieves causes, the foundations and forms of nature. In this the individual of avoidable sufferings, and he sees genuine wisdom, while condemning the o[ excesses that lead to suffering. One can trace teaching of the Sophists as "only apparent and the beginnings of these views in the first Greek not real".t Wisdom, in Aristotle's vie'#, coincides philosophers, but their main conviction was that with knowledge, though not knowledge of single knowledge is an aim in itself. Only Hellenic things, but of the essence as such. In the field of philosophy proclaims the principle that know- ethiCs Aristotle's understanding of wisdom anti- ledge in itself is of no value and is needed only cipates the philosophy of the Hellenic period: because it teaches us the correct path in life.l "The man of Practical Wisdom aims at avoiding llappiness, which, according to Epicurus, con- Pain, not at attaining Pleasure."2 stitutes the gOaI of human life, may be obtained It is true that Aristotle calls the prime mover by limiting one's needs and renouncing pleasures God, but this assertion recalls the deistic views t.hat have deplorable consequences. The essence of the New Age, since God is not regarded as a of happiness is perfect equanimity, ataraxia, subject of philosophical investigation. Aristotle lenunciation of the world. "According to Epi- describes as theologians Hesiod and other poets, curus," Marx notes in his Doctoral tLesis, '?ro the forerunners of ancient Greek philosophy, who good for man lies outside himself; the only good on the basis of mythology evolved theogonic or which he has in relation to the world is the ne- cosmogonic theories, attributing the immortality gative notion to be free of. it" "2 But to become of the gods to their drinking ambrosia and nec- free of the world one must overcome one's fear tar', for example. Such an explanation, Aristotle of the gods and also fear of death. Hence the remarks ironically, may have satisfied the poets purpose of natural philosophy, particularly if it themselves, but it goes beyond the bounds of our can prorre that there is no force in the world ca- understanding. Theology, as Aristotle sees it, is pable of destroying the contented self-assurance not a teaching about God (or the gods) but the --' "first philosophy", whose subject is first causes e..*-airg to S. Chatterjee and D. Datta, this under- and their foundations standing of the aim of knowledge, philosophy and wisdom The problem of wisdom again comes to the is particularly characteristic of all systems of ancient indeed forms the basic subject phi- lndian philosophy. "... All the systems regard philosophy fore and of its a practical necessity and cultivate it in order to under- losophical meditation in the teachings of the age stand how life can be best led. The aim of philosophical of decline of ancient society-in stoicism, scepti- wisdom is not merely the satisfaction of intellectual cism, and Epicureanism. For the followers of , rrriosity, but mainly an enlightened life led with far- sight, foresight and insighti' (An Introduction Indian these schools wisdom is so much an ideal of to not I'lilosophy, Calcutta, 1950, p. 12.) One of the differences lrctween Indian and European philosophy is that in Indian t Metaphysics 1857, Book The of Aristotle, London, lrhilosophy this understanding of wisdom constantly pre- III, Ch. II, p. 84. 2 r Iorrrinates. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, New York, 2 K. Marx and F. Engels, From Early Uorhs, Moscow, 1920, p. 175. ll)56, p. 143 (in Russian). 32 33 of the sage. In this context natural philosophy lectual composure, aloof from human cares and plays the auxiliary role of introducing and sub- worries. Diogenes Laertius, referring to Posido- ituitiutirrg a "philosophy of life", rihich ulti- nius, relates that one day Pyrrho "was at sea in mately boils down to ethics. Thus wisdom comes a ship; his,companions were terrified by the to serve an "applied" aim; philosophy as a doc- storm; only he, who had remained perfectly calm trine of the wise conduct of one's personal life and composed in spirit, pointed to i pig that was is interpreted as intellectual therapy. F.picu-rus munching something and said that the wise man says: "Hollow are the words of the philo-sopher should preserve equal indifference."l thit do not selve'to heal any human suffering. It would seem that this evolution in the un- Just as there is no use in medicine if it does derstanding of wisdom (and by the same token, not rid the body of disease, so is philosophy of philosophy) reflects the decay of the ancient city no use if it cannot banish the sickness of the state and a socia,l system that permitted the free soul".1 citizen to take an active part in the life of the Ancient Greek stoicism, which regards philo- state. Now he feels that- the ground is sliding sophy as "exercise in wisdom", also stressed, Iike from under him. Hence for him wisdom lies ii Eficureanism, the practical (in the highest sense) the_iJlusory assurance that one can live in society significance of philosophy, since itt aim is and be free of it at the same time. to teach man "to live in accord with nature". Ancielt_ Greek philosophy came into being as Stoicism proceeds from a fatalistic conception of a powerful intellectual movement towards know- the pred6termination of all that exists. Hence ledge in its all-embracing theoretical form. It the demand to live in accord with nature pre- ends as-a.quest for repose in a society torn by sumes, on the one hand, a knowledge of nature antagonistic contradictions. This crisis does no[, and, on the other, unconditional submission to however, mean that there were no rational ideas change nothing in natural necessity. Man can - in the doctrines of the Hellenistic age. These the predetermined order of things. He is a phi- doctrines pose the question of the piimacy of losofher or sage who, having realised the inevi- practical reason over the theoretical and foi the tabl6, submits to it and renounces sensual pleas- Iirst time systemati-cally criticise the naively ra- ures in order to reioice in virtue, which is to tionalistic notion of knowledge for its own-sake, be acquired througli recognition, of- the essence whose unexpected and tragit consequences are of things and through the triumph of reason over only too obvious in the age of capitalism and apoetite. particularly imperialism, when science ^though becomes differing in many ways from Epicu- not only a productive but also a destructive force. ancient Greek scepticism "Greek philosophy," reanisrn" and stoici-sm, says Marx, -"be-gins with also reduces wisdom to the acquisition of intel- seven wise men, among whom is the Ionian 1 r Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, Moscow, 1947, Vol. II, ... D. LaErce, Aie, doctrines et sentences d,es philosophes p. 641 (in Russian). illustres, p.193, 34 philosopher of nature Thales, and it ends with the and the other idealist doctrines related to it. attempt to portray the wise man conceptually".l Vulgarised neo-Platonism, eclectically combined The subsequent history of Greek and Greco- with Epicureanism, scepticism and particularly Roman philosophy-the history transfor- of its stoicism, was the "theoretical source" of the mation into the religious and mystical teachings Christian religion.l of neo-Pythagoreanism, neo-Platonism, the later Thus the New Testament or "divine revela- stoicism, etc.,-is in fact the prehistory of Chris- tion", recounted by the apostles of Jesus Christ, tianity, which brought to an end the worldly turns out to be, as its historico-philosophical wisdom of the ancient philosophers. analysis shows, a theological revision of the philo- sophical theories of later antiquity, with the ad- 2. DEIFICATION dition of nuinerous borrowings from other "hea- OF HUMAN WISDOM then" teachings. Nevertheless, to the medieval theologians and philosophers the Scriptures ap- Christianity, which became the dominant and peared to be radically different from the human virtually the sole ideology of the European Mid- wisdom of the ancients. This was the divine re- dle Ages, absorbed the philosophical mysticism velation, the indisputable source for all theo- and irrationalism of the age of the final decay rising about the divine and the things of this of the ancient world. "Christianity," Engels world. This meant that for the medieval thinker points out, "was not imported from without, from divine wisdom existed in a form accessible to Judea, and imposed upon the Greco-Roman man, i.e., expounded in the sacred books. The world. . .. It is-at least in the form in which it only problem was to be able to understand it, has become a world religion-the most charac- to interpret it correctly. teristic product of this world."2 The apologists of Christianity called the new religion that oust- I "Stoicism in its vulgarised form," we read in Volume ed Greco-Roman polytheism philosophy. Their One, p. 383, of the History of Philosophy (Ed. G. F. Alek- basic argument was that the fundamental plo- sandrov, B. E. Bykhovsky, M. B. Mitin and P. F. Yudin), blems of Christian doctrine (God, the creation "exercised a powerful influence on the moral views of the of the world) had already been posed by Greek organisers of the early Christian churches; it has been cstablished, for example, that the influence of Seneca is philosophy, but only Christianity could supply much in evidence in the epistles attributed by the Church the true answers. Augustine, Tertullian and other to the Apostle Paul, and later, in Tertullian. Christianity "fathers of the Church" gave a theological in- is even more closely linked with neo-Platonism. Christian terpretation and elaboration of the philosophical 36 Theology is the metaphilosophy of the Euro- The wisdom of the ancient Greeks, says Jac- pean Middle Ages. Theology, according to Tho- trues Maritain. is restricted to the human scale. mas Aquinas, descends from the divine to the ':It ir, in fact, a philosophical wisdom that claims but terrestrial, while philosophy seeks to ascend from not to tarr. ot through unity with the Deity, rational the terrestrial and temporal to the divine and only to guide us alo"ng the'p1!h of -cog- absolute. Philosophy commands only the truths nition oI the universa."t Religion, as we have re- of reason, whereas theology expounds superra- seen, did not inspire ancient philosophy, and even tional although not irrational truths, whose source flection on the Deity held little place in it wis- is Divine Reason. Philosophy inevitably becomes in those cases when it asserted that divine humanity' the handmaid theology. Love wisdom is dom was infinitely superior to that of of of by transformed intellectualised religious Iacoues Maritain, of course, is not satisfied into an the feeling. Metaphysical wisdom can be only the thJ "worldlv" wisdom to which the finest of Such an in- interpretation of theological wisdom, authenti- classical Grlek philosophers^wisdom, aspired. cally expounded in the Bible. The philosopher terpretation of he observes, tends to- cannot therefore arrive at any new or unexpected *uidr a scientific understanding of reality, where- conclusions; the conclusions are given in advance as the true wisdom is the wiidom of salvation, has to be done is to lay a logical the wisdom of the saints. Maritain believes that and all that near path towards them, i.e., to justify Christian dog- the ohilosophers of the ancient East came understood ma in the face of everyday common sense, which to this kind of wisdom in that they the terrestrial is afraid not to believe in miracles and the su- wisdom as the ascent of man from accord- pernatural in general, and yet cannot conceive to the divine. Genuine wisdom, ho'drever, how all this is possible.l ing to Maritain, is to be foun{ only iL Christian- itv" and the forms of orthodox medieval theo- it r lo.qical and philosophical -thoug!!-to which It is worth noting, however, that some outstanding the Old Testament," medieval thinkers, who were alien to Christianity, inter- save birth. "The wiidom of preted philosophical wisdom far more freely and indepen- iie declares, "tells us that, at bottom, our perso- dently, in this respect approaching Aristotle, whose nalitv exists onlv'the in humilitv and may be saved followers they were. Thus Ibn Sina (Avicenrra) declared: n"i"'tha"ks to divine personality'... This "Wisdom, in our view, may be of two kinds. First, it is a wlsdom that gives it- perfect knowledge. Perfect knowledge with regard to a supernatural wisdom is concept is such that it knows a thing through its essence .eif, thut descends. . . ."2 and definition, and with regard to a judgement it is such that it is a reliable judgement on all the causes of those perfection sihle oerfect knowlcdgc. Only lower down the page does things that have causes. Second, it is of action, tradition'. citing the perfection the that that is necessary ifr"-SIrr, i" ihe spir"it of medieval This lies in fact all which knows all things out for its existence, and all that is necessary for its preser- Knran, speak of divine wisdom vation, exists, and exists to the extent that it is worthy ,,I ilsclf iince it has created thcm. i Science et Sagesse, Paris, 1935, pp. 30- of its essence, including also all that serves for beautifi- 1. Maritain, 31. cation and use, and is not merely a matter of necessity." 2 'We see here that human wisdom is assessed as the pos- Ibid., p. 38' 89 88 , In returning. to the medieval mode of thought man and his position in the Cosmos, the meaning (we have in mind, of course, the dominant idelol- of his life, the capacity of his spirit to know the ogy of the- Christian lVliddle Ages) Maritain sees world and to arrange his own life, concerning ?, *uy of..escape capitaiist' society from his dignity, freedom and immortality, the foun- the contradictions -for by - which it is being torn dations of the law, the system of state power and apVrt.L Maritain has'high praise for the propo_ the meaning of history. Unity and order are the sition of Thomas Aquinas on the three kinds'of hallmark of the time."l wisdom: .divine (revelation), theological, uod Needless to say, the idyllic existence described metaphysical; the last, of , iourse, oicupies the by this contemporary Catholic historian never fgwesJ -pl1ce. in the hierarchy. No'wondir, 1t .", actually existed. The Middle Ages knew the peas- that Maritain condemns Averroism, which h; ant wars, the wars between suzerains, between defines as "an attempt to separate frt itoroffri.a suzerains and vassals, between monarchs and the wisdom from theolo$ical wiidom,,.d Thus con- Pope of Rome. They knew also religious heresies, temporary neo-Thomism leads us directly into "worldly" free-thinking, and the Inquisition. the. domain of" the phillso-phic-al qnd theoiogical But Hirschberger's assertions, like the beliefs of notions that dominated the feudal societ/ of Jacques Maritain, fairly accurately reproduce the Western Eurooe. predominant scholastic purview of the Middle The neo-Thomist Johannes- Hirschberger pre- Ages, the essence of which is well expressed in sents. the--Middle Ages as existing in a"stati of the Gospel dictum "Blessed are the poor in spirit". infinite divine wisdom which maiifests itself in Dogmatic faith was indeed a synonym for all everything, in the -order of nature, society anJ the wisdom accessible to man. Although Chris- so on. "As never before in any period of tfr. tian teaching maintained that man was created -spiritual history of the West, the'whole world in the image of God, its true inspiration lay in here lives in assurance concerning the existence the anti-humanist belief in the vanity of this of God, His wisdom, power and'goodness, con- world, i.e., of actual human life. Divine wisdom cerning the origin of the world, tf,e reasonable_ 'of allegedly derived from infinite being and as ness of its order and government, the nature opposed to the finite, transient life of man, which had to bear the additional burden original r .,is of . "His-tory," Maritain says, an unimaginablc drama sin, was a radical denial of "self-willed" human between individuals and abused freedoms," between the wisdom. Only the rise the capitalist mode of eternal divine p_e-rsonality and our peisonalities of own thai production and the development of the natural are created. . . . lt we wish to survive the nightmare of a b-anal existcnce of the indefinite pronoun O7ii, i" *iiri sciences and mathematics were able to show phi- the conditions of the modern *oild ,rpp.es itr. i*"gi- losophy a way of escape from the labyrinth of nation of evcry one of us, if wc wish t"'awakcn oursclvrs theology. and -our existcntiality, it is permissible for us to read M. Heig.eggc-r, [u! we shall certainly be bettcr off in all cases rcading thc Biblc.'' (Ibid., pp. B7:gS.) 1 Hirsclrbcrg,er, Geschichte der Philosophi,e, Freiburg, 2 Ibid., p. J. 56. 1954, Bd. I, S. 280. 40 4L 3. A NEW AGE AND A NEW IDEAL substantiate the new ideal of knowledge-scien- OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE iin.rfii*-S.ience is understood as authentic and ."ri"*iti" t drawn from a natural and Montaigne, the outstanding forerunner of the ;;;- G;;t;itural""source,""*ledge, i.e., through perusal French Enlightenment, revived th-e ancient secu- .i-tt" ilG.eat Book of Nature", which lies open larised interpretation of wisdom from the stand- i;r";ll *"" io study and meditate upon'.The New point of a irhilosophical scepticism that placed An". ut Maritain puts it, is characterised by a havoc with theology and scholastics. Quite in "ioiflirt betaeen ioisdom and the sciences and' the spirit of Epicurus, Montaigne declares that 'the -i" aictory -o""'of of science oaer ai'sdom" 'L- "all fhe wisdom and all the discourse in the 'hit .ttryt Bacon ridicules the "wis- world serves in the long run only to teach us not ,1"; i;; a man's seft" of the schoolmen, which, to fear death".l In his Essays Montaigne fre- .r"^ii"-turt, it trv tto means harmless but, on- the quently refers the sayings of the Bible, but to ;;;i;;l it minifestlv pernicious for - societv' onlv ih order to extract from them the human :'wi;a;; fot u man's'selT is, in many branches wis'dom thev inherited from the human wisdom tfr.r."f,--, J.piuu.d thing. Il is the wisdom of of the ancients, their moral maxims regarding ."tr. it lt will be sure to ftave a house" somewhat the rational ordering of human life. ili;r; it-o"t falls. It is the wisdom of the fox, that Pierre Bayle, an"other splendid exponent of tfr."ttt tt. badger, who digged and made bourgeois free thinking, interprets wisdom as a ;;;; i"; t i-. tt is ihe'wisdom of crocodiles that courigeous desire to go through to the end in rfr.J t"ut" when they would devour'"2 But surely seeking truth, a fearless urge to cast aside mis- ;i;;;. i; other witd6m besides this? Bacon does conceplions and prejudice, an unshakeable aware- wisdom' ;;t'U"i d.;" it. Nor does he deny divine ness of the fact that nothing is forbidden to tfr.'i"f,rie significance of "natural philosophy" reason. "Reason," he says in his Historical and, li;,*r;' he bel"ieves, in methodical, rationally Criti,cal Dictionary, "has every right to hunt orsanised inquiry into the laws of nature' anything it wishes. But reason itself must not be i;%;a;; to multiply human inventions, which are deiective. One should agree only with good and i;.";;;"-;rprUi"' of conducing^to ihp benefit of noble ideas and act only in accordance with ;;;ki;d thin all the pearls of wisdom of An- them, no matter what those around us may say. il;i-G;..;". "No* the wisdom of the Greeks In both respects the wise man shows equal *ut p-f.rtorial and much given to- disputations; courage."2 of wisdom most adverse to the inquisition philosophy, ; kili The founders of bourgeois Francis of truth."3 Bacon and Descartes, go even further, since they not only rcpudiate medieval ideology but also 1 I. Maritain, Scfuncc rI Sagessr' p. 56' Morat' 1 Montaigne, Les Essais, Paris, 1962, Vol' I, p. 8. 'F.'ii;;;;;'?ii-'iiiov,' oi couitscts ciait and 2 Dictionnai,re historique et critique, Amster- [,ondon,' 19i6, P. 73. P. Baylt, ----ilil'su.r;,'Noaum p' dam, 1740, Tome second, p. 146. organum, New York, 94' 48 42 Descartes' position was that wisdom is not a has complete knowledge of everything, can weak- palticular_ kind of knowledge, distinct from af cn the revolutionary impact of the basic phi- others and accessible only td a few: ,,fni *t oi" losophical demand put forward by Descaites, sum of knowledge and' science is but human the demand for scientific proof, which, as he wisdom, which remains always one and the <;onstantly emphasised, can only be effected sa_me, no matter how various the subiects to through independent, critical research, based on which it is applied. . ."1 cxperiment and the "natural light" (lumen na- turale) human reason. There are four means This new understanding _of wisdom fully ac_ of cords with the spirit of thd New Ase, which sub_ of attaining wisdom or scientific, true knowledge, stitutes for the contemplation of "commonplace, says Descartes. These are: cognition of self- constantly observed reality the active drives of cvident truths; the experience of the senses; exploration ald disc-oveiy, experiment, strici linowledge acquired through conversation with proof and testing of the reiults obtained. others; and the reading of good books. As for Descartes helped to found not only the philo_ divine revelation, Descartes says that "it does sophy but also the mathematics ind natural not raise us gradually but all at once to infal- science of modern times.- Wisdom, according io lible faith".l This statement sounds an ironic his teaching,.is..characterised only bt i;r"d rather than devout note, particularly if one re- sense in affairs" but also by "perfect'kn'owledee"ot rnembers that, according to Descartes, wisdom is be ac- -of all that it is given to min fo kro*,,.i-p;G?; not faith but knowledge, which cannot kaowledge. is reliabb knowledge; his assump_ quired- at one sitting. tions, firmly established, self-ev"ident truths, a're Spinoza revives-the Epicurean conception of so clear and sharp that there can be ,ro dorLt i, rvisdom, but on a new, rational basis that pre- to the truth of them. Defining philosophy as the supposes scientific, proven investigation of exter- love of wisdom, and wisdom" is tnowtJd# %i nai-nature and human essence. Epicurus assumed the truths concerning-. the most implrtant that the philosophical explanation of the phe- things",S Descartes, as trrre spokesman-of the rlomena of nature should be in accord with our young, progressive bourgeoisie, observes that sense perceptions, which he regarded as com- "peop"l.e who engage profeisionally in philosophy pletely reliable. Spinoza, who followed Galileo are otten less wise and less rational than otheis and Descartes in fully appreciating the philosoph- who have never applied themselves to this ical significance of Copernicus' discovery of study". . . .', None of his reservations to the effect the contradiction between sensual apPearance that only God is wholly wise because only He and the essence of phenomena, argued the need for strict logical (geometrical) proof of philo- ,,1n**t ae l)escartes.-'fomc X, paris, tg0g, p. 560. sophical propositions. From the standpoint_ of 2 - .pagcs immortclle s de Dcscartis, irl.ir, 1961, l')picurus, phenomena as distinct from pp. -Lcs-l4l-142. lelestial 3 lbid., p. I42. { Ibid., p. 144. 1 lbid. 44 45 the terrestrial had permitted of the most varied marilv the cultivation of the intellect combined explanations compatible with the evidence of the with ihe quest for theoretical knowledge. senses. And all these explanations were reason- ln the idealist doctrine of Leibnitz wisdom is able as long as they did not contradict the sens- interpreted as "perfect science". Admittedly, es and were also conducive to peace of mind. Leibnitz regards metaphysics and the speculative In contrast to Epicurus, Spinoza argues that both system of the 'otruths of reason" as such a scienc-e, the terrestrial and the celestial must be explained which he contrasts with empirical scientific on similar lines, since necessity is everywhere the knowledse. with the "truths of fact". The ideal- same and is expressed by the necessity of logic ist interiretation of the principle of scientifica- and mathematics. litv. the-rationalist "substantiation" of theologi- Wisdom, according to Spinoza, is cognition of cai'notions, the juxtaposition of metaphysics to universal necessity and action in accordance physics-all this was, of course, a-concession to with it. Therefore wisdom is not only knowledge ihe feudal ideology reigning in Germany. 4ll but also freedom, which lies in mastery of one- the same, it is science that ho regards as the ade- self. Spinoza declares: "The wise man's business quate expression of wisdom, and I.eibnitz could much ippreciate science not only as a philosopher but is to make use of things and to take as ^ pleasure in them as possible (but not to the point ai a brilliant mathematician and experimental of surfeit, for this is no longer pleasure). The scientist. Science is irrefutable. This belief is wise man should, I say, support and restore him- shared not only by materialists but also -by the self with moderate food and drink, and also with progressive spokesmen of idealist philosopl'y, and the scents and beauty of green plants, beautiful it iJ from this standpoint that they pose the tra- clothes, music, games and exercises, the theatre ditional philosophical question of the nature of and suchlike, which anyone can partake in wisdom. without harm to others."l How far this is from Of course, the concept of science existed even the medieval ideal of wisdom! in medieval scholastics. Even the mystics did not Spinoza's conception of the philosopher-sage is always reject it. The science of the New Age, usually interpreted as if Spinoza believed the however-true science-introduces a fundamen- wise man should be a hermit, absorbed only in tally new concept of scientificality. This concept meditation and remote from all human joys. has'to be accepted, although certainly not without There is a modicum of truth in this, but it should reservations, even by the idealist philosophers, not be exaggerated, particularly if we consider at any rate those who can be regarded as pro- that in the 17th century scientists were few in gressive thinkers. As for the materialists, they number and had only just begun to form a sep- rire enthusiastic advocates of scientific inquiry arate profession. Wisdom for Spinoza was pri- into nature. Holbach's System of Nature is an encyclopae- the philosophical wisdom of French 18th 1 CEuures de Sbinoza. Traduites par Emile Saisset, tlia of Paris, 1961, tome III, pp.224-225. t:cntury malerialism. His stated aim is to lib- 46 47 erate man from the chains of ignorance, gullibi- him love his neighbours; let him know delight lity, deception and self-deception, to restore him and allow others to delight as well."l to nature from which he has been decoyed by Philosophical wisdom, according to the teach- religion, by concocted systems and the shameful ing of the French materialists, should not be a worphip of error; to show him the true path to dispassionate contemplation and justification of happiness. Man needs truth more than he needs nhat is. Its calling is to be militant, to expose his daily bread, because truth is knowledge of slavish genuflection to the past, to tyranny, igno- the actual relations between people and things. rance and indolence, to spread truth, humanity People are deceived only when they turn away and happiness, to promote the reasonable reor- from nature and refuse to consider its laws and dering of human life. Its passionate protest against ignore experience-the only source of knowledge. feudal oppression endows French material- "When people refuse to be guided by expe- ism with a new aspect that qualitatively distin- rience and disown reason, the figments of their guishes it from all previous philosophies. This is imagination grow huger with every passing day; expressed in the very definition of philosophy as they plunge joyfully into the depths of error; love of wisdom. Helv6tius says: "Philosophy, as they congratulate themselves on their imagined the very etymology of the word proves, consists discoveries and achievements, while in reality in love of wisdom and the search for truth. But their thoughts are ever more closely confined in all love is passion."2 darkness."l Back to nature! This means casting German classical idealism, despite its constant aside the existence of the supernatural, putting polemic with French materialism, is at bottom down all the chimeras of religion. Nothing exists inspired by the same bourgeois-humanist ideals except nature. Nature is no abstract being but that Holbach, Helv6tius and their associates seek an infinite whole, an infinite variety of phenom- to substantiate. On closer inspection Kant's ca- ena, Man is the highest creation of nature, and tegorical imperative turns out to be an idealist, only by acting in accordance with its laws can a priori interpretation of the ethics of enlight- he attain his ends. Virtue, reason, truth are not ened self-interest. Despite the juxtaposition of spiritualist essences, they are born of nature ahd practical reason to theoretical reason with the only they deserve to be worshipped. Holbach corresponding postulation of the need for a makes a vigorous appeal to them: "Inspire man "practical" outlet beyond the bounds of expe- with courage, give him energy; allow him at last lience and for acceptance of Christian dogma, to love and respect himself; let him realise his I(ant is unshakeably convinced that only science own dignity; let him dare to liberate himself; r:onstitutes the real foundation of wisdom. It is let him be happy and free; let him be the slave in his Critique of Practical Reason that he for- only of your laws; let him improve his lot; let t lbid., p. 684. I P. Holbach, Selected, Uorks in two volumes. Moscow, 2 Helv6tius, Man, His Mental Abilities and. Education, 1963, Vol. I, p. 137 (in Russian). Moscow, 1938, p. 141 (in Russian). 48 mulates the conclusion: "Science (critically inves- Hegel's philosophy is a new stride forward on tigated and methodically organised) is the strait lhc path from pre-scientilic philosophical wisdom gite that leads to the' teaihing o_f ui.sdom, iL tr-r scientific philosophical knowledge, which is 6v this we understand not only'guiding what man does to be understood as the dialectical lreatment of ui what should serve as a star for this wisdom-its negation and preservation. He- teachers, so that they can well and clearly point gel holds that the task of learning in his time out the way to wisdom. . . ."1 is to_raise philosophy to the rank of science. In Kant's immediate successor, Fichte, goes even lis Fhenomenology'of Mind, he pours sarcastic further in this direction. For him philosophy is lidicule on romantic philosophising whose ex- a scientific doctrine. Admittedly, at the same time regard themselves as prophets ;ronents- - inspired it is a subjective-idealist, voluntarist ontology, I'rom above. . Their occupatiori is- not res6arch but this contradiction, which is inseparable from but holding forth.^They "imagine that by veiling of scientific knowledge, sclf-awar-eness the idealist interpretation in fog and reprldiating-whom reason the| does not detract from the historical significance lrecome the initiated, ones God endows of Fichte's broad philosophical posing of the with wisdom while they sleep;'sleep what thev actuallv problem of scientific philosophy. In Fichte's phi- leceive and invent in' theii is lhus als6 Iosophy science is the highest form of knowledge, dreams".l llqg.l had in mind S&elling, Jacobi and- philosophy can retain its leading place in and other philosophers with leanings to#aids ir- man's intellectual life only to the extent that its lationalism. In contrast to them he argues that understanding of the world becomes scientific philosophical truth cannot by its very iature be and bears out the principles of all scientific immediate knowledge. It is'by nature mediate. knowledge in general. From this standpoint the It develops, enrichel itself, discovers its own traditional interpretation of philosophy as love contradictions. The task of the philosopher is to of wisdom falls to the ground because philoso- penetrate into the immanent rhvthm of the de- phy, like any other scientific discipline, must now veloping concept and move with'it, avoiding any Le systematic. Scientific doctrine, says Fichte, interruption of this motion "through the wili and calmiy allows any other philosophy to be what rrlready-ac-quired- wisdom".2 Here- he is speaking it chooses: passion for wisdom, just wisdom, of the dialectical method, the dialectical-motioi world wisdom, wisdom of life and all the other of philosophifal knowledge overcoming its tradi- wisdoms. This is not a denial of wisdom but a lional metaphysical limitations, dogmatism and denial of its superscientificality, a denial that the absolutising of results achieved. nevertheless conflicts with Fichte's own idealis- In his introduction to the Pheruomenology of tically constructed system of perfect, absolute Mind Hegel writes: "The true form in irti"t scientifico-philosophical knowledge. ,-G^ .. . W. F. Hegel , Siimtliche (l)erke, Stuttgart, 1927, I Immanuel Kants Uerhe, Berlin, 1914, Fiinfter Band, t|,1. 2, s. 18. s. 176. 2 Ibid., s. 55. 50 5t truth exists can be onlv its scientific system. It not the word "wisdom" too vague a designation has been my intention to bring philosophy I'or philosophical knowledge? Since it is not to be nearer to the lorm of science, to a goal whose at- found in t6e vocabulary of the positive sciences, tainment would allow it to renounce its name perhaps we should abandon the word "wisdom" of. loue of knoaledge and become actual hnoztt' altogelher? Bertrand Russell once asked: "Is led.gs."t Hegel's encyclopaedia of the philosoph- there such a thing as wisdom, or is wlat seems ical"sciences"was in fact iuch an attempt, doomed such merely the ultimate refinement of fo,lly-?"l to failure owing to the contradiction between The word "wisdom" like many other words, has This method and system'in'and Hegelian philosophy' too many meanings. Wisdom has often been un- contradiction the rel-ated absolutisation of derstood-as the abilitv to draw a clear distinction historically limited philosophical knowledge wa^s between good and evil, as the ability t-o combine unavoidable without abandoning idealism. A knowledge and conduct on the basis of a correct oositive solution to the problem of creating a assessment of the main facts or typical situations. scientific philosophy'and became possible- only thanks These definitions are correct in the senSe that to the mlterialiit dialeitical philosophy of u,isdom cannot be only knowledge, and that ac- Marxism, a philosophy that by i!-s-.categorical tion not based on knowledge cannot be wise. But repudiation oT dogmatic system-building,-its by the here we are faced with the question of the char- criative developrient of own- ,propositions, acter of knowledge, the extent to which it the critical assimilation of the achievements of implies understanding, and not just any under- poses quite a.new light r.iit.. and practice,-of in standing but understanding of something- that the ouestion tt e nafure of philosophical know- matters in human life. It is obvious that know- ledg6 and all that through the ages has been ledge which is merely a statement of facts, even called wisdom. if tie gathering of tirese facts has entailed con- siderable researth, is still far from wisdom, which 4. PROBLEM OF WISDOM manifests itself rather as a conclusion or genera- AS A REAL PROBLEM lisation. But even generalisation implies wisdom only when it contains an evaluation that can Our brief excursion into the history of the guide the solution of complex questions of theory oroblem of wisdom suggests the conclusion that and practical life. in the course of histoiv the significance of this Understanding, the practice of moderation in oroblem has chansed. I[ can also be said that the one's conduct and affairs, because all extremes broblem has nevei been discussed by the positive are bad, have often been called wisdom. This is iciences. Perhaps wisdom has a bearing only-on also true, of course, if the sense of moderation does philosophy, attd eu.t then only to the extent that not become mere half-heartedness and fear of it ir .ontiisted with the specialised sciences? Is 1 B. Russell, Ilistory ol Uestern Phi'losoplry, London, l{)46, p. 11. 52 making radical decisions when they are needed And yet it is a fact that man alone out of all This was what Marx meant when he said that the creatures in the universe, just because he is moderation is a category of mediocrity.l Need- a rational being, may also be irrational. less to say, the latter has nothing whatever to do Does not this indicate some contradiction in with wisdom. wisdom that sometimes puts the whole concept in Wisdom is often regarded as awareness of doubt? one's own errors. There can be no objection-who to "Man," Eric Weil justly observes, "is a ratio- this, of course, because only the person does nal animal, but this is not the kind of judgement nothing never makes mistakes, if doing nothing enunciated by science; it is a project for trans- is not to be considered a mistake in itself. But the forming the world and negating error; it is the wise man differs from the man without wisdom expression of man's highest and most human as- in that he does not make so many mistakes or, at piration." Straightaway, however, quite in the least, manages to avoid making any great and soirit of stoicism and the obvious contradiction irreparable ones. Perhaps for this reason many ti what he has just said, Weil adds that man, have seen wisdom in caution, circumspection, the when he declares himself rational, "is not speak- avoidance of haste. These qualities, though posi- ing-fact, of a fact and not even claiming to speak,of tive in themselves, however, can easily be trans- a but expressing his ultimate desire, the formed into the defects of vacillation, procrasti- desire to be free, though not of need (that he natibn and inertia. will never be, and it will not worry him any Folk wisdom often makes fun of the would-be more than need worries an animal), but of de- wise, of those who think up all kinds of new- stre .' fangled ways of doing something while a per- I regard wisdom not as an empty word, not fectly simple and reasonable solution to the as a name for a phenomenon that does not exist. problem is available. In my view wisdom exists not only in philo- When we speak of man as a rational being we sophy; the belief that mere philosophising leads glg presumably trying to define his species. to wisdom is one of the chief illusions of pre- When we call a man intelligent or gifted we at- Marxist philosophy. Wisdom is to be acguired in tribute to him qualities that not everyone pos- many and various ways and manifests itself in sesses. Wisdom is not inherent in everyone, and various fields of knowiedge and activity. yet at the same time it is closely related to uni- When Niels Bohr said that a new fundamen- versal human knowledge, which is potentially tal theoretical synthesis in modern physics de- available to all men. Wisdom is to be found in manded completely new, "mad" ideas, i.e., ideas folk sayings and proverbs, although false wisdom that seemed incompatible with the established and servile attitudes are also to be found there. truths of science, this was an extremely rational or, to use another word, wise approach to a ques- 1 K. Marx and F. Engels, From Early Uorhs, p. 196 (in Russian). 1 E. Weil, Logique de la philosolthie, Paris, 1950, p. 11. 54 55 tion that was of vital importance to the further errors-the errors of the giants of revolutionary development of natural science. thought, who sought to raise, and did raise, the The-Utopian socialists regarded capitalism as proletariat of the whole world above the level a moral evil and distortion of human nature, and of petty, commonplace and trivial tasks-are a condemned the exploitation of man by man as thousand times more noble and magnificent and incompatible with humanity and justice. Marx historically more aaluable and. true than the and Engels, who exposed the capitalist system trite wisdom of official liberalism, which lauds, even more vehemently, held that it was complete- shouts, appeals and holds forth about the vanity lv untenable to deduce the need for the social- of revolutionary vanities, the futility of the rev- iit transformation of society from a moral eva- olutionary struggle and the charms of counter- luation of capitalism. This world, notwithstand- revolutionary --constitutional' fantasies...."t ing Leibnitz'J illusion, is not the best of all pos- There is wisdom and there is also the "wisdom" sible worlds, and a social system does not col- that is fostered by fear and impotence; the latter lapse merely because of its moral shortcomings. is the consolation of the slave who seeks to recon- Ivlarx and Engels proved the necessity for tran- cile himself to his present state in life. sition from cipitalism to socialism by scientific Soon after the victory of the Great October analysis of the obiective economic laws of the Revolution Lenin spoke against the Menshevik deveiopment of capitalism which were creating Sukhanov, who was trying to prove that the so- the material prerequisites for the socialist system. cialist revolution in Russia had no historical jus- In contrast to ttre lJtopians, who believed that tification since the material conditions for the socialism was bound to be achieved as soon as transition to socialism did not obtain in Russia. socialist ideas became sufficiently widespread, "If a definite level of culture," Lenin wrote, "is the founders of Marxism argued that the social- required for the building of socialism (although ist transformation of social relations would be- nobody can say just what that definite 'level o{ come a necessity only under certain- historical culture' is, for it differs in every West-European conditions. This'is not only a scientific, histori- country), why cannot we begin by first achieving cally grounded positing of a question that is of the prerequisites for that definite level of culture tremendous import for mankind; it is also a wise in a revolutionary way, and then, with the aid one. of the workers' and peasants' government and Lenin scathingly criticised the trite wisdom of the Soviet system. proceed to overtake the other the liberals and opportunists, who justified their nations?"2 This posing of the question of the fear of revolution with ponderous sentiments to historical prospects of the Land of Soviets, the effect that one must learn from life, not be in equally free of fatalism on the one hand, and too much of a hurry, too impatient and so on. of subjective bias on the other, is indeed worthy Pointing out that Marx and Engels had been to be called wise. the wrong in their estimation of the nearness of 1 V. L Lenin, Collected Uorhs, VoI. 12, p. 378. social-ist revolution, Lenin stressed that "such 2 Ibid., Vol. 38, pp. 478-79. 56 Wisdom exists because there are great ques- This understanding is based on the data oI tions to be answered that are of vital importance science, but not only on them. Of no less impor- to the human race (and the individual); these tance to wisdom are everyday and historical ouestions take shape' in men's minds and they cxperience. Jannot be left unairswered. Even if the answers Wisdom is not an ideal of knowledge, since do not provide a ready and complete solution, not all knowledge, ideally conceived, becomes thev always (if thev aie wise answers) conduce wisdom. The ideally exact and complete cogni- to ihe .oi...l posiirg of further questions, and tion of any physical structure has nothing to do thus the solution that is bound to come sooner or with wisdom, which does not, of course, belittle later. the value of such knowledge. But wisdom is not an unattainable ideal. The rationalism the The philosophers were mistaken when -they of counteriosed wisdom to science. This mistake is New Age, which attempted to create a "perfect beinE iepeated today by many contemporary science" of wisdom, was obviously unaware that idealist dhilosophers bf the irrational school. One a,ty absolute ideal is a meaningless concept. cannot igt.. *ith Walter Ehrlich, for example, Ideals are historical; they are generated by so- who maiitains that philosophy "should in fact, cial development, which subsequently transcends sienify uisd,om at d het ce a special kind of them in its movement forward. The ideal of kiowiedge, that does not at all coincide with knowledge, the ideal of social management as scientific-knowledge, which is available to every- historically concrete ideals are entirely realisa- one (if one has the necessary time and educa' ble, and for this reason the concept of absolute tion)'i.l No knowled.ge shouid be counterposed perfection cannot be applied to them. But does to stience. There is no such thing as knowledge such a concept exist? Not, I believe, as a scien- that is above science. What does exist is pre- tific concept. scientific and unscientific knowledge, and this is Jacques Maritain is, perhaps, more consistent what wisdom becomes if it is juxtaposed to science. than Leibnitz when he maintains that perfect Does this mean that wisdom should become a science is impossible and perfect wisdom exists science or is becoming one? By no means! Science only in the Scriptures. But this view makes sense is a system of concepts, whose meaning is or- only to the religious, and then only to those of sanically linked with the subiect of the given them who regard the Bible as "divine revela- icience.'Wisdom is not a system of concepts; the tion" and not a historical document. Philosophy, specific nature of wisdom cannot be defined by since it thinks in concepts, cannot stand on faith. p^ointing to the subject of inquiry. Wisdom has Philosophy begins with reflections on the na- iro s.rcli subiect merely'of because it is not an in- ture of wisdom. Today the problem of wisdom quiry, although it is, course, understanding. retains its significance as a philosophical pro- blem. But it would obviously be incorrect to assume philosophy r 'W. Ehrlich, Philosophie der Geschichte der Philo' that boils down to the study sophie,Tibingen, 1965, S. 17. or attainment of wisdom, as Jean Piaget, for 58 instance, maintains: "The reasoned synthesis of should not identify itself with it. Philosophy can beliefs, no matter what they may be, and of the and should be a system of scientifically grounded conditions of knowledge, is what we have called linowledge. This conclusion has nothing in com- wisdom, and this is what seems to us to be the rnon, however, with the positivist ridicule of the subject of philosophy."l rluest- for wisdom as a metaphysical pretension. We cannot alrie with these definitions of We know that neo-positivism's struggle against wisdom and the subject of philosophy. Wisdom "metaphysics" quite unexpectedly brought the may be regarded as a specific form of knowledge, neo-posiiivists to the realipation that the problems but the ttreasoned synthesis of beliefs" may of philosophy were unavoidable. This notable surely be called wiSdom only with reference to faci should be regarded as evidence that the pro- the riistant past, before the dawn of science. blem of wisdom retains its significance in phi- One of tlie specific features of philosophy is losophy, just as the question of the rational or- that the universal and necessary significance of dering of human life is still being discussed in its propositions is constantly in the process of society. One can agree with Bertrand Russell, becomins and development. Is this characteristic who for all his hesitations in assessing the signi- of wisd"om? Apparentlv not. Nevertheless the ficance of the content and meaning of philo- original meaning^ of the word "philosophy" re- sophy, finally declares that there are certain general questions cannot be answered in the taiis its significa--nce"of even today. It sPeaks of the that possibility human wisdom, but also of the laboratory, from which it does not necessarily iact that'we shall never be replete with it. follow that they should be presented to the theo- logists for the taking. It is for philosophy to deal Some contemporary'wisdom philosophers with religious leaninEs hold that has declined into with these questions. science" and that art has been replaced by tech- "Is the world divided into mind and matter, philosophe-rs and, if so, what is mind and what is matter? Is nology. It is my belief -that, these havi a distorted view of both science and tech- mind subject to matter, or is it possessed of inde- nology. Wisdom, of course, lie in the pendent powers? Has the universe any unity or -do-e9 -qot discovery of the structure of DNA, and art is lrurpose?-Is it evolving towards some goal? Are not the mass production of motor-cars. But a theie really laws of nature, or do we believe in new basis for both wisdom and art is emerging them only because of our innate love of order? more and more in the latest discoveries of science Is man what he seems to the astronomer, a and the achievements of technology. tiny lump of impure carbon and water impotent_ly Wisdom will not become a science, just as crawling on a small and unimportant planet? Or science will not become wisdom. Philosophy, no is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps matter how high a value it places on wisdom, both at once? Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile? If there is a way of liv- r Sagcsse ct illusions de la philosoplie, Patis, J. Piaget, does and 1968, p. 281. ing thaf is noble, in what it consist, 60 6l how shall we achieve it? Must the good be eternal found indubitable answers to them. To teach how in order to deserve to be yalued, or is it worth lo live without certainty and yet without being seeking even if the universe is inexorably moving paralysed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing towards death?. . . itrat fhilosophy, in our age, can still do for those "The studying of these questions, if not the r,r,ho study it."t A good many people would be answering of them, is the business of philos- rrreoared to take thise words as the ultimate in ophy."1 *irio-, although it seems that in the state of It is not our purpose here to discuss /zozo uncertainty in which we are supposed to live, Bertrand Russell formulates the basic questions between ihe comforting f.ainy tale and the of philosophy and which of these questions he paralysis of hesitation which this British philos- leaves out of his list. It would seem that these iphel so rightly deplores, there is ,o .oo?.t left questions are mostly formulated in such a way for taking any important decisions at all. that any correct answer to them is inconceivable. We have examined various interpretations of The philosophy of Marxism formulates these the word "wisdom" in its relation to the origin questions differently and does not, of course, and development of philosophy. In view of the confine itself to recognising their unavoidability. multiplicity of meanings the word may suggest, Dialectical and historical materialism solves it is probably better not to attempt aly set defi- these and other philosophical problems in alli- nition. The innumerable meanings which it has ance with natural science and the humanities. acquired in the course of history and retains to Russell and the philosophers who have trans- this day, and which cannot therefore be discount- ferred their allegiance from positivist nihilism to cd, would make any such definition purely a recognition of the inevitability of "metaphysics" arbitrary from the standpoint of the history -of adopt a different stand. In his efforts to avoid the philosophy, whose function is to sum up the dogmatism of the theologists, and dogmatism in historical'development of the philosophical con- general, Russell arrives at scepticism and mode- ceptions of wisdom. However the mere enume- rate pessimism, which he sees as the only general ration of the semantic meanings of this word and position worthy of the philosopher (and the recognition of the fact that these meanings bear scientist in general). The theoretical formulation some relation to one another are bound in one of this position is as follows. "LJncertainty, in the way or another to lead to a concept. Without presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, claiming to give a definition, I would advocate but must be endured if we wish to live without r egarding wiidom as a fact and not a figment, the support of comforting fairy tales. It is not as-a fact-that can be understood and theoretically good either to forget the questions that philos- defined in conceptual form. In ihis case wisdom ophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have ruay be understood as the generalisation of the rnuitifarious knowledge and experience of the 1 B. Russell, History of Uestern Philosophy, pp. l0-l l. 1 Ibid., p. 11. 62 63 human race, a generalisation formulated as the Chapter Two principles of cognition, evaluation, behaviour and MEANING OF THE QUESTION lction. This is, 6f .orrtt., a too general definition, ..WHAT but it does help to move on from the original IS PHILOSOPHY?" meaning of the word "philosophy" to an exami- nation of the specific nature of philosophical knowledge. 1. PHILOSOPHY AS A PBOBLEM T'OB ITSELF There are some questions that cannot be answered by the people who ask them but can be answered by others. There are some questions that have many answers. If one of these answers is correct, the iolution to the problem is to choose the correct answer. This choice cannot be made blindfold. How then is one to know whether one has chosen correctly? In philosophy there are hosts of different il.rsweis to tlie'question "What is pbilosophy?", 'fhese answers cannot be described either as correct or as incorrect. The point is that every irnswer to a given question is above all an answer to another, more particular question. Thus, Aris- totle's definition of philosophy is essentially a 66 67 then we must study the origin of the specific and who realise that the answer cannot simply differences between philosophles. Their historical be referred to in a textbook' oriEin is proved bv facts. But are not these Some educated people who regard philosophy difierences'immutabie? Until we have succeeded as an occupation too serious or too exhausting to in proving the opposite, the question "What is clevote their leisure to it, and yet not serious ohiiosoohi?" will^ iontinue to iound like Pontius enough to claim any of their working hours, are Filut"'r^ fimous question "What is truttr?". badlv upset upon discovering that many notions, We experienc-e no partic-ular {iffcylly in belieis, corrcefts and truths that never gave them answerins-such questions- as "What is Schelling's anv cause for doubt turn out to be unclear, ohilosoohl?". "Yfhdt is Nietzsche's philosophy?" untertain, and unsound as soon as they come up br "Wliat is [he philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre?" for discussion by qualified philosophers. Tt.y Not because thdse are-simple questions but be- feel thev have been cheated, when they find cause their content may be strittly defined. But themselves deprived of the carefree certainty of to answer the question "What is philosophy?" we what they imisined to be self-evident. And yet which distinguishes must break uw:av fro* that throughout the-history of philosophy, -an edifice SchellinE. Nietzsthe and Sartre and many other in wfiich every outstanding thinker instead of ohilosoolers from one another. But what is left building the next storey begins once again to- lay ift.. sich an abstraction which rules out the a new Toundation, there are in fact no notions, distinctions between one philosophy and another? concepts or truths that are not open to question. Abstract identity? But this is only an instance of Ouestions that have been declared solved (and concrete identity, whose significance- is directly o-ften actually have been solved) constantly revert related to the iignificance bf the distinction it to the status of problems. Is this not the reason implies. why the question-"What is philosophy?" has been The existence of a host of incompatible philos- disiussed- in philosophy fiom the time of its oohies makes the solution of the problem "What beginning to the present day? is'ohilosophv?" extremelv-the difficult. But this very All outstanding philosophical doctrines negate cirtumstairci t'.stifi.s to fact that the diffi- one another. Th"is^ is the empirical fact from culty of answering increases in proportion to the which historico-philosophical science,proceeds. thE factual data for its solution. availability of This negation may be abstract, -metaphysical or Unlike the non-specialists-these in phllo.soply, th-e it may be concrete and dialectical, but it is nega- philosophers have data a{ their disposal. tion that characterises eaery philosophical system So to them the question "What is philosophy?" and, hence, the specific nature of philosophy, apDears particulaily difficult. Thus the guestion despite the fact that its immediate implication just hlai a difrerent rin[ for the student who -is is merelv that some philosophical svstems differ embarking on a corirse of philosophy and for the from ot(ers. These at' first filat ce "antagonistic" philosophErs themselves, who ale not outside relations between philosophical doctrines have irhitoroihy, who put the question to themselves, always placed in doubt the unity of philosophical 68 89 knowledge. But there are only philosophies philosophical truths established centuries ago -still if prejudice. and no philosophy, does not the question "What have nbt broken through the crust of is philosophy?" lose all meaning? Is philosophy The reason for this lies not so much in philosophy determined socio-economic possible as a science? The significance of these as in the historically change questions has grown historically as the gap be- conditions, which are not immune to practice. But whatever the tween various philosophical systems has widened. either in theory or And the fact that the philosophical systems of reason, the fact still remains, and this forms, if philosophical, extremely im- the distant past are constantly re-emerging and not the at least an "What philos- developing in new. ways gives even greater portant Source bf the question is trrgency to these questions, since it is not only oohv?". 'It of most the philosophical systems of a given historical may appear that the incompatibility philosophical doctrines, the incom- period that oppose one another but the phi- of the [.edr all the that have ever existed. uatibility of the various interpretations of losophies extremely philosophy there is no such thing as a single i,.ry .oh."pt of philosophy *ikes it In guestions definition concepts, not even of the concept of difficult to distinguish philosophical of yet philoso- philosophy itself. We know that Ludwig Feuer- from the non-philosophiial. And , agree bach often used to declare: My philosophy is not phers of radica[ly different schools usually questions may or a philosophy at all. But no on-e would ev6r think with one another as to which philosophical. one of asserting that Feuerbach was not a philosopher. may not be considered No as a philosopher The rise of Marxism as a philosophy denoted the would think of treating Lamarck Zoology, negation of philosophy in the old sense of the because he wrote Thi Philosophy of questions con- term, the abolition of philosophising, as opposed although certain philosoplical are to to the positive sciences and practice. Nevertheless sidered in this work. This applies not only this old philosophy has continued to exist and philosophers but to readers with a sound knowl- to evolve-new sistems. This does not mean that edge of philosophy, who. are also -quite -capable the old philosofhy has not been abolished, for of'distinsuishini the philosophical from the non- reading a non- this old philosophy is already a system of obso- nhilosophical. What is more, when as a poem or a novel, lete views. irhiloso'phical work, such ^ picking the ihe positive sciences truth usually over- fh.y hlrre little aifficulty in out In and, when- study- comes error in the course of a period of history phiiosophical ideas it confains that can be surveyed with relative ease, that is ing ceitain ostensibly philosophical qorks, ar-e to, say, it takes only so long as is needed to abie to state with asiurance that they lack look fresh confirmation, philosophical ideas. assimilate, check and for ' philo- and so on. The historico-philosophical process So it'is probably easier to distinguish the does not fall into this pattern. It ii impossible to sophical from the non-philosophical than, say, iiay. how long will be needed for philosophical thl chemical from the physical. The distinguish- judgement are nearly truth to triumph over philosophical error; some ing features of philosopf,ichl 7l ?0 always self-evident, since a negative definition of of special philosophical inquiry is the sine qua philosophy (i.e., a definition of what does not non of its fruitful development.l constitute philosophy) is not usually hard to It should not be assumed, however, that when- make. But the specific nature of philosophy still ever a philosopher asks the question "What is remains a problem. So the question "What is philosophy?", the question always has one and philosophy?" be classed as one of the basic the same implication, and it is only a matter of philosophical questions^ay and as such, to be discussed his being dissatisfied with the answers. In fact, not by those who know nothing about philos- what he is looking for is not a perfect definition ophy but by those who have dedicated them- but a new range of philosophical problems, which selves to its study. Thus it becomes a question not is counterposed to the old and is declared to be so much for others as for oneself. The posing of of great importance ,and actually defining the this question testifies to the development of phi- concept of philosophy.2 losophy's self-awareness, manifestation of its self- criticism. r Friedrich Schelling was right when he asserted that Thus, philosophy differs essentially from other "the very idea of philosophy itself is the result of phi- losophy which as an infinite science is also the science of systems of knowledge in that it is constantly itself". (S chellings U erke, Erster Hauptband. Jugendschrif- questioning itself as to its own nature, goal and ten 1793-1798. Miinchen, 1927, S.661.) Of course phi- terms of reference. This specific feature of phi- Iosophy turns out to be a "science of itself" not because it losophy was quite evident even in the days of is an "infinite science", which embraces everything. The essence question, however, Schelling did a of the which Ancient Greece, when Socrates proclaimed as express correctly, is that the idea of philosophy is the philosophical credo the dictum of the Delphic result of its hi.storical development, and the contradictory oracle, "Know thyself". As is shown by the dia- content of this idea is the reflection of the actual contra- logues of Plato, this task always leads to discus- dictions of the development of philosophy and of all that determines both the form and the content of its devel- sion of the actual meaning of philosophy. opment. Hegel pointed out that the schools which 2 When Fichte flatly declares that there are probably followed Socrates' dictum "Know thyself" are not more than half a dozen people in the world who know investigating the "relation of thinking to being", what philosophy actually is he is, of course, referring to the philosophical questions raised by his own philosophy trying 1o reveal the subjective side of humdn which, so he believes, turn philosophy into a genuine knowledge, in consequence of which "the subject helping about reasonable science capable of to bring a 'the of philoiophy becomes philosophy itself as a reformation of human life. Fichte declares that pri- science of cognition".l The development of phi- mary task of philosophy is to answer the question "What is man's destiny, his purpose, in the Universe?". The final, losophy in modern times has demonstrated even culminating goal of "any philosophical investigation" is more impressively that philosophy's self-knowl- to answer the question "What is the purpose of the scien- edge, the conversion of philosophy into a subject tist or-which is the same thing, as we shall see later- thc purpose of the highest and truest of men. ,, ." (J. Fich- te, The aocation of the Scholar.) This understanding of 1 Hegel, Uorks ir 14 volumes, Vol. 2, p. 91 (in Rus- philosophy as the science of man, and this understanding sian). of man as the being who most adequately realises his ra- 72 70 Thus, discussion of the question "What is phi- problem of the rational refashioning of the life losophy?" constantly discloses the enrichment of of society. philosophy, the renewal of its range of problems The scientific and technological revolution, its by the history of mankind. This is why the question astonishing achievements, contradictions, pros- has retained its meaning throughout the centuries. pects and social consequences give rise to what In our day it becomes particularly relevant because are in effect philosophical problems. Present-day man has acquired power over the mighty forces of philosophical irrationalism takes a pessimistic nature and this, owing to the antagonistic nature view of the "monstrous" scientific and technical of social relationships, is not only a blessing but adyances of the present age. Such philosophical also presents an unprecedented threat to the very laments over the "breakdown of technological existence of the human race. civilisation", .the "end of progress" and the ine- The contemporary ideological struggle, whic! vitability of global disaster are closely connected to some extenf determines the course of historical with the question "What is philosophy?" because events, again and again raises the old but eter- it implies an evaluation of human reason, of nally new questions o{ the me?ning of human life science. Thus this question, which in its original and'the "meaning of history", of the nature of form arises from the empirical observation of a man and his relations to the environment, to vast number of incompatible philosophical sys- external nature and to himself, of freedom of tems (in this form it is mainly of interest to phi- will, responsibility and external determination, losophers), is today groaing into a question of of progress, and so on. Those who maintain that the historical destiny of mankind and thus be- philosophy is a historically outmoded means of comes a social problem that concerns every think- iomprehending empirical reality naturally de- ing person. Now it is a matter of how far clare these and other problems to be pseudo- mankind is capable of understanding itself, of problems. This attitude in contemporary bourgeois controlling its own development, of becoming the ohilosophv often turns out to be an indirect master of its fate, of coping with the objective lpology for "traditional", i.e., capitalist, relations. consequences of its cognitive and creative activity.l As for-the thinkers who seek a positive solution I The social significance of the question "What is to these philosophical questions, they ultimately philosophy?" receives special treatment in the work of Mar- realise tlie need for a radical solution of social tin Heidegger. His line of reasoning runs approiimately as -losophy?"problems. For them the question "What is p!i- follows: nuclear age, nuclear energy-inner essence of coincides in some measure with the matter having some incomprehensible relation to all exis- tence-determines our future. But the primary source of science is philosophy. Philosophy as the awareness of the tional social essence in science, signifies, in Fichte's view, unknowability of existence, this is the watchword that that philosophy is a scientific teaching, i.e., the solution "secms to be written on the gates of our own history and, of the questlons posed by Kant. Obviously this new un- we would make so bold as to say, on the gates of the con- derstanding of fhe meuting and purpose of philosophy temporary world-historic epoch, known as thi nuclear age." is at the sime time a new positing of the question "What (M. Heidegger, Uas ist d.as-die Philosophie?, Tffbingen, is philosophy?". I956, S. 15.) Heidegger, hs often happens, allows himself to '74 75 2. HOW PHILOSOPHY DELIMITS, of inquiry (and the frame of reference) cannot COGNISES AND DETERMINES ITSELF be strictly delimited. If, for example, mathemat- ical, physical and chemical methods of research are being more and more widely applied outside question asks The "What is philosophy?" also the actual framework of mathematics, physics and what are the subject-matter, significance and chemistry, this not only indicates the significance philosophical limits of knowledge. No research, of these methods for other sciences but also, to no science is possible without the ability to deter- a certain, though inadequate extent, characterises mine its own frame of reference. The clearer the subject mathematics, physics, etc. The problems the of subject, its and aims, and even its 77 7o particular ceDted bv other mathematicians, regardless of ences is that it cannot confine itself to agte" about how the concept of questions. ;li;th.r ih.y - place mathematics'sholld be defined. In philosophy, on The self-delimitation that has taken in hand, where differences of opinion philosophy consists primarily in excluding from the other - p.5ble*s, croD uD all alons the line, there can, of course, itr fruri. of .eferenci a certain range of be iro irnanimitv"either over the question "What namely, the problems dealt with by other special- is philosophv?". This question thus becomes a ised sciences. This process of elimination does philoso- ordbl.n a'rr.i. i, oosing it, philosophers are com- not occur, however, at the will of the ielled to explain why'theri are iardinal differ- phers themselves, but according to thedev,elopment opinion over the definition of a sci- bf the specialised sciences. Philosophy has been inces of questions (and thus ence (or field of knowledge) which al-l the partici- freeing itself from particular pants in the argument agree that they are en- delimiting itself) Eistorically in the course of yeirs. Does this means EaEed in.1 more tha"n two ihousand ' br. of the major triumphs of philosophy in that philosophy, since it has been concerned with hundred years or hore of its existence partiiular questions, has not been philosoph-y? the last philosophy lies in the discoveiy of what philostfhY.actually Obviously nbt. Philosophy remained even when it was trying to answer questions that is. This discovery'was made by -Marxism and ionstitutes ot e of the paramount' elements in the subsequently became the particular questions of physiis, and so-on. Today philosophy revolution in philosopliy'The that was^brought about chemistry bv Marx and Eneeli. significance of this ind the specialised sciences have largely completed discoverv is made itl the greater by the fact that the procdss of delimitation of their spheres of the queslion of the subjecl of philosophy differs influtnce. Philosophy no longer deals with spe- .rr.rrtiully from the sime question applied to- cialised problems, but the answers to these ques- other sciences. Delimitation of the subject of tions given by mathematics, physics, chemistry inquiry in phi]osophy also djffers fjom the anal- and other sciences are of enormous importance answers oEous Drocess rn any other science. The very thing to philosophy, because without these its th"at makes philosophy different from other sci- philbsophy- cinnot know itself and establish identity. philosophy?", 1 "Whv is it," Heinrich Rickert asks, "that philosop!'ers Thui the question "What is talk so much about the concept of their science instead of which in the past arose because philosophy and *.lti"" the problems in their field like other scientists? the specialised sciences were not sufficiently de- ti;; h;r""rt not eien reached asreement about the definition just because this delimitation "vom Begriff der Philoso- limited, now arises ;i;'h"i;;bl.;t.;-ru. RickertJ has taken place. The processes of the differen- p-f,i.;;-i", iotos, Tiibingen, 1910/tl, Band I-, S. l') -Rickert' 5t-.o"ir., siu"t lri, so"lution to' this question with which tiation urrd it t.gtation of scientific knowledge though not because ot i[ot]ophers are not in agreement,-definition actually pose philosophical questions and inten- th""-"ilr.i d" with his of the subiect of philosophy to assimilate ""t'aEree other philosophical sify th6 need not only for ptiiosophy, but- because they uphold also philosophical views. scientific achievements but for 78 inquiry into the structure of scientific knowledge. concerning the first causes of things and their Philosbphy can cope with this task to the extent foundations".l This defirtition, of course, belongs that it becomes a specific science. not to Jolivet but to Aristotle, from whom it was It follows from this that the question of borrowed by Thomas Aquinas. It is hardly neces- whether philosophy is a science, or whether it can sary to prove that it is inapplicable to the majo. become one, is one of the variants of the guestion rity of philosophical doctrines of the past and "What is philosophy?". Some people -hold that present since they directly or indirectly deny the science is only a- siience because it deals with possibility or necessity of metaphysical systems certain, particular questions. Science, -however, is of the classical type.z characteiised not onlv by its "particular" subject the means-the siientific means-of but also by 1 Uocabulaire d.e la philosophie, Lior-Paris, philosophy and R. Jolivet,. its inquiry. In this sense -can 1946, p. 140. should- be a science. The elaboration of philoso- 2 Adrrittedly, philosophers who do not obey the rtrles ohv as a specific science is a task that modern of the confessional are well aware that the question "What philosophers tend to dismiss. Never- is philosophy?" is a real philosophical problem. Evidence of iloirgeois thii is to be found in the shape of Adler's book The Con- thele"ss a considerable number of philosophers hold ditions of Philosophy, which we shall discuss later, and also their own views as to the vital importance of this a work by Jose Mbra Philosophy Today. task. One can therefore understand the anxiety J. A. Hutchison, making out the philosophical case for aged Dewey in his last Protestantism, seeks to prove that thc answer to the ques- expressed by the John tion "What is philosophy?" can be supplied only by reli- university lecture: 'The most important question gion. "An integral part of the task of philosophy is to ask in philosbphy today is, What is philosophy itself? the questions: What is philosophy? What are its methods? Wfiat is the'nature and function of the philoso- What is its function in human life?" $. A. Hutchison, phical enterprise?"1 Faith, Reason and, Existence, New York, 1956, p. 10.) Hut- - chison, however, maintains that philosophy can answer Present-diy bourgeois philosophers quite often neither this nor any of the other questions, "Philosophic declare the concept of philosophy to be indefinable problems never gef solved; at best they are clarified, at while stressing that the impossibility of answer- worst muddied" (Ibid., p. 2l). It is here, in Hutchison's ing the question "What is philosophy?" does not view, that religion comes to the aid of philosophy because it is concerned with essentially the same questions. "The imlplv th-at it is a meaningless question. Only the relations between philosophy and religion may be summa- neo-Thomists, and only tht mos[ orthodox at that, rised by stating that all philosophies have religious foun- prefer not to exert themselves over this question dations and religions have philosophical implications" ind offer standard definitions instead. Regis (Ibid., pp. 28-29). Wheieas Jose Mora is fairly typical of the modern Jolivet, for instance, defines philosoplrl as "natu- bourgeois philosophers in doubting the possibility of over- ial (as opposed to theological.-T.O') science coming the hopeless pluralism of philosophical systems, J. A. Hutchison, hoping to solve this problem by making philosophy the handmaid of religion, expresses even more r M. Adler, The Conditions of Philosophy. Its Checkered clearly the atmosphere of social crisis revealed in the very Past. Its Present Disorder, and lts Future Promise, New way bourgeois philosophers today approach the question York, 1965, p. VII. o[ the meaning and implications of philosophy. 80 8l From our point of view the answer to the ques- began to acquire a relative independence from its tion "What is philosophy?" presupposes inquiry practical function. into the genesis and deveiopment of philosophical Today theory's relative independence of prac- -between philosophical tice grown knowled[e, the struggle - has considerably in comparison with trends, Jhutg.t in tfid subject and-problems of the past. Indeed this is what enables modern philosophv. lts relationship to the specialised natural science to launch new branches of indus- iciencei, ili ideological function, and so on. Thus trial production, whose foundations have been it is important to irnderstand that we are in fact laid by research not devoted to any practical confron?ed not with one question but with goal, and by discoveries with no immediate ap- a whole set of problems, the content of which plied significance. The unity of scientific theoret- has not remained unchanged in the course of ical knowledge and practice is a mediate unity, history. implying the existence of numerous intermediate links both in the sphere of scientific research and 3. FIRST HISTORICAL FORM in practical activity. It is the absence of immedi- OF THEORETICAL KNOWLEDGE ate unity (identity) between theoretical knowledge and practical activity that creates the need to Inquiry into the historical Process of the gene- implement the achievements of theoretical knowl- sis oi fhilosophy entails examination of the edge in production and social practice in general.l relationship between emergent philosophical knowledge- and the fairly, copious information 1 The theoretician's "aloofness" from immediate prac- about ev"eryday experience'that man alreadY nps- tical tasks should not be regarded as indifference to these sessed in the inci6nt world. From the very first tasks, to social and political problems. This is rather a a juxtaposition of r;oncentrati,on of attention, of intellectual interests and this relationship becomes -phi- cfforts, without which neither science nor philosophy can losophisins, the search for truth alone, to both achieve any outstanding results reaching far in advance mvtholoey" and the pursuit of purely practical of current practice, The biologist studying the nervous aims. I's'ee the reason for this juxtaposition in system of the rain worm or the biochemical evolution of immedigte llowering plants is directly inspired by his thirst for the disappearance of the original knowledge, not by any notion of the possible practical unity betrieen knowledge and practical activity, use to be derived from his research. It should also be noted i.e.,'the emergence of theoretical knowledge, that certain theories (this refers mainly to philosophy) are which by its ve"ry nature is relatively independent highly important not so much to practice as to the deve- practical lopment of other theories that may have direct practjcal of activitv. application. The progressive division of labour inevitably th. .-..gence'of theoretical knowledge -both r csults in some scientists' being concerned with "pure" in the past ind the present comes about only to theory while others develop, concretise, abstract theoreti- the extint that knowledge can be relatively inde- cal propositions, and discover means of applying thern in judging by the practice, which, of course, also entails theoretical research, pendent of practice. G6ometry, lhc discovery of certain definite laws, and not merely the etymology oi the word, began as land, surveying yrractical application of abstract theoretical propositions and bec"Jme theoretical knowledge only after it which generally cannot be directly applied. 82 88 Ancient Greece possessed no narrowlY gPecial- from questioning, from reasoning, the goal of ised scientists. Thi philosophers were the sole which is truth, and not what is of practical r.pi.t.t tatirn.t of tlreoreti6al knowledge, and rrtility. this knowledge was at a historical stage that Socrates, through whom Plato expresses his iuled out an| possibility of its being systematic- lreliefs, is not exactly contemptuous of the know- allv applied'in produc[ion or any other sphere- ledge of the craftsman and the farmer or of the nf 'oriitical activitv. The effective linking of knowledge and skill that are required for parti- particularly their cipation in public life. He simply maintains that theo'tv and practiie,^of and .o*pi.* and, course, contradictory unity ar-e this has nothing whatever to offer philosophy. tt. irod".t of the historical development of both In contrast to the Sophists, who taught philosophy ;h;"; and practice. and their intEraction' This as the ability to think, speak and persuade that to soire extent explains why the first p-hilosophers is needed in intercourse with other people, So- reEarded the cosnitive funttion of philosophy as crates declares that those who have a true calling roilitt ins total$ unrelated to praclical (includ- for philosophy ". . .have never, from their youth i"u to.iui) activitv. whv thev regarded philoso- upwards, known their way to the Agora, or the ut a'ouest for knowledhe f-or knowledge's discastery, or the council, or any other political ia(e."h'" It is' quite obvious that- peoples' various assembly; they neither see nor hear the laws or (nod onlv production but also political) decrees, as they are called, of the state written lctivities"r^.iiJ in those davs could not, of course, be or recited; the eagerness of political society in Uut.a theoretical (nowledge. And philosophy the attainment of offices-clubs, and banquets, ""-ott abstract of all forms of theoretical and revels in the company of flute-girls-do not t.ro*ledse-plainlv-th. demonstrated these objective cnter even into their dreams. Whether someone fiitor.r"of the hisiorical process of the develop- in the city is of good or base birth, what disgrace ment---i" of theoretical knowledge' rnay have descended to any one from his ances- Ftuto's Theaetetas S-ocrates explains that tors, male or female, are matters of which the and arts is not philosopher no more knows than can tell, as they knowledge of separate objects- let that he say, how many pints are contained in the ocean. ii"o*i.a[. in itlelf. He even -su-ggests who doei not know what knowledge is in- gene- Neither is he conscious of his ignorance. For he ,iI .un have no notion either of the craft of boot- does not hold aloof in order that he may gain a r"ut i"n or any other craft. Hence one can be a reputation; but the truth is that the outer form .ruitiriu" without havin.g any notion of claft, of him only is in the city; his mind, regarding i-, pos"tting only manuil skiil. The philosopher all these things with disdain as of slighf or no orr' othel hand, according to Socrates, is worth, soars-to use the expression of Pindar- ih" cverywhere 'beneath interested in knowledge for its own sake, know- the earth, and again beyond i;d;;-;r- *ih. t.eutd"less of its possible appli- th" sky', measuring the land, suiveying the ."iiir. From this Itandpoint then pbilosophy has heavens, and exploring the whole nature of the itr .oott in pure curiosity; it begins from wonder, world and of every thing in its entirety, but 84 not condescending to anything which is within philosophers of Ancient Greece but this is hardly reach."l necessary to prove the obvious truth that in Fluto'r philosopher, who in this case is expound- ancient times theoretical knowledge in the form inE a belilf that^had already largely taken shape in which it then existed could not be the founda- i"'tt. Ionic period of materialiit philosophy,. is tion for practical activity, limited though that so remote frorn all the daily cares and anxieties activity was in those days. It is generally known, of man that his ignorance of what is known to however, that the ancient conception of philos- ,it him the"reputation of being a foolish ophy was largely shared by the philosophers of o.r#rr."i*it and his helpiessness in practical matters subsequent historical epochs, when the theoretical inakes'him an obidct of ridicule. "When he is knowledge provided by mathematics and mecha- reviled, he has nothing personal to say in answer nics was already being applied in industry. Fran- to the incivilities of his adversaries, for he knows cis Bacon himself provides us with a striking no scandals of anyone, and they, do not interest example. He advocates all-round development hi*; u"d therefoie he is laughed at for his and practical application of "natural philosophy" rt . . . Hearing of enormous landed (natural science), which he virtually counterposes oroprietors"Lpitht.tt. of ten thousand acres and more' our to metaphysics, i.e., philosophy in the traditional ^phiiosophet deems this to be a trifle, b-ecause he sense of the term. This for him remains lofty hut been accustomed to think of the whole knowledge of the mind, which teaches us that ". . .it is a .very plague of the understanding for earth."2--O". could cite similar passages from other vanity to become the object of veneration".t And Bacon is right in his way. Although philosophy r The Dialogues oI Plato. pp.272--273' always performed a definite social function, it 2 lbid.,-uiiitlh. pp.nlS-Zl+. Max von Laue saw this contem- was not and could not be the kind of theoretical otutir. of ancient Greek philosophy aq the inspi- knowledge that would provide a scientific basis I;;;;- J"iffieiical inquirv that-has retained-its- signi- man's practical words, the "I also doubt," he for activity. In other h;;;;. 1;. thi natural-"lr4v t.i.t."t today' juxtaposition philosophy practice, *-i."l"'tir--rtli.i. Creative P-ath .in- Physics"' of to which "whether I should have devoted myself entirely to-pur-e coincided with the emergence of philosophy, ,.i.".. if I had not come into cloie contact -with Greek like the iuxtaposition of philosophy to the ;;lt,;;; u"a tt. language of Ancient Gree,ce, which is. pos- positive sciences (which fully revealed itself in .iUf"-""iu-in the ciasslcal gymnasium' Notwithstand-ing a i.* it is from ihe Greeks that we are able to modern times, when these sciences broke away i;il;h;ii;y-of""..irti""s, pure cosnitiot" (Max von I-1ye, pgsaA-' from philosophy), was connected with the iiii" srniiii"i'uia anriage. Braunschweig.. 1961, Bd' III' objective logic of development of theoretical his appreciation .S- Vf t.t One ca., disagree iuith La,. over knowledge. nf the'role of a classical education and the contemporary quite- The point, of course, is not that philosophers ;is;i'fi';;;; li u".i."t Greek culture. But it -is .ob- ;;".;;'ii;; the meditations of the ancient Greek philo- did not want to solve practical problems,. par- .""tr.rt on the nature of philosophy reflect the conditions lnowledge in general is i;" ;irl.h- *,.o..tiiat scientific F. Bacon, Nouum Orgarutm, p. 87, likely to arise, ' E7 86 ticularlv in the field of politics' The example of suit of theory was the free man's occupation, Fiato, and especially his theory of the ideal state, particularly as such pursuits were not yet, strictly as well as his practical political activity, indicates speaking, labour, and certainly not productive o"it. itr. opposite. The crux of the matter lies labour. Mental labour in its most highly deve- if-i[.--ii.i'thut philosophv was not- and could loped form, i.e., the theoretical, arises not as be a specihc scientific form of theoretical labour but as freedom from labour, as a subjec- ""tii"oti,tias.. "it This was what Marx and Engels had tive need, and not a necessity. However, certain i" *i"a *h.n they wrote: "For philosophers, one specific features of this early theoretical activity probably ttii most difficult tasks is to descend -from the express the specific features of theoret- "i the actual world'"l This ical inquiry in general. ;;ie of thought"philosophy to tt.1ot"trt.tt of comes out especially The transition from the slave to the feudal ;1.;rl, in the Get*at^ ciassical idealists, whose social system brings no essential change in.the i.".t ihg nevertheless sugg-ested.ways of, convert- juxtaposition between mental and physical labour, i"n-"t it'otorhv into a specific science-philosoph- but the spiritual dictatorship of the Church des- i.it'r"i.".L it ut waf brought into being by troys the cult of the theoretical contemplation of Marxism. life that was evolved in ancient times. Bourgeois philosophy, which wins its spurs in the struggle against the religious apology 4. PIIEOSOPHY AS AN ALIENATED for the feudal sys- tem, reinstates FOBM OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS naturally the ancient notion of philosophy as a science of reason, the notion that It would be a mistake to consider the juxla- rational human life is possible only thanks to ,otitiot of philosophising to practice, to everyday philosophy" The inventors of the metaphysical ir"-u"-.oiiti*ological puriuits, anxieties and interests, only on systems of the l Tth century seek to substantiate lfr"- plane, in relation to the the characteristic conviction of the ancients that if,.orJ of k"owi.dge.'This historically inevitable philosophy should be independent of practical i"xiibosition, whicih was progressive i! the con- life, a conviction that in reality reflects only the 'dii;;t of tlur. society, indirectly reflect-ed- the independence of practical life from philosophy. n.o*i"n contradiction Letween mental and phys- The idealists counterpose "pure" theory to i*t tu'6o"t, the contradiction between free men empiricism, thus recording to a certain extent a tii"it, whose labour in the course of the state of affairs that actually exists and elevating J.*too*."t"J of ancient society gradually oust-ed it to an immutable principle of philosophical -tai""i with the knowledge and the philosophical attitude to tU. of small property-owners^activity of ;"ii that productive became .a servile reality. In contrast to the idealists; the materialists olcupation, unworthy of the free man' The pur- condemn this juxtaposition of philosophy to cmpirical knowledge and advocate the alliance of philosophy the natural sciences, r and F. Engels, The Gcrman Ideology' with thus directly K. Marx cxpressing new trends the development Moscow, 1064, P. 491. in of 88 theoretical knowledge stimulated by capitalist reason, which stood in opposition to the selfish DroEress. partisanship and particularism of the ruling feu- ' Tie juxtaposition of philo-sophy t9 {npirical dal estates. only one side of the coin. Its other Thus the apparent impartiality of pre-Marxist knowledge"we ii side, as have' already stressed above, is phi- philosophy is just as rnuch an objective fact as "elevation" ovet everyday practical is any appearance, which, as we know, contra- losophical^with life its petty interests, cares, ald anxieties. dicts essence but at the same time expresses an This intellectual'aristocratism, which constitutes essential contradiction. In this sense apparent the intimate kernel of philosophising, is -quite impartiality, as an essential characteristic of a understandable among representatives of the historically defined philosophical knowledge, de- highly educated section of- the- ruling- class of serves special investigation. Virtually all pre- slive'society. It also finds nourishlgg soil in feu- Marxist philbsophy shares this illusion and lives the Christian inter- by it, so to speak. Understandably, then, the crea- dal society, ^ttitparticularly in pretation'oi world'as a plac-e of vanity and tion of the philosophy of Marxism, which is aware iransient concerns. But wht does intellectual of and openly proclaims its partisanship, regard- aristocratism become one of lhe basic philosoph- ing partisanship as constituting the definiteness ical traditions which can be easily traced in the of philosophy, was a revolutionary break with a development of bourgeois philosophy, even in the philosophical tradition sanctified by the millen- period^when it is actively breaking into the social nia. But this break at the same time revealed the and political movement' and raising the banner social essence of philosophising. On the other of stiueele against the feudal system and its hand, the opponents of Marxism saw in this dis- ideolosli Can" it be attributed to insufficient de- covery of the social essence of philosophy the veloprient of philosophical theorl, c-o1dery9in-g disavowal of philosophy. This notable fact in- it fo'rever to tlie contimplative attitude? This is dicates not only the class nature of bourgeois orobablv onlv one of the reasons. The main rea- philosophy; it also characterises the contradictions ion, I believ6, lies in the fact that the "contem- in the historical process of the emergence of philosophical plalive nature" of philosoply .and -its alleged scientific knowledge. impartialitv. are conditioned by the position The juxtaposition of philosophical conscious- of'the ruling classes in an antagonistic society, ness to everyday life, as something alien to any for whom the social status quo is not a histori- lofty aspirations, implies yet another essential cally transient stage in the-development of so- social element and stimulating theme of philo- cietv. but the "nat-ural" condition of civilisation. sophising, which is not usually pointed out in Characteristically, the ideologists of -the pre- special historico-philosophical studies. This iux- revolutionary bourgeoisie recognised the neces- taposition reflects in its own peculiar way the sitv for the destruclion of the feudal system as a emergence and spontaneous development of cer- .,"tessitv for the restoration of natural human re- tain antagonistic contradictions of class society, lations and realisation of the demands of pure contradictions which quite often horrify even the 90 9l representatives of the ruling classes. Co-nse,quent- auspiciously begun but abandoned it _and turned lv. the iuxtaposition of philosophy to the histor- once again to philosophising, as it was then un- ii:allv d!fined practice of ttre slave, feudal and rlerstood, i.e., as knowledge for knowledge's sake, capi[alist systems should be regarded positively. although astronomy and gtometry (they iere then To eluciilate our proposition let us turn to the comp^onents _of philosophy) also had practical famous legend of TLales, as rel-ated by Plato: "I significance. We know that Thales supervised the will illustiate my meaning by tlre jest which the digging of a canal and solved certain other prob- clever witty Thiacian handniaid is said to have lems of a practical nature. But philosophising, ac- made aboui Thales, when he fell into a well as cording to ancient tradition, is elevated above all he was looking up dt the stars. She said, that he these mundane pursuits, and particularly self-inte- was so eager to know what was going on in heav- rcst, money-making and the desire for riches, since en, that iie could not see what was before his the e,ssence of philosophy lies in a tireless quest feet."l But Thales was indeed capable of know- for the ideal of knowledge and the life truly remote. example, he befitting man. ine thinss"the that were For foietold eclipse of the sun. Nor was he a Let us consider this legend from the stand- stranger to practical pursuits, as Aris-totle relates: point of the major social events of the time, which 1'Wh6n Thales was reproached for his were specially studied by Engels in his work 7/ze poverty ground philosophy yielded Origin of the Farnily, Priaate -no on the that ProBerty and the profit, Thales, so they say, foreseeing-on the S-late.. Describing the decay of Greek society un- basii of astronomical data a rich harvest of olives, der the influence of the developing commodity- before the winter was over, invested a small sum nloney relations, Engels points out that the mass of money which he had accumulated with the of the free population of Attica, mainly small owners df att the oil mills in Milet and Chios; peasant -farmers, were in fee to an insignificant Thales struck a cheap bargain with the oil mills group of rich men, to whom they were .&"pitt"a because no one was io*pEting with him. When to surrender five-sixths of their annual hirvest came there as rent the time of the olive haivest round, -or- to repay debts for mortgaged plots of was a sudden demand for oil mills. Thales then land. If this was insufficient to repay th; debt, began to lease out the mills he had chartered at the "debtor had to sell his children into slavery rrbroad any price he wished to charge. Thus- -having to satisfy the creditor's claim. The sal-e amassed a large amount of money in this way, of his children by the father-such was the first Thales proved that even ph^ilosophers may grow fruit of father rights and monogamy! And if the rich if tirey wish without difficulty, but that this is blood-sucker was still unsatisfied, he could sell not where their interests tend."2 Thales, however, the debtor himself into slavery. Such was the did not continue the enterprise he had so pleasant daw.n of civilisation among the Athe- nian people".t t The Dialogues of Plato, p. 273. -l-f . ivlil", F. Engels, Selected, U)orks in three 2 Politiqu.e d'Aristote, Paris, 1950, pp. 27-28. volumes, Moscow, 1970, Vol. 3, p. 278. oc) Solon's reform abolished mortgages on land Gesellschaff'l) th. kingdom of poverty and cal_ and prohibited penalties for debt that made the culatlon. I hls was no concession to feudal so_ debtor the slave of the creditor. Solon, however, r:iety,.but an awareness of the humiliating status was not expressing the interests of the property- of philosophy in the realm of capital, *rr&. pfri_ less classes of Attica. A representative of the losophy.erists only as a specific fbrm'of non_pro_ hereditary aristocracy, he wai probably prompted ductive labour. by the sense of tribil unity deeply ingrained in Marx -points out that capitalism is hostile to the minds of all members of the tribal commun- certain forms of spiritual-activity. Is it surpris- ing ity. But this unity was incompatible-emetgence with money- then that even these forms of spiritual acti_ commodity relation6, whose brought vity, despite the f-act that they objectiuely ei_ into play, as Engels points out, me-n's- lowest in- press the needs of capitalist progr.ss, ta(e up stincti and passions ind developed them to the arms, against its most deformed a"specis? Wheir detriment oi all their other qualities. "Naked Hegel wrote that "revulsion againsl the excite_ greed has been the moving spirit of civilisation ment of immediate passion ind"eed prompts one from the first day of its existence to the present to take.up philoso.phical study",t he was sincerely time."t This insatiable lust for gain was subse- gxpressing his attitude to thi capitalist reality oi quently idealised by some ideologists of the ex- his day, even though bour.qeoii-democratic' re_ ritoiting classes. Nearly all the ancient philoso,- lorms seemed to him the cu-lmination of world_ ,h"rt, f,o*.rr.r, sharply condemn greed, although historic progress. ihe majority of them justify slavery. This con- We should not assume that the philosophers demnation 6f th. lust fbr gain may be attributed ,rf the progressive bou,rgeoisie *... p'rorrrp,"'d t, to the fact that commodity-money relations had the same motives as the capitalist .itrepr.r.rrr. not vet become the dominant social relations Bourgeois philosophy (and'art), in so iar as it that they were to become in the age of capital- does not become an obvious_ apology for capital_ rsm. ism, strives to transcend the- cori.rronpla.i, ot The bourgeois philosophers of the tTth-l9th bourgeois life and in a sense actually sJcceeds in centuries, hiwever, were Yery far from singing doing so.2 the praises of the profit motive. They also con- because iommodity- 1- Hegel, Siimtliche (l)erhe, demned greed, but^now not .. .. Stuttgart, 1928, Bd. ll, money reilations had not yet taken the helm but, s. 569. 2 The social status of theoretical natural on thi contrary, because iapitalism was reducing Iirr.a.. science was profit. He- long time not so very different fi""i-1tri pfrif": all social relations to the one urge for s.phy. lts status changes iadically *t." uto"g "f r(cnnlcat with the gel calls the society of the burghers ("biirgerliche sctences rt becomes a mighty intellectual source ,l' technica-l progress._. Even so, ti. 'ttr."*ii*i ronstantly.fs.lt scientist Lil ali.enation in the world oi capitalist l,usrness. Albert Einstein's reflections on the reasons that 1 K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Worhs in three volumes, lrrompt people to enter the shrine of scientific research are .lurracteristic. The motives Vol. 3, p. 333. may vary, "f ;;;r;, but one 94 95 Thus the notions of the philosophers who be- rrfi discrimination and hence could not practi.cally lieve that thanks to their theoretical activity they intervene in the course of events, and at best was have risen above a world that does not inspire rrhliged to content itself with practice in abst- them (eten thoueh thev may acknowledge it as tttcto."r This observation is fundamentally rele- the oniv possible'world), have their real founda- vant to our understanding of the organic con- tion in'th^e antagonistic'nature of social Plggress' nection between the contemplativeness, the ap- "The philosophdr," Marx says, "sets up himself parent impartiality of philosophy, its alienated (tiat is. ot e *ho is himself an abstrac[ form of form of existence and its protest against alienated istransid man) as the measur'i,ng-rod of the social relations. estran[ed worid."t' But this- very-same pliloso- oher. i,vhile remainins a thinker of the ruling or 5. SOCTAL CONSCTOUSNESS lxoloitins class. caniot comprehend the true OB SCIENCE? creative work. On the ,o,1... ofthe alienation of The correct posing of the question "What is feels he contrarv. because of this alienation he philosophy?" also entails clearing up the relative social is psyc[rologically independent of those distinction between the sciences and the forms often without forie's whosle interests h6 expresses, of social consciousness, since philosophy is directly exoeriencins anv personal allegiance. in related to both. The sciences are defined (and btritosoptr-"y as'alienated social consciousness distinguished from one another) by the subject as Ma-rx and Engels point antagonistic'society,-"was they investigate; it is the subject of a science out, only a'transcendent, abstract -expres- that determines social function. Accordingly, just be- its sion of the existing state of affairs" and the social function of physics differs essentially cause of "its illusiry distinction from -the world from that of political economy. had far be- was bound to imafine that it left With regard to the forms of social conscious- neath it the existin[ state of affairs and the real pbi- ness, it should be noted that they are distinguished world of people. Oin the other hand, s^ince from one another exclusively the character the by of losophy *ut i., reality not distinct. from the social function which they perform, and are ;;;id,'it could not pionounce upon it any thus defined by it. It is hardly necessary to prove any real force^real iudgement, could nol apply to ii that afi has its own social function, religion its own social function, and moreover this difference of the strongest "... is escape from everyday life with its oainful crud"itv and hopeleis dreariness, from the fetters of function cannot be attributed to a difference ;f- ;;;"- o*rr' .r.t shifting desires. A finelv tempered in their subject of inquiry, in the first place be- inJg the world nature- longs to escape frori pe.soral {ife.. cause art and religion are not concerned with nt;..t'iu. perciption and thought." (A. Einstein, inquiry, and secondly, because their specific na- "fihe Wbrta as I'See il, New York, 1934, p. 20.) Note the ri*ifuiiiy between thii and Hegel's observation cited ture is not defined by any subject whatever. above. 1 -- 1 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of K. Marx, F. Engels, Collected Uorhs, Vol. 2, p. 43 K. Marx, (in 1844, Moscow, 1969, p. 149' Russian). '1 ',!2 96 "Consciousness (das Bewusstsein)r" ,Marx and ;rnd the legal, political, religious, artistic or phi- EnEels sav. "can never be anything else but con- lr.rsophic-in short, ideological forms in which scious e*isience (das bewusste Sein), and people's rrrcn become conscious of this conflict and fight existence is the ieal process of their life."l This it out".l It stands to reason that social conscious- proposition is equally applicable to social and r)ess, once it has become the subiect of scientific individual conscibusness. Consciousness of exist' inquiry, may in certain historical conditions be- ence differs essentiallv from investigation of (:ome scientifically substantiated consciousness, existence-nature and society. Consciousness which does not, however, exclude its specific na- exists before any investigation takes p-lace, and ture. We shall examine this question in particu- does not depend on it. T.he fact that the results lar when we analyse the ideological function of of inouirv btcome part of. consciousness does not philosophy. do aiiav'with the iualitative difference between One should not, of course, metaphysically jux- science'(inquiry) and consciousness. Morals, -for tapose consciousness and knowledge. Conscious- example, aie a'form of social consciousness' They ness of social existence implies knowledge of it, ^no- have particular subje-ct of inquiry, but they but this is not yet scientific knowledge because in reflect soiial existence. Ethics has a subject of consciousness no line is drawn between objective inquiry, and that subject js morals. content and subjective imagination. It is also Tt eri:Uv. because social consciousness reflects clear that knowledge acquired through inquiry also social exiitence it does not become cogniti,on of becomes part of the content of consciousness. But social existence; for it to become cognition there this dialectical unity of consciousness and know- must be inquiry, research, which does not always ledge does not eliminate the essential difference take place ind, of course, does not always achieve between them. its g6a1. The cognition of social existence-, like In science not only objective reality-natural anv" cosnition, h-as no limits. As for social con- ol social-but also its reflection are subjected to scibusnEss, within the framework of historically analysis, which separates the true from the un- defined social existence it acquires a relatively true; the latter, however, also reflects reality, perfect form, which changes essentially not in although in an inadequate form. Therefore science iccordance with the progressive process of cog- is a peculiar type of reflection, which with the nition, but mainly betauie of deep-going so,cio- aid of its methods of research and testing forms economic transfoimations. This is what Marx a kind of theoretical filter. This cannot be said means when he points out that in studying social of the forms of social consciousness, if, as has revolutions "it ii always necessary to distinguish already been stated, they do not become specific between the material [ransformation of the eco- scientific forms of consciousness of social exist- nomic conditions of production, which can be cnce. determined with the precision of natural science, 1 K. Marx, A Contribution to th.e Criti,Ere of Political 1 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German ldeology, p.37. Iiconomy, 1971, p. 21. the The position which philosophy occupies in come the scientific theoretical basis for philoso- ^of is de- historv man's intellectual development phy's self-consciousness, the critical summing up termined in no small degree by its being both a in of its own development. form of social consciousness and an inquiry; The concept of development, since it has only any this latter respect it is, in principle, similar to lhe general attributes inherent in any process of other science. As a form of social consciousness development, would appear to be inapplicable ohilosophv has fulfilled. and is still fulfilling, its historico-philosophical process. Philoso- not, to the iocial iuriction, analysis of which does -of phy's development has so many peculiarities of course, reveaf its subject of inquiry. In this its'own that a one-sided conception of these pe- sense, i.e., as a form of social consciousness, -it culiarities quite often leads bourgeois philosophers became for the first time the subject of scientific to deny the fact of its development altogether. inquiry only thanks to Marxism. Study of the specific nature of development of i'r.jMrriiu, philosophers had no notion of philosophical ideas is a special task, which can- They ohilosophv as a form of social consciousness. not be- handled within the framework of this lonceiued of philosophy-knowledge, as a science or a super- book. But to obtain an answer to the question we scientific form of independent of have posed we must at least have a general no- Hence the historically determined social ielations. tion of this process. illusion of philosophy's "impartiality": which has It is paradoxical that philosophy arose histori- not onlv ec-onomii but also theoretical roots. The cally as a pre-scientific form of scientific know- .or."pt of social consciousness was evolved by ledge. For centuries philosophy was considered Ma.xism, by the materialist understanding 9f the chief science or at least the predominant historv. *t i.tt sineled out social existence as the clement in man's intellectual history. The deve- special'object'fn" of sientific philosophical inquiry'^ lopment of the specialised sciences and the ela- ."i.tgence and development o-f scientific boration of the concept of scientificality have ohilosophv bicame possible thanks to the creation shown, however, that this concept cannot be ap- i.e', if u r.i".,tific form of social consciousness, plied to philosophy, to the mother of the sciences. Marxism. The social function of Marxist philos- 'fhe history of science presents a clear picture of ;;h; ir inseparablv linked with its subiect of systematic progress. Xn the history of philosophy irrqriiry, wittr the most general laws of the muta- such a pattern of advancing knowledge cari be hu- tioi ahd cognition of a-il natural,- social and traced only by means of special inquiry, whose man existenie. Marxist study of the development necessary assumptions are usually rejected by the of philosophy entails overcoming the illusions rnajority of philosophical doctrines. that blur philosophy's vision of its own true es- Without going into this question in any greater sence. For'the firit iime the history of philosophy rletail, we will assume that the specific nature of has been understood in its relation'to social needs, the historical development of philosophy from its processes, and the- class struggle' ,oCio-..oromic ^understanding inception to the emergence of the scientific phi- The materialist of history has be- losophy of Marxism may be defined as "spiral 100 l0l development", i.e., a form of- prog-ression which society, both the feudal and capitalist formations, involvis constant return to initial theoretical po- took place over a number of centuries. The pro- sitions but at the same time forward movement cesses of formation in animate and inanimate that shapes the prerequisites for the conversion nature are, of course, even more prolonged, tak- p.re- in.q years. of philoiophy info a specific science. -These millions of be realised only in a kind Lenin, in discussing the transitional period from reqlisites,iowever,'historical can of conditions that occur independently capitalism to socialism, points out that this period of the work of philosophers, that is to say, socio- is characterised by the existence of qualitatively economic condilions, the accumulation of histor' different, even mutually exclusive social struc- ical experience, the development of the sciences tures. The same may be said, by analogy, of and societY. philosophy. Examination of the historical process concerning nature - Formation is the unity of the processes of in- of the formation of scientific philosophical theory ception and destruction,' the transition from one reveals at all stages of the development of phi- stite to another, the necessary moment of deve- losophy coexistence and struggle between faith lopment. Hegel's understanding of .formation is and knowledge, between superstitions and scien- cliaracterised mainly by his recognition of its re- tific opinions, between unfounded, sometimes com- versibility; whereas he regarded developmelt as pletely fantastic notions and real discoveries. chanEe that is irreversible in character. Admit- Within the framework of the historical process of tedlv] Hesel made an absolute of the reversibi- the formation-development of philosophy there litv inherJnt in formation because he was examin- are reversions that would be impossible in the ini the abstractions "pure being" and "nothing", development of scientific knowledge, where one *fri.h, according to [is doctrine, are co,nstantly and the same mistake is not repeated or, at least, transmuting into each other' But it was the same not in the same manner. In philosophy, on the Hegel who argued that the result of this trans- other hand, everything quite often seems to begin mulation is tfie emergence of a definile exist- all over again, although, of course, repeated pro- ence, thus acknowledging that the reversibility of gressions from points abeady passed in the formation is not absolute, but relative development of philosophy place limits on rever- The inconsistency of Hegel's char?cterisation sion to the old, on the "arbitrariness" of forma- of formation is overcome by the philosophy of tion. The progress of philosophy gradually Marxism, which characterises this process as tran- restricts the bounds of reversibility but never sition from one definite quality into another, in eliminates it altogether; in this reversibility there is view of which the extent to which formation may also a positive element, namely the return to old be reversed is limited by its content and condi- questions on the basis of the new data provided tions. by science and historical experience. Formation as a ntomenl of development should The pre-Marxian philosophers, owing to their not be understood as a process occurring in a mi- theoretical and class limitations, generally failed nimal amount of time. The formation of class lo understand the specific nature of the historico- 102 108 ohilosoohical process and the role of formation in not only positively, i.e., as theoretical proposi- it. d&elopment of philosophical knowledge. tions whiCh retain their significance even though Their own philosophical doctrines seemed to them they may be contested or repudiated by oppo- to have orifinated-in their own heads, so to speak. nents, but also in the form of increasing numbers These philosophers created complete systems of of dissected, differentiated propositions, which philosoirhical knowledge, and the more ,complete reveal new problems and directions of inquiry, lhey wire the more quickly they were destroyed indicate difficulties and the possible ways of over- bv subseouent development. coming them, and disclose the inadequacy or 'Alexarider the Grieat's empire collapsed soon faultiness of previous solutions, which does not, after the death of its founder, the struggle of the however, prevent repeated attempts to return to diadochs being only the inevitable manifestation a path already discredited by the development of its internaL weakness. Philosophical "empires" of philosophy. These retrogressive movements, also collapse, and the wider the sphere of reality this stubborn upholding of errors that have al- thev attempt to "conquer" without sufficient means ready been overcome give philosophical expres- of Lstablishing therrrselves there, the faster they sion to the aspirations of reactionary and conser- collapse. vative social classes, and also the inconsistency Sc6pticism (in its various forms, from that of of the progressive forces. the ancient Gieeks to Humism and 19th and 20th The inception of the philosophy of Marxism century positivism) is a historically inevitable brings a qualitative change in the character of retreat of philosophy from the positions it had the development of philosophical knowledge. alleEedlv conquered, a retreat which is conducted, 'Ihis development still has certain specific features so tE sp6ak, in perfect order, but is not generally conditioned by the peculiarity of philosophical accompanied by understanding of the true causes questions, which are never "closed", because new of philosophy's defeat. scientific data and historical experience make it Thus the history of pre-Marxist philosophy possible constantly to enrich the solutions to proceeds not steadily forward from one conguest philosophical problems that have already been io another; philosophy constantly zi,gzags in tirne, achieved. The process of formation, which predo- that is to say, tries in different ways to accomPlish minated in pre-Marxian philosophy, becomes a a task of which it is still not clearly aware. Phi- subordinate process in the development of the losophy gropes historically for its subject and is philosophy of Marxism. Thus formation is orga- conitantfi, diverted from it, although the develop- nically included in the process of development ment ol the positive sciences gradually and of scientific philosophy, which no longer throws unswervingly defines the limits of philosophical away what it has won but proceeds unswervingly inquiry, *hich speculative idealism sought to forward, conquering new "territory", perfecting establish a Briori. its methods of inquiry, taking into account the The progress achieved in philosophy in the achievements of other sciences and penetrating course irf its historical development is resumed deeper into the subject of its inquiry. The history 104 105 of Marxist philosophy is a striking example of that any philosophical science is posqible. The this positivd process of development' It shows contradiction betieen the scientific philosophy of that'Marxist philosophy is not-something static Marxism and modern bourgeois philosophy, and immutabli, crea^ted once and for all the which denies the principle of scientificality, millennia to come in the development of the makes the traditional question "What is phi- human race; it is its own principle maintained losophy?" appear to be an insoluble- problem, pliilosophicalphilosophical solved bv the histori- throughout"and its subsequent -develop- althoush it has alreadv been mentmenf and constantlyconstantlv enriched bvby new historical cal prJcess of the formation and development of experience and the.'achievementi of the special- dialectical and historical materialism. ised sciences. On the other hand, the bourgeois philosophy 6. CBITICISM that has survived in various changing forms since OF TIIE EXISTENTIALIST the emergence of dialectical and historical ma- INTERPRETATION OF THE QUESTION hosti- terialism,-remains, owing to its ideological "WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?' lity to Marxism, in this historically obsolete pro- ceis of formation, i.e., in a state of motion from We have already mentioned that Martin Hei- an "existence" which is not yet real existence, degger interprets the quesiion we are considering "d'ecisive toward "nothing" and then back again, galvanis- as riot only for philosophy but for civi- inE the philosophical doctrines of the distant lisation itself. Whitever our attitude to this ob- pa"st and interpreting old questions in the spirit viously insufficiently substantiated, abstract pos- bf ttr" new idiological needs generated by the ing olthe question, it is undoubtedly distinguished crisis of the capitalist system. by an awareness of _1hg- question's- .truly.out- The spirit oT denial'of the p-ossibility of posi- standing importance. Unlike other philosophers, tive knowledge in philosophy becomes the pre- Heideg[er does not try to reduce the p-r-oblem vailing tendeicy in bourge6is'philosophy from the to a sEirch for some more or less acceptable de- s.cond'half of ihe tgth century onwards. Its de- finition of philosophy. He is also well aware that velopment is at the same time a-process of decay, the posing^ of this question by thg philosophers prevent posing new gues- the existing which may- not the of themielvel, their dissatisfaction with tions and even the more profound examination answers and their constant returning to the ori- of certain traditional ones, but does rule out the einal question shows that what we are discussing folmation of a scientific philosophical world view; i"s not'merely the difference between philosophy the world view provided by dialectical and histo- and non-phiiosophy, but the origin -and essence rical materialism is naturally unacceptable eYen of philosophical^ kirowledge itself, the status of to the most outstandin.q bourgeois philosophers of philosophy and perhaps even its very existence. modern times, since they remain bourgeois think- Heideegei says, "If this question is not to remain ers. This is what lies ai the bottom of the char- merely-'a subiect for cas-ual conversation, philo- acteristic modern bourgeois philosophy of denial sophy as phiiosophy must become a problem t07 ing of the early Greek philosophers, and sug- serious attention. But is it? And worthy of our gests that we return to the original Greek defi- extent?"l if it is, to what nition of philosophy, from which it, in a certain Heidegger argues against the one-sided ratio- sense, begins its existence. "The Greek word as of philosophy as the science nalistic interpretation a Greek word suggests a way."l on the fundamental juxtapo- of reason, founded Heidegger stresses that the definition phi- reason and intellect (German classical of sition of losophy as loae of wisdom has nothing to do with idealism). He sees the inadequacy of this under- love. "Feelings, even the finest of them, have standing philosophy the fact that it pre- of in nothing in common with philosophy. Feelings, as He also tries to dif- sumes t[e meining o.f reason. people say, are something irrational."2 Then what position those who see philo- ferentiate his from does this first of definitions mean? Apparently irrational knowledge; in all sophy as som6 kind of not so much'love as wisdom, as the unattainable the sphere of the irrational ordei to single out object of this love? But Heidegger goes on to dis- one must define the limits of reason. But alio cuss "logos", which is everything-word and just where the problem lies. No one has this is fate and all-determining being. The Greeks' use yet decided what reasori is. Perhaps it has merely of the word "logos" "lord of philosophy"? What indicates, according to Hei- usurped the title of degger, that for the Greeks man and human con- has to the title? Who gave it that right? riehf it sciousness were not yet juxtaposed to existence, be that what we call reason is merely a It-may being, but existed within it and were themselves sidesh-oot two thousand years' development of of existence. Thus, according to Heidegger, the which case reason is not the source ohilosoohv. in Greek "logos" implies that there was yet no but vice versa. And since the his- ai if polarisation of subject and object, conscious- "nit6r#hv.ptiitoJophy is the history of its gropings of tory of ness and being, that the rupture had not yet oc- quest-of is not reason in fact groping? in truih, curred which, according to the existentialist con- human thought? Is not thought The aberrations of ception, has since determined the history of then something fundamentally different from philosophy, form think- Western science and civilisation as a reason? Is not reason a degraded of whole. Hence the conclusion that philosophy-of ing? this the first Greek philosophers both rationalism were aware, but Heidegger tries to straddle immediately aware, and therefore were not phi- he develops a f.atal list in and irrationalism, but losophers but something bigger-is the correspon- the This can be seen not the direction of latter. dence of human existence to existence 6eing his criticism of the rationalist cult of or so much in as the hidden basis of all that exists both as ap- reason, in which there is a f.ait portion of truth, l)earance and object. "The answer to the ques- as his obviously anti-intellectual conception of in l ion 'What is philosophy?' lies in our coming into indefinable irrational existence. Heidegger tries to trace the sources of this conception in the teach- 1 Ibid., s. 12. 2 Ibid., s. 9. t M. Heidegger, Uas i,st das-die Philosophi.e?, S. 19. 109 r08 is heading' Thus philosophy is a constant questioning accord with that to which philosophy ;h; b'i"s'-"-i *i';it' exists"'l about the being of that which exists, man's striv- ti[ir,"i"il,""'il,;;-;;ordingt"",.ff iF ing to find a path to his being, which at the same *.::::';'iriT,"JJ:tlI-h. time is being in general, an attempt to coordinate fl'.*,:T"?xlil! ?r-h; il ;;; ; i, i* * alut"tv his existence with it. This is never anything more iI A;";#;;f tt'ui' *t'i't'. exists-the" objects than a questioning, than an attempt, because hi*, i*p"'onal human relations- being is unknowable. Unknowable, too, is the ;iiJ;'i;;;; demands of being which is we ourselves; the most philosophy and therefore does ;'i';;;;ie"r the return to one's own self' can achieve, and then only if it is filled with the f,1il;.^P;ii;*pr'v it of true (existentialist) mood-is to be aware that to piimeval being, tttt' t""tti"* realignment realisation of the existen- being is, that it is the being of all that exists. ;;Jt;;Jfi.. *itt'-ii, Thought, language and other intellectual activ- tial human essence. ^ to "if J;l- Ereek according- ity-none of these can break through to being; il;;."i P\ilosophv' they get caught up in existence and, only by being aware that this is merely existence, can we listen to the "voice of being", heed it and respond [**lf,r*#*?i',:ti"-:F*-#r.:,#J*:"n]ruv consiintlY returning to its call. ;L';; ;;;;;; ii;;lt "The The fact is not hard to grasp that being in Hei- to the ancient C,ttti^tJ"ttl-'*a- -of philosophv' J accord' degger's philosophical vocabulary is still the same :;#;I;"^il;-;;i;i" "i'totain^g' of the Kantian unknowable "thing-in-itself". But in which answers tt"tlp'itftt)-iht- d"*ut'd I earn contrast to Kant, Heidegger believes that philo- #il; Iil;i *r,i.r'"'I-i'is i's ph ilosophv' We "f pr'ir"t'pt'y ii when we discover sophy only has meaning in so far as it turns away ;""k"";;il"i exists as from the knowable that which exists and tries to how. in what way pf iiott'pt'v exists'.It ;";L;r'"i"r.."ia,'uttota ihat is in harmonv understand (not to know, which is impossible) i"i* t"t"g o{ that.lhich exists' the presence of the unknowable being of that ;tih;# "Tii" is state.ment (ein which exists, thus realising that that which exists, Ti,il ;;; tn"t-tptttt'"fi ,a precisely because exists, is being. at the service of language'.'" it not S;;;.h;;i. it ii In this way Heidegger philosophically substan- tiates and gives his blessing to the alienation of philosophy from science-the basic trend of de- l $,H'id",s$ ";r?!'^iil *:,-A: ,!,?:!:;:{'i'r,: li..,:. velopment (decline) idealism. z, i'uia.,lhid" D's. 4r'+'p1 lv[arxrvrarx and P.lq.f,^, pr6blem of contemporary ii^Lirtti' ftt"f o"l' 'tt" '-l'he sciences are interpreted as flourishing and htti:"t"d"*i::"?::Htifl.'" ?fi H'1'f, .:;;;i;.lr{ih1,}cT:. worrd'or thoughts t" ir'J'X'*"i i1"::,'.".itii!"i;-i;i" - -i"t ".r,1 " ::" iH'i::* complacent knowledge of that which exists, which ;" ;;"iilr"iilt" J"il.,J xo pi"q,.sn#:"fl -"'' +*'"fr11."8, y!:n ;"u; to life." (K' IV1l:,. ,,I*.ff "lf*. lr.rrun. i dear i st tradi- rsitniu n. 491.) H.*i;Reviffi t*i ri'i-9i9t"t'!."e'ri i- eie'.,t']."e" idealist 'f;,r;38;,'i'i'r'i.l .o"""'#'"* -tradi- bccomes a means of emasculating the true substance of tion, Heidegs., . :,i",."' tl*ilrt','"n-ftt+:ltlt:t'"u"ii't"-1h. r*' :i'. :i"JJ.'#:,tl:!l"n:.idvocates 3i:of i philosophical problems, Heidegger applies this type of ;;ity- l;-6;'il-dl:.i"to 1- riddle "l^l':"t Xi ru',guug. rrnalysis and, in so doing, merely makes a mystery of them. linguistic'.uiit, PhilosoPhY' to:'.'Tfff,',ilt;ffid:[ lll 110 is not being and thus has no meaning' The sci- solution to the sought-after initial question of being. of ;";;;" ti...f"re an escape from- tlie lrhilosophy. ifrri-*fri.ft"* ixists, a timid cienial of being and a We have considered at some length Heideg- ,.ff-a...piior.'course, Philotophy is radicalY onPo.sed to g'er's pretentious attempt to interpret the question ;;i;";; ii, of it follows Heidegger's cat- "What is philosophy?". As we know, Heidegger it*erative'of "fundamental bntology"' regards his "fundamental ontology" as a radical "r"ri."tii"il;^; J"Uii.t-*utter in the sense that the tleparture from all previous philosophical tradi- r.i.*"t--t r* 'a subject-matter because its sub- tion, or to be more exact, the tradition beginning ;l.i-*"tt"t-is-;; being, which cannot be mastered from Socrates. And yet Heidegger's considera- li;;. ;,rrr"lu"t'1.long to it' Being therefore tion of the question "What is philosophy?" shows it--""a.n"uUie. So, too, Is philos-op\y' .It is not that he has remained entangled in the nets of the knowledge but consciousness' and what ls more' speculative-idbalist approac-h to the problem. He is since social consciousness .qives no concrete examination of the develop- ""tir.f"'i"aividual,;;i;ilr'."r"-itt.a io that which is impersonal rnent of philosophy, its place in social life, or and eitransed from being. its relation to the specialised sciences. The fact Philosop*hy, Heidegger maintains, T-rust repu- that philosophy arises as theoretical knowledge ai"t.-"ff-i"Jiiive inqili"ry into any reality; philo- in its pre-scientific form, and then stands in op- ot sophy is fhe denial of any -vital meaninS. ,a]l)'/ 1;osition to the specialised sciences which have knb*able reality and any theory (sctence,l whrcn broken away (or taken shape independently) studies it. Philosophising does not overcome the from it, is absolutised by Heidegger, who obvi:- of tt. lir*aripe.tonality; its sole pur- ously fails to notice that the philosophical know- oose"ri."rii"" is to overcome the illusory notion that this ledge that is contrasted with the specialised ""fi."rii"" .ut, U. overcome. This "scr,lution" to sciences is by no means independent of them. In ih. q"ittio" of the essence of philosophy, as one rurguing the unknowability of the being of that .i" iutily appreciate, turns- out to..be a,brief ex- which exists, and thus erecting an ontological 'of ^ihe existentialist philosophy, I{oY- l'oundation under his juxtaposition of philosophy iver,""r1ti"" if we ignore Heidegger's chara.cteristicaLly to scientific knowledge, Heidegger actually ig- ir..dio"uiitt iiterpretatiotiif being, the conclu- nores social being, which to a significant extent ;i;;; h" ;rih.t buti.ully coincide with the be- rletermines philosophy. The golden age of phi- ii;il;i-fie boutgeois fhilosophers that human losophy, he believes, lies in the past, and what it iii.-.u""ot be essen"tially changed, that social pr.o- rnust do today is reach back to this ancient Greek ;;;r;;-;;-more than'an ill[sion, and that the source. The beginning of philosophy is regarded ;;;;;;; of this fact, which assumes that we ;rs the highest point of "existential understand- frr".-*r"airt"a tn" siientific and technological ins" because "existential understanding" is me- ;il;;tiiti;rrt" of our time, is the highest achieve- laphysically juxtaposed to knowledge, to inquiry. ;;i-;i philosophv. This means tt-rat the crisis lnquiry, research is concerned with objects; "exis- ,i"ii.rjitt'*iiot,ipftti"g is portraved as the final lcntial understanding" is an entirely special cog- tt2 8-?2 118 *pri- Chapter Three nition of that which exists, stemming-priori" from il.r; from the. a -of from PHILOSOPHY ;ili;ili;h;;;;J;"""a-irtt""aing';, ihe pe"eption external AS A SPECIFIC FORM ofle.ts. whic^h, according to Heidegger' are some- OF COGNITION ;f#;""'d;;i"#".,-1ti"pEa bv soile specificallv iiffi?";;;; of and existe-n-ce' Btpt'u!- ffitd;;tJ"r..t "og"itionof the pre-Marxist phi- ilr"";hil'H;ia.sg.t"i'*"st interprets- the definitions '.H#Hittr;; r,ii pt ii"t"pt'v as the universal d.A;iii"" ;f ""r.ry tiue phiioiophy.in. general' -"altir*tio", uirti-t istoricisml idealism' dttP- r.;il;" i;;;*it.h."tion of the'role of material- iir.-at""topment of phitoslrhv, illusions 1. QUALITATIVE DIVEBSITY i#; the OF KNOWLEDGE ffi.;;;il th" t,"p;'tt?l*v gf philoiophv' . r"*""li. Iaealisatibn of iti alienitio-n-all these of speculative. philo- Investigation of the fact of knowledge is one i;,n il;. ;-il;i.ti iiui""s the paramount tasks philosophy. But philo- rl.iaegger in a-form that has of of iirflrri"i-*. h"J-i" sophy itself is a fact knowledge, the""help or phenomenol- definite of which il#;;T";;;;;a ;ith can be analysed to discover its specific features. ."". fti. failure of Heidegger's-attempt at un- f"r6m the existenti alist' In this chapter we shall attempt to consider the ifiii t iia;" i ir i"t.putiue special nature of the philosophical of know- ; i hi't o'v, n ature, m an and form ii..iiJi-rlii"" ;;;i;;i;; ledge. But is such an approach to the question cosnition. justified, we have mind not the past, but '"iliriJ.ii"rr and historical materialism dispels if in the problem of the present and future of philosophy? Is not this tr'i it"'iin..ti;;-t#-;;unds . Ii,"rrrldii'r,l"[-airit *itt' it bv invesfigating the special nature merely an expression of the im- #;;"i;llir'rJt'i*t problems' that have been rnaturity of philosophical knowledge, which is to the science''. be overcome in the age of science? il:ffi 6;';[if,r;;;hY'and .bY .th: Any concept of. a specific cognition mankind and contemporary hrstoncar form of i,ittoty of assumes a recognition of the existence of qualita- experience. tively different cognitive relations to reality. Is this posing of the problem compatible with the rnaterialist principle of the unity of cognition, which in all its forms is ultimately the reflection of objective reality? Idealism has for long maintained the existence ,rf knowledge that is above or prior to experience; l'aith, it claims, is a special type of knowledge. l15 The philosophy of Marxism rejects this idealist sion, opinion, emotional experience, misapprehen- conception iust as it rejects ihe metaphysical sion, would lose its significance if it assumed a iuxtaiositioi";ilui"i"g of various forms of knowledge and theoretical character. This is everyday knowledge, il;;il;f it. The unitv of human know- embracing not only the more or less subjective i;;;;: ho*.u.., i"s not an abstract identitv; it notions of one person about another, but also ."iiJiitl,t ."rtuir, tial distinctions, qualitative many notions about all kinds of things which ;T;ii;--q"u"tilutive.l"tt.t From this.standpoint are known to us because we perceive, use, touch il. ;;;,,r-or'il" question of the qualitative. pe- them, and so on, fairly often. pn'nosophical form-of cognition Dialectical materialism's theory of knowledge, i"iiJrii"-.of-ine -se'ems (and knowledge) fundamentally necessary' as distinct from the psychology of knowledge, '.-tfr.-otr"t oiriv of cognition delimits the sen- which is concerned with the individual knower, t"#^i.fi"'.ti;;-;i iialit! and abstract thinking draws a qualitative distinction between empirical ;';";iitrtit"iv aitti".t ttagtt of cognition' Sense and theoretical knowledge. This distinction can- "and bv not in principle be treated merely as ;;e--;;;'^';i"il;h;ded-reflection svnthesised the division th;;-ht. The sinsory of the external between sense perceptions and thinking, because #;e."ffi.-v.r;--it-'"ot tt" only material for empirical facts are established by theoretical ir,;;hi h;t-Visual, i certain independent sigr.ri- means as well. V. A. Lektorsky is quite right in ffiii't' tactile saying, "Both empirical and theoretical know- H.""?" bf-and its"own. auditory and ;;;;;. emotional experiences, are definite ledge assume logical, rational mediacy and indu- 'h;r"";;'tl"Jtir"t-*a ut tt''t' same time a-.specific bitably belong to the rational stage of knowl- il;-';i-k;;i;ilas. ibout external re-alitv and edge."1 ;;;i;il"'i;;i"id;Zl himself, who sees, hears and Mathematics certainly cannot be classed as f;#. ft;;i tt.-ottt.t-r,"t people to whom the empirical knowledge, which does not imply, of mord thin a theoretical course, that it bears no relation to the world per- iii.? ririr"ra""i ceived ielationship. by our senses. Astronomy is to a great '-'S."trt, 'reflection is not extent a mathematical discipline, of the external -world but one of its and it i-s not alwavs.bound primary features is instrumental observation, ,.#i't'in.'r.";;d;;, which may be termed practical to become scientifii. AIl of us have certarn derrnrte scientific research.2 ideas about our acquaintances, our .near ones This knowledge, whrch rs a mlng- I it d outselves' illu- V. A. Lektorsky, "Unity of the Empirical and the ttd ;i^;;;..pti"" u,d truth' Theoretical in Scientific Cognition" in Problems of Scienti. "*iiiicente' fic Method, Moscow, 1965, p. 107 (in Russian). 2 some "Astronomy," V. A. Ambartsumyan writes, "as in 1 concept of qualitative-- distinction requircs 'observa- The --ii' with radical' former times, iontinues to remain a science of .*otuiut-iot. i, qrrit. Jien identified . tion. The patient .*r."tiu'i-aitti*tiot', which obviouslv ties it accumulation of facts, the constant effort ffiiHil"fi, be--"*td' that to make one's observations as accurate as possible, frequent down to certain limits. i;1i';;1i -however' r cpetition, necessary, one another qualitativelv even if of similar obseivations-all'this ;;##;;; diii;i';* constitutes the unshakeable tradition of astronomy. The 'when they expiess one and the same essence' tt7 116 means of obtaining knowledge allows us to define unity of.theoretical Theoretical physics represents the various types of theory; means of obtaining A;;;lr- ;;t'he'niatical) and empirical knowledge' qualitativelv ftPT knowledge may be described in various ways, in;f"J depending on the particular data of the subject- "t--u-t.i."ce'differsbecause it studies that i"fitfilt *o"o*y if only matter, the conditions of its investigation, the longer exists. *t' - i.t no character of the problems involved and other Zi"ory"t, discussing the qualitative dif- i.-[. re- circumstances."l f"r""."'t;".; tie two leiels of -scientific Self-knowledge is qualitatively different from as "observation of ;I,#;; i;;;ifi; the first level knowledge the processes and of the external world, although ,.ouruia phenomena, connections' one impossible without the other. quite mental analysis is It is r;fi. iirJ,tiit..ti";, comparison, often absolutised by psychologists and philoso- ;;J ;ith"s1s; all kinds 6f experiment; abstrac- and relations of phers and interpreted as a means of cognition in- ti"; ;a separate prop-erties dependent of the external world. This does not, .Ui..tt. theiormati6t 6f .ot""pts, generalisation' of hvfP: however, give grounds for denying its qualitative .rdr-U-iirhi"g of empirical lawsf making distinctiveness. etc-' r he ttiit"t, moielling, use of deductions, ' ' ' Thus qualitatively different forms of knowledge ffi l"*i-t" s,rif,'.rrd.rstanding is valid scientific the basis exist both outside science and within the frame- iiJ."*tt^i"-thelull sense of t[e term, philosophy in general' work of science. For centuries has ,"J-1""a"mental content of science existed partially outside science, partially within Ti,; ;;J;;ity of discoveries are made at this level of it. Dialectical and historical materialism is a l"irl;;I"zi"6rry.u-t(" .irttin"t the second scientific philosophy, but it is qualitatively dif- ,.r."ttf, ,t brrildit g o-f theories, which he and jy$S:- ferent from any other science, whose mode of characteris.s as totalities" of concepts existence necessarily presupposes strict limitation ;;i;ing to a f-airlv wide range of subjects ;;tr aid of of the subject of inquiry. ;;;";;tt.d l"'u ti"gle'whole witL. the qualitative is stressed The notion of the distinctiveness of ["H"iil. rJstcal pti"ciiles. fvloreover,.it the philosophical form of cognition was conceived a- totalitv. of knowl- tfrJ-u tt.?ry is not simply along with philosophy. We have seen that in the a certain standard :,fi.;";-;i;J ';, J"t.tiption of beginning the specific feature of philosophy was knowledge in a certain sp^he.re ;"";;;i;Li"i"s of the understood as its distinctiveness from everyday ;ffi;;;.il. .-:-ff fait, o"lf a description and applied knowledge. Subsequently the notion have oeculiarities of astronomy, as a science of observation' I A. A. Zinovyev, op. cit. The author suggests that the p'iticularlv clearlv in the last few *'r'"ri.tlta iil.-t.ir.t in above-mentioned delimitation of levels of scientific research 'i'#t:i]- -l*iio"t'vsics""Sqp.t- should philosophy, where transition d.X."'a*tJ.i,'*v'",' leculiaritiesReaolu' also be applied to the De'velopment of in October the level the second is usually made without il,i;; p' 73' from first to iiii"),ia" iiiiiitfi ;' i, ; e,;;;: rioJcow, re67, vol' I' sufficient grounds. Without going into this proposition, so in Russian.) as not to depart from our main theme, we would emphasise '" Research" tT. X' ZinovYev, "Two Levels in Scientific that it deserves thorough investigation. i" priLuit-i'i-sitiittnt Method', Moscow, 1964' p' 238' 119 118 form of the specific nature of the. philosophical the soul thinks "best when the mind is gathered of cosnition was associated with its- being distinct into herself and none of these things- trouble ot "pain, i.o*'ttre specialised sciences and the methods her-neither sounds, nor sights nor nor not ;;;;;r;h-t" uv them. All this, however, is again any pleasure-when she takes leive of the ."t"-fr "i.aelucihate the special nature of the body, and has as little as possible to do with it, particularly as ;hil""r;"hi.ui fot* of knowledge, when she has no bodily sense or desire, is the but ii;;;;;- Iir.i."..' of opiiion- between aspiring after true being".l Plato deduces the philosophical doctrines on this question as qpecific nature the philosophical form of form of "utio""P.Ii;;;r-tiit *.u"s there is no ulified knowledge from his notion of the supersensuous #lL be un- ;i^;hx";;;hical"rfiJ- knowledge? It would subject-matter of philosophy. Howiver, since rii.iiifr. rt ti-f,ittorica"l to identifv the mode nlilosophy is not an empirical description of ancient thinkers' ;i i"q"i.v of the what is_ observ,ed; Plato's understanding of philo- modern thinkers' ; iil;;5-t"ilii;"t;ilJ r"a, .'iitt'tt'ut of sophical speculation contains a rational kernel as lt. other, materialists and idealists' ratio- well. But, no how "" ,"J etc'. ,matter The- -thinking person, Plato says, approaches "rfitit ttti "i"piiicists,tyles of' doctrines' e-verything (in so far as this is possible) -philosophical them with only "rrilJall pors.i, sometiring that makes the forces of intellect, rejecting as far pos- thlv the as i' this sp6cific n-ature of sible everything that he is told by his eyes, ears, that rve must ;i;ti;;;;hi;ul"irjilrJriiJ"jl-ii fo.* of knowledge touch and every kind of emotion, etc.- Only in investigate. thought, accordihg to Plato, is true being, or at least a part of it, revealed to the mind. Plato 2. SPECULATION' substantiated this idealist-rationalist interpretation LOGIC, FACTS of the philosophical mode of cogniti6n with ontological arguments as well: his teaching on The belief evolved in ancient that the the existence of the human soul before the birth -times know- aitii"".tiu."ot-iru oi tt . philosophical Jorm of of the human individual, on its independence of i.a*" in the spelulative mode of thought' the body and immortality. All these postulates of 1o gical i"1?ii"rr'r."i*i.is.'-it rormed bv -means were not merely proclaimed but were specula- ilffi;;;l;'.-o"3t"t io"t drawn f rop th.e analvsis tively "proved", on the one hand, with the aid of ;il;;;;e;;'notions and concepts, bv elucidation principles that were considered self-evident, and u"dl. to on'. Sensorilv ;i ;h;''#;"r"s-;f-*o'dt,"mav on the other, by appealing to everyday experience facts from this point of view be the and common sense. Also in the Phaedo, Plato's ;ilt;;;.a con- of explanation, or serve to conhlm a Socrates, referring to the myth that people's souls subiect of ;ilJi"", but iir ,ro *uv can they be a criterion cxist before their birth and after death are con- its truth. signed to a subterranean kingdom, tries to deduce This view was idealistically sub.stantiated-by stated that Pdt":" It'-i'ha;;A;, ior instance, it is L The Dialogues of Plato, p. 416. r20 t2t loEicallv the thesis of the immortality of the soul' of the body, then a bad and sinful soul would to, t. proceeds from an- abstract propo' be non-attunedness and consequently would not ffa;# appears possess the quality of soul. .iii"" ',,r't i.h to him and his collocutors ;;'il ;; axiom: opPosite arises from opposite' Today such idealist speculations would not trr"n i?'t"-.tt i"g 6tto*es bigger'.it w.as y11]le1 convince even the theologians. Modern idealism b;i;;t; if, on thJcontrary, something prefers to express propositions related to those of bigse" f.ti1l"t? Pl_ato as with_out il;u.l,'i; ;;;;; rhat it riied to be ^beliefs claiming any strict logi- ;;:.t;: ;tit;; fto*-Lppotite, then "' "the living cal proof for them. Speculation shouid not, hofu- a."I,li"'t us lhe dead come from ever, be identified with its idealist interpretation; :5#i;;;# the atomic the living". theory of Democritus was^also the u"ffiilr.i'fl fruit of speculative reasoning. The essence of ,t ?i: speculation iS the logical process and the naivet6, '.ii*l.Xrl"i,:f,.,ffioih.t, 'ro tttt speiulitive' If the the faultiness, of Plato's reasoning is exposed by b"#iltri;,;itil- was ;tJtil;; tiie-existence or *'" soui before birth logic, which shows the vagueness, the indefinite- ;l;;;;J;' bv-'r.n.-U..t interprelit'g cogt'ition as recollection ness of the propositions which he takes as initial, flfr."'tr'"f itt'ut the man does not self-evident truths. But the question of the mean- I'#;H; know, or rather'. does not ing, the correc,tness, the significance of the specu- i.i,i#"irrit "t^Ji.i:t.-i."o*t, ""t consequentlY; !h!s knowl- lative mode of reasoning is not thereby removed :il. ;;;" ouiri".a'6tf*t tht-to,rl inhabited a from the discussion. Historically, philosophical ";ili'; of the argument that speculation took shape in close connection with ;:il;'ildr),1il; the d-eath of the the successes of the mathematicians, some the the soul continues--it - tJ-ii* after of i"irriJ"ri, outui".a bv concretiging tbg pre.- most eminent of whom were Plato's pupils. This although is what V. Steklov has in mind when he says viouslv stated ptopot--if, o"' on .opposites-: that oppositti' opoosite it- "mathematics always was and is the source of ;ii fi i,"'fi ;rfi ;;'i;;;- -an to"l self cannot u" oppJJ# ;5'til'lil Ht"'L'tht philosophy", that it created philosophy and may 'i,?:iJ*':::"ffi be called the "mother of philosophy".l One may 1'",::15,1ifr 3l"inllJ"#'ul'"c disagree with the categoricalness of that state- ment, but clearly expresses destroving,*'i'T"'#'?ii;;i;;e disintegrating' it a valid though not " irateri alist ol altogether impartial point of view. Signlficant iil :ol"pti tne.:1 as the harmony-of the parts tormtng from this standpoint are the metaphysicafsystems th;;;; with a well bodv. a harmony-iirst.,r*et't' *fiitfi he comlares of the 17th century, whose creators were con- ffiJe;;;t.rt But i mu.sical instru- vinced that philosophical reasoning based on the Fiuio, mav be tun-ed well or not so principles of mathematics takes us beyond the #;; ;;iJ a well. wher.u, u be more or less bounds of experience. Jriii]riii. t*f*.tt'o'i'cannot ttt" attunedness of the parts 1 V. Steklov, Mathematics and lts Significance for l'hilosophy, 1928, t The Dialogues of Plato,P' 424' Berlin, pp. E0-81 (in Russian). r22 t23 The rationalists held that mathematics is the what the definition has put into it. So, in mathe- one and only correct form of theoretical know- matics there is no argument about definitions.l ledge. Kant, who believed that "the doctrine of And since mathematical definitions cannot be nature will contain science in the actual sense of untrue, it is only in mathematics that axioms are the term only to the extent that mathematics can possible. be applied therein",f firmly rejected the possibi- Admittedly, since philosophy elucidates the lity of mathematising the philosophical mode of concepts it uses, it cannot do without definitions. inquiry. This sprang not from an underestimation But whereas mathematics begins with definitions of mathematics, but from a conception of the (because there ca! be no conlept without them), specific nature of 'philosophy that was clearer in philosophy_definitions should only complete than that of the 17th century rationalists. the _inquiry. This idea does not, of course, upply Philosophical definitions, Kant pointed out, to the. gxpositio^n of philosophy,- which, like-iny differ essentially from those of mathematics. exposition, ^di$9r9 essential-ly from an inquiry, Philosophical definitions "are made only in the the result of which cannot be-foreseen. form of exposition of the concepts given to us, Declaring that the mode by which philosophy while those of mathernatics take the form of reaches its conclusions is qualitativelv aitrei.nt construction of originally created concepts; the from that of mathematics, Kant tried to give former are made analytically by means of dissec- epistemological grou_nds for the possibility and tion (the completeness of which is not apodicti- necessity of a specifically philosophical type of cally reliable), and the second synthetically; hence speculaiion. Sucli specutation, accdrding to kant, mathematical definitions create the concept proceeds Jrom the fact, asks how this fact is pos- itself, while those of philosophy only explain it".2 sible, and reveals the conditions that make-the Kant's point of view is that definitions, in the I precise sense of the word, are possible only in This view of Kant's on the nature of mathematical cannot by definitions is obsolete. The definitions of multiples, which mathematics. Mathematical definitions were. given b_y. G._Cantor, -tbe founder of thJ theory of their very nature be incorrect, because aray multiples, and by E. Borel, N. Bourbaki and other mithe- mathematical concept is actually given only as a rnaticians, show that arguments about definitions are definition and consequently contains precisely possible even in mathematics. "At all events it should be observed that no matter what difficulties may arise in I**r""el Kants siimtliche tl)erke in sechs Biind,en, defining the concept of multiples, the concept- itself has LeipziE, 1922, Vierter Band, S. 551. been a powerful means of studying and vtrifying the -, 2 l[id., Bd. s, S. 555. What Kant calls the exposition categories of obiects under considiration (mathematiis) or of concepts, Hans Reichenbach calls their explication, thus the verbally described field (logic)." (R. Faure, A. K'auf- arriving at the same conclusions as Kant nearly two mann, M. Denis-Papin, Mathimatiques nouaelles, tome I, hundref, years after him: "An explication can never be Paris, 1964, p. 2.) it is clear, hoivever, that in modern proved to be strictly correct, for the very reason that the mathematics the difficulties of definins concepts are not explicandum is vague and we can never tell whether the to.be compared with the difficulties thlat aris6 in philos- exllicans matches all its features." (H. Reichenbach, 7&e ,,phy, and in this sense Kant's ideas have not losi their D[rection of Time, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950, p. 24.) stgnrtrcance. t24 fact possible. Mathematics, Kant said, consists of Hegel criticised Kant's understanding of phi- synthetic judgements that have indubitable uni- losophical speculation for the very reason that versality and necessity. In fact, it never occurred Kant believed it unnecessary to deduce logically to him to prove this proposition. It struck him as that which was accepted as fact. Philosophy, in being self-evident and requiring only explana- Hegel's view, does not so much proceeii from tion. So now the question to be answered was facts as arrive at them. Since philosophy is what made this fact possible. And Kant replies: thought, it proceeds from thought and strives to the a priori. nature of space and time. know the content of thought (the content of In his Critique of Pure Reason Kant proceeds science) as the product of its own development. from the fact of the'existence of morality. How is Thus Hegelian panlogism ontologically substan- moraliiy possible? he asks. His well-known an- tiates the traditional belief regarding the ability swer is that the condition for the existence of of philosophy by means of reason alone, "by pure morality is the a priori moral law, the categorical thought", to arrive at discoveries which are in imperative. Further analysis of the fact culmi- principle beyond the scope of empirical know- nates in the conclusion that the moral conscious- ledge. Kant, as we know, rejected this rationalist ness presupposes such postulates as recoglition illusion. Hegel reinstated it on the basis of dialec- of the immortality of the soul, God-and the tical idealism, which understands the relationship republican order of society. between sense and reason as contradiction, ne- Thus what Kant considered to be a fact was gation and the negation of negation. "Philoso- the He mistook the appearance nothing-fact, of kind. phy," Hegel wrote, "takes experi,ence, immediate of the which is, of course, also a fact, for its and reasoning consciousness as its boint of essence. This appearance was not accidental; departure. Bestirred by experience, as by some ir- since only Euclid's geometry existed, it was bound ritant, thought proceeds in such a way as to rise to appear to be the only possible one. The con- above the natural, sensual and reasoning con- clusions reached by Kant *ere inevitable for any sciousness, and rises to its own pure and unadul- thinker who based his theory of knowledge on terated element. . . ."1 However, this initial ne- the thesis that Euclidean geometry was the only gation of sensory experience, according to Hegel, possible geometry.t is completely abstract, with the result that the initial philosophical conception of the universal r This was why'the the creation of non-Euclidean geometry essence of sensorily observed phenomena turns comoelled even neo-Kantians to renounce Kant's tranlcendental aesthetics. Thanks to non-Euclidean out to be similarly abstract. Philosophy removes geometry, as A. N. Kolmogorov has pointed out, "the faith this abstract negation, this alienation, and ad- in the immutability of axioms that have been sanctified by dresses itself not to people's everyday experience thousands of yeais of the development of mathematics was overcome, the possibility of creating new mathematical abstract theory could in time be given broader and entirely theories bv means'of corrictlv executJd abstraction from concrete applications". the essentially illogical limitalions formerly imposed was 1 G. W. F. Hegel, Siimtliche Uerhe, Stuttgart, 1929, understood and, finally, it was discovered that such an Ild. 8, s. 56. t26 but to the whole totalitv of data of the special' pcrience in which this "external" reality finds its ised sciences. But eve., ihis cannot satisfy philo- t'xpression. Philosophical thought, since it ex- sophy because the specialised sciences synthesise g,r6sses the "absolute idea", like this transpheno- orily'empirical data, and this synthesis does not inenal reality, "is present in itself, relates to itself take us Eeyond the bounds of possible experie-nce rund has itself foi its subject".l Herein, Hegel or physical reality. In Hegel's view dissatisfac' tleclares, lies the essence of philosophy as a spe- tion with knowledge of thai which is empirically r:ific and at the same time the highest form of siven. with accidental content, is the stimulus r:onsciousness, forming the spiritual centre of all ihut rprrr philosophical thought to-.break free lhe sciences, the science of sciences, or absolute from tiris enipirically limited univ-ersality in order science, which alone has as its subject the truth "to enter up6n the path of deaelopm.eit out of as it is in itself and for itself, and not in its itself",t i.e, to register pure ideas and move rrlienated obj ectivised form. within them. There is no need to prove that the inadequacy Hegel counterposes philosophical th-inking to of Hesel'sHegel's initial philosophical position-the that of the natural sciences, since the latter, ac- identitytdentltytitv ofot beingbeinEbelng and thinking-mtnrnKlng-maKesthinkins-makes hisrlrs con'con- cordins to his doctrine, is concerned with the ception of the losicallogical process of cognitioncol inade- alienaitd form of the absolute. This juxtaposition quate,,,rate also. The dialectics of the transition from revealing the real relation between them is the- the sensual to tlthe rational, from the empirical to oreticalli expressed in the doctrine of philosophy the theoretical and back virtually escapes Hegel. as pure it origt t, that is to say, thought purified ldealism prevented him from seeing-that thought of all empirical content. is based on empirical data, even when it enters According to Hegel, philosophy's ability...to into contradictibn with them. And yet Hegel is know the a"bsolute ii commensuiate to its ability right about many things. Theoretical kno-wledge to negate dialectically the empiri-cal-as the out- is indeed not reducible to the diversity of empi- ward," alienated expiession of absolute r-eality' rical data. Agreement with sensory data cannot Absoiute reality is ittaiqed by pure- thought. be- be the principle of theoretical thought, since these cause this thought itself "is thought which is 128 \t t2 thought from the empirical data that may be at independence of theory from empirical d.ata. the command not only of separate individuals Moreover, it comes to light that the free (in the but of all mankind at each separate stage of its rlialectical sense, i.e., also necessary) motion of development. This finds its expression in theore- theoretical cognition, which Hegel considered to tical discoveries that reach far beyond the bounds be the attribute of philosophy, forms the essential of present experience, paving the way for sub- characteristic of theoretical thinking in general, sequent observations and even creating possibili- in so far as it attains a sufficiently high degree ties which, on being realised with the help of of development.l certain definite theoretical means, make it possible Counterposing philosophical cognition, parti- to register empiritally that which has been dis- cularly in its dialectical form, to non-philosophi- covered by means of theory, i.e., to confirm the cal cognition (mainly empirical), Hegel wrote: truth of "speculative" conclusions. "True cognition of a subject should be on the con- Hegel discovered and at the same time obscured trary such that it defines itself from itself, and the real, historically culminating process of the not by receiving its predicates from outside."2 development of the ability of theoretical cogni- This proposition is a vivid example of the idealist tion, whose power is certainly not dependent on mystification of the perfectly correct, in fact, the quantity of sensory data that it may have at brilliant idea of the nature of theoretical thought, its command. Hegel portrayed this process as which does not merely describe the properties in escape beyond the bounds of all possible expe- the object under investigation but logically de- rience, transition from physical to transphysical duces them, thus revealing their interdependence, reality, to the realm of the noumena, which Kant, showing that which cannot be immediately ob- who understood cognition only as the categorial served and penetrating through appearance to es- synthesis of sensory data, declared to be, though sence, so as afterwards to explain the necessity existent, fundamentally unknowable. of this appearance, tracing the motion and muta- Hegel correctly pointed out the dialectical jux- tion of the subject thanks to which its empirically taposition of theoretical and empirical knowl- observable properties arise. The necessity for edge, but he absolutised this juxtaposition. His such a "speculative" inquiry, which is today be- mistake lies not in the fact that he believed this coming obvious in all fields of theoretical know- juxtaposition to be unlimited; it is indeed Iedge, first emerged in philosophy inasmuch as unlimited, but only potentially. I genuis the power Speaking of the neo-Kantian F. Lange, who tried to The of Hegel's doctrine on rlisprove the dialectical method, Marx observes in a letter of thought, on the role of the logical process in to L. Kugelmann (March 27, 1870): "Lange is naive enough discovering facts and laws is, despite its idealist Lo say that I 'move with rare freedom' in empirical matter. distortion, particularly obvious today. Modern IIe h'asn't the least idea that this 'free movemient in matter' o'speculative" particularly is nothing but a -the-paraphrase for the method of dealing with theoretical thought, in rrratter-that is, dialectical method." (K. Marx anil mathematics and physics, has led to discoveries fr. Engels, Selected Correspondence, 1956, pp. 290-291.) that irrefutably testify to the progressive relative 2 G. W. F. Hegel, Siimtliche Uerke, Bd. 8, S. 103. 130 131 mate- has more to do with the analysis of concepts In contrast to. the idealists, the French it have science. this sense that rialists of the 18th century made no claim to than any other It was in (they Hegel discovered the essence of the dialectical discovered a transcendental reality denied philosophical me[hod. Emphasising the main aspect of Hegel's its existence); nor did they oppose dialectics, Lenin pointed out, "The determination knowledge to that of science. They advocated an of the concept out of itself (the thing ifsell must alliance of philosophy with the natural sciences. be considered in its relations and in its develop- However, the teaching of these materialists reach- ment)."l This remark throws light on the pos- ed out far beyond the bounds of the scientific data sibility of the materialist interpretation of what of their day, not despite these data but on the basis seems at first sight'to be Hegel's completely ab- of them. This reaching out beyond the bounds of surd and mystical idea of the self-motion of the available knowledge inevitably became mere con- concept. And this in its turn brings us to an jecture, hypothesis and often, of cours-e, error. underitanding of the nature of philosophical But it wai on this hazardous path that the mate- "speculative" thinking, which Hegel characterised rialist philosophy of the 18th century made its precisely as the self-motion of the concept greatesl discoveiy-the discovery of the self- We have examined certain points that charac- motion of matter. This idea that matter moves proved the 18th terise the speculative nature of philosophy, delib' itself could not be empirically in erately referring to the idealist philosophers in century; it was an anticipation of future know- perhaps more whose doctrines this speculativeness reached its ledge,'and such anticipation is a same time became difficult task than the prediction of future events. highest-form development and at the a mystification reality. Analysis of This idea was obviously at odds with the mecha- of of tune philosophical speculation discloses certain pecu- nistic understanding of motion, but it was in and tendencies the development of with the spirit of the natural sciences, which were IiaritieJ in path theoretical knowledge (including that of the na- ever more confidently taking the of explain- The denial of the tural sciences). It may be conceded that specrrla- ing nature out of naiure itself. tion, which to a certain extent breaks away from suoernatural. and the atheism that was the the theoretical facts, is of course a very dangerous path, on which loiical deduction from it, were self-motion matter. mistakes may occur at every step and discoveries ,nirr.., of the idea of the of proposed substantiat- take the shape of lucky finds. All the same this The philosophers, who and basic sides path knowledge must cd this idea, thus expressed one of the is the that theoretical philosophical inevitably take, undaunted by the danger of be- of theoretical and particularly coming a mere concoction of ideas. This is the thouEht-the soeculative thrust forward which is path taken by philosophy, and it characterises absoiutely esstntial for the development of the specific nature of the philosophical form of knowledge. were cognition. The fiist atheists appeared when there still not sufficient scientific data to disprove the 1 lcnets of religion. But the theologians had even V. I. Lenin, Collected Uorhs, Vol. 38, p. 221 . t32 138 less data with which to substantiate their beliefs. possibility of real verification. So the point is not Atheism was a heroic undertaking not only be- lhat philosophical propositions are true because cause the atheists were persecuted. Atheism was they work; this approach to the question is alien also a feat of the intellect. From this standpoint to Marxism and, as we know, is propagated by one can appreciate the true value of the fearless pragmatism. The point we are making is that in philosophising which, armed with logic, broke so far as philosophical propositions become part through into the unknown, and the astonishing of the diversity of human activity they may be assurance of every one of these philosophers that indirectly tested, corrected and improved. This he was revealing the truth, despite the fact that reveals yet another important characteristic of his predecessors had obviously fallen into error. speculative philosophical thought. Philosophical Truly, as Heraclitus remarked, man's character propositions, even when they are not true, pos- is his demon. sess (to a greater or less extent) an implicit or When we speak of the speculative nature of explicit idea which becomes obvious in so far as any scientific theory, we realise that this theory these propositions are applied. The true signifi- will sooner or later be confirmed or discredited cance of Hegelian dialectics was revealed by by experience, by experiment. Philosophy is far Marx and Engels, who saw it as the algebra of more speculative than theoretical natural science, revolution. The hidden significance of present- but it cannot appeal to future experiments or day philosophical irrationalism is revealed in its observations. What is it then that sets a limit characteristic apology for an "irrational" (chiefly upon the philosopher's speculative licence, if he capitalist) reality. is not to be intimidated by mere isolated facts, Hegelian dialectics embodies a great truth, since they can neither confirm nor deny his con- which has been fully revealed by history. Philo- ception? Logic? Yes, of course, the philosopher sophical irrationalism is a tremendous error, which respects logic; it is his own chief weapon. But a nevertheless reflects a definite historical reality logical inference is possible only from logical and is therefore by no means devoid of meaning. premises, which are not contained in logic itself. ldeas that afterwards turn out to be untrue, Logic provides no criteria of the truth sought by though they were once believed to be true,l also the philosopher or any theoretical scientist. We assume that the significance (and to a certain I This is probably what Max Planck has in mind: "The extent the truth) of philosophical propositions is significance of a scientific idea often lies not so much in llrc amount of truth it contains as in its value. ... But if to be inferred from their being applicable in wc consider that the concept of value has always been various sciences and practical activity. completely alien in its very essence to such an objective Philosophical propositions may be regarded as s<:ience as physics, this fact will appear particularly a kind of theoretical recommendations. these ;rstonishing, and the question arises of how to understand If the fact that the significance of an idea in physics may be recommendations arm science in its pursuit of lrrlly estimated only by taking into account its value." the truth, arm man in his practical, transforming (M. Planck, aortrdge und, Erinnerungen, Sttttgart, 1949, activity, then they acquire, thanks to this, the ri. 282.) 184 r85 have quite considerable and often p,ositive unexpected recall, the "discovery" of something significance in the history of science as well. that one thinks one has never known, never -Th,rs the peculiarities of philosophical thought noticed, 'and never memorised. This recognition that we have considered are to a certain extent of what has been involuntarily memorised was (and in various historical periods) inherent in given an idealist interpretation in the phenomen- any theoretical thought in general, in so far as it ology of Edmund Husserl, which states that achieves hieh levels-of abstraction. It is not the cognition is in essence an intuitive process of speculative"mode of developing concepts that is recognising that which is already present in the specific to philosophy, but the degree of specula- conscl0usness. tiveness of- thought, organically connected, as it The problem of intuition is particularly rele- is with the concept of philosophy (and some yant to an understanding of the specific nature philosophical doctrines in particular), with its ap- of philosophy, since through two thousand years iraratuJ of categories, initial theoretical proposi- or more philosophy has not possessed the neces- tions, etc. But degree is a definition of quality and sary factual basis for the extremely wide in this sense aitually helps us to define the theoretical generalisations that constitute its basic specific nature of the philosophical form of-cogni- task. And since philosophy cannot refuse to tion, excluding at the-same time the metaphysical answer the questions by which it is faced, it has juxtaposition 1f philosophy to other forms of had only one choice: epistemological scepticism theoretical inquiry. or acknowledgement of the great cognitive value of philosophical hypotheses, which as a rule entail 3. INTUITION, TRUTH, conjecture, intuitive convictiorl, imagination, as- CREATIVE IMAGINATION sumption of postulates, and so on. Philosophical Our characterisation of the philosophical form hypotheses have never been suppositions, i.e., of cognition as predominantly specul,ative must statements that no one is prepared to vouch for. be supplemented by an analysis of intuition, On the contrary, they have always been put whose iognitive significance has beerr pr-oved by forward as convictions, psychologically absolutely modern science. D;ialectical materialism has dis- incompatible with any notion that they may only pelled the mysteries surrounding the concept of Bossibly be true. Philosophers have never intuition, and shown that intuition is actually a employed formulae such as "it seems to me" and oart of the sensorv and rationalist reflection of their statements have been of a categorical bbiective reality.'Marxist epistemology tackles nature. Epistemologically these statements may the question of intuition not only with a view to be correctly understood as intuitions, as long as tracing the paths that lead to scientific discoveries this word is not taken to mean only direct cogni- but alJo in ionnection with the analysis of every- tion of truth, of course. day experience, which includes the involuntary The philosopher's intuitive assertions have been (unpercbived by the consciousness) memorising made in various ways, depending on historical of perceptions and their equally involuntary and conditions and the level of development of 136 science and culture. Sometimes they have ap- The intuitionists grasped this peculiarity of the peared as beliefs based on the sensory perception rlevelopment of philosophy and absolutised it 6f reality, sometimes as mystical, imp,eratively without noticing that intuition itself requires proclaimed "revelation", sometimes as the adop- critical research and assessment. They maintained iion of some "self-evident" proposition as the that the specific nature of philosophy is, in fact, point of departure for a train of logical reason- the intuitive discovery of its initial propositions. irg, and so on. In all cases, howev_er, o],riloso' The high assessment of the cognitive phirs have consciously or unconsciously relied on significance of intuition given by the rationalists, intuition. Yet it shouid not be assumed that in- and also some empiricists of the 17th century tuition has been the specific organon of philos- (John Locke), implied no belittlement of logic, ophy. It has played (and continues to.play) a logical deduction and proof; rationalism's ideal substantial part in the natural sciences.l was the mathematical method. It would therefore r be a crude mistake to regard the rationalists as Analysing the origin of physical theories, Einstein intuitionists. Such an approach would mean that points out'that no logica-l path leads directly from observa- tions to the basic principles of theory. "The supreme task any acknowledgement of the cognitive significance of the physicist," [e sa*, "is to arrive at those universal of intuition implies acceptance of the positions elementiri, lawi from which the cosmos can be built up by of intuitionism. pure deduction. There is no Iogical path to these laws; Intuitionism is an irrational doctrine, interpret- inlv intuition. restinE on svmp'athetic understanding of exp'erierrc., can reach"the-."'(4. Einstein, The Uorld as ing intuition as an alogical act of cognition of I 'See It, i. ZZ.) lt would appear that this remark of Ein- irrational reality. Henri Bergson held that Kant stein's hai nothing in common with the conception o[ had performed an outstanding service in proving intuition as an alogical process. It suggests rather that an l.he impossibility intellectual intuition. But intuitive conclusioi is irot a concluiion drawn from a of series of deductions, but a kind of break in the continuity llergson went on to deduce from this something of theoretical research, a dialectical leap, founded on an that Kant himself had never thought of: that the accumulation of experience and knowledge which, given only possible intuition is superintellectual intui- a certain degree of intellectual ability, leads to an in- tion, which forms the basis of the specifically tuitive conclusion. For confirmation of this idea we may refer to the pro- philosophical vision of the world. The intellect, found observation of N. N. Semyonov: "If one is to llergson said, is essentially practical in its origin consider scientific thought 'logical' and 'rational' only to and function, its business is "to guide our actions. the extent that it proceCds in slrict accord with the axioms, 'l'he thing that interests us in actions is their postulates and theorems of formal mathematical logic, then the scientific thought that is actually practised is bound lcsult; the means matter little as long as the goal to appear irrational. In fact, science begins to look like a is attained."l Stressing the link between intellect madiriruse, in which only an appearance of order is :rnd the material world of objects, which, ac- maintained with the help of attendant logicians, but cording Bergson, is lifeless and static, the certainlv not by the inmates, who dream only of how to to upset tiis o.d.t." (N. N. Semyonov, "Marxist-Leninist French intuitionist argued that the basis and P'hilosophy and the Problems of'Natural Science", Korn- munist,-1968, No. 10, p. 62.) 1 H. Bergson, CEuares, Paris, 1959, p. 747. 188 t39 origin of all things is pure duration, whose by- rleduction, proof, elucidation. In the actual history products are matter and intellect. It is this non- of philosophy things have been far more com- material duration, this metaphysical time that is plicated than this. When Thales declared that perceived through intuition.l cverything originates from water, he cited facts Bergson assumed that the basis of any great in support of his theory (ro we are told by philosophical system is "primary intuition", which Aristotle) and deduced logical arguments, but the philosopher then tries to express as a system t.his, of course, is not enough. Facts and argu- of deductions. The intuitive vision of the world, rnents are aided by intuition, which it would be however, cannot be adequately expressed through rnore correct to call, despite Bergson, not primary logic, it is "something simple, infinitely simple, but secondary, because it is based on experience so extraordinarily simple that the philosopher has and knowledge. Even so, facts and knowledge never been able to express it. And this is why he were obviously not enough to provide the founda- has been talking all his life. He could not for- tion of a fundamental philosophical belief. mulate what was in his mind without feeling Lack of empirical and theoretical data is obliged to correct his formula, and then to correct characteristic not only of the philosophy of the his correction."2 ancient world. Philosophy seeks to know the Bergson's mistake lies not in his belief that general forms of the universe, whereas the data "primary intuitions" are the initial propositions at its disposal are always historically limited of philosophy. He is wrong because he interprets and in this sense insufficient. "Mankind there- intuition as the irrational cognition of the irra- lore," Engels writes, "fi.nds itself faced with a tional, ruling out all possibility on principle of c<-rntradiction: on the one hand, it has to gain an arry other, non-intuitive path to the initial cxhaustive knowledge of the world system in a1l philosophical proposition, or any possibility of its interrelations; and on the other hand, because its adequate logical (theoretical) expression, i.e., of the nature both of men and of the world t system, this task can never be completety fulfilted. Irrt,rttt""ism, therefore, consists not only in a defi- llut this contradiction lies not only the nature nite interpretation of the process of cognition, but also in in the subiective erasure of the qualitative distinction be- of the two factors-the world, and man-it is tween reflection and object reflected. A case in point is irlso the main lever of all intellectual advance, Benedetto Croce, who iegards objects as intuitions, i.e., :rnd finds its solution continuously, day by day, denies that they have any existence independent of the knower: "What is cognition through concept? It is the in the endless progressive evolution of cognition of the relations between things; things are the lrumanity...."1 essence of intuition." We emphasise this ontological aspect Thus, the synthesis of empirical and scientific of intuitional idealism to illustrate the fact that recogni- knowledge in general can never be complete. It tion and high appreciation of intuition's cognitive sig"nifi- is this that gives the philosophical (and cance has nothing in common with intuitionism or with also the idealism in general. This, incidentally, is proved by the rratural scientific) conception of the whole, the history of philosophy. 2 H. Bergson, CEuares, p. 1347, I Ir. Engels, Anti-Diihring, Moscow, 1969, p. 50. 140 l4l general, the infinite, the intransient, the character losophy, which aspires to know that which is most of a hvpothesis which, even in those instances general and unlimited both qualitatively and when it' actually does synthesise the scientific quantitatively. data of its time, constantly demands correction The productive ability of the imagination, and development in the light of new scientific which Kant regarded as fundamental to the pro- discoveries. cess of cognition, plays, in philosophy at ary The philosopher, as distinct from the natural rate, a leading role if, of course, this ability is scientist, canndt stop thinking about the universal, interpreted materialistically and not as the a the infinite, the intransient, the whole, and so on. priori mental construction of an empirical entity, Even if he renounces "metaphysics" and independent of any empirical data and preceding deliberately concentrates on research into, sal, them. Kant. denied that intellectual intuition, only epistemological problems, he is b-ound to be which he saw as a rationalist illusion regarding .orr?roirt"d .rr"i it, tt is field with the task of the ability of "pure" reason, could have knowl- theoretical synthesis, the formulation of conclu- edge going beyond the limits of experience. In sions that have general and necessary significance, this sense intellectual intuition is indeed impos- and such svnth6sis and the conclusions it entails sible. However, the concept of intellectual in- can never be founded on the full abundance of tuition need not be interpreted in the spirit of empirical data that they requirg:^ O-t closer lTth century rationalism, which Kant rightly examination it turns out that this difficulty occurs <-rpposed. Modern science allows us to trace in- in all fields of theoretical knowledge, since in- tuition scientifically, as an inseparable element duction always remains incomplete and the of the creative imagination of the scientist, that universality of a law formu-lated by natural is to say, imagination based on facts, knowledge science is proved not so much theoretically as and searching inquiry. confirmed in fact. But it is also theoretically con- Thus Marxist philosophy is opposed to intui- ceivable that there are facts that do not confirm tionism not because intuitionism acknowledges this law. Natural scientists can afford to ignore the existence of intuition while dialectical this because there is an unlimited number of materialism denies it. "As a fact of knowledge phenomena that proceed according to the given cvery form of intuition is an undeniable reality, iaw, the universility of which is qualitatively cxisting in the sphere of cognition for all who are limited and, if neceisary, may be quantitatively r:oncerned in this field," writes V. F. Asmus. limited as well.l It is a different matter in phi- "But as a theory of facts of knowledge, eyery llreory of intuition is a philosoBhical theory, r Niels Bohr notes the positive scientific significance of irlealist or materialist, metaphysical or dialec- this circumstance in analysis of the philosophical interpre- tation of the quantum theory: "As has oftel happene{. in *rd ,{reater power to correlate phenomena which science when iew discoveriis have led to the recognition lrcfore"t"- might even have appeared contradictory." (N. Bohr, of an essential limitation of concepts hitherto considered Atomic Physics and, Hurnan Rnouled.ge, London, 1958, as indispensable, we are rewardeii by getting a wider 1,p. .5-6.) r42 143 tical."t Hence it is a question not of whether there intuitionists, is obviously untenable because the does or does not exiit a specific cognitive ability histo.ry of natural stience and philosophy that differs essentiallv from the coniistent logical l'urnishes countless instances of mistaken iritui- deduction of a series of irrf.rer.es, but of how such tion. "Reliance on so-called intuition has too reflection of reality is possible, h-oly it relates to often turned out to be misleading," observes Hans lleichenbach.l Bunge his serious study the experier.e atd knowledge -of the individual -Mario in knowei. If Newton, as legend has it, did notice Intuition and Sci.ence thoroughly criticises idealisl an aople fall from a tree-and "a1l of a sudden" <:orr-ceptions of intuition and then deals concretely with the forms of intuition, disc&er the law of . universal gravity, this intui- which manifest them- tion of his must obviously have been preceded by selves in sensory perception, imagination, "ac- orolonEed consideration of a whole range of prob' celerated deduction", appreciation and so on. He i.*r,-tl.n as Galileo's discovery- gf-l]re law of condemns the idealist cutt of the intuition and the ioualitv of the velocities of all falling bodies, opposes both overestimation and underestimation sreat'and'small. So the problem lies in correct of this form of cognition, to which science owes interpretation of the facd of intuition, which is not only great discoveries but also numerous alwa^vs to be found in the history of cognition, rnistakes. One can hardly disagree with Bunge's conclusion: "re- and in discovering the possibilities of ?pplying "The variorri for*"s of intuition siientific, critical frethodi of inquiry and testing scmble other forms of knowing and reasoning, in to this cognitive ability.2 tlrat they must be controlled if they are to be The ndtion of intriition as immediate percep- rrseful. Placed between sensible intuition and tion of truth, a notion upheld both by the ration- l)ure reason, intellectual intuition is fertile. But alists of the 17th centur| and the anti-rationalist out of control it leads to sterility."2 - Thus there is nothing more deceptive than the V. F. A" mts, Problem of Intuition in P.hilosophy and' belief that intuition is infallible. This truth is in- Mathematics,' Moicow, 1965, p' 60 (in Russian)' --t V. St.(Io, has pointed 6ut thai one of the elements l0 22 144 145 theoretical science, creative art or invention. But theories that as a rule are not intuitionist are perhaps it makes sense to speak of a specific kind constantl,y interpreted as "primary intuitions", if. ohilosoOhical intuition, iust as we speak of the compl-etely independent of all previous philosoph- o.irrliur irituition of the ar[ist? It would be absurd ical^develoqment. -This is pirticularly striking io deny the peculiarity of the philosophical form in Bergson himself. His basic ideas were formed of knowleds6 but everi less convincing to say- that under the influence of the irrationalist tradition it is no inore than philosophical intuition' in Gerqany and France; his "metaphysics of be- Analysis of philosophicaf doctrines leads to the c-oming" interprets lpalionally the principle of conclusion thit the-relative unity of the philo- development that gained almost universil even sophical form of knowledge embraces certain es- if superficial recognition in philosophy and r.itial differences, oppositions and contradic- natural science at the close of tht lgth-c6ntury. tions. Whereas some philosophers, at any -tate Analysis- of Bergsot's attitudes to Kant, Hegel, subjectively, proceed- from intuitive beliefs, Schopelrhauer, Dilthey, Maine de Biran, B6u- othirs oo lhe iontrarv take the facts established tr-oux, Darwin and Spencer, and to the advocates by science or everyday experience as their point of natural scientifii materialism, would un- of departure. doubtedly reveal as minimal the role of intuition Thi psvcholosv of philosophical creativity is in the creation of his systep, which has often an entirilv uninilstisa[ed field, but the available been described as the mos't ofiginal in the history odd assoriment of ficts (phitosophers' own ac- of philosophy. ideas tiiok shape, for instance) So intuition, speculation, specific iou"ts of how their - ^ -like is a offers no factual grounds for admitting t4" feature-of the philosophical form of knowiedge, of philosophical intui- although both these peculiarities cognition existence of a speciil kind of - ire tion. Such an ddmission is demanded by the in- present in any theo,retical inquiry.l Evidently tuitionists who refer us to their own philosophical there are no grou-nds here either for inferring the creativity, but even if we a-ccep-! their declara- existence of any featu-res of philosophical thought tions as'evidence we can only allow intuition a that are peculiir to that mo-^de of thought alo"ne. role in their particular-philosophical work' -lEt-" special ae Broglie emphasises that this side of the Most philosophers, [owever, are not intuitionists, gues.lion is highly relevan{ to the understanding of both but opponenti of intuitionism. intuition and philosophy. Science, he writes, "sjnce it is Scii:itific analysis of the testimony of intui- cssentially ratiolal at bottom and in its methods, can -the rnake its most splendid tionists, no matler how sincere thgl themselves conquests only by means of perilors lc.aps of. the intellect-in _wliich theri come into pliy abil- mav be. reveals an obvious underestimation of the ities, released from the heavy fetters of strict-reisoninp by which exti:nt io which thev have been influenced are called imaginatibn,-les intuition and subtlety,". philosophers,- philosophical traditions, (Louis de Broglie, Sur sentiers d,e la science, Paiis, other -historiial 1960, conditions, ald p. 854.) It is characteristic that de Broslie iees in r.ii"tin,i data,-definite irnagination (which is, of course, to be undersiood not in Ideas that took shape in intuitionist the orljnary-sense so on. of -the word), intuition and subtlety the doctrines under the obvious influence of other t'xpression of one and the sarire cognitive ability. 146 147 Once again it is a matter of the degree to which world. Does this mean that discoveries are, in speculation and intuition are employed by philos- fact, impossible in philosophy? No, this is ophy. The scale varies considerably, however, in certainly not the case. The essence of the matter diff6rent philosophical doctrines and at different is that philosophical discoveries are based on stages in the historical development of philos' knowledge that is already available, on knowl- ophy. edge that is analysed, appraised or, to put it brlefly, interpreted by philoiophy. 4. INTERPBETATION Interpretation plays a maj-or-part in all theo- AS A MODE OF PIIILOSOPHICAL Igtical ing_uiries and in any- field of knowledge. INQUIBY F_"S.lr called Leverrier's discovery of the plaiet The discovery of hitherto unknown phenomena, Neptune a great scientific aciri.vement. By processes properties, and the laws that analysing the facts recorded by other astronomers, of and - govern them, and of- the ways and means of Leverrier inferred the existence of a hitherto practically applying these laws-such are the unknown planet and calculated the point at which main tasks of-siiente, which are performed by it would become visible. This discovery was based direct and instrumental observation, by descrip- on interpretation of facts already known to as- tion, experiment, theoretical analysis of facts, by tronomers. But in order to interpret them as generaliiations, special methods of research and Lrverrier had done, it was necessaiy to be con- testing, etc. Philosophy is armed with no vinced -of the- possible existence ol yet another techniques of experiminlation, no instruments of planet in our Solar system observition, no chemical reagents; these and all Today, thanks to the development of its other deficiencies have to be replaced by the theoretical research, application of mithematical Dower of abstraction. methods and so on, interpretation as a method of ' The philosopher has at his disposal facts inquiry figures far more prominently in natural obtained by his personal observation or facts science than it did in the past. Modern science established by special scientific research' Whereas has given the concept of interpretation various the chemist ii immediately concerned with things, special meanings. V. A. Shtoff writes: "One may most of the philosopher's material is knowledge observe three types of interpretation that ar! of things gathered from the sciences and other cmployed in scigntific _cognition: (l) interpreta- sources. Thus philosophy, at any rate as it exists tion of formal symbol- logico-matheniatical in the present age of ramified and developed systems; (2) interpretation of- the controls of specialiied sciencel, is concerned with more or less mathematical science, and (3) interpretation of observation, experimental data and established prepared and tested factual data supPlied -by icience and practice, with certain definite phe- scientific facts."l This classification of the types nomena in the material and spiritual life of society, 1 which it seeks to comprehend, generalise and V. A. S.\tytr, Modelling and Philosophy, Moscow, interpret as a whole and integrated view of the 1966, p. 169 (in Russian). r48 t49 of interpretation makes no claim to be exhaustive tinues to exist to this day, has long since become since thb author is mainly concerned with mathe- a historical anachronism. matics, logic and natural science. Nevertheless it Thus the development of the specialised confirms the idea of the growing role of interpre- sciences and of specific methods of scientific tation in science. But why do we raise the question research has progressively reduced the role of of the special role of interpretation in philosoPhy! philosophy in disclosing new phenomena and The reason is simply that in any specialised laws of nature, but at the same time it has science interpretation is only one of the methods cnhanced the significance of the philosophical in- of inquiry, whereas for philosophy, which does terpretation of natural scientific discoveries, as not 96 iri for fact-gatheiing and processing of something that is essential both to natural raw materials, so to speak, it is of decisive im- science and to philosophy itself. Such interpreta- tion steadily'sheds its character and 'oortance. ontological In the past, .withphilosophers often enriched the becomes increasingly related to the theory of natural scitnces gieat discoveries. This was knowledge. Far from being merely a philo- possible because the gap between philosophy and sophical compendium of natural scientific the specialised sciences was relatively narrow. discoveries, it offers a critical, epistemological Descaites and Leibnitz were not only philosophers explanation of their significance. Lenin's analysis but also mathematicians and natural scientists in of the crisis in physics at the close of the 19th their own right. Natural science was llryely century is a striking example of the scientifico- empirical in character and its theoretical problems philosophical interpretation of the achievements weie dealt with by philosophy (natural philos- of natural science. ophy), which anticipated or even formulated in Any interpretation proceeds from facts or from siedrilative terms lome outs-tanding scientific what is considered to be a fact. Its key func- discoveries. Lorenz Oken, the German naturalist, tion is to explain these facts (or what are con- provides a vivid example. "By the path of sidered to be facts), to reveal their relation to ihought, Oken discovers protoplasm-and the cell, other facts, to assess the notions connected with but iI does not occur to anyone to follow up the these facts, to revise them if necessary and to matter alonE the lines of natural-scientific in- draw new conclusions. Philosophies are distin- vestigation.'{ The later development of guished by what facts (or assumptions) they take theoiltical natural science deprived natural as their point of departure, and also by the philosophy of its previous significance, since it significance or interpretation which they place lould iro' longer inticipate Ihe discoveries of upon these facts. science, whicli had travelled far beyond the Thomas Aquinas and Hegel proceed from the bounds'accessible to the philosophy of everyday notion of the existence of an absolute, divine experience. Natural philosophy, although it con- rcason. The "prince of scholastics" believes divine rcason to be outside the world, infinitely superior r F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Moscow, 1972, p,207. to the world, and to have created it out of 150 151 nothing. Hegel, on the other hand, maintains that Interpretation is insepa"rable from theoretical divine-reason does not exist outside the world, inquiry in any form, since the latter can never because it comprises its essence, just as it is also be merely a statement of facts, i.e., it always uses the essence of human reason. Hence the divine certain assumptions, theoretical premises, deduc- and the human are not so far distant from one tions and so on. The neo-positivists, in working another. These opposed conceptions (within the out the principle of verification, attempted to framework of idealist thinking) show how im- distinguish "protocol statements" as pure state- portant the role of interpretation is in philosophy. ments of what is observed, which as such could The exarnple given is the more significant because be taken as criteria of the truth of empirical are not the initial propositions- of both thinkers propositions. This attempt, as we know, failed to facts but asiumptions, which in themselves produce the desired results and in the end the amount to a definile, theological interpretation of neo-positivists came to the conclusion that arry the world, which in Hegel becomes so filled with statement is an interpretation, since it presupposes real content that it ultimately comes into conflict singling out that which is stated and plaCing it with its inappropriate form. in relation to other facts. Bertrand Rusiell Any definition of a concept if, of course, it is maintained that the theory of relativity reduced not the only possible one, and in most cases this the difference between heliocentric and geocentric is precluded because the concrete in science is systems to different types of interpretation of a unity of different definitions, is an interpreta- one and the same factz "If space is purely tion which is supplemented by another interpre- relative, the difference between the statements tation, i.e., another definition. So different in- 'the earth rotates' and 'the heavens revolve' is terpretations may supplement as well as preclude purely verbal: both must be ways of describing one another, although in the former case they are as a rule not simply summed up but taken into Fitzgerald standpoint and obtain the same answers to all account in the theoretical conclusion that the problems of physics which we may now consider synthesises them.r experimentally solved." (L. J6nossy, "Significance of Philosophy for Physical Research" in Problems of Philos- ophy, 1958, No. 4, p. 99, in Russian.) philosophy, as r In Laios Jinossy points out that different but equally disti!$ from physicl, such essentially diff6rent and yet'In legitimaie (a1 the biven level of knowledge) interpretations cqually legitimate interpretations are impossible. certain phenomena are possible in natural science: philosophy, therefore, of different interpretations- are the "Einstein's iiterpretation of the Michelson-Morley gxperi- cxpression of different trends and are always in a ment and similar experiments is not tle only possible in- polemical relation to one another. Nevertheless it would terpretation from the point of view of logic. Before Ein- be wrong to assume that contrasting philosophical inter- stein, Lorentz and, independently of him, Fitzgerald as- pretations are always in the relationship of truth sumed the existence of ether. They also believed that :rnd error to each other; the truth often emerges when electro-magnetic phenomena connected with ether were l,oth contradictory inteipretations are reiectld. The described Lv Maxwell's equations. . .. The Lorentz-Fitz- scientific understanding of historical necessity, for in- serald inter;retation is mathematicallv no different from stance, presupposes rejection of both fatalism and volun- Einstein's; *e .ut adopt either Einstein's or the Lorentz- I i rrsm- 152 153 the same phenomena."l One cannot agree, of time of Democritus, however, neither explanation course, with the conversion of statement into in- nor even description of the infinite qualitative terpretation, but it is also quite clear that this rliversity of natural phenomena were as yet cognitive procedure does not preclude explicit or possible. implicit assumptions and hence various interpre- Interpretation depends not only on the tations. r:haracter of knowledge (primarily the objective Any interpretation entails the application of truth contained in it) but also on its volume. The the knowledge we possess to the facts that we ancient Greek philosophers, though they pos- wish to study. We speak of the application of scssed an extremely limited fund of theoretical knowledge and not'of truths, because these are knowledge (much of which contained only not one and the same thing. Ptolemy's system clements of truth), tried to provide an integrated, was not true but it summarised certain observa- i.e., philosophical interpretation of reality. This tions and contained some true notions and, for obvious discrepancy-and between the theoretical basis its own time, was scientific and made it possible of interpretatibn the interpretation itself to explain and predict certain phenomena. In inevitably led them to naive, erroneous and philosophy it is particularly important to avoid sometimes fantastic conclusions. confusing knowledge with truth. The most The development of science constantly in- thorough knowledge of the mistaken propositions creases the vol-ume of knowledge, and scientific which have at various times been put forward by rnethods of inquiry and testing tend to bring that scientists or philosophers and have been accepted knowledge increasingly nearer to objective truth. as true does not necessarily give us knowledge of Nonetheless the possibilities of interpretation are the truth, although it must be admitted that always limited by the availability of knowledge, knowledge of error does help us to learn the and any further increase in its volume changes the truth. substance and form of interpretation according Knowledge as the theoretical basis of inter- to a recognisable pattern. This is true of any pretation may be knowledge only of that which science but most of all of philosophy, which has been asserted by certain men of learning and seeks to interpret not separate phenomena but that has been confirmed, will be confirmed or, on their multiform totalities, the basic forms of the contrary, re-iected, in the future. Democritus' cxistence and the knowledge of it. No wonder conception of absolutely solid, indivisible atoms then that in philosophy there have always been and absolute vacuum, which provided the rlifferent and even mutually exclusive interpreta- theoretical basis for an interpretation of the tions of nature, matter, consciousness and so on. world precisely because it contained elements of l.rom this point of view the errors of philosophers truth, actually limited the possibility of explain- rnay be regarded as incorrect interpretations of ing the quali,tati,ae diversity of phenomena. In the ructual facts, and it quite often turns out that their initial propositions are not statements but inter- I B. Russell, Human Knouledge, London, 1956, p. 33. pretations of facts. This, however, is no reason 154 155 for distrusting the possibility of the achievement In the bourgeois philosophy of the last century, of truth in philosophy, since philosophical in. iu connection with attempts to restore, to find new terpretation, like any other form of knowledge, glound for the juxtaposition of philosophy to the is ultimately confirmed or denied by the whole llositive sciences, one finds an increasing tendency mass of evidence provided by science and to discredit the cognitive significance of interpre- practice. tation. According to Wilhelm Dilthey, interpreta- In natural science the attempt to interpret tion is a specifically natural scientific mode of certain facts from the positions of a definite theory inquiry, which yields only probable knowledge. periodically makes it necessary to build new Dilthey attacks "explanatory psychology", which theories or substantially amend the old ones. In in his view merely extrapolates scientific methods philosophy, many of whose propositions cannot (research into causal ielations, advancing of be directly proved or disproved by experiment, hypotheses) into the mental sphere, whereas the by facts, no such necessity exists. However, the life of the intellect, unlike that of external nature, accumulation of facts, the multiplication of is something that is directly given to us and must scientific discoveries and outstanding historical therefore be known intuitively. "Nature," Dilthey events, compel philosophy to alter its interpreta- wrote, "we can explain; the life of the soul we tion of reality. Whereas the development of clas- must understand."l In contrast to interpretation sical mechanics brought into being mechanistic and explanation Dilthey proposed description of; materialism, successful research into non- the content of consciousness in a way that could mechanical forms of the motion of matter revealed be directly understood: "The methodical the untenability of the mechanistic interpretation advantage of psychology lies in the fact that it of nature. Advancing scientific knowledge of the has a diiect and living spiritual connection in the nature of the psyche has forced most idealists to form of the emotional experiences of reality."z renounce their former naive view of the rela- Dilthey believed the principle of intuitionist tionship between body and soul. 156 r57 of philosophical knowledge "hermeneutics", giving Thus irrationalist criticism of interpretation a new sense to a term employed in classical phi- boils down to denial of the cognitive significance lology and to some extent in philosophy (Schleier- of natural science, which is treated as a basic macher), for describing a special type of interpreta- inability to understand existence. But since exis- tion (myths, ancient literature, art and so on).r tentialiim limits philosophy to the investigation Martin Heidegger's existentialist hermeneutics of "human reality", through which it tries to is a further development of Dilthey's conception reach the allegediy unattainable being in itself, and its treatment in the spirit of Husserl's pheno- cxistentialism cultivates to an even greater menology, which broke away from psychologism cxtent than other idealist doctrines the subjectivist and juxtaposed to explanation of the phenomena interoretation of existence. of the consciousness their "eidetic" essential per- Td recapitulate, philosophy does not renounce ception. Interpretation, Heidegger believes, is interpretatioh even when it declares war upon subjective by nature, because the interpreting it. The nature of philosophy is such that it cannot subject provides the yardstick of judgement. On fail to express iti attitude to the fundamental the other hand "understanding", according to realities that are of essential importance to man: Heidegger, corresponds to being and therefore to the phenomena of nature, of p-ersonal and from the very beginning, i.e., in its pre-reflex social life, to science, art, religion and so on. And form, is "existential understanding". However, this attitude, since it is theoretical in character, Heidegger did not succeed in disclosing the inevitably becomes an interpretation. objective content of "existential understanding", The efistemological analysis of interpretation the doctrine of which turns out to be ultimately as a speiific way bf reflecting reality shows that an irrationalist and obviously subjective interpre- its key feature ii not expression of the subjective ,"atri *ne cognitive process and its object.2 attituie of the thinker to certain definite" facts, but a scientific quest for the connection between I L. V. Skvortsov has this to say on the subject: "Dil- observed phenomena and for the connection of they's interpretation of 'understanding' as an emotional these phenomena with others whose existence is reliving of the psychological implications in the philosoph- ical doctrines of the past precluded any possibility of recogriised or presumed on the basis of the their scientific analysis, which presupposed not only the available data. In this sense interpretation may comprehension of one or another doctrine but also its be regarded as linking. It goes without qaying assessment from the standpoint of. adequacy. Thus Dilthey that t[is "linking" may be subjective, insufficient- deprives the history of philosophy of 1ts objectiua basis." (L. V. Skvortsov, A Neu Rise of Metaphysics?, Moscow, 1966, p. 75, in Russian.) Dilthey's denial of the significance eral. The obiective interpretation of phenomena, which presupposes they of interpretation in philosophy is a subjective interpretation - their examinition in the fbrm in which of what he calls "understandins". ixist butside and independentlv of consciousness, and 2 We have no intention- of reiecting as a whole hence the acknowledgerfrent of ihe objective content of Heidegger's proposition on the subjective nature of inter- t:onceptions,-the concepts and theories, becomes possible only pretation, which is confirmed by the very fact of the from positioni of materialist philosophy and natural existence of existentialist and idealist philosophy in gen- science, 158 ly grounded or, on the contrary, obiective and pcriod when the mechanistic interpretation of the well ground*. Byt in both casei theinterpreta- rrccessary connec^tion between phenomena reigned tion of. one.fact (or knowledge of it) is possible supreme in fields, js all Marx and Engels evo-ived only. when there another fact (and'corrispond- llrc concept of. historical necessity as-the specific ing knowledge -of it), when the whole is spiit up lorm of essential connection not only of into parts and the relation between tfiem ii simultaneously existing phenomena but alio of examined. And since the e.ssence of phenomena is social -phenomena that replace one another in above all their internal interconniction, inter- lime. In doing so they broke through the narrow pretation is also a mode of cognising the essence hurizon of the metaphysical interpretation of of phenomena. rrccessity, confronting it with the dialectical- Re-interpr_etation of philosophical propositions, rrraterialist interpretation of this objective rela- concepts and categories is a legitimlte-form of lionship of phenomena, an interpre[ation which development of philosophy. Thus, for example, rratural science, in its own way, of course, and on the evolution of the catdgory of necessity *uy U" llre basis of its own data, also subsequently historically presented as1n6 origin and'deve'lop- achieved. ment of various definitions of iecessity and the The history of philosophy shows convincingly o-vercoming oJ this diversity of interpretations in how the reifsa*e propbsiiions, differently Yn'- the unity of the scientiftc definit^ion of the lcrpreted, acquire clearly opposite meaningi and category. The. obje-ctive basis of this cognitive significance. Take, for example, the fundairental process is provided by social practice, by accumu- proposition on the irreconcilable opposition be- l-ation , of knowledge of th; unity ind inter- l.ween scientific knowledge and 'l'his religious faith. depende-nce of phenomena, and by tire multiplica- principle is substantiated, on the one hand, tion of data on nature and society. lry the- materialists, and on the other-surprisingly philosophy . T\. of ancient 1imes, strictly speak- runough-by mystics, irrationalists, phil6sophiiat ing, has as yet,no concept of objective n'eceisity; lheologians of Protestantism, and paiticulariy the its notions on this score lre obviously not free of rrco-orthodox. mythological images and are to a'considerable There is no need to explain why the materialist extent metaphorical in character. The medieval iu'gues that science and religion are irreconcila- conception. of necessity is mainly a theological lrlc. B-ut why does the religious irrationalist agree interpretation, and not so mucti of empiriiallv with him? Because, from his point of view,-the stated processes as of the correspondins ihristian gleat truths of re-ligious revelation are absolutely dogmas. Only,in modern times, Erst in-astronomy inaccessible to science. Therefore between reli- and then in other sciences of nature has a concept gion and science there really is an absolute con- of nccessity bee-r, formulated to which philosopliy lradlction, which expresses the infinity that (maiqly materialist philosophy) attachei univeisal ,livides man from God. Thus two irreconcilably srgnrflcance. lr,rstile world views substantiate with equal con- In the middle of the 19th century, i.e., in a ristency the thesis that knowledge and iaith are 160 t6l fundamentally opposed, interpreting both When the existentialist declares that houses, juxtaposing knowledge and faith in opposite ways, l.rees, and mountains possess no existence, we faith to knowledge in the one case, and knowl- cannot contest this statement by merely referring edge to faith in the other. lo_the dictionary meaning of the word 'iexistence,i The neo-orthodox Protestant theologians, who W.e m11s!. analyse - the-particular meaning that take this juxtaposition to an extreme, reach the cxistentialism has given fhis word, show th'e un- ooint assertinE that we do not knoa whether tenability of of the subjectivist- interpretation of bod exists and #e do not knoztt what we believe cxistence and reveal the connecti6n between in; we only believe in the existence of a deity, "human reality" and the reality that exists in- in His absolute justice, etc. Unlike the material- 165 164 5. TIIEOBETICAL STNTIIESIS philosophical ideas to the development of OF DIVERSE CONTENT philosophy and thus exploded the metaphysical fuxtaposition of some philosophical doctrines to Every science seeks to achieve a theoretical irtheri. But Hegel virtually lost sight of the fact synthesis, and not only of the range of questions that philosophy synthesises, interprets and gives comprising its subject, but going beyond that meaning to the scientific discoveries of its time range. Besides bringing into being such sciences and the methods by which they were made. The as biochemistry and chemical physics, this has importance of these philosophical generalisations, made it possible to apply mathematical methods which was relatively small in the ancient and in sciences that for centuries developed indepen- medieval epochs, has enormously increased in dently of mathematics. However, while noting modern times and particularly today, when phi- the progressive tendency in the specialised sci- losophy has sometimes, putting it bluntly, to go ences to strike out beyond their own field of re- and learn mathematics, theoretical physics, the- search, we must emphasise that the specialised oretical biology, and so on. sciences are called specialised because-they ate must once stress the Having-nature said this, we at concerned with research and synthesis of ideas peculiar of the philosophical synthesis of within the framework of their own deliberately scientific advances. This synthesis is determined limited field. The specific nature of philosophical above all by its initial philosophical premises; synthesis, on the other hand, consisti in the fact materialist or idealist. Moreover, one cannot that it cannot be reduced to synthesis of purely ignore the multiformity of materialism and ideal- philosophical ideas. ism, their relation to dialectics, metaphysics, Philosophers are often reproached for not rationalism, sensualism, etc. Understandably the minding the,ir own business, i.e., for discussing possibilities of philosophical generalisation of not only philosophical problems but those of scientific discoveries are extremely limited in the physics, biology, history, linguistics and litera- case of the idealist and metaphysical doctrines. ture. The reproach is justified if the philosopher Rut even so, despite distortion of the actual claims to be able to solve special, non-philo- significance of scientific discoveries, these doc- sophical problems. But it is quitt obvious that the trines constantly seek to comprehend scientific dis- philosopher cannot solve philosophical problems r:overies, express their attitude to them and give while ignoring the achievements of the specialised lhem some appraisal, if only a negative one. sclences. Philosoohv cannot exist without this attitude of One of the basic defects of Hegel's grandiose <'ritical co'mprehension and summing up not only historico-philosophical conception is that he lowards previous philosophy but also towards the reduces the development of philosophy to the science of its day. In the present age, when sci- dialectical synthesis of philosophical ideas. In his cnce has become part of everyday life, penetrated history of philosophy Hegel indisputably proved the general consciousness and brought about a the paramount importance of the synthesis of rcvolution in production and consumption, both 166 material and spiritual, this is particularly bound to embrace the philosophy of history; obvious. It is enough to recall how great an strictly speaking, the latter emerged only in influence the theory of relativity, quantum modern times. We are concerned with something mechanics, cybernetics, and the contemporary sci- else. Historical events, particularly the events entific and technological revolution have had on of the philosopher's own day, shape his attitude the development of philosophical thought. Pres- to the world, his frame of mind, and determine ent-day philosophical irrationalism, though it his attitude to philosophical tradition and also sets itself up against science, which it scorns as a to problems which, though not philosophical in system of depersonalised knowledge, with a sig- [hemselves, excite philosophical interests, suggest nificance that is unrelated to truth, nonetheless new philosophical ideas or lead to the revival or constantly considers the advances of science and rethinking of old ideas that once appeared interpreti them in a subjectivist spirit.r obsolete. But philosophy is not solely concerned with In a later chapter I shall specially consider making' theorttical generalisations about the philosophy as the social consciousness of a his- natural sciences. Equally important for its own torically defined period. Such researches, which self-determination is its attitude to mankind's could be described as the sociology of philosophy, historical experience and the everyday experience usually play a subsidiary role in historico-philo- of individuals (one of whom is the philosopher sophical studies. In my view they deserve much himself). This does not imply that philosophy is rnore attention, since they make it possible to appraise the role of philosophy in concrete his- r Jos6 Ortega-y-Gasset in his book What is Philoso' torical terms, to disclose the changes in its range phy? characterises the past sixty years of the l9th century of problems, its social inspiration and its partisan- as the most unfavourable for philosophy. "It has been a ship political commitment. For the time being strikingly anti-philosophical peliod." (J. Ortega-y-Gasset, or Uas ist Philosophie? Miinchen, 1967, S. 28.) Ortega at- I shall confine myself to suggesting that the tributes this decline in philosophy to the "imperialism of analysis of actual historical experience makes it physics" and the "terrorism of the laboratory" or, in other possible in a number of cases to reveal the genesis iroidr, to the outstanding achievements of natural science. of philosophical conceptions which at first glance However, the further course of events, so Ortega asserts, has shown that natural scientific knowledge is symbolic, appear to be merely the further immanent conventional and is moving further and further away from 168 169 turies? They did, of course, contain some brilliant form of philosophising is that the Greeks, as we dialectical conjectures but Hegel, judging by have already emphasised, proceeded from every- what he has to say about the natural iciencei, day human experience, criticised commonplace simply underestimaied them or even failed to notions and evolved ideas that differed from n_otice them altogether. I would suggest that them. These philosophers concentrated on those Hegel's dialectics, since it cannot be ieduced to elements of everyday experience that could be a mere inquiry into the interconnection of the interpreted as a confirmation of their views; they categories, was inspired by the epoch-the of bourgeois had nothing else to appeal to. revolutions, which broke down feudal iela- In modeln times, when the achievements of tions that had doftinated Europe for centuries mathematics and celestial mechanics rather than and destroyed that apparently changeless, natural immediate everyday experience have become the way of life in which the romantiis observed a point of depaiture for philosophical reflection on pristine unity of personality and being that was i.he nature of the universe, what may seem to be afterwards lost. cxtremely remote abstract systems of meta- It has been stated above that philosophy criti- physics always lead up to the questions of the es- cally comprehends, analyses and synthesisei man's sence of man, his position in the world, his pur- everyd,ay experience. This subject, as the history pose and so on. To a considerable extent these of philosophy shows, is not ousted by the devel- problems determine the concept and specific form opment of the specialised sciences which, in of philosophical knowledge.l creating a new and unusual picture of the world, Thus, since philosophy synthesises, 61i1i-ca11y compel philosophy to reappraise the data of analyses and interpreti the diverse types of hu- everyday experience. rnan knowledge and experience, both the posing The fate of the individual, his emotions and and solution of philosophical problems are syn- aspirations, his life and death have always been lhetic in charactEr. In philosophy qualitatively o4e of th-e most important themes in philosophy. rlifferent types of knowledge, which cannot be The tendency to ignore this range of human rcduced to'the mere scientifii reflection of reality, problems, so characteristic of neo-positivism, is re- rnerge into a single whole, and at various stages garded as one-sided "scientism". The philosoph- ical untenability of scientism lies not in its I Existentialism claims that it alone is the "philosophy being orientatqd on the problems raised by the ,,f man". The weakness of the claim is obvious to anyone development of the sciences but in its tuining who has studied the history of philosophy. Is this not why l(arl Jaspers maintains that philosophy has always been away from the question of man, which in recent , xiste;tialist? But even this does not accord with the facts times, and particularly today, has become the ,,f philosophical history. "The question of man," M. B. Mi- key problem of philosophy. tin^writesl "is an old' and eteinally new problem. From The early Greek philosophers .rrrcient times man, his essence, aims and actions, his past were, it is true, .rrrd future have formed the subiect-matter of philosophical mainly concerned with cosmological problems. irrrluiry." (M. B. J[,Iitin, Philoiophy and Modern Times, But the essential thing about this most ancient Moscow, 1960, p. 41, in Russian.) 170 l7l in its development one or another type of knowl- si 172 173 constantly inspired it and whose key feature, in krsophy and science, factors such as the develop- his opinion, is the desire for knowledge for knowl- of social production, and changes in social ",cnl phi- edge's sake. When Windelband cliims that the lclations. For liim the sole motive force in the desire for knowledge. history^of .Greek philosophy is the history of the Ir-rsophy and science is birth of sci€nce, there is no reason to object. But Lik6 Dilthey, he offers a very elastic interpreta- he i-s clearly wrong in extending this a'rgument tion of the concept-Middle of science, regarding it, for to the whole cxample, in the Ages as means of subsequent historylphiloiophy'i; of philosophy. ? "The h.istor! of thi name o1 ie cthicai education and religious meditation' His writes, "ry; the history the culiural meaning of grounds for this kind of interpretation of science -of to make science. When scientific thought asserts itselT as ,ire siven in the above-mentioned refusal an independent urge towards knowledge for ,, fu"nda*ental distinction between theory and knowledge's sake it acquires the name of pni- science. Yet the concept of theory is incomparably why losophy; when subsequently the unity of sci6nce wider than the concept of science. That is breaks up into- its separate branches, philosophy not every theory is a icientific theory. The scien- is- tle last,,cul{rinating generalising i 176 Chapter Four it seeks to define is many-sided. Every definition is a limitation of the content of a concept and DEFINITION OF PHILOSOPHY therefore is itself limited. AS PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM A . Concrete and, conseq-uently, diverse, many- sided objects can be defined only in a logicaliy concrete ma-nner, and the logically concrete takes the form of motivated transition-from one defi- nition to another, resulting in a system of defini- tions. Every separate definition is abstract, one- sided and therefore untrue because there is no abstract truth (at any rate in relation to concrete 1. DIFFICULTIES objects). Viewed OT DEFINING PHILOSOPHY from this standpoint, the existence of a host definitions philosophy DUE TO THE PECULIAB NATUBE of of does not appear to be something exceptional,-in- OF ITS HISTOBICAL DEVELOPMEIIIT c_o.mprehe!sible- or discreditable philosophy. 'fhe to Abstract objects are relatively easy to define problem lies elsewhere. Can this masJ of simply because they are abstract, i.e., they are definitions be welded into a unity? And if this is only an idealised image of a definite reality, the impossible, how can one concretely define the deliberate construction of abstract scientific concept of philo_sophy (the concrete being a unity thought. The concept of the abstract object is in of different definitions), while allowing for th'e fact no more than the meaning of a term (for divergence of philosophical systems, trends, doc- instance, the absolutely black body in physics) as trines and conceptions that has been going on for established by its definition. It is another matter thousands of years and continues (perhaps with when we speak of real objects in all their diver- cven greater intensity) to this day, and whose sity, contradiction and changeability, such as na- natural result is the abominable pluralism of ture, life, man, art, and so on. It was of these definitions of the concept of philosophy? objects that Engels was thinking when he said In considering this questibn we must duly ap- that their definition had only formal significance. preciate the historically changing signifiiance, Omnis determinatio est negatio-any defini- range and subject of philosophy, and also of the tion is negation. Spinoza's dictum should, of t.l1 "philosophy" itself. But despite all the course, be understood not in the trivial sense that 180 181 I legel pointed If the essence of philosophy amounted to that out that Newton had called his philosophy which was identical in all philosophical doctrines, !:llvli.r_g of nature. "With,,the the Eng- it would be an abstract and meagre essence or li,slrr" Hegel obieived ironically, term philosophy ret-1ins this meaning ev.r, today, and rather the mere appearance of essence. Whereas ,is the real essence has numerous aspects-identity, Newton is still hailed there a great irfiitor- difference, contradiction, etc. If we appraise the opher. Even in their price lists instiuments that <'annot -magnetic essence of philosophy from this point of view, the be classed as or electrical ap- most general feature of all philosophical doc- paratus,, such as barometers and thermometeis, .rre called.'philoso-phical instruments'.,'t Hegei trines, which has survived in philosophy for thou- "he sands of years, turn-s out to be least of all charac- yvqs particularly indignant about this because teristic of philosophy in its developed form. The lrelieved thought to be the sole instrument of historically transient problems of philosophy can- philosophy. not be regarded as unimportant. What is more, ..It was Heqel_ who pointed out that Hugo Groc- the delimitation of what in the past was called r:i's.theory -of law had been called a ph"ilosophy (or actually was) philosophy from that which of international state law, and that in Engllntl political econ-omy was also called philosoph|. remains philosophy today, although not a par- 'jour-He ticularly difficult task, is relevant only in so far cites as an oddity.the name of the English as it explains the need to apply the word "phi- nal: Annals of Philosophy or Masazini of Chem- losophy" to questions that no longer have any- islry, lylineralogy, Michanics, fratural Histortt. do with philosophy. Agriculture and, Art. The sciences which in this thing to (:ase It-is commonplace that the subject-matter of a-re called philosophical would be more philosophy has in the course of history been prone t:orrectly .{escribed as empirical sciences, Hegel observes. But why are they called philosophicil? to change. The problems that up to a certain 'on point in time were exclusively the province of ls it merely a matter of misusage'based the philosophy gradually came under investigation medieval university tradition acc6rding to which by the-specialised sciences. Does this mean that lhe natural sciences were included in"the philo- certain problems which "abandoned" philosophy sophical faculty? Hegel, however, points orit that were never really philosophical problems and remained with philosophy simply because for the I G.W.F. Hegel, Siimtliche Werhe, Bd. 8, S. 50-51. time being theie was nowhere else for them to li. P. Weinberg in his introduction to Newton's Philoso- Naturalis Principia Mathematica points we lhiae out that the go? We do not support this idea, although lioyal Society for Promoting Natural Knowledge arose fully appreciate the wrath of philosophers who iu 1662 out of the "Invisible or Philosophical College" that proiest against the application of the term "phi- had been created in 1645. The Royal Society publishes its losophy" to questions that, at any rate by the be- l'lrilosophi,cal Transactions, reporting research into all l,r'anches of natural science, which is to this day called gidinl of ttre 19th century, had ceased tb qualify "natural philosophy". When elected to the Royal Society, is philosophy. Evidently referring to Newton's Ncwton announced his intention of devoting every effort Maihemati,cal Princi,ples of Natural Philosophy, "tr-rward the success of philosopbical knowledge". 182 183 in modern times, when the sciences took shape work expounding the theory of evolution should and besan investigating a wide variety of empiri- have acquired such a title. Lamarck was well cal ma'terial, "anly knowledge whose subject is qwarg that the hypothesis he had developed, al- coEnition of ihe stable measuie and the uni,uersal t-horlSh based on'iertain empirical data, reached in"the sea of empirical singularities, the study of far beyond the bounds of diiect observation. Be- an necessity, of. taa in the apparent chaos of sides, in.order to explain certain observed facts, infinite'multiplicity of accidents ... has come to the relative purpose bf living organisms, for in- be called philosoPhy".L-this stance, Lamarck constantly had recourse to the In our' view observation clears up the arle_nql of philosophical concepts. still question of why the word-"philosophy"-was Unlike his eminent French predecessor,-far Charles being so loosely used in tht 18th and 19th cen- Darwin had at his disposal more plentiful philos- turiei. We have already mentioned that empirical material with which to substantiate his ophv takes shape historically and for a number theory of evolution. Despite the English tradition, oi centuries develops as the hrst and, in fact, the however, he did not call his famorls work philo- only form of theoretical knowledge. For Aristotle, sophical. Instead he designated the special sub- for' example, no other theory existed except iect of his research in the title: The' Origin of philosophy; he considered geometry and physics Species.- ln Darwinian theory biology Hnally io be bianches of philosophy, distinguishing from hreaks free of philosophy as a theoreiital disci- them what later iame to be called metaphysics pline. Previously it had broken away only in its as the "first philosophy". In modern times, when crnpirical, largely descriptive section.' One cannot not only mathematici and physics but also biology, divorce the name "philosophy" from that which law and other sciences tiave broken away from was previously (for whole centuries) called phi- be philosophy, they continue for a long time to losophy merely on the grounds that the specialised talled pt ilosopirical because they are concerned sciences, having split off from philosophy or with theoretiial generalisations and do not taken shape in other ways, have adopted is-their merely describe obierved facts' Is-this not-w]rl subiect of inquiry that which was formerly studied Carolus Linnaeus called his classification of the by philosophy. If many scientific disciplines, now This vesetable world a "Philosophy of Botany"? independent of philosophy, were once its depart- the wa"s the work which Rousieau described as rnents, this in our opinion has a bearing ori the most philosophical he knew. And Rousseau was significance of philosophy not only in the*past. At sense than a philosopher in a lar more definite :rny rate, in seeking a scientific definition the philo- of Linnaeus,- although we do find profound concept of philosophy we cannot ignore this soohical ideas in Linnaeus as well. lmportant -fact which characterises philosophy's We have already mentioned Lamarck's "Phi- historical destiny. losophy of Zoology". It is no accident that this Some positivist philosophers, citing the fact that n)any scientific disciplines were described as 1 8' S. 50. G. W. F. Hegel, Siirntliche Uerke, Bd. l,hilosophical while they were evolving, draw the 184 185 conclusion that research becomes scientific only o[' various definitions of philosophy serves this a;1h; extent that it segregates itself from phi- irim directly. The empirically established basis ioro"t Thev ignore tG fict, however, that the lirr their diversity is not merely divergence- of ;;;A;iir.e"- tdi.ti'."t that have broken awav from opinion concerning one and the same object, but philosophy and become special. fields of research the real diversity of philosophical doctrines, since are not now concerned with the same problems it is this fact that distinguishes the development ques-- of that philosophy-th;;e1ves treated of in the past; the philosophy from the development of any other ;i;r have become more specialised' lrranch of knowledge. S".t q"ittions could have been-poged bv phi- It was the sceptics among the ancient philoso- losophv onlv in geneiral terms, preliminary !o-spe- phers who enunciated the belief that the existence .irf i"{,.riisuiioii. Brrt in their more g-enetal form of incompatible philosophical doctrines is, first, these qrrerlions everywhere retain their signifi- inevitable and, second, insuperable. The opponents cance--il in philosoPhY even todaY. of scepticism in subsequent periods re-establish ;;;t b. iuih, therefore, that cosmological, the notion that the diversity of philosophical and biolosical problems are entirely,re- r86 187 continuity, progress, development philos- are philosophical doctrines, and it is this that the of all ophy through the critical impropriation pre- out of ionsideration.t In itself this state- of is left vir-rus philosophical philosophical character of all advances of knowledge, all ment of the -philo- this does preclude irreconcilable contra- doctrines does not get us very far, of not sophical rliction between philosophical trends, incom- .orrr.. But Hegel goes much farther in his patibility -dialectical unity of the diverse of philosophical doctrines, since these teaching on the 191 dent of the obiective world perceived by the ucluality, objectiaity. A1l these definitions or senses. Among Existentialists this view is formu- niunes express the same thing from different points lated most clearly by Karl Jaspers: "While scien- rrl view. Abstract being, being aithout reality, tific cognition goes to individual obiects that without objectivity, aithout being-for-oneself, is everyone must know about anyway, philosophy is rrf course nothing, bat in thi,s nothing I express conc-erned with the wholeness of being."l Martin only the nonentiiy of this abstraction of mine."r Heidegger defines philosophy as awareness of the Examination of being as the subject-matter of origi.rll", pre-reflei "exisiential understanding", philosophy signifies as a rule the belief that the and constantly emphasises that the main thing philosopher's task is to study the world as a in philosophy,-is sincG it overcomes the errors of whole. In this case the juxtaposition of material- metaphysiis, the particular (phenomenological, ism and idealism shows itself in the very under- herrnenLutical) mode of thought relationship to standing of the wholeness, the unity of the w-or!d, being.2 since in itself recognition of this unity of the W-hereas the idealists interpret being as a world is not vet a formulation of the materialist supersensory reality, quite frequently describin-g or idealist poiitior. Even the proposition "being beine as God, maierialism, on the other hand, is primary, consciousness secondary" is entirely stripi the veils of mystery from the concept-of corirpatibll'with the idealist system of belief.t" if, beiig, characterising it as sensorily perceptible of course, being is interpreted as a special form realily, nature. Thomas Hobbes reduces the of spiritual reality. subjeit of philosophy to study of the bodies, thus 2. Philosophy-is the study not of being but of giving"of the-concepts of being and s-ubstance fea- r:ognition, oi morality, or happiness, or of man t"ures the actually observed and measurable. in general. Such definitions of philosophy emerge The materialists identify being with matter, and in lancient times and constantly compete with regard the spiritual as a property of being. Ludwig opposing definitions of philosophy both in meta- ' ^ "and Fdrerbach, criticising H6gel's conception of 1,i.,ysics ontology. H Indiair philosophy Bud- abstract 'opure" being, wrote: "What man under- rlha rules out of philosophy such questions as: stands bi beins.. if-he considers the matter, is Is the world eternal? Is it non-eternal? Is it finite? presence, bein{-f or-oneself , reali.ty, exi.stence, ls it infinite? Is the soul the same as the body? ls it different from the body?2 He declares these and some other questions to be indeterminable 1 die Philosophie, Mijnchen, K. Jaspers, Einfilhrung i.n and the same tlme having no bearing on the 1959, s. 10. at z'"Philosophy is a universal phenomenological ontology, ruain problem-the elimination of suffering. which proceeds' from the herheneutics of 'here-being' (Dasein\. which as the analytical study of existence has fixed tfie end of the guidelini of all philosophical-questing 1 L. Feuerbach, Grund.siitze der Philosophie der Zuhunft, to the place whence \t sbring.s and at whicE it afterwards lirankfurt am Main, 1967, S. 310. arriaesl' (M. Heideggerl Sein und Zeit; Tiibingen, 1955, 2 S. Chatterjee and D. Datta, An Introduction to Indian s. 436.) I'lilosophy, p. 120. 192 193 In modern times, owing to the development of sludy of which aims at proving, on the one hand, the science of nature, tf,e tendency to exclude llrc autonomy of the moral consciousness and, on problems philosophy lhc other, the necessity of postulating the exis- ontological from -flows directly into agnosticism and subjectivism. Hume tcnce of God, immortality of the soul, freedom of questioned the existence of any objective reality, the will, i.e., everything that theoretical reason t-hat was independent of the consciousness and tlcems incapable of proof. thus limited the sphere of philosophical inquiry The definition of philosophy as the study of to the study of mintal activity, particularly the r:ognition is also developed by the positivists, who act of knowing. He was not interested in knowl- rrlgue that philosophy should be reduced to the edge in geneial, however, but in the study of lheory of knowledge, on the grounds that all min, in self-knowledge, in which he saw the only ,rther possible objects of cognition are studied by way of overcoming the age-long errors of philos- the specialised sciences and there is nothing left ophy and arranging human life on rational lines. lor philosophy but to study science itself, the fact - Kant, who unlilie Hume, acknowledged the of knowledge. Besides making this assertion, existence of a reality independent of the knower, which acknowledges actual tendencies in the de- nevertheless dismissed the problem of being on velopment of cognition, the definition of philos- the grounds that it is unknbwable. Accordingly ,rphy as knowledge of knowledge is also substan- he difined philosophy as a doctrine of the abso- liated from the standpoint of agnosticism and Iute bounda'ries of afi possible-to knowledge. These subjectivism, according to which knowledge can- boundaries, according Kant, are determined rrot be the reflection of a reality independent of by the very mechaniim of cognition, its a priori. tlre knower, even if the existence of that rcality forms, which may be applied only to sensory da-ta is admitted to be theoretically capable of proof. but not to the iranscendental "thing in itself". l lerbert Spencer wrote: ". . .In so far as any Hence the "metaphysics of nature" -in Kant's ['hilosophy professes to be an Ontology, it is svstem does not implv studv of a realitv that is l'alse." And further on: "To bring the definition iidependent of the'knowet, but investigation of lo its simplest and clearest form-Knowledge of the iundamental principles of natural scientific llre lowest kind is un-unified knowledge; Science knowledge. The ideas that are a fit subject for is partially-unified, knowledge; Philosophy is philosopfiical (psychological, cosmological, theo- rompletely-unifieil knowledge."l This definition iogicali inquiry are a priori in character, i.9., ,rf philosophy incidentally implies that philosophy, thEy aie not thl result of ftlsvlldge but precede while refusing to study unknowable being, both it. The investigation of these ideas must be re- irrvestigates the structure of knowledge and syn- drrced to epistemological analysis of their origin, thesises all the knowledge of phenomena avail- since there are no giounds for asserting tha-t any rrble to man in the specialised sciences. In the obiective realitv coiresponds to them. Like Hume, KaLt believed ihe sec6nd most important theme 1 H. Spencer, First Principles, New York, 1901, pp' of philosophy to be morality (practical reason), the r rt(;. 140. 194 195 course of positivism's-further evolution new limits of its inquiry. This is why the subject-matter of are set on the concept of philosophy by episte- philosophy must be not being, but what exists. the mology. For Ernst Mach philosoph-y is -psy- For all his hostility to Hegel's idealism,.Feuer- cholog*y of knowing. Mode-rn positivism reduces bach also defines philosophy as the study of what inquiiy into the process of knowing to analysis cxists. "Philosophy is cognition of uthat is. The of its linguistic form. highest law, the highest task of philosophy is to 3. Phiiosophy is the study of- all that exi'sts, conceive of things, to know things as they are."r and not any^ pirticular spheie of reality or cog- It is quite obvious that this definition of philos- nition. From Heget's-eniyclopedia point of view, a philosophi- ophy is pointed against Hegelia! and the lpecu- cal system is ai of philos-ophical Iative-idealist understanding of philosophy in scienies, interpreting even questions studied-by general, whiph, as Feuerbach explains, makes a the specialised scienles but fiom its own.peculiar mystery of what is, and tries to conceive of things spec,rlative position which is beyond their scope. and essence not as they are. A convinced mate- '?hitosophyl" Hegel wrote, "can" be preliminar- rialist, Feuerbach defines philosophy as knowing ilv definid-in seneral as the thi,nking exami'nation objecthte reality, knowing that which exists in of obiects." What he means by this is that its self-sufficing obiectivity and, therefore, as 'iphiloiophy constitutes a peculiar mode of knowledge that is obiective in its content. How- tliought,'a'mode of thought by which it becomes ever, thiJ definition of philosophy does not imply and cognition by'philosophy means of con- any delimitation of the subiect-matter of philos- "ontltior...itr. . .".r Thir imilies that studies ophy from that of the specialised sciences. noi only eaerythin!, but rather that which exists 4. Philosophv is the study of that which does in eaerr,tthin.s. constitutins its universal essence. not exist in reality, of that which is iuxtaposed to philos- Hege1 i-s not"satisfied by t-he definition of all reality and any knowledge of it as _a measure oprrfy ut a doctrine of 6eing, since the latter has or value-scale, that which has a significance not ui*irs been understood as something distinct in the least diminished by the fact that, as an from'thought. But thought, according to Hegel, ideal, it does not possess present being. This is also beiig. What is more, it- is the substance- definition of philosophy is most consistently up- subject, i.e.J the creative, developing essence of lreld by the Baden school of neo-Kantianism. the"world. Hegel interprets-being.ry- the first stag.S Thus, according to Windelband, "philosophy is in the self-deielopme.rt of the "absolute idea", lhe science of normal consciousness. It investi- i.e., as the immediite, sensorily perceptible, alien- gates empirical consciousness in order to establish ated expression of the absolute. Being does not at what points of the latter this immediate evi- account'for the whole of existence; nor is it that dcnce of normative general necessity is mani- which ohilosophv discovers in what exists as the fcst."2 By the term "normal consciousness" Win- thit *hich constitutes the chief object .,rb.tutiul, r L. Feuerbach, PhilosoBhische Kritihen und Grunil- r ii t :c ( 1 839- 1 846), Leipzig, 1969, S. I 78. t G.W.F. Hegel, Siimtliche Werke, Bd. 8, S' 42' 2 W. Windelband, Priiludien, S. 37. r96 t97 delband means awareness of the absolute norm Io study existing objects of cognition so as to be as the criterion of evaluation of all that exists' lble to appraise them from positions of the higher But for this very reason "normal consciousness" values and true essences,-the nature of which is placed outside what exists, and "belief in the nccessarily excludes the present and empirical by lheir realitv of absolutely normal consciousness is a very characteristics of existence. matter of personal faith, and not scientific cogni- 5. Philosophy is theory, i.e., a system of no- tion".t Whereas Plato believed that Absolute lions, concepts, knowledge and the methods of Good, Absolute Truth and Absolute Beauty :tc-quiring them related to a definite reality (or to existed as transcendental realities, neo-Kantian rrll that exists) as the subiect of its inquiiy.'This rneans that philosophy has its own specific circle idealism, taking up more realistic positions, 4e- clares them to" be non-existent, but possessing of questions with the result that it ieaches con- significance. It goes without saying that this clusions thaf cannot be reached outside philos- ophy, and makes possibility "iealism" is of a highly-phenbmenology subjective nature. discoveries the of Edmund Husserf i defines whlch is implied not only in the methods of philo- sophical philosophv as a doctrine that deliberately excludes inquiry but also in the availability of irom iti. held of study the external world and obiects of research within its terms of reference. that which is considered to be knowledge about This dgfinition of philosophy is wholly compatible it, i.e., scientific data. Philosophy, interpreted as with the definitions of philosophy'a ai a stidy of intuitive "essential vision", also refuses to recog- bcing or of all that exists, or as study only of the ideal essences, and values that do not actually exist.' nise the necessary existence of 'fhere!'!gnition, ideas and meanings that it cognises in the con- is no need therefore to illustrate this defi- rrition, sciousness of man'(but which aie independent of since it is accepted by nearly all philos- ophers, that consciousness). The concept of- existence no matter how far they differ in their rlefinitions of the concept, essence and the subiect- presupposes time and hence- temporal -being and is th6refore not to be applied to ideal being, rnatter of philosophy. This definition could have which is outside time and-cannot be interpreted hee-n omitted altogether since it appears to be sclf-evident. as a fact. "Contemplation," Husserl says, "con' But the point is that there is an op- templates essence as essential being,-and does not lrosite definition of philosophy, i.e., denial of the possibility philosophy contlemplate and does not assume in any sense of as theory and condemna- existeie. Accordingly contemplation of essence tion of those philosophies that are elaborated as lhcories is not matter-of-facicognition, and does not imply and therefore allegedly fail to answer a trace of any assertion concerning individual llreir purpose. flet us sav. t itrrral) existence."2 Thus truth is 6. Philosophy is not theory but a kind of intel- juitaposed io what exists and philosophy refuses l<'ctual activity having a functional purpose but rro obiect of inquiry. This definition springs from ' Wl4"tlelband, Priilud,ien, S. 44. llrc neo-positivist interpretation of philosophy. 2 Husserl, "Philosophy as an Exact Science" in logos, Nco-positivism rejects 1911, Book I, p. 29 (in Russian)' the historically formed 198 philosophical problems as imaginary, bu! does not Later on Wittgenstein went even further in his iubstitute for them any new problems. Instead it rcjection of philosophy as theory and tried to re- demands of philosophj' that it should stop being duce it to a logical procedure of analysis of theory and iurn into a method of analysis of language, in which he perceived not only the scieniific or everyday propositions. We find an source of. all philosophical error, but also the anticipation of this-definition of philosop$- in source of the philosophical problems themselves. the immediate forerunner of neo-positivism Hans "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment Cornelius, who characterises philosophy as "the of our intelligence by means of language.'ll desire for final clarity, for conclusive explana' The representatives of the philosophy of tion",l which is alien to the positive sciences. lin.quistic analysis in England have carried to its However, the classical formulation belongs to Iogical conclusion Wittgenstein's idea of the need Ludwis Wittgenstein: "The obiect of ohilosophy to turn philosophy into critical analysis of is the logical ilarification of thoughts.- P-hilosophy language with the aim of banishing from is not a'theory but an activity. A philosophical everyday and scientific usage the "metaphysics" work consists' essentiallv of elucidations. The concealed there. The comparison of philosophy to result of philosophy is not a number of 'philo- an "intellectual policeman",2 whose function is to sophical propositions', but to make propositions cliar. Philosophy should make clear and delimit ophy inspired one of organisers of the Vienna Circle sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it Moritz SchIicI(, who defined philosophy as action. "At present we see in philosophy-and this is the key feature of \ /ere, opaque and blurred."2 the great revolution that has taken place in it-not a --TE. leo-eliuq Einleituns in die Philosophie, Leipzig. system of results of cognition, but a system ol actions. 1908, S. 7. Incidentally, this "functional" definition of l)hilosophy is activity by means of which the meaning of ohilosoohv was alreadv io be found in the work of Charles statements is confirmed or explained. Philosophy explains 3. p.ui... the fountlei of American pragmatism. who iir statements and science verifies them." (Erkenntnis, Erster 1878 published the article "How to Make Our Thoughts Rand, 1980-1931, Heft I, Leipzig, S. 87.) It is not hard Clear". But Pearce did not infer tliat philosophy had no lo see that this definition (and understanding) of philos- subiect of inouirv of its own and must therefore be not a ophy is one of the extreme forms of what B. Bykhovsky it t"t mtrelv a method. This conclusion was reached lras called the "de-objectification of philosophy", which viv- bv"6* hi's immediate'successor lvty'illiam James, who wrote that idly illustrates the crisis of bourgeois philosophical piacmatis- "is a method only"' Moieover James asserted thought. 1 it ri' tt,ir method had long since been known to philoso- L. Wittgens teiln, P hi,lo s ophical I nae stigations, Oxf ord,, ohers: "There is absolutely nothing new in the pragmatic 1958, p. 47. inethod. Socrates was an adept at it. Aristotle used it 2 The comparison belongs to A. J. Ayer, who in his methodically. Locke, Berkeley and Hume made momen- :rrticle "The Vienna Circle" maintains that science gives tous contributions to truth'by its means'" (W. fames' rrs knowledge of the world and philosophy cannot compete iiismatism. London. 1907, pp.'50, 51.) The originality of with it in this field. "But where in that case does the praimatism. according to Jarirls, Iies in its having liberated l,hilosopher come in? One thing he can do, of course, is to ihis"method from all the various theories that constantly ;rct as a sort of intellectual policeman, seeing that nobody hamoered it. rrcspasses into metaphysics." (A. J. Ayer, The Reuolution 2'L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophigus, in Philosophy, London, 1956, pp. 78-79.) The British posi- London, 1955," p. 76. Evidently this definition of philos- livist Ernest Gellner, who like Bertrand Russell opposes 200 201 guard against what is forbidden, rather well Aristotle's Analytics is not only a treatise on describes the actual function (not only heuristic Iogic, but also an extensive conception of science, but in several respects also socio-political) of the which is understood as a definite structure of philosophy of linguistic analysis. It stands to knowledge, and not all knowledge at that, but reason that despite its assertions this philosophy lhat knowledge which relates to a necessary is not only a method but also a quite definite scries of phenomena. As Aristotle aptly observes: idealist-agnostic theory. "Thus, to have a true opinion that the diagonal 7. Philosophy is a science, at any rate it can is commensurate with the side would be absurd."t and should be one. This proposition cannot be I)escartes, whose name we associate not only strictly regarded hs a definition of philosophy with the beginning of modern philosophy but also since it is implied in many definitions of philos- with fundamental discoveries in natural science, ophy (as a science of being, a science of cogni- believed that philosophy is above all science: 'tion, and so on). But it is worth singling out "This science niust .oitrin the first rudiments of because the opposite view maintains thal the human reason and in addition serve to extract specific feature of philosophy is that it is not a from any obiect the truths that it contains."2 science. Accounting philosophy a science implies Hobbes who, like most of the philosophers of that it is a system of interconnected, substantiated the period of early bourgeois revolutions, disap- concepts, logically arranged according to certain proved of Aristotle's teaching, nevertheless ex- definite principles. Such a definition of philosophy plains the concept of philosophy as a science in an arose in Ancient Greece, where philosophy was Aristotelean spirit: "Philosophy is such hnouledge a synonym of science. Aristotle holds that of effects or appearances as ae acquire by true science in general can only exist in so far as we ratiocination from the knouledge ue haae first of know the cause of a certain thing, and know lheir causes or generation: And again, of such that this particular cause is the cause of this causes or generati,ans a.s may be lrom knouing thing. "Scientific knowledge and its object differ lirst effects."3 from opinion and the object of opinion in that Although philosophy was treated as a science scientific knowledge is commensurately universal cven in ihe Middle Ases (Albert Bolstedt, for and proceeds by necessary connections, and that instance, called it "scientia universalis"), the which is necessary cannot be otherwise."l ancient concept of science was systematically de- modern times as a result of the philosophy veloped only in the of linguistic analysis, rightly observes re- created garding its claims to have overcome metaphysics: brilliant advances in mathematics which "The general public often supposes that Linguistic Philos- an ideal of scientific knowledge that inspired all ophy is an attack on metaphysics. But metaphysics is a the outstanding philosophers of those days-ma- red herring. In reality, it is simply an attack on thought." (E. Gellner, Uords and. Thi.ngs, London, 1959, p. Ibtd", pp l2l-122. 198.) '2 CEuares de Descartes, Tome X, p. 374. I The Uorh.s of Aristotle, Chicago, I.ondon, Toronto, 3 The English Uorhs of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Geneva, 1952, Vol. I, p. l2l. Vol. I, London, 1859, p.3. 202 terialists and idealists. Even the juxtaposition of Kant held that by creating a "critical phil.g,so' philosophy to other sciences as a kind of science of plry" he had solved ihe problem of turning philos- icienceJ usually stems from demands for strict irphy into a pure science. Fichte saw the solution scientificality which, so the philosophers believ-e, ti this probl-em in his Wi.ssenschaftslehre-, ald cannot be r6alised in the specialised sciences. No IIegeI iihis Science of Logic, in an encyclopedia wonder, then, that along with this juxtaposition, of the philosophical sciences. In the bourgeois phi' historically justified by the as yet feeble develop- losophy of ttre second half of the 19th centu^ry and ment of rraiural science, thers is to be found in tirst-hilf of the 20th, the idea of a scientific phi' the progressive philosophical doctrines of modern losophy was idealistically interpreted by the neo- times ai awareriess of the fact that philosophy has Kaniians, who tried to ireate a "scientific ideal- not yet become a genuine science and also the ism", by the positivists, and by HusserlTs phenom- belief that it can and must become one. Hence t'nology, whoie founder conceived it as "rigorous the question of what is needed to-make philosophy r.ienie". AII this offers grounds for regarding- the a genuine science is constantly discussed by pro- rlefinition of philosophy as science as one of its sressive philosophers. key definitions. " In hir'Cri,tiqie of Pure ReasonKant poses the 8. Philosophy is not, cannot be and should not question on wiich-his whole system pilots: "Is be, a scienc.. This definition (and understanding) metaphvsics possible as a science? If it is possible, of philosophy was enunciated by Greek sce-pticism, ,rndei rirhat tonditions? In other words, in what which did n6t, however, seek to demolish the ideal sense is philosophy possible as a science?" Speak- o[ scientific knowledge, but simply maintained that ing of the failuie bf'aIl previous attempts to build this idea is unrealisable, at any rate for philos- a icientific philosophy, Kant observes: "In this ,,;rhy. This attitude of the Scepiics to the idea of sense philosophy ii only an idea of a possible ir' scientific philosophy was subiequently expressed science, which is nowhere given in concreto, but lry other philosophical schools. At-present it ts which we strive to approach-Kant in various ways."... , by nio-positivism, on tlre one hand, "Until this happens," continues, "philosophy ,,,id"presente'd the irrationalist-doctrines, on the other. cannot be taught; for indeed, where is it? Who Neo-positivism regards "philosophical proposi- commands it?-And bv what mark shall it be lions" is "metaphyslcal" or devoid of scientific known? We can only'teach philosophising, that r r r c aning b ecausd they are, in pri-ngip--l e uqverifi abl e is to say, exercise the gift of reason on certain ;rnd logically incapable of proof. When Karl.Pop- available examples in following its principles, g,cr prdved lhat tht major theoretical-propositions while always relaining the right of reason to in- i,f nitural science are-also unverifiable in prin- vestigate tlie very souices of these principles and riple (in the neo-positivist sense of il1s fs1m,^of confiim or reject them."l ,,i.,.se) and count6rposed falsifiability-to verifia- l,ility as an attribute of any scientific theory con- r Kant, Siimtliche Uerke it sechs Biinden, LeipziS r t'r'ned with facts, this did not lead to a revision 1912, Dritter Band, S.690. ol' the neo-positivist definition of philosophy as 204 205 non-science in principle. Thus, A. J. Ayer in his Religious irrationalism reproaches science for article Philosophy and, Science maintains that its lack of religion, for its indifference to the philosophy can hardly be considered a science, "mystery" of the universe and the human soul. since its propositions cannot in principle be scien- [rom this standpoint philosophy towers above sci- tifically verified. "The philosoplers,"- A. J. Ayer cnce by being closer to the transcendental through says, "have their theories, bu[ these theories-do its religious attitude of mind. "Philosophy," not allow them to make predictions; they cannot Nicholas Berdyaev maintained, for example, "is be proved or disproved by experiment, as is the ,rne of the ways of objectifying mysticism; but the case with scientific theories."l highest and fullest form of this objectification can While neo-positivism, despite its inherent sub- bc only positive religion."l jectivism and agnosticism, regards science as the The Catholic existentialist Gabriel Marcel most effectiye means of knowing phenomena and believes that the idea of scientific philosophy con- in accordance with its conception of science criti- tradicts the nature of philosophy, which never com- cises philosophy as a specific form or unscientific mands the truth but always seeks it, since it is belief, modern philosophical irrationalists, while aware that even revealed truth is essentially agreeing with the neo-positivist formula "philos- inexpressible. Only the "particular truths" of ophy is not a science", interpret this formula as science can be expressed because they are imper- an expression of the superiority of philosophy to sonal; their value and their impersonality are science, -w!'ich, they allege, is fundamentally inca- inseparable from each other. "...For in so far as pable of decyphering irrational reality and con- it is accepted as itself, that is to say, independent stantly gets further away from it just because of of the research of which it is the result, it tends its achievements, which are vain attempts to to appear as exterior to the subject. Here lies rationalise the irrational, to express the inexpres- the root of scientism, understood as degradation sible in concepts, to present internally chaotic of true science."2 From this point of view one reality as an orderly realm of regularities and rnay of course assert that only philosophy is a true laws. This line of thought had alreaiiy made itself science, and thus agree with the definition of felt in the irrationalist philosophy of the 19th cen- philosophy as a special kind of science. But it is tury. Emile Boutroux,-for instance, expressed it t;uite obvious that this "true science" which no quite categorically. "Philosophy," he wrote, one has yet created is the negation of actual "either becomes exclusively scientific as a synthesis science with all its actual achievements. of the sciences and then cannot be called philoso- Truth and being, from Marcel's point of view, phy any more, or else it remains philosophical, in rrre identical and unknowable; neither may belong which case it is anti-scientific."2 t 1 N. Berdyaev "Philosophical Truth and Intelligentsia's _ 4. Ayer, "Philosophy and Science" in Problems ol Phi- l'r'rrth" in Uehhi, Moscow, 1909, p. 21 (in Russian). losophy, 1962, No. l, p. 86 (in Russian). 2 G. Marcel, Prisence irnmortabiliti, Paris, 1959, 2 et E. Boutroux, La nature et I'esprit, Paris, 1g26, p. 154. 1,1,.15-16. 206 t'metaphysical to man. Philosophy is disquiet", the source not from knowledge but from the will to individual's search for his own centre. Therefore linowledge, position in life, historical situation, ".. .the only methaphysical problem is: What which are contrasted to theoretical, scientific am I?"1 knowledge as allegedly not expressing the essence The definition of philosophy as a science, as ol man's spiritual life. A world view is thus well as the definition that it is not, cannot and t haracterised as specifically human knowledge-as should not be a science, are of enormous impor- though some other non-human knowledge exists! tance for an understanding of the objective, his- 'l'he idea behind this interpretation of world view torically formed relation between philosophy and lies in its denial of the importance of the objective science, which to rio small extent determines the content of a world view, in stressing its purely significance of philosophy. In this sense one finds pcrsonal features that are said to have nothing to a real connection between logical definitions and rlo with knowledge. Dilthey's ideas are further the historical, objective conditionality of philoso- rlcveloped in Karl Jaspers' psychology of world phy. This connection deserves special examination views, which intensifies the irrationalist colouring since it may throw light on the evolution of of this concept.l philosophical definitions. Materialism has always associated the concept 9. Philosophy is a world view (Ueltanschauung) of world view with denial or criticism of idealism, possessing specific features that distinguish it from with the conceptual synthesis of scientific views other types of world view. This definition, just of nature, society and knowledge, with the theo- Iike the two previous ones, is partial, i.e., is part lctical substantiation of humanism. of wider definitions of the concept of philosophy, 10. Philosophy is not a world view, either be- but its significance is not thereby reduced. In other , ause philosophy is a science, and world view is words, the argument as to whether philosophy is not scientific in character, or because world view or may be a world view, has played and continues summarises scientific data, whereas philosophy is to play a tremendous role in philosophy's devel- rrourished by its own source and does not regard opment, despite the fact that the concept of science as being on the same scale as itself. The world view is variously interpreted by philoso- rlcnial that philosophy is a world view is thus phers. Some admit the possibility of a world view, lrased on extremely varied arguments; it is to be others deny it. There are rationalist, irratio- l'ound in the works both of those who accept the nalist, voluntarist, subjectivist, "scientist", and i 908 t4-22 Since the term "world view" was coined only in proclaimed- the holding of a world view to be a modern times and was not widely used in philos' rnatter of faith, inspired by emotional considera- oohv until the second half of the 19th century, lio!s, and reduced the task of philosophy to th^e (uestion of the relationship between philoso-phy claboration of the logical syntax oi scienie,'and a"d'wotld view was never ionsciously posed in so on. the maiority of philosophical doctrines of the Past' Thu1,- the definitions stating that philosophy is fo *rit t""ti be added the fact that in some modern .) |plcial type of world view, ind als6 the oppo'rit" European languages the term virtually does not rlefinitions are of subst-antial importance, sinii they exist, with the" reiult that many wo+l written in r:all for the theoretical analysiJof the relationship g"gtitL or French irse the German Ueltanschau- lretween philosophy and- world view, which ung.L--'-Flo*.r.t, is no less impo-rtant than the relationship between denial of the world-view character philosophy arid science. of phitotoplv cannot, of course, be attributed to , Before launching upon our analysis of the tfr"l. ,friftrlosicat facts. Some base their denial :rbove-mentioned definitions, it must-be empha- ;;th.'ia;;-firit ontv religion can have a world sised that all these definitions, even if their number *tit. others j'ustify it by- the.-need for a were--considerably increased, would not provide r*i.i"ii*, a.fi*itation of the iasks of philoqophy and ;r .full conception of the virtually unencompas- principle possibility gf a sable ;;;;dirJfi in ^a of the . .variely gI mutually-of exciusive conctpts w6rtd view as sciEntific theoretical synthesis' ,,f philosoph-y._ 9"9,could, course, compile a the evolution of neo-positivism i5 2. unigue com- rlictionary, of defilitions of philosophy, but even Ui"rti""-"t these two- tendencies. In their first lhis would not reflect all thi definitions because, ;;i;;ti". declaration of programme the-members rrs has already been said, the same definitions are Vienna Circle announced that they were interpreted in a multitude of different ways, giv- of the "the enEased in evolving a scientific world view'z ing rise to completely different notions'oi i;?d-[";"ver, the] abandoned this aim and cssence,. subject_ and- tasks of philosophy. The lationalist Hegel and the irrati6nalist S.hop.rr- hauer understood philosophy I In French it is usually translated as 'co-lrception du as a doctrine of th" "world'view", and in Italian "conce- spiritual essence oT the woild, but the universal rnorrd-";, lii-B"giirti of ;i;;ih';;a% I rn.t.-t.urrtLtib"t -onlv convev .part ruind in Hegel's philosophy and the world will the meanins of the German "Weltanschauung" or the Kus- that in Schopenhauer'i express mutually exclusive ;i;;-:ui;;i"rr'.-"iyJi-u"a i! is .no .stliprige to find ^p.O. the. term lrends in the developmtnt of idealist'philosophy. i" iit".t; A-lticu, Philosophicql -Dictionary "world view" is not given, while "Weltanschauung'. ap- Naturally,-these differences come to li!.ht as soon et tech- oiais io its place. A' Lilande's aocabulaire -critique rts the definitions are s_ubjected to pf,ilosophical (Piris' ed') neither iliiir'i,"L"intliiipai 1e56' Ze -gives ;rnalysis. Nevertheless the fact that incompatible "cinception du monde", nor "Weltanschauung-' "";"7i;;;;;;A;ini;i;' (t)ettanschauuns. Dgr uienet philosophical doctrines can define philosophy in Xrrx. aiiininiiichorgrn d.es Uereins Ernst Mach' Wien' cxactly the same terms does to a iertain extent 1929. lrlur the distinction between these doctrines. .t. 210 I 2tt Although we have not cited all the possiblc The definitions, marked with even numbers, can definitioni of philosophy, those listed here show llso to some extent be unified. Those who deny clearly enough that such definitions cannot on philosophy as a doctrine of being or of existence principle be synthesised. But this does not mean in general reduce philosophy to epistemological ihut tir.y exclirde each other in aII respects.l The tnalysis, to a specific mode of analysing the forms definitiohs we have marked with unev6n numbers of knowledge, and they are naturally inclined to quite often supplement one another and can there- rcgard it not as objective knowledge, and hence fbre be coordinated to a certain extent. There are, not as science, as a world view, as a theory with for example, philosophers who define philosophy its own circle of questions. Moreover, a large part as a scientific-theoiy, a special kind of science, a of the contrasting definitions (marked with even science of being or even of all that exists. and uneven numbers) have quite often been com- hined. Besides the philosophers who claim that phi- r Dilthey, reinstating Hegel's standpoilt but interpleling Iosophy is a doctrine of being, and their opponents, it in the spirit of histor-ical ielativism,-holds that all defini- who argue that philosophy is possible only as a tions of philosophv are essentiallv of equal value since each theory of knowledge, there have been a good of them'.*pt.ti.t'a certain historical s-tage of philosophy's rnany philosophers who reject both definitions and existence aid self-consciousness: "Each definition was only one of the elements of the concept of its essence. Each believe that philosophy is a doctrine of being and one was only the expression of tht ,view that philo-sophy of cognition. Hege1 proceeded from the unity, held at a ceitain moirent in its development. . . . Each one the identity of being and cognition (thought). describes a special circle of phenomena for philosophy-and teaching upside philosophy from lieuerbach, who turned Hegel's excludes frorir it other -juxtapositionsphenbmena called that circle. The great of standpoint, each rlown and put it on a materialist basis, argued the opposes equal force, are expressed unity of cognition and being that could not be of which lnothir wiih -ognition. in the definitions of philosophy.-'be Each of them defends rcduced to Hence, of course, Fischer itself. And the argumeint couid settled only- if it were was wrong in stating that the decisive turn brought possible to find -a standpoint superior to ill parties." ?W. oittt.v, Gesamrnelte Schriften,'Y. Band, S. s63.) This, about by Kant in philosophy, lies in his making of course, is not how matters stand in reality. The various lhe subject of philosophical inquiry not being definitioni of the concept of philosophy represent not only but cognition. The study of cognition in Kant's historical stages in its development, but difference and even is at the same time a study of complete opp-osition between-simultaneously existing philo- lrhilosophy sophlical d6cirincs. These definitions cannot be recognised lrcing. ai equal any more than the doctrines which they represent, No matter how narrowly a philosopher limits since philosbphy develops and thus overcomes certain sys- the concept of philosophy, excluding various fun- tems if vieris'and their corresponding definitions' It is rlamental problems, he is compelled directly or indeed impossible to evolve a definition-of philosophy-that nsuperior indirectly to answer these very questions. The would be to all parties". One must -get ar,lray- from the notion thit there are a multitude of philosophical par- same may be said of the positivists, who exclude ties and not mix up the main parties, the qraig trends in l'rom philosophy the problem of objective reality. philosophy with their modifications, with factions which ln practice, in their analysis of cognition or even within the framework of the main lre impoitant only a trend which they represent. only its logical or empirical form they arrive at 212 2t3 subjective-idealist interpretation of objective lrines. And even if thev can be coordinated, this reality. Thus it turns out that this or thai defi- will be onlv a svnthesis of definitions, and not nitio! of philosophy only formally removes .f the doctiines lhat they represent; the limited certain fundamental philosophical problems, philosophical definitions conceals an - since rliversitv of in essence they cannot be dismisied from phi- rrnlimit6d diversity of philosophical doctrines, losophy. whose incompatibility cannot bebvercome even if listory of philosophy shows that exclusion r:ertain .o-rion views on certain questions are -The just of .?rry fundamental prodlems from the concept of rliscovered in some of them. It is not a matter philosophy amounts herely to pushinE them'into of the incompatibility of the materialis-t and the the background, i'.e., bringing foriard other idealist doctrines, but of the incompatibility of.the questions, the answer to whicli turns out to be various historical forms of materialism, the various directly or indirectly an answer to these "elimi- idealist doctrines, and so on. nated" problems. science, too, there are Of course, in natural -but The definitions cited differ from one another in mutually exclusive theories, here they exist as what they include in philosophy and what they rlivergeices over certain definite questions, which exclude from it, and also thelir-interpretation o? presupposes common ground on other questiols thg form of philosophical knowledge (theory, it ut u.i not in dispute.To be more exact,.mutually science, method, world view, etc.). But siice the cxclusive theoriei in natural science, in so far basic philosophical problems cannot be completely as they are only partially recognised, are mer-ely .rem_ov_ed, that is to say, they can be excluded only hypotheses whiih^do not rule out agreement be- in.definitions, definiiions'of philosophy largety !wien oooonents on questions that are considered fail to express the content of dhilosoihv and."art Only'in philosophy does the split even misleading about it. Enlels' r6mirk about "l.eady'solved.,un ali along the line between the two opposing the formal character of definition and Spinoza's ohilosoohicai' doctrines. Moreover the mutually idea that a definition are quite often is a negation-are of thd limita- cxclusive philosophical conceptions tions of one's own subject both extremely cqually *irtaken, although tler-e can of course apposite in this context. lle other cases where one of these concepts is At best a definition indicates the kev aspects aooroachins obiective truth and another (or of a philosophical doctrine, expressing'whai its ,,ihers) is e"etting further away from it. creator believes to be most important in that doc- The trtith in"philosophy ii not unan-imously trine. W-e can say that the existentialist, Bergso- :tcknowledged. ihere are many reasons for this' nian and pragmatic c_on_cepts knowledge of philosophy-are-Brjrgso- Some are ionnected with the theory of primarily definitiols o{ ttr. exirsteniialist, in general. In philosophy objective truth cannot nian and pragmatic philosophies, although &ch he Zhecked explrimen[aliy oi by any other rela- of their creators was_ trling to give a concept of rivelv simpl. ,ir.urt. This-is a typicai situation all philosophy in ge_neral. Consequently their ainni- rhrough the history of philosophy, whereas it is tions are as difficult to coordinate'as their doc- I'undalmentally untypical in the natural sciences, 214 215 and particularly in the applied sciences. Does this of its necessity and progressive significance for mean that the concept of philosophy cannot in certain historical periods. In other words, this pro- general be given any substantial definition? We gressive divergence of philosophical beliefs, the believe it does, if one goes no further than an polarisation of philosophy into irreconcilably empirical statement of the obvious diversity of opposed systems has played its progressive role. incompatible philosophical systems. Anyone who It was essential because humanity had to develop believes the progressive divergence of philosoph- and exhaust all the possible philosophical hypoth- ical knowledge to be a permanent form of the eses in order to be able to accept the one which development of philosophy is, of course, morally is most fully confirmed by experience, practice obliged to give up the idea of defining the concept and scientific data. of philosophy. Only by recognising the pluralism This divergence of philosophical beliefs was of philosophical systems as a historically transient iustified while the development of science and form of the formation-development of philosophy, practice had not created the necessary precondi- i.e., by admitting the possibility and necessity of tions for the development of scientific philosophy. overcoming it, can we arrive at a definition of the Philosophy seeks to know the infinite, the univer- concept of philosophy which, it is true, will not sal, the intransient, to know the essence of essence. embrace all the philosopliical doctrines that have Hence it is inevitable that at certain stages in its ever existed, but which will express the prospects development there should be mutually exclusive of development of scientific philosophy. conceptions and doctrines. But since philosophy It goes without saying that those who rule out deuelops and does not merely vary in time, these any possibility of philosophy's being a science and historically inevitable errors are overcome and consequently any possibility of its development not merely replaced by fresh errors. Even idealist through scientific teamwork, as in the natural philosophy is compelled to turn to positive scien- sciences, cannot possibly agree to such a definition tific data to reinforce its ill-chosen positions. The of philosophy. For such people the progressive diversity of incompatible philosophical beliefs divergence of philosophical doctrines is the high- loses its historical justification not because of the est manifestation of the free philosophical spirit, convergence of philosophical beliefs, which is whose sole need is self-assertion. In other words impossible in principle, but because of the devel- they are rather like novelists, each trying to write opment of a scientific approach to the solution of a novel that bears no resemblance to any that has philosophical questions, an approach which been written before. demands of a philosophical doctrine that it should Thus, from our standpoint, the scientific defini- be not just something that a certain thinker tion of philosophy requires theoretical premises inuents, but a special kind of investigation, under- that are fully accepted only by dialectical and his- standing and interpretation of reality. torical materialism. Recognition of the historically Leaving the motley variety of incompatible transient character of the diversity of philosoph- philosophical doctrines to the past, Marxist-Lenin- ical doctrines does not, of course, imply denial ist philosophy offers in place of this pluralism of 216 2t7 speculative conceptions the all-r ound development 3. PHILOSOPHY 9f-philosophical propositions that are confirmed by AS A SPECIrIC WOBLD VIEW life, practice and science. This theoretical positioir differs fundamentally from the prevailing belief Since numerous definitions of philosophy exist in tourgeois philosofhy, which holds that-philos- rund our task is not merely to state the fict but to ophising is a kind of striving for knowledge which giye a_ defilition of the concept of philosophy is rewarded by a certain intellectual satisfaction related to the understanding of-all philosophical rloctrines, the question but not by any fruit that may be described as arises: Is it not possible to truth. The supporters of this view regard philos- set aside what distinguishes these definltions and ophy as a labyrinth from which only those who t.hus arrive at what they have in common? This have no love of philosophy or overestimate their operation can, of course, be performed but, as philosophical potential wish to escape. Ariadne's was pointed out earlier, it cannot bring us to a thread does not exist. There is no- need for it. concrete understanding of philosophy, r,ihich tike Philosophy will never become a science, i.e., will anything colcrete in icienie musl be a unity of not betray itself and consequently will always re- different definitions. However, even a one-sided, main a realm of absolutely sovereign philosophical abstract definition of philosophy has some signifi- systems, like Leibnitz's world of the monads, cance, if it is not overestimated. Marx obselves: with "Producti.on the only difference that it will know no coordina- in general is an abstraction, but a tion, subordination of predetermined harmony. reasonable abstraction, because it actually delin- Any common ground between different philoso- cates the general, fixes it and thus liberates us phies seems from this standpoint to be merely from repetition... . Definitions that are valid for unoriginal. Philosophising must remain only an 1>roduction in general have to be made in order to attempt whose unrealisability may be interpreted cnsure that because of the unity that stems from according to mood either as failure or as eternal the fact that the subject, man, and the object, promise. Hence there can be no definition of the nature, are one and the same, the essential differ- concept of philosophy; definitions are made only cnce is not forgotten."l What Marx says about for the sake of the uninitiated. the concept of production in general (which can rtlso The philosophy of Marxism, which besides be said of the concept of nature in general, rejecting mysticism and idealism, also rejects the society in general, etc.) is naturally also appli- scornful treatment of established scientific facts, cable to, an a.ppraisal of the general concept of truths and laws, naturally does not accept this philosophy. Too much should not be expectid of latest, somewhat snobbish conception bf philosoph- it, and yet we need it not only as an indication of ical 6litism. Dialectical and historical materialism identity, but also as the first stage in the ascent is elaborating a concept of philosophy which pro- l'rom the abstract to the concrete, which the ceeds from recognition of the objective neceisity philosophical investigation of philosophy must for philosophical science and the this fact that , K M"*, Grundrisse der Rritih iler politischen Ohono- necessity is being historically fulfilled. rrtic (Rohentaurf), 1857-1858, Berlin, 1968, S. 7. 218 2t9 inevitably perform. If there is any such common losophers, despite their limiting of the tasks of attribute in the definitions of philosophy which philosophy to the investigation of language, are, we have considered they must be welt'concealed, in fact, expressing beliefs on all the basic pioblems for there is no outward sign of them. And yet it of scientific knowledge, social life, ethics, politics, a1d on, i.e., analysis language mEans is still worth trying to detect this general d-efini- -so of is a by tlon of philosophy which is not given in any of which an extremely wide ran.qe of questions is the other definitions- and is henCe precluded by treated. The same may be said of Husserl's m-any of them, a definition which, one can say iir phenomenology and other philosophical doctrines advance, will not reveal everythins that makei up according to which philosophy is not a world the specific nature of philosophy brit may, possibly, vlew. point the way to its discovery.l The denial that philosophy is a world view We believe that world view is such a general, turns out to be an extremely contradictory theo- but not specific, definition of philosophy. H-owever, retical position. In some cases world view is it is cleir from the above-irentiorreci definitions declared to be "metaphysics", in others, a subjec- of philosophy that a considerable number of phil- tive postulation, in others, a system of beliefs. But osophers do not regard philosophy as a world this means that world view'exists and the only view. Thus the question may be put as follows: matter for argument is philosophy's relation to ii. If, for example, fhe linguistit philbsophers main- At I see it, all philosophical doctrines imply a tain that philosophy is not a *orld view, is their world view, becairse no iimitation of the rarigi of own philosophy a world view? To this question questions dealt with allows one to avoid answering there is, in our opinion, only one answeriyes, it the more.general philosophical questions, even i-f is. It is not hard to show that the linguistic phi- one remains unaware of these questions. Eygry philosophy is a world view, although world view is not necessarily philosophy. t Ole cannot agree There-is with Karl Steinbuch, who holds the that definition of the concept of philosophy is of no essential religious world view, the atheistii world view, importance. "Philosophy,"'he siys, "his'existed for thou- and so on. The polysemy of the concept "world san-ds of years, but there is still no generally recognised view" is constantly revealed both in scientific and definition. In exactly the same way tf,ere is no defi-"nition cveryday usage. One speaks of the heliocentric of mathematics or oi physics and technology. But not one of these disciplines is any the worse for it."'(K. Steinbuch, world view as opposed to the geocentric world und view, profoundly 4utgryat: -Mensch, Berlin-Heidelberg-New York, S. 354.) and this is meaningful if one Karl Steinbuch, I would suggest, does not take into ionsider.l thinks of the revolution in human consciousness ation the fact that the scientific definition of any particular that was brought about by the great discovery of science (i.e., analysis of its subject-matter, ri.relhod and (lopernicus. theoretica-l foundations) becomes possible only at a certain, A world view may be mechanistic, comparatively high, stage of its development. At such a rnetaphysical, optimistic, pessimistic, and so on. stage, refusal to make a definition puts a-brake on develop- It is quite legitimate to speak of the feudal, bour- ment. As for the absence of any "generally accepted" geois, communist world views. Marxism as a definition of ph.ilosophy, -this fa_ct ii, of co,urse,'largeli due to the struggle between philosophical schools. whole is a definite world view, the philosophy of 220 221 Marxism is also a world view. In pointing out the which enables us to single out relatively remote polysemy of the "world view" concept, it is not goals, to substantiate certain socio-politicil, moral, our intention to cast doubt on its scientific mean- scientific ideals, criteria, etc. ing; on the contrary, we wish to emphasise it.t - Thus, a world view, whatever its form, substan- Liates s * philosophical, Definition of the concept of world view, like -principle ethical, natural that of nature, Iife, man, presents considerable scientific, sociological, political, etl. These prin- difficulties, which should not, however, be allowed ciples deserve special examination, but even i,vith- to create the impression that without this defini- rrut that it is clear how great a part they play tion we have no idea what it is about. The in rese-arch -work, for instance. Vy'e may quote concept treats of fundamental human beliefs con- l'rom the scientists, who are usually reticent in cerning nature and personal and social life, beliefs rnaking .any statements about the roie played by that play an integrating, ori.entati.onal role in world view, philosophy or anythins of'th; kind. consciousness, behaviour, creativity and people's Max Planck in his lecture Phitsics ih the Struggle combined practical activity. According to the for a World, Aieu saidt "The research scient'iit's character of these beliefs (religious, scientific, aes- world view will always determine the direction of thetic, socio-political, philosophical) we distin - his work."1 guish the various types of world view, which Today this belief of the materialist Max Planck incidentally are connected with one another and has been taken up by most theoreticians of natural at some points (sometimes with glaring contradic- science. The great discoveries of science in the tions) actually merge. The orientational function last half century have revolutionised our under- of a world view presupposes certain definite s.tandin^g of nature to such an extent that the ques- notions (scientific or unscientific) concerning man's tion of world view has become particuiarly "whereabouts" in the natural and social scheme irnportant to the scientists themselves. This ii of things. These notions help us to discover pos- leflected in their changed attitude to philosophy. sible paths of motion, to choose a definite direc- Scientists in the mo-dern world liteially r6aih tion corresponding to our particular interests or out to philosophy and the contemptuous attitude needs. The orientational function of a world view lowards it that Engels once ridiculed is sustained is made possible by its integrating function, that ruainly by those exponents of science who have is to say, the kind of generalisation of knowledge little to show in their own fields of research. This striking enthusiasm of scientists for oir.rrriog the difficulty of defining the "world view" lrhilosophy (particularly noticeable today in the concept, P. V. Kopnin suggests that it is due to the poly- capitalist countries, semy of the word "world" with its .various meanings in where indifference to philos- geography, astronomy, cosmogony, and the social sciences. ,,1rhy lingered on by inertia until some 2E or B0 This fact does not, however, diminish the significance of the ycars ago) has even affected the neo-positivists, concept.-t The philosophy of Marxism, Kopnin points out, "resolves the problems involved in the concept of world view that are confirmed and manifest in the actual devel- 1 M. Planck, Aortrdge und Erinnerungen, Stuttgart, opment of the numerous branches of science". I 1)49, s. 283. 222 ) some of whom have renoqnced their philosophical not of a philosophical world view but of a "phi- nihilism and noted the prime importance of the krsophy of science". But his philosophy of science, ohilosoohical world view for natural science. like any other philosophy, inevitably implies a cer- 'ffrinpp Frank, for instance, declared in the fifties tain world view. that ifre most eminent scientists always strongly World view is a wider concept than philosophy. stressed the point that a close tie between science So in calling philosophy a world view, do we not and philosophy is indispensable.l He shares the rnultiply the difficulties confronting us in arriving view-of de Brbglie that-the separ-ation of science at a scientific definition of the concept of philoso- and philosophylhat occurred in the 19th century phy? After all, if philosophy is a world view, it "has^been hirirful tb both philosophers and scien- is certainly a world view sui, generi.s, of its own tists".2 peculiar kind, in other words, a Bhilosophical Philosophy is essential to science, particularly world, vi,eza. This gets us into a kind of logical in periods of revolutionary change, when the r:ircle. But the way out is to find the specific fea- Iatt6r's basic assumptions are being reviewed. tures of the type of world view that can be called According to Frankl the examples of Newton, a philosophy. What then is the peculiarity of the Darwin, "Einstein and Bohr shoiv that "actually philosophical world view? Unlike the spontane- Ereat advances in sciences have consisted rather ously formed religious world view, a philosophy i"n breaking down the dividing walls, and a dis- is always a theoretically substantiated. world view. regard foi meaning and foundation is only But the natural scientific world view, for example, prevalent^ in periods of stagnation".s the mechanistic world view, was also theoretically Admittedly, Frank, since he still remains a neo- substantiated. The same applies to the bourgeois, positivist, dismissing the problem of objective or, as Marx and Engels called it, legalistic world ieality and its refleition, speaks of the necessity view. Hence there are various types of theoretic- ally substantiated world views. The peculiar f.ea- r Ph. Frank, Philosophy of Science, New York, 1957, lure of the philosophical world view consists p.XI. rnainly in its being a iynthesis effected by means of 2 Ibid. lhe most general categories that are of equal sig- 3o Ibid.,lbrd., p. -)i.vr.XVI. Inln hisnts Philosophyrnu'osopny ofoJ Scienceoczertce FtankrranK nificance for all the sciences. Remembering what quotes Engels to the effect that philosophy takes its revenge the on natural scientists who treat i[ii with iontempt.ioritempt. ElsewhereElsewheie was said earlier about the specific nature of quoting-himng whenwnen philosophical may be stated he almost repeats Engels without actually -dodeinenlm form of cognition, it he writes: 'i'Tt t maymav ieemseem oaradoxical.paradoxical, Lu[ the: ?odging of that the philosophical world view is a theoretical grad' ohilosoohical issuei has veiv'philoiophi.i" frequentlv made science synthesis of the most general views of nature, Latesu4LtD ciaotivesC4PLTVtD Ul obsoleteuuDUrtLt (Ibid., p. z\tLLLt.XVIII) Lates c-aptives of bhilosophiei"PrurvDuyurro -(Ibid.,-\rvru,r This admission of one of the leaders of neo-positivism,^,. a society, man, and cognition, a synthesis implying problems particularly appraisal all that makes up the content aoitrine -ttrat ties -phillsophical .to..a- in of narrow fframe. is hiehlv ivmptoriratic. It indicales that th'e of these general views, an appraisal that is not philosophy impeltedlrnPcrrcu by moderirmodern scientist'ssclentlst s sii"isw1n8 t6*irastowaros PnuosoP[y lsis _uy only epistemological, but also ethical, social, and desire for a philosop-hically grounded and systematically a so developed world view. on. The philosophical world view is not, {herefore, pcndently of man, and on the other, man himself, a generalisation that simply sums up the available who does not exist outside the world, and regards data as fully as possible; attitude and apprai,sal, it as the external world only because he distin- are key attributes of the philosophical generalisa- guishes it from himself as reality existing indepen- tion, because the philosopher singles out what he rlently of him, while recognising at the same time believes to be most important in the knowledge himself as a part of the world and indeed a available, what he believes to be most important special part, which thinks, feels and is aware that for man. the world, as distinct from the part which is him, The significance of the appraising attitude is infinite, eternal, indestructible, and so on. This for the philosophical world viEw is not difficult attitude of man to the world forms the basic pecu- to show by comparing existentialism with classical liarity of 'the philosophical world view, a pecu- philosophy, for instance. The long-standing phil- liarity that may be defined as bipolarity, not only osophical tradition, whose beginnings we noted objective but also subjective, since some attach far back in the ancient world, declared that primary importance to the former, and others to philosophy, rising above everyday consciousness the latter. and thus above personal, subjective, human ap- Man's attitude to nature, to society-his episte- praisals and opinions, regards all that exists from mological, ethical, physical, biological, social the standpoint of eternity, i.e., from positions of attituiles-these are all questions of his philosoph- universal human reason, which is superior to the ical world view. The man-nature, nature-tnan anthropological limitations of individual human relationships imply. an element of confrontation beings. Existentialism repudiated this initial srnce man as an rndividual differs from both philosophical principle and proclaimed that the nature and society or humanity. But when we human "I" is human only because it is finite. come to analyse this relationship, we discover not Existentialist philosophising is examination of the only this distinction but also the related identity, world from the standpoint of transient human i.e., the natural in man, the social in man. The existence, from the positions of man who is aware psychophysical problem ceases to be a special of his mortality, his absolute oppositeness to the problem of the natural sciences and becomes' a intransient "being in itself". The existentialist "I" philosophical problem, since the question of the is diametrically opposed to the "I"' of Fichte, spiritual-material relationship acquires universal which knows neither death, nor fear, nor insupe- significance. Similarly, the problem of the know- rable anxiety as to one's existence in the world, ability of the world is a philosophical world-view and so on. Thus, this appraising world-view prin- problem precisely because it is posited in the most ciple expresses the specific nature of existen- general form (not the knowability of certain con- tialism. crete phenomena-this question has no philosoph- The philosophical world view thus has two ical meaning, even if it is stated that a particular starting points, as it were. On the one hand, the phenomenon cannot be known), and also because, world, as everything that exists outside and inde- 226 l5* know the world? philosophers. Some in answerins These questions express interpret of this question, have and but, in irind tlre separate humail (:ourse, exhaust the content the philo- individual and draw the do not of appropriafe conclusions; sophical world answering these questions others, on the contrary, view. In speak in terms of man- Kant poses new ones. give rise to ques- kind, whose cognitive Questions u.q"i!y is not limited by any so they recognised as temporal bounilaries. tions and, in far as are all DiffLrent conclusioni ar'e of importance both the individual and the obtained, course, for of when the question is posited whole human race, and not for the present in this way. only but also for the future, so do they retain their Thus we see that philosophy as a special kind of world'view lrhilosophical, world-view significance. is equaily a cdnc'eption of it. world The fact that philosophy as a world view im- and a conception of man, knowledge of both and a plies criteria of appraisal applicable to an unlim- special mode of generalising this knowledge which ited range of facts and knowledge has often been has the significance of a so-cial, moral, thioretical juxtaposition orientation the interpreted by idealists as absolute in world outside us and in our of the ideal to the real. Thus, Heinrich Rickert own world; it is the expression of a comprehended seeks to substantiate the absolute meaning of relationship to reality and the theore-tical sub- stantiation ideals and the value criteria of all that exists by of this relationship, which manifests postulating a realm of values which does not have itself in man's decisions, behaviour, spiritual self- the status of being but has undoubted significance determination, and so on. in the world of phenomena and therefore belongs The philosophical world view is above the all to the world, although it cannot be defined aS posing of questions which one aware is of as the cxisting. Correspondingly the world is main questiozs. These questions view arise not only defined as unity of the knowledge being and from scientific researcheibut of also from individual awareness of the absolute values, or norms. "By and socio-historical experience, as we have already world vie\M," Rickert says, "we understand actu- indicated. They may be called the main questions ally something more than mere knowledge of the because, poglng in these questions, philosophy causes that brought us and the rest of the world enters uPo! a d!"cussion that is important for ail into being; an explanation of the causal necessity mankind. Such, for example, are the famous ques- of the world is not enough for us. We also want to tions, the solution of which, according to Kant, have a grasp of the world that will help us, as one constitutes the true philoso=phy: vocation of often hears said, to understand the meaning (Sinn) (1) What can know? I of our life, the significance of our 'I' in the world."l (2) What must I do? (3) For what may I hope?l rnentary question is not usually taken into consideration 1 in popular expositions of Kant's philosophy. _- Kant,_Samtliche Uerke, Bd. 3, S: 607. In his Logik 1 Kant suppleynents this with fourth question H. Rickert, Aom Begriff der Philosophia, S. 6. In their list a tfiat interpretation philosophical neo- generalise-s the prec-edilg questions: "What is-man?", (Irn- of the world view the lientians, like the irrationalists, characteristically deny its manuel Kants Logih, Leipzig, 1904, S. 27.) This supple- connection with natural science. Thus it is understandable 228 Needless to say, Rickert's mistake lies not io Marxist philosophy, disclosing the historically his demanding from the world view something relative character of the knowledge and ap- more than "mere knowledge of the causes", name- praisals forming the world view, at tle same time 11 an explanation of man's place in the world. completely exciudes the relativist belittlement of The world view is indeed a unity of knowledge the role of the world view. Marxist philosophy and appraisal, but the whole poirrt ir that tf,e reveals its obiective content and progressive c-riteria o-f appraisal, the norms of value, despite development, the obiective laws of the origin and the beliefs of Plato, Kant, the neo-Kantians lnd development of the-scientific philosoplical world other idealists, are not absolute but historical, i.e., view, ivhich, however, does not lay claim either they change and 'develop. The anti-historical to absolute knowledge or to the appraisal of reality interpretation of value criteria puts them in oppo- from absolute positions. Thus from the standpoigt sition to being, i.e., deprives them of real exis- of Marxism, philosophy as a world view is -pri- theoretical posi^tions, tence, which incidentally the neo-Kantians them- marily-which a formulation of - selves realise when they assume that non-existence from an appraisal can be made of the does not deprive absolute value of its uncondi- significance of any knowledge, experience, activity tional significance. However, they lose sight of and historical event. the very notion that absolute values, the ab-solute Philosophy is interested in the knowledge and ide,al, arose historically and has changed histori- the significance of the knowledge or phenomenon cally in content; it is enough to compare Plato's that ii not limited bv the boundaries of some ideal of justice with that of Kant or the neo- special field of human activity and, consequ-ently, Kantians. Thus, absolute values lose the timeless ii fit for more or less general application. This or significance attributed to them, and become his- that scientific proposition rises to world-view status torical values which are nevertheless endowed with ;;itil io tui ut it it found possible to apply it unco!ditional significance outside history. But this outiide the special field of knowledge where it merely implies an attempt to perpetuate histori- was first formulated and applied, that is to say, in cally determined values and value criteria, and so far as it becomes a principle that is relevant to thus also to perpetuate their real socio-economic all knowledge, all human activity. Needless to say, basis. the further development of science and philosophy, limiting the possibilities of applying this knowl- that Friedrich Lange should reproach the materialists who edge beyond the bounds of a specialised field, also elaborate a world view on the basis of science: "The mere significance. This limitation intention of building-a limits its world-view ,philosophical world view exclusively and enrich- on the foundation of the natural sciences should today b'e is at the same time also concretisation branded as philosophical superficiality of the worst s'ort." ment of the content of the theoretical proposition' (F. A, Lange, Geschichte des Materialisrzzs, zweites Buch, The natural scientific proposition on the exis- Leipz.ig, 18-i5, S. -f90.) Lange obviously oversimplifies the tence an infinite number of worlds became part question of the theoretical foundations of of the materialist gav-e- rise philoso_phical world view, reducing its content merely to of materialist philosophy because it generalisation of the data of the riatural sciences. to the conclusions thaf the LJniverse could not 280 281 have been created and cannot be destroyed. These dialectical materialism has increasingly tended to conclusions undermined theism, creationism and rule out such unfounded universalisation of prin- provided solid grounds for the atheist world view. ciples, the bounds of whose application are The mechanistic explanation of the phenomena revealed by the development of related sciences. of nature acquired w6rld-view significince when Darwin's evolutionary theory evoked furious it was carried beyond the bound-s of mechanics attacks not so much from the biologists as from and natural science in general. Descartes, who the theologians and idealist philosophers, because regarded anim_als as a special kind of machine, it rejected the teleological explanation of the vital Hobbes, who declared thit the human heart is a processes and thus became the basis for the mate- pump,- Lamettrie, _who claimed that"not only the rialist repudiation of all teleology in general. animals but man himself is a machine, werl the World-view conclusions from the discoveries of people^who transformed the mechanicai explana- natural science are often drawn bv natural tion of -pherqom-ena into a philosophical world- scientists themselves. It sometimes hafpens that view principle. Marx pointed out that the atoms philosophers oppose the world-view comprehen- of Democritus amount to a natural scientific the- sion of scientific discoveries, since these discov- ory, which in the hands of Epicurus. thanks to eries come into conflict with their own world his -using rI to explain human bthaviour, becomes view. Some idealists, for instance, argued that a philosophical th-eory. Darwin's theory had no significance beyond the ,Extrapola-tion, universalisation of certain prop- bounds of biology. Bergson tried to disprove the ositions and even the principles of sBeciitisid theory of relativity not on natural scientific but science, i.e., their convlrsiori into world-view on philosophical grounds. principles, may arouse legitimate obiections. After One and the same natural scientific discovery is all, it is quite obvious that absolutiiing the prin- differently interpreted in different philosophical ciples of mechanics cannot lead to a sclentifii un- doctrines. From Darwin's teaching, for instance, derstanding of -non-mechanical phenomena, par- some philosophers deduced the reactionary, pseu- ticularly the individual and sociil phenomeni of doscientific conception of social Darwinism. A human life. This is true, of course, but one has to philosophical world view is never a mere summing take into consideration the fact that the mecha- up, a simple generalisation of the data obtained nistic world -view, which ousted the theological and by the natural sciences; it is a unique integral' also the, hylozoistic interpretation of tiL world interpretation of these data from certain philo- was undoubtedly a tremendous step forward in sophical (for instance, materialist or idealist, ra- the deveJopment of cognition. And this is its tionalist or irrationalist) positions. historical iustifi cation. Our characterisation of the philosophical world Science, . and philosophy's overcoming of mecha- view would be incomplete if we did not take into nicism did not involve its-being replaced by a new, account its emotional charge, which is conditioned one-sided theory about the niture of phenr-rmena. by its social, practical basis, by people's various The progress oi science and the dev6lopment of aspirations, needs, beliefs and hopes, their attitude 232 to the world around them and to themselves. If promise *, ,r. future, and thus rules out any we describe as emotions people's feelings about absolutising of the conclusions reached by science their relationship to the world around them and at any particular, historically limited stage in its themselves, it becomes clear that the philosophical history.-Any specialised science inevitably and (and scientifco-philosophical) world view cannot with good t"uiot limits its field of vision. But confine itself to the analysis and comprehension this restriction cannot be absolute because the of the theoretical aspect of this relationship. The frasment of reality which it studies is part of personal character of human emotions acquires the"whole and in to*. *uy expresses thaf whole. general expression in any philosophical world In this sense, any science in some way or another view. Hence philosophers not only discuss various considers the world as a whole. Not a single questions, explain and interpret certain phenom- science can absolutely isolate the object of its ena or processes; they condemn some views and specialised rbsearch. affirm others, condemn one thing and defend On the contrary, it must be aware of its connec- another, in other words, they feel, struggle, hope, tion with the whole, which any scientist directly believe and so on. And this is true not merely of appreciates as a connection with the research tar- the personality of the philosopher taken separately eels of other sciences. No one can be a specialist from his doctrine, but also of the doctrine itself, in all fields of knowledge, and this is not essential in which human passions are transformed into a for any science. But what is undeniably needed in specific philosophical form, but of course do not any specialised science is an awareness of histor- disappear. This is why the scientifico-philosoph- ical tiorizons, of prospects, of the methodological ical world view has a social and emotional im- assumptions of siientlfic knowledge at the level plication. it has- reached. And this is what the scientifico- The scientifico-philosophical world view devel- philosophical world view, the building of which, ops by means of theoretical synthesis of scientific as the development of Marxism has shown, pre- data and historical experience with certain definite supposes complete overcoming of the metaphys- social, party positions, which thus become part of icif juxtaposition of philosophy to the specialised its content, and form its social inspiration and sciences and social practice, gives the scientist. moral ideal. Hence a world view is a critical N. N. Semyonov says, "Philosophy can play its summing up of scientific data that makes it pos- active part'in the development oi the scientific sible to draw conclusions not diiectly obtainable world view only if it takes its place on a par with from any of the specialised sciences. Needless to the other scientes as their fully established col- say, the critical character of the scientific philo- league, that is to say, as a specialised science with sophical world view does not consist in correcting its llearly defined'subject of inquiry, available the findings of the specialised sciencesl philosophy for thorough and concrete study like the subject- does not possess the expertise for that. The scien- matter of any other science."l tifico-philosophical world view takes into con- 1 N. N. Semyonov, "Marxist-Leninist Philosophy and sideration both the history of cognition and its Problems of Natuial Science", Rommunist,l968, No. l0 p' 49. 284 285 The contradiction between the all-embracing Chapter Five character of human knowledge and its necessary NATURE embodiment in a specialised-scientific form, thl OF PHILOSOPHICAL PNOBLEMS contradiction betwe6n specialisation and the trend towards intggration of scientific knowledge-this is what makes the scientifico-philosophical world view absolutely necessary, growing as it does from science and social practice, from the greatest social movement yet known in the history of man, the objective content of which is the corirmunist trans- formation of the world. Marxism's scientifico-philosophical world view is a radical dialectical repudiaiion of philosophy in the old sense of the wbrd, i.e., ttre itritosoihv r. QUESTIONS THAT CANNOT BE that could not find any rational mearis of c6m'- LEFT UNANSWERED prehending the data of science and practice so that it could on equal terms with the othtr sciences, The first theoretical questions sprang historigally without claiming any special benefits or privileges, from the soil of everyday observation of the phe- serve the theoretical cognition and practical trans- nomena of nature and human life, private and formation of the world. "It is no longer a philos- public. But everyday experience, though it may ophy at all, but simply a world outlook-which allow one to a greater or less extent to describe has to establish its validity and be applied not in phenomena, does not offer sufficient material to a science of sciences standing apari,- but in the explain the causes, the essence, the laws of positive sciences. Philosophy is therefore 'sublat- phenomena. The philosophers and naturalists of ed' here, that is, 'both oveicome and preserved'; ancient times and the Middle Ages were, as a overcome as regards its form, and preserved as rule, unaware of this, that is to say, they failed regards its real content."l The converJion of phi- to grasp the fact that mere everyday observation losophy into a scientifico-philosophical world view is not enough to enable us to solve theoretical is the fulfilment of a trend that was present em- problems, and gave their answers without more bryonically in the very earliest materialist doc- ado. trines; as philosophical thought has developed, Thales did not confine himself to stating that a this-trend has steadily-gathered strength, becoming magnet attracts metal; he asked why this hap- with the emergence of Marxism a law of develop- pened. For his answer he resorted to the well- ment. known and, as it seemed to him, perfectly com- prehensible conception of the soul. Heraclitus did the same when he maintained that a drunken man could because his 1 F. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 166. not stand straight soul, a bright fire and hence extremely dry by nature, had be- inaestigatory questions, the posing of which can come damp. only help to give some direction towards what is Lucretius asked why sea water is salty. His unknown. reply was that the sea sweats, and sweat, as eyery- The formation of specialised scientific disci- one knows, is salty.l The ancient Romans did not plines is inseparable from the development of do without salt in their cooking, which was quite special methods of observation, inquiry and test- how salt sophisticated,-formed. but they were ignorant of ing, by means of which the scientist discovers is The questions could only be answered phenomena and relations between them that are by someone with a scientific concepti-on of the inaccessible to everyday experience. As the spe- chemical elements and their compounds, able to cialised sciences develop, the posing of theoretical carry out experiments. Such knowledge was not questions tends to become, like the answers to available to the ancients. Their answers were these questions, more and more the result of based on extremely daring analogies. The modern inquiry, that is to say, it loses its immediate, direct man finds it hard to understand why the thinkers form. Specialised, theoretical'questions occur only of early times believed their assumptions, which in the mind of the specialist, and are of direct *e.e a[ least unfounded, to be firmly established interest only to him. Here, as in other spheres of truths. They were already adept at distinguishing scientific activity, the social division of labour between opinion and truth, but they all seem to exerts its inevitable effect. have believed that other people, the "crowd", So, whereas in the course of their development were purveyors of opinion, and not themselves. the specialised scientific disciplines tend to get Plato says: "If You put a question to a person further away from immediate (everyday) expe- properly, lie will give i true inswer of himielf."2 rience, philosophy is always closely connected One miy agree that leading questions iryply u with it and hence with the questions that spring certain answer that is not immediately obvious. from it. This is true not only of materialist doc- But Plato is talking about any question. The trines but also of the most abstract idealist theo- proper posing of. any question, however, presumes a ries, which would seem at first glance to be com- i 238 2E9 Everyday experience tells us about many ex- The ancient atomistic materialism, though based tremely important things. It tells us that people are on the facts of everyday experience, strikes out born and die, fall asleep and wake up, experience lesolutely beyond its boundaries. The arguments joy and sorrow, treat each other in different ways, of the atomists show that their speculative notions love and hate, strive for various goals, grow old, about absolutely solid atoms and absolute vacuum become sick, and so on. It would be naive to were an attempt to explain such facts observed in assume that these facts, which the early philos- everyday life as the motion of bodies, differences ophers sought to understand, are of no interest to in the sfecific weight of substances, etc. S. I. Va- the philosophers of today. They have, it is true, vilov writes in this connection: "The most natural become the subject oI specialised research. AII conclusion is that the atomism of the ancients is the same they are still of great interest to every- not some amazing feat of insight, an anticipation one and cannot therefore fail to hold the attention of the future of siience, but a qualitative formula- of philosophers. tion that followed almost inevitably and un- Philosophy is mainly interested in what is equivocally from everyday observation."l known to everyone and yet still remains incom- We see that the first philosophers are interested prehensible. "The known in general is what it is mainly in what everyone knows, in what eyeryone because it is hnoun, but not yet cognised,,"l Hegel has giown so accustomed to that no one thinks of says. A man who begins to reason about what is questioning it. The fact that philosophy begins known but not cognised makes a problem of some- with a theoretical examination of the world that thing that previously seemed clear to him mainly is open to everyone is a great step forward in because he had never thought about it before. mankind's intellectual develbpment, because man's Everyone knows that horses are born of horses, environment had up to then been cloaked in a fog that a cherry-tree grows from a cherry-stone, and of religious notions. In this sense philosophy so on. The philosophy of early times, proceeding opens up a world that everyone has seen and per- from such commonplace facts, arrived at general- ceived but does not yet know, something real, isations: like is born of like, everything has certain compared with the unreal of which religious definite beginnings ("seeds of things"), nothing legend talks with such assurance. comes of nothing and nothing becomes nothing. At every step people encounter phenomena that These abstract propositions are inferences from are well known to them and yet so incomprehen- everyday experience, although they generalise too sible that they never pause to think of the mystery widely for the limited data available. behind the obvious. Such commonly observed phe- nomena may be compared with subliminal per- contains some rneaning, one must possess extremely subtle ceptions. But there comes a moment when a man gifts." These words amount to an apology for idealism, starts asking questions about and which rejects the idea of the reflection of. reality and at the familiar the same time builds speculative constructions that are by no means devoid of a certain meaning. 1 1 S. I. Vavilov, Uorks in six volumes, Moscow, 1956, G.W.F. Hegel, Sdmtliche Uerhe, Bd. 2, S. 33. Vol. 3, p. 45. 240 24t eommon_place. does Why fire burn? Why is ice of Hades, where each received a reward or punish- cold? Why does a stone that is thrown up return ment for its deeds on earth. The aqcient philos- to earth? Man starts philosophising because the ophers (idealist as well as materiaiist) are not familiar has suddenly become mysterious, he 'merely and satisfied with this claim because is a wants to solve the it mystery. He may, for instance, claim and has nothing to support Even become interested it. those in what distinluishes dream who agree with it dissitisfied because every from reality. question _remain This will never occur to the assertion about that which not seen to' non-philosopher, who is is b; firmly convinced that he obvious must be substantiated. The necessity for will never mix up what he has dreamt with what srrbs^tantiation, for reasonable grounds, emerges in exists in reality. The philosopher may be equally the form of questions. What islhe soul? Hor,ri does convinced of the same thing, but he demands a it differ frory the body? Is it possible for the soul reason for it, so that the difference between these to apart from the body? Did the soul exist two phenomena can established the -exist be not on before the man was born? Witt exist after his basis p-ersonal it of impressions but by proceeding death? If so, why? How then does death differ from a definite criteribn of realitv. from life? Is death an absolute evil? Or perhaps it the works philosophJrs, and In of ancient is not an evil at all but a blessing? Is be modern, diath tir we find explanations of such psycholog- feared? How can the fear of death be conquered? ical states as joy, grief, compassion, anger, despair, All these questions,arise from everyday exptrience hope, pride and contempt, despite the fact that as soon- as one begins to analyse it'and' thus break anyone who,does not study philosophy is perfect- away from the ieligious explanation of things, ly capable of distinguishing one state from another which rules out any independent asking aia on the basis his experience. phi- of own But the answering of questions on one's own account. For losopher seeks to detect the inner connection be- as soon as a man answers questions, particularly tween psychical different states. He may, for in- questions that were never aiked befoie his tim6, stance, single feelings pleasant out that are and or which he poses in a new way, he becomes a unpleasant and take them as basic, elementary philosopher. And the! it turns out that, proceeding emotions. He then tries to classify the multi- from everyday experience plicity and the no[ions arisin[ of human emotions as various modifications from it, he comes to conclusions that in one wav pleasure non-pleasure, of and i.e., to reveal the or another contradict these notions. This contra'- universal forms inherent in emotion and sensi- diction must be resolved. But everyday experience bility, trace these manifesta- -refer to the unity of all is too restricted. It becomes necessary to to tions, to assess each one of these emotions ethi- historical experience, to the experience proceeding of all cally, from a conception of what mankind whose countless generations hand down constitutes the highest Good for man, and thus their accumulated knowleiige to one another. It substantiate a clearly defined moral ideal. becomes necessary to turn to-the numerous special- According to Greek mythology, the souls of the ised sciencef, eaih of which is discovering'objec- dead descended into the subterranean kingdom tive truths in its admittedly restricted fie"ld. the 242 243 of the century, did not foresee that the develop- history of philosophy shows, however, that philos- ment of cinematic equipment and its use in ophers very rarely had the courage to take this biology, physics, astronomy and other sciences decisive step. would open up fresh possibilities for a more pro- Thus we see that philosophy never loses interest found understanding of the processes of motion, in the evidence of everyday experience and the change and growth. questions that it raises. This unique quality of Existentialism, in asserting philosophy's perma- philosophy, which casts light on the origin of many nent affinity to the "human reality", seeks to proye philosophical problems, is interpreted quite wrong- that philosophical problems, unlike those of science, ly by idealism. We shall now examine some always have a personal significance, a meaning for idealist interpretations of the essence of philosoph- the individual. Pointing out the tendency of ical problems, since this will help us to elucidate science to turn everything personal into a subject their actual specific qualities. of specialised inquiry, pointing out the progres- Henri Bergson, obviously ignoring the indis- sive differentiation of scientific knowledge, and its soluble unity of cognition and life and treating technological significance, existentialism declares the latter as the essence of all that exists, asserts that scientific problems relate only to things, that the basic philosophical questions cannot be whereas philosophical problems treat of being, of solved by the soulless methods of science, which life, which cannot be subjected to scientific inquiry are alien to immediate, directly perceived life. precisely because it has no objective form. Natural science's theory of time, he believes, does What is studied by science is allegedly outsid'e not account for its true nature-duration, becom- human existence, whereas philosophy, according to ing-which is revealed only to the vital sense, to Karl Jaspers, "asks about being, which is cog- intuition and instinct, which are independent of nised thanks to the f.act that I myself am",L science. The inability of science to solve philo- Science, Jaspers says, is not capable of pointing sophical problems, particularly the problem of out the purpose of life or answering the question becoming, arises from the nature of thought, which of its o*n meaning; such questions as God, free- can conceive of motion only as the sum of states dom, duty are alien to it. Gabriel Marcel, devel- of rest because "the mechanism of our eaeryday oping the same theme, argues that science is con- cogniti,on is cinematographi.c in character",L all.d cerned with problems, and philosophy with mys- science is not in principle in any way different teries. from everyday cognition. "Modern science," he If one considers the existentialist interpretation says, "like that of ancient times, proceeds accord- of the specific nature of philosophical problems, ini; to the cinematographic method. It cannot do it becomes clear that existentialism absolutises and otfierwise; all science is subject to this law."2 makes a mystery not only of philosophy's link Bergson, who wrote these lines at the beginning with everyday experignce, but also of the charac- I H. Bergson, CEuares,p,753. t K. Jaspers, Philosophie, Berlin, 1932, Bd. I, S. 324. 2 lbid., p. 773. 245 244 teristic features of the problems of idealism and as science has nothing to do with "human reality". of philosophical problems in general. Needless to Even when it investigates man, it deals with say, many philosophical problems, particularly in things. Thus, the essence of philosophy, according the form in which they are posed by idealism (and to the existentialists, lies n-ot in answering the particularly existentialism) are indeed alien to questions posed, but in the way the questionl are science. But it is one thing to state this fact, and posed. Paul Ricoeur, who is near to eiistentialism, another to pretend that it is true of all philosophy. 4eclares categorically: "The great philosopher Existentialism turns philosophical problems into is the man who discoyers a new way of asking mysteries, unknowable mysteries. This is not, of question5."1 course, a new interpretation of philosophical prob- It is not hard to see that existentialism abso- lems regarded from the standpoint of the history lutises one of the actual features of philosophical of philosophy. Zeno of Elea's aporia, and Greek problems, the fact that they are originalll. com- scepticism in general, implied a denial of any prehended as questions, which the thinker puts to possibility of solving philosophical problems. reality and hence to himself. The historical begin- According to Kant, the problems arising from ning of philosophy is important not for its stite- the basic, a lriori metaphysical ideas, are theoret- m-enls but for the_questions that they imply. When ically insoluble. Kant's doctrine on the antinomies Thales declares thit everything comes fiom water implied that turning a philosophical problem into and returns to water, the most interesting thing an antinomy was as far as theoretical inquiry could about this belief is the question: Does eveiythinf proceed. Hartman's assumption of the insoluble consist of one thing? Is not the whole sinsibly residue that remains in any philosophical problem perceived multiformity of things merely the mode is a toned-down version of this idea of Kant's. of existence of some one thing?2 Existentialism seeks to put a new interpretation Anaximander of Miletus, Anaximenes and on the old proposition of the fundamental insolu- Heraclitus answer the same question. These think- philosophical problems. bility of Inquiry into any ers are original not because one says the origin of philosophical problem from this standpoint all things is "indefinable matter", another "open" o'fire", "air" amounts to nothing more than making it and the third but because in developinE the to the consciousness, i.e., in bringing home iis question posed by Thales they ask what pibpirties intransient meaning. The existentialist truth of a this one substance must possess for so many things philosophical problem consists precisely in this "openness", which makes no claim to be a solution. t P. Rt.*ur, Histoire et adrit6, Paris, 1955, p. 78. z Existentialist truth is truth man, but by no It should not be assumed, however, that Thales' an- for swer is not-historically, means objective the existentialists term of course-of any scientific interest. truth, what Bertrand Russell writes: "The statement that everything "impersonal" or "depersonalised" truth. Science, is made of water is to be regarded as a scientific hypoihesis-; on the other hand, resolves problems by 'oclosing" and.by- no means a_ foolish one. Twenty years'igo, thi them, locking them up in files and forgetting received view was that everything is midJ of hyfrogen, justifiable which is two thirds of water." (B. Russell, History'o1 Phl- about them. This is a claim in so far losophy, pp. aa-a5.) 246 217 to have originated from it. The Eleatic school world. The surprising thing is that in Anaxagoras's denies that the diversity perceived by tb..- senses theory of homoeomeries we find a brilliant insight could arise from one or even many sensibly per- into ihe molecular structure of matter, and in ceived principles. Their fundamental belief mq.y Democritus and Leucippus. the idea of the existence be formlulateil as a question: Does not the sensibly of atoms. The history of alchemy, like that of perceived arise from that which is not perceived ancient and medieval philosophy, left to coming by the senses and does not possess the properties generations of researchers answers that are mainly perceived things? of significance as evidence of the posing of certain of sensibly "out W. Heistnberg points that what primarily quest-ions. However, what the existentialists pre- interests the natural scientist in philosophy is "the sent as an eternal law of development of philos- statement of the question, while the answer takes ophy, actually characterises only certain periods only second place. Statements of questions appe-ar ii iire deveiopment of philosophical and also to him extremely valuable if they turn out to be natural scientifit knowledfe. It is not eternal fate fruitful in deveioping human ttiought. The an- but the concrete history of philosophical problems swers, on the other hand, are mostly of a transient that allows us to trace the^development not only nature, losing their significance in the course of of questions but also of answers. Eduard Spranger time thanks t-o our wider knowledge of the facts'"l is orofoundlv mistaken therefore when he declares In support of this idea Heisenberg refers above orit. in the spirit of existentialism: "No one all to Democritus and Plato and stresses that even obtuit t in philbsophy an answer that is wiser than for the modern theory of elementary particles the questidn that prbvoked it."l In one historical the questions posed by these thinkers have retained situation the quesfions that philosophy poses are more important than the answers it gives to them, theii striking: i*pottut-lost ce, whereas their answers have naturilly their value. Heisenberg is in anothir historical situation the picture may be perfectly right in assuming that philos-ophica! ouite' different. iroblems oiltgrou in significance their limited The existentialist devaluation of philosophical tolutions ptoui"d.d by phiiosophers and, let us add, answers is a revival of the sceptical interpretation natural scientists as well. However, a closer exam- of the results of philosophical development, an ination of these questions that were posed so unsubstantiated extension of trends that were long ago reveals thlt they retain,theirsignificance inevitable at certain stages in the development of in the"present in so far is they have been reified philosophy to the naturi of philosophical knowl- and developed, and this was p6ssible only because ?:dse in gineral. Existentialist philosophy restricts they were in some way or other answered. its-task to the scrupulous analysis of questions, Ii would be naive tb expect scientific answers and understandabla so since scientific data are even from the philosophers of the 17th and 18th ionsidered to be vilueless for providing answers. centuries, let alone the philosophers of the ancient The existentialists maintain, foi example, that the L (.lniuersitas, r M. Planck, Zum Ged'enhen, Berlin, 1959, S. 44. Stuttgart, Juni 1964, Heft 6, S. 563. 248 249 problem of man is of great urgency and the something that we acquire unconsciously, without answers to the questions it asks ars becoming ever the intervention of the will. "These are the expe- more difficult to find, despite the fact that dozens riences we have simply by virtue of being awake of scigqtific disciplines are engaged in the study of -with our senses alive and functioning, with an man. Here they obviously ignore the fact that it is awareness of our inner feelings or states, but the multitude and diversity of scientific data about without asking any questions, without trying to man that create quite natural difficulties when it test any conjectures, theories, or conclusions, comes to making a philosophical generalisation, without making a single deliberate effort to ob- not to mention the additional fact that the inten- serve anything."l sification of antagonistic contradictions of the pres- At bottom Adler counterposes everyday expe- ent age has added to the urgency of the problem. rience not only to scientific knowledge but to The statement of the fatt that philosophical knowledge in, general, since ordinary conscious- problems take shape initially on the basis of every- ness does not, in his opinion, form part of everyday day experience becomes its distortion when every- experience, but is only its interpretation. He states day experience is declared to be the only source that everyday experience asserts nothing and de- of philosophical problems. This is basiially the nies nothing: "It is neither true nor false; it is position of neo-Thomism. Otherwise it would have simply whatever it is."2. This implies that everyday to renounce the teaching of "Doctor Angelicus", experience is in principle irrefutable, since only which reflected the historical limitations of his age assertions or'denials are refutable, whereas every- and the condition of science at that time. day experience is an assemblage of spontaneously The American neo-Thomist Mortimer J. Adler formed impressions and feelings as a result of asserts that philosophy "relies on and"appeals which the individual eats, drinks, sleeps, wakes only to the common experience of mankind *hich, up, notices the passing of the seasons, of day and at its core, is the same for all men, at all times and night, distinguishes life from death, rest from places".l From this proposition on the changeless motion, heat from cold, and so on. By cutting down "core of common experience" that is the same the sphere of experience to the bare minimum and for all times and peoples Adler infers that the excluding from it the elements related to the dev- problems of philosophy bear no relation to those elopment of society, its material and spiritual of science, and that the solution of these problems culture, man's labour activity, Adler makes this does not depend on ihe level of scientific knowl- metaphysically interpreted experience the sole edge. The untenability of this argument lies first of object of philosophical comprehension. From this all in the attempt to create a dichotomy between standpoint all philosophers at all times have pos- everyday experience and scientific experiment. sessed exactly the same material and differ from Everyday experience, according to Adler, is one another only by giving different interpreta- tions of it. =-Tlbil--" I M, Adler, The Cond,itions of Philosopiy, New York, pp. 102-103. 1965, p. l7l. 2 Ibid., p. 102. 250 25t Once we assume a core of immutable human experie-nce it is but one step further to assume to a narrowly interpreted indi,aidual experience; changeless human nature. Ont myth is enlisted to in other words, Adler completely ignores social supp-ort an-other. But in fact they'only expose one and historical experience. So, philosophical prob- another. There is no such thing-as this chingetess lems are, so to sprjak, shut up in a cage of everyday exp_erience that asseits nothing; nor is narrow and unchanging everyday experience. there any such thing as changeless humai nature. With its capacities thus rigidly curtailed philoso- Everyday experience whose- significance in the phy is denied the right to pass judgement on process of the formation of philoiophical problems rnatters outside the commonplace. is quite obvious, historically develobs and becomes The next conclusion that neo-Thomist restric- richer thanks to production, tion of philosophy to the metaphysically inter, cognitibn-facts and science, so that even the elementary that people's preted sphere, of everyday experience imposes is consciousness has registered throughout the iges also self-evident: philosophy can obtain nothing are^variously apprehended and therefore play vdry from science. Neo-Thomism ignores the philosoph- different roles. The people of tribal soiiety, for ical problems posed by the sciences, although it instance, of Ancient Greece, of the Chiistian is not averse to using scientific data to "confirm" Middle Ages, and the epoch of the Renaissance theological speculations. It may easily be assumed apprehended the elemenlal forces of nature, the that the neo-Thomist understanding of the immediate social environment, human birth, death, peculiar nature of philosophical problems per- ald so on, in different ways. Adler may retort, petuates the opposition of philosophy to science o{ course, that appraisal oi various phenomena, under the pretext of ensuring philosophy's the attitude adopted towards them, does not form "autonomy", that is to say, its right to preach part of-everyday experience and can only be anti-scientific views. regarded its interpretation. But this argument Both existentialism and neo-Thomism approach -as the question of the specific nature philosophy falls to -the ground because we are not ialking of about theoretical conceptions, but about hoi without regard for history, whereas, in fact, it is people of various epochs apprehended, exBerienced, essential to distinguish at least a few periods inthe clrtain events. Despite Adler's assertions, every- history of philosophy. There was a time day experience is iever "simply whatever it ij', when philosophy was able to anticipate the prob- that is to say, it is always co[oired, in some way, lems of the specialised sciences that had not yet quite apart from its interpretation. come into being. The character of philosophical Adler refuses to consider people's experience of problems chan.qed substantially in the period when life in all its diversity. He rel'uses to^ take into these sciences arose and philosophy became iuxta- consideration what di_stinguishes the everyday posed to them. It was at this point that rationalist experience of one people from that of another, of metaphysics posed the problem of knowledge one historical epoch from that of another. The beyond experience, i.e., superscientific knowledge, whole content of everyday experience is reduced which is alien to the sciences. Incidentally it is not hard to see in this approach to the question the 252 258 quite iustifiable need to overcome narrow empiric- a-t al\, -but imagined questions that disappear in iim wtrich was understood in philosophy earlier the light of logical sernantic analysis, turns out than in natural science. Paradoxical though it may to be theoretically unfounded. Logical positivism seem, the metaphysical problem of knowledge neglected to make a qualitative typological bevond experienie arose on the basis of the scient- analysis of philosophical problems. Noi wis it ific development of the New Age. able to detect the kernel of truth that is to be The problems of the origin of theoretical knowl- found in the way many philosophical problems edge, the relationship between the rational and are_posed by speculative-idealist philosophy. thd sensual, between theory and practice, the- prob-- Needless to say, there have been and stiil are as well as real problems in phi- lems of proof, logicil--research inference, criterion of truth -pseudoproblems and theoretical in general-alI these losophy. Medieval scholastic philosophy, pariicu- problems which inspired philosophy in^the lTth larly when it was laying itself out to subslantiate ienturv took shape under the direct influence of the Christian dogmas, invented a good many mathematics, mechanics and the experimental pseudoproblems. Ignoring the scholastic "prob- science of those days. The investigation of these lems" that are not philosophical at all ("Can problems fertilised'not only philoiophy but also God create a rock that He is-unable to lift?'i) one the soecialised sciences. may cite the question of whether God could cieate the world out of nothing a Tlius the reduction of -anphilosophical problems to as an example of everyday experience is obviously untenable pseudoproblem. The hallmark of the pseudoprob- porition. Ontotogical as well as epistemologlg?l lem is unfoundedness of all its implied contepts problems reach out far beyond its bounds. Phil- qnd 'assumptions. No one has ever proved osophical problems both in origln and-co-ntent are that therc was a time when the world did not orsanicallv related to the whole multiform his- exist. Absolute genesis is a conception that cannot toiical, uira particularly spiritual, activity of be confirmed by even one exam[le. Nevertheless mankind. Some philosophical proble-ms are directly the theologian propounds the qu6stion not only of connected with ihe deielopment of special scien- absolute genesis but also of the creation (a !er- tific knowledge, others have an indirect bearing sonal a-ct, presuming the existence of a ciealor), on them. Even the philosophical problems that and, what is more, out of nothing. But what is express the essential- content of man's personal noth-ing? If it exists, then it must be something. lifi undergo considerable changes under the influ- The neo-positivists, who have turned the con- ence of the specialised sciences. cept of the pseudoproblem into a universal philosophical problems, of weapon for combating "metaphysical" philosophy, There ur6 some - course, that do not ht in with fhe scientific have been unable to supply even a half-satisfai- approach. But they, as a rule, do not fit in either tory definition of this Concept. This is natural #itt tt. evidence'of everyday experience. So, the cnough because they have put too wide an inter- declaration of logical positivism t-o the effect that pretation on the concept of the pseudoproblem philosophical pro-blemi are, in fact, not problems without drawing any distinction bet*een it-and the 254 problem which, though obscured and falsely pro- research can give a concrete answer concerning pounded, is actually quite real. Most of the philos- any individual problem, pseudo or wrongly stated. ophical problems which the neo-positivists (and The neo-positivists obviously made things easier others) rCgard as pseudoproblems are in fact mere,ly for themselves when they declared all historically problems that have been wrongly propounded' The formed philosophical problems to be non-existent in reality. As Piaget observes, "nothing gives problem of the first cause is, I would say, a- J. pseudoproblem because the concept of final grounds for defining a problem as scientific lypical juxtaposition cause and effect has significance only when ap- or metaphysical".l The a priori of plied to individual phenomena, and becomes quite scientifiC and philosophical problems undoubtedly meaningless in rel'ation to the lJniverse as a restricts the ability of science to solve problems whole. On the other hand, the problem of a preor- that are misstated owing to lack of information or dained harmony propounded by Leibnitz would other historically determined causes. Scie,nce, problem, seem be a real problem, wrongly formulated, Piaget says, is capable of solving any to 'open' concerning the unity of the world and the univer- i.e., it "is essentially and retains its freedom sal conneition of all phenomena. Equally real, to embrace more and more new problems, which thoueh wrongly formulated, so it seems to me, it wants to solve and can solve to the extent that is th"e probieir'of innate ideas, which to Locke it finds methods of interpreting them".2 Thus, we and other empiricists appeared !o be utterly have no right to reject out of hand the problems devoid of meariing. M. K. Mamardashvili poi-nts propounded by idealism merely because they are out: "The proposltion of 17th-century idealist inevitably stated in mystifying terms; these prob- rationalism tn innate ideas was influenced by the lems must be deciphered. This is how scientific fact that in scientific knowledge, taken as a inquiry into idealist philosophy should be con- criticism. separate element (an 'idea'), one finds not- on-ly ducted, in the teeth of vulgar pioperties generated by the presence of the The interrelation of real, imaginary and mis- iepirate obiict of this knowledge existing outside stated problems reflects, though far from directly, dichotomy between materialism thb consciousness, but also properties generated in the fundamental it bv the connection with other knowledge and the senLral svstem of thousht. This is the actual sub- 1 J. Piaget, Sagesse et illusions de la philosophie, Paris, Iect and of the"rationalist thesis, the real 1965, p. 60. tort.. 2 Like philosophy, the history of the specialised sciences Lroblem of the theorv of innate ideas concealed has had its pseudoproblems and misstated questions, Even ilehind the historical context of their specific here it is impossible to give a formula dividing one type of problem from the other. The problems must be inves- assimilation and expression."-show examples that there is no formal tigated and only then can it be decided what they are worth These and what confent they express. "There are no criteria," attribute that makes it possible to draw a funda- Max Planck writes, "for deciding a priori. whether from mental line of distinction between the pseudo- the standpoint of physics a problem has meaning or not." problem and the wrongly stated problem; only the (M. Planck, Aortuiige und Erinnerungen, Stttttgart, 1949, actual development of cognition and special s.224.) 256 and idealism. It would be a tremendous oversim- not only the most general laws of all that exists, plification to present the situation as if real but also the content of any law. What is truth? problems have 6een dealt with only by materialist What is knowledge? What is law? What is philosophy. No matter how hostile materialism matter? What is man? What is the world? The and idealism may be to one another, these dichot- very form of these questions differs from the omies are dialectical, since materialism and qr.'rtirm that usually^confront the physicist, the questions, from idealism usually discuss the same Chemist or any other natural scientist. For the which it should not be inferred, however, that chemist, such questions as "What is metal?", no the questions themselves are neutral and bear "What is a metalloid?", 'oWhat is an element?" possible Philosophical relation to their solutions. are of secondary importance, because his primary problems are not simply sentences that end in a interest is in the spEcial properties of each indi- question mark. They miy be assertions or denials, vidual metal, metailoid oi element, or their com- they are not free of certain assumptions and quite pounds. The question of the "What is.. .?" type a oft6n they represent a tentative formulation of is, of course, not without meaning in chemistry or certain piinciple that demands substantiation. The any other specialised science, but in philosophy idealism opposition between materialism and it is of primary importance. manifests itself not only in the different answers The lorm of the philosophical question, like any philo- given to questions that are common to both form, expresses the peculiar nature of its content. sophical theories, but also in the existence of Diderot says: "the physicist . . . will reiect the of prob- opposite-materialist and idealist-sets question 'What for?'-and concentrate only on the lems, in the existence of materialist and idealist question 'How?'".1 question "'What for?", problems. stand- The ways of stating these From this particularly in natural philosophy, makes a teleo- materialism, ideal- poiirt it may b? said tLat -like Iogical assumption, and the physicist, consciously questions own. Specifically ism, has spicial of its or'- unconsciously basing himself on materialism, pseudoproblems and idealist questions-are partly repudiates it. The physicist is far more interested a perfectly partly wiongly stated-problems with thin the philosophir in the question "How?" than real content. the quest'ion "'Why?". Philosophy, on the other juxtaposition philosophical The metaphysical of handl is not satisfied with knowing merely how just ignoring and scientifc problems is as bad as certain processes take place. It wants to know them, described the qualitative difference between why they take place in one way and not another' abovt. This qualitative distinction depends not so The phiiosopher, for instance, asks not only "Do much on the specific nature of philosophical prob- we kirow tlie world?" or "How do we know the lems as on their content. world?" He also asks "Why is the world know- Optimum universality is a qualitative character- able?", "Why do we know it?". istic in so far as we are discussing not one or another truth that has general and necessary sig- I nificance, but also the nature of truth in general, ' D. Diderot, CEuares philosophiques, Paris 1961, pp. 236-237. 258 17. More than a century ago positivism declared When the natural scientist makes a definite the question 'oWhy?" to be impermissible, meta- hypothesis, which is confirmed by certain facts, pl-rysical and basically insoluble. Yet the history and it is then discovered that other facts con- of science shows that in any special field oi tradict his hypothesis, the question "Why?" arises research this question may in a certain context once again. This was the situation in physics when acquire profound scientific meaning. Newton did it was found that some facts testify to the wave not explain why bodies attract one another and others to the corpuscular nature of light. The not because he thought it a waste of time but answer to this "'Why?" was given by de Broglie, because he was well aware that science did not who proved that the nature of the electron is yet possess the ndcessary data to answer this both corpuscular and wave. question.l Nor does modern physics see this ques- It should be noted, however, that the question tion as a pseudoproblem, although, in attempting "Why?" confronts natural scientists not only in its solution, it has got no further than the hypo- a particular form, but also in its wider philosoph- theses of which Newton so heartily disapproved. ical aspect. "Science," M. V. Keldysh points out, The natural scientist asks the question "Why?" "has still done very little to elucidate such gran- primarily in connection with the concrete data diose problems as the origin of life on Earth, or of observation or experiment, and this immediate- the foundations of the organisation of animate ly distinguishes the natural science form of stat- matter; we do not know how animate matter ing this question from its philosophical state- appeared and why the development it acquired ment. For example, after Albert Michelson's was inevitable."l In this case, as we see, the ques- famous experiment failed to produce the expected tions "How?" and "Why?" have equal statui,2In results, the question naturally arose as to why it making a distinction between the two we should had failed. Einstein replied to this question as not regard them as fundamentally incompatible. follows: ether does not exist and the speed of light To declare any "Why?" a forbidden form of is constant, i.e., cannot increase through the com- question means taking up the agnostic position, pounding of velocities. There were other answers which is what positivism actually did. It is an- to this "Why?". This was no accident because the very form of the question allows a multiplicity I M. V. Keldysh, "Natural Sciences and Their Signifi- of answers. cance", Kommunist, 1966, No. 17, p. 31, 2 Karl Popper is quite consistent when he throws out not been able to discover the cause of those --TTTavE "How?" as well as "Why?", declaring them both meaning- properties gravity from phenomena, no of and I frame less theoretical "Questions hypotheses; for whatever phenom- for naturil science: of origin aie is not deduced from the questions 'Why and how'. They aie relatively ena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether of unimpor- tant from the theoretical standpoint and in general have metaphysical or physicdli whether of 6.'.uti quilities or only (K. mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy." a specific historical interest." Poppei, Misdre de (I. Newton, The Matiematical Piinciptes l'historicisme, Paris, 1956, p. la2.) Natural scientists today of Natural'P'hi- are usually well aware neo-positivism places losophy, London, 1903, Vol. Book p. S14.) should that taboos II, III, It on certain parts science. best proud be noted, however, that Newton nonetheless "frame" of Its exponents can be did of the fact that they never recognised hypotheses, viz., his corpuscular theory of light. any such restrictions. 260 261 other matter that it took philosophy thousands property exists because human nature is such, of years to realise the significance of this he is no different from the ordinary bourgeois question. apologist economist. But let us take the philos- The meaning of the question "Why?" becomes opher who does deal with the question in concrete still more obvious when we turn from the study of terms. Is private property to be identified with nature to the study of society. Natural processes, man's impropriation of the substance of nature in in so far as they are studied in their natural form general?'How does ownership of the means of without the intervention of social production, take production differ from ownership of other things, place spontaneously and, consequently, cannot be personal goods, for example? Have other forms regarded as being at all dependent on mankind. if prop.riy existed in the hirto.y of mankind? Or The socio-historical process, on the contrary, is u.. "piir,ut. property" and "property in general" even in its spontaneous form a result of people's synonymous phrases? Is human nature unchange- common activity. The student of social life has no able?-It is not hard to realise that this posing of right to consider historical events, economic or the question "Why?" reveals how many aspects political facts (for instance, the revolution of 1905 it mdv have. We must not conclude, how6ver, that in Russia, private ownership of the means of pro- a thinker can state his question correctly merely duction, race discrimination) without asking the by wishing to do so; the correct statement of the question "Why?". Needless to say, some historians, question piesupposes both a certain level of knowl- economists and sociologists restrict their task to edge and also certain social prerequisites. establishing and describing facts, the course of The question "Why?" may be relevant or irrel- events, and so on. In this case, ignoring the ques- evant. There is nothing easier than to accompany tion "Why?" often becomes a refusal to make a every statement with a portentous-sounding critical analysis 'and appraisal of social phe- 'o'Why?" without going to the root of the question, nomena. the f-act or subjett about which something has- The philosopher is less able than any other stu- been said. Such questioning becomes a kind of dent of the humanities to ignore the question children's pastime that, of course, has nothing "Why?". In fact, he can never avoid it. This is in common with the essential philosophical ques- not to say, of course, that merely by posing the tion. Children who merely ask "Why?" and question the philosopher safeguards himself adults who imitate children, or remain at their againts a non-critical attitude to social reality; the level, do not become philosophers by doing so. substance of the question is as important as its If the positivists tried at times to reduce philo- form, not to mention the answer. For example, sophicai questions to the child's "Why?", it orrly when speaking of private property, the philos- goes to show that in their noisy polemic against opher, just because he is a philosopher, cannot essentialism, which was supposed to be restoring and usually does not evade the question of why medieval conceptions of occult (i.e., fundamentaly it exists. But if he makes no concrete analysis tinobservable) qualities, they failed to notice the of this question and simply asserts that private essence of philosophical questions and the essen- 262 268 tial relationships in reality to which they reduced to the subject-matter of the specialised refer.l sciences. In other ivords, it is not a particular Analysis of the form of the philosophical ques- way of stating the problem that makes it philo- tion discloses the specific content that cannot be soohical. bui its lontent. Hence even non- philosophers, when they come up against these philosophise. shows that phi- 1 problems, also This It should be emphasised, however, that the child's be solved mathe- "Why?" is by no means always irrelevant. It implies an iosophical probiems cinnot !,v i,mmediate relationship to surrounding phenomena that is matiis, physics or chemistry, although mathe- free of the usual conviction felt by most adults that these matics, physics and chemistry may contribute to customary, apparently commonplace facts are of no interest their solution. Even so, such questions as-What and too well known to warrant attention, particularly since is the nature of the everyone has work to do and not enough time and is no is law? What is truth? What general laws? Why is world-knowable? Ionger a chil'il, etc., etc. Plato and Arisiotle believed sur- most - -the prise to be the beginning of all philosophy. They did not Whv is knowledge a reflection of objective mean the simpie feeling of surprise we experience from reality?-like all other philosophical questions, something unexpected, something we have never heard or the specialised seen, but surpriie at something that was quite common and cannot be answered by-any of well known and never aroused our surprise before. Max sciences because they are related to the content Planck regarded the ability to be surprised as the beginning of. all the sciences. Therefore, while rejecting the of the theoretical approach to phenomena. In his article idealist proposition that philosophical problems "Meaning and Limits of Exact Science" he wrote: "The we maintain that they can be grown m1n loses the abflity to wonder not because he has are abovl siience, resolved the wonderful riddle, but because he has grown solved only scientifically, This means, that the accustomed to the laws of his picture of the world. But solution of'philosophicai problems is founded on why these and not other laws exist is just as surprising and the sum-totil of siientifii data, but the actual inexplicable for the adult as it is for the child. He who these problems, at least in their direct does not understand this situation, and does not recognise solving of its profound significance, who has gone so far that he form rtsts with philosophy. finds nothing to wonder at, discovers in the end merely that So there actually are questions that or]y he has forgotten how to think deeply." (M. Planck, Sizz philosophy can answer, although not without the und Grenzen der exacten Uissenschaft, . Leipzig, 1942, help the other sciences. And it is these, ques- S. 12-13.) Hence Max Planck does not find the queltion as oi to ahy these and not other laws are to be observed in the tions that are actually philosophical Problems. world around us a meaningless question. He believes that This apparentlv obvious statement (what ry Phi- those .who never pause to consider such " questions, i.e., losophy for otherwise?) still demands elucidation, philosophical questions, are incapable of thinking deeply. however, since problems that for centuries were No wonder then that the child's "Why?" strikes Planck as significant and essentially not childiqh at all. "Indeed,!' considered to be philosophical are constantly he writes, "man in the face of measurefessly rich and con- passing into the sphere of the specialised sciences stantly renewing nature, no matter how great his progres$ ind, t[anks to thii, acquiring siientific solutions.l in the field of scientific knowledge, always remains a won- dering child and must be constantly ready .for new'sur- 1 Karl Steinbuch, whose world view combines natural prises," (M. -Planck, Aorbiige und Erinnerungen, Strttgart; siientific materialism with elements of the positivist intir- 1949, s. 379.) pretation of cognition, states that all questions are at first 264 265 ., Close analysis of such problems shows that. culmination, makes for further development and l.lr.y.y.T,. specialised questions and philosophy enrichment of the specifically philosophical studred them,only because there was ,o upp.o_ problems or, in other words, makes the questions lil?lf specialised. science. Tlrus, the q.r.it'irrs ihat philosophy now studies more philosophical, wrrch phrlosophy has been studying-twd for thousands i.e., questions that by their very nature cannot be gl l.ul? may be divided into basic types. solved within the framework of the already exist' {1st, ttrg most general questions, which jrbr., ing or conceivable specialised scientific disciplines. oev-eloped and received certain definite solutioni Naturally the relationship between philosophy in the course of the history pt it"r"piry S;;;;a; and the ipecialised sciences changes accordingly: the,particular- question, i"."tl"".J"'.uiii.."f that philosophy no longer concerns itself with the gradually broke -away from philosophy. preliminaiy preparation of questions that are or the separation from philosophy destined for'the- specialised siiences. Instead of ^"il:_p..o".:lquestrons or that are investigated by the speiial'_ its previous function of speculatively anticipating ised sciences, which in our'time iJ ,;;".hl"g-l;, the-scientific positing of (uestions, philosophy, to the extent that it concerns itself with the problems studied by-.philosophy and of the specialised sciences (by no means the whole then-di;;i,;lrilt solved by the'i'h". specialised sciences. Obviouslv ra;ring. i; qu..tio* .ange of its subject), performs the function of away. from ::11.S pr,ilos?pty u/"i,#il?'.r*,ient o[ the providing a world-view comprehension, general- speclallsect scrcnces. {rnm the phllosophical questions by their very nature .ur;;i 'b;'";h5"'rlilJ.trn"u..that isation ind comparative analysis of scientific specialised of discoveries and mlthods of inquiry, the function science, st.inir.t Jr.i".r" ;;"li; mistaken conclusion: "The historv ,.i."..'*" iouni'riury of theoretical elaboration of the methodological ples of how certain "f jilrii'the .*u._ t.*, ...u"i"..i' rli sub problems of science. This change in the relation- of philosophicat soeculrtioa"".it fiJ'*!..-f iect the exact it.r i"n'v6estigated by ship between philosophy and the specialised sciences. A tvpi*t;;;;i; ;Ji"o i. r"orra tr,. atomistic conception i" sciences is also determined by the fact that, at of the structure of matter. . . . As soon n:,I:"f"*m-^is^ subjectea to ir,.--.tffi;";f inquiry of present, anticipation of the future discoveries of rne exact scrences. it becomes clear that this sciencE possible only on the basis of inquiry has distinct fbrni of natural is adva.ntages .o-pur"d- r,viiil tt pr._ theoretical analysis of the special empirical data scientifi c and a stance ba.k iiouses- a-i;;i;s';T'r"periority" or confusion." (-K. st"inbuch. obtained by experiment and instrumental observa- 5.) A;;;;r;;;;" ilensch, S. 4_ The ittusion which Steinbu;il ;il; i;;"i;:, positivist tion, and this, of course, can be done only by the study of the history of philosophy ,.i."*'iies philosopher. conviction that in the theoretical scientist and not by the sooner i"i..""ir ;fi"";;'fi;l""a questions will be studied by the"'. specialised'*i"".{."fi,is The fact that in the 20th century philosophy did is based- illusion discoveries made the theory on the iotion tiiai- pUlt*"ii,jiti"p.itr._, huu. not anticipate the by no specific content, that they ,iif.r].",,rn of relativity, quantum mechanics and cybernetics, ii."piiUtems"_erely that rroken u'."uy' i.-o,i- ilii by that these discoveries were as much a sur. _l:.--:,::*t.rne pre-screntrhc mannel ",*;;' iust *."rr,';i-,-i;;;*;il.r"-.x,i{JT'"ryfiil;ij{'*:,,..j,,,:},i.} prise to the philosophers as to the great majority This is a vaiierv of rhe ns6_p6_5ltivist of scientists, is to be explained, in our view, by " "' .eauJti;';i';hli'J_- -' sophical problcms to pr.ua op.Ju"tern;. "'"" the changed character of philosophical problems 266 267 a-nd hence the very function of philosophy and - general questions in that it still retains its mean- the nature of philosophical inquiry-. Once-philoso- ing and significance even after being broken phy gives up the study of specialised questions, it down into particular questions, and even after naturally cannot anticipate their subsequent solu- the solution of these particular questions by the tion.1 specialised sciences. Moreover, the significance proposition that there are different types of the philosophical question increases thanks to -Thephilosophical of problem may give rise to objic- its being broken down into a number of special- tions that we must consider in some detail. First ised, particular questions. When these have been objection. Are not general and, particularly the solved, the significance of the general philosoph- most gen-eral, philosophical problems in effect ical question is once again appreciated. For wrongly formulated problems,-since every general example, the problem of infinity is- undo-ubtedly question can and should be broken down into the acquiring an ever more clearly defined philo- p,articular questions of which it is composed? And sophical content owing to the fact that various if so, then are there any philosophicil problems aspects of this problem are being successfully in general, or do they exist only to tlie extent investigated by mathematics, physics, and other that the geleral questions have not yet been fully sciences. The philosophical question of the nature comprehended and analysed? of man, as we have already stressed, has become To be sure, any general question, - including the even more relevant thanks to the fact that anthro- philosophical, can be broken down into a number pology, psychology, physiology, history and other of particular questions. But the philosophical sciences have investigated certain particular question differs from other non-philosophical aspects of it. Second objection. Obviously it is possible to r We believe that the works on the philosophical abstract particular questions from the general. But problems of natural science written by dialeltical mate- to what extent may general questions be separated rialists are intended not to anticipate'future discoveries, from the particular? A considerable portion of but to make a theoretical, methodological the analysis of general, philosophical questions same achievements of science with the aiir of furtherins the are the development of dialectical materialism and profidirg particular questions applied to an unlimited methodological assistance for the specialists. W-e agreE sphere of inquiry. In this case are not philosoph- with I. T. Frolov, who writes that itialectical materialism, ical and non-philosophical problems merely two unlike natural philosophy, "is concerned with a 'second sides same reality', c_reated by i.e., in the case of the cogni- of one and the coin? -science, questions tion of the laws of living systems'science with a 'biological real- Such as the relationship between the ity', which changes as the of life deielops.... spiritual and material, the problem of man, the Philosophy can fulfil its role by jriining in the gtneral problem pf infinity, inevitably become the subject flgw of-knowledge, by revealing ite ge"er;t in the s-pecific. at This is the uorld-aiear task ol philoiophy, its function of of special scientific inquiry while remaining generalisation. This function takes the form of a theo- the same time highly important philosophical retical interpretation of specific knowledge that weds it to problems, whose philosophical solution depends the general system of the world view." to a great extent on the advance of the specialised 268 one.doei not Mortimer Adler calls the-se adopt the stance of speculative_ sciences. J. -questions rdeahst metaphvsics) philosophical ;;i;;A;; ouestions, issuming that as distinct from problems of ii.t questiJns they solved. by the first order^. -are the specialised questions ""rJirf,'lf"*ptir'."tirii^'lhJit. ;f phitosophv ahd .the. special- T""l that in the past point-is that wtm cngaged the attention of philosophy leave ^the ised"sciences. But the whole philosophical pseudoproblems there are no fgld and are iolv.d Ty' the speciit- ihe exception of ised sciences. ;; rtr";ffi;;;phi;i d.'iions, whose- content and The que-stions that ale;;eiJ-r.i.rr.., by of the data supplied both philosophy and the specialir.d ur. 5.r.,ii'"J .'r""r[- i"J"p!"dent the ffiiii;-;r*ialised r.i.rr."r. Besides, the questions 9P_urosty,at saTe time geleral and partic_ ;'*i*"d", and which in his proposed ular.,fsychology,. anthropology, history, *eti.ine, Xaf", .Jlit an 272 278 The history of science is the history of the rise losophy and, consequently, they were then phi,lo- and development of hundreds, and later thou- sophical problems. sands, of specialised scientific disciplines. Every Philosophical problems are qualitatively one of these disciplines has its own specific different from the problems of any specialised problems which could not have existed before science because in their original historical form that particular scientific discipline came into they usually lacked scientific method and were being. The very possibility of evolving new purely hypothetical or, at best, anticipatory. It scientific disciplines presupposes the invention of is possible, of course, to speak of a pre-scientific new technical means of instrumental observation, form of posing even certain natural scientific new experimental apparatus, and the discovery problems but this, as has already been pointed of hitherto unsuspected targets for research. out, relates to the history of philosophy and not Science develops through the conscious, purposc- the history of science. The fact that philosophical ful activity of scientists, but it is not devoid of problems are qualitatively different from those an element of spontaneity, in the sense that it is of the specialised sciences was wrongly inter- in principle impossible to foresee the future and, preted by August Comte as evidence of the funda- hence, the problems that will arise in connection mentally pre-scientific character of any philosoph- with it. The undiscovered is by no means always ical proposition. Actually this fact tells us some- known to be discoverable. Because he ventures thing quite different. It tells us that philosophy was beyond the bounds of what is directly observable, developing even when there were no specialised the scientist very often does not know what he sciences. A significant number of philosophical does not know. Thus, the advance of knowledge problems arose in this pre-scientific historical is also a matter of finding out what has not yet epoch. But to infer from this that they were been discovered, because this enables us to find distined always to remain a pre-scientific form of the blank spots where there appeared to be none. proposition would be to ignore the fact that Every one of these blank spots on the map of philbsophical problems not only arise but also knowledge is a problem. This means that the deaelof. Such an approach is bound to lead to problems of any specialised science record what the mbtaphysical conception that philosophical has not yet been discovered but which new knowl- problems are immutable and eternal. "The philos- edEe tells us is discoverable. ophers of all times and all nations have concerned Th. hirtory of any specialised scientific disci- tliemselves with the same problems," writes pline gives us a moie or less accurate notion of Heinrich Schmidt, the author of a philosophical the chronology of its problems. The fact that some dictionary well known in the West.l This tradi- problems tha[ modern astrophysics, for example, tional view is intimately connected with the ideal- or chemistry, posed centuries ago have not yet ist juxtaposition of philosophy to the socio-histor- been solved does not change the general picture, problems posed the distant because such urerl in 1 H. Schmidt, Philosophisches Wiirterbuch, Stuttgart, past not by aslrophysics or chtmistry but by phi- 1957, s. 459. 274 275 ical process, to the sciences and practice. This example shows that it is possible to clarify the view of philosophy and the juxtaposition it concept of the eternal philosophical problem, implies are not merely an idealist fantasy; they which is usually accepted quite uncritically by the are-a reflection of the real, objective appearance idealists. of the historical process. They therefore-demand The problem of the unity of the world, the scientific analysis. problem of the rational and the sensual, the Kant assumed the a priori nature of the basic problem of man, the problem of freedom, like philosophical problems, that is to say, he believed many other philosophical problems, may indeed them to be originally inherent in reason and an be described in a certain sehse as eternal. The essential part of its specific content. But what process of the cognition of the world has no limits rnay be a priori, for one individual is a posteri,ori. and the problem of the unity of the world will for. the human history that precedes hid appear- never be complete and incapable of further ance in the world. Kant attiched no impoltance change and development. For as long as man to the development of philosophy: for him the exists the problem of man will retain its actuality basic philosophical problems were to be found and any solution to it will remain as incopplete (cut and dri.ed, moreover) in the work of Plato as the history of mankind itself. Even the defini- and, like Plato, he called them ideas. He did, tion of man as a being distinct from all other however, add that they were ideas of human beings will always remain a problem, because it reason, which of courie, contradicts Platonism.l is man who gives himself these definitions and Consequently Kant significantly altered the ap- he will go on defining himself forever. Hence we proach to the problems that he found in Plato; are entitled to describe some of the fundamental not to mention the fact that he enriched philoso- philosophical problems as eternal in the sense phy with new problems that were alien to Platon- that they always retain their significance for man, ism in that they were related to the development for humanity, and for the history of cognition. of the natural'science of modern times.^ This In every historical epoch the propounding of these problems implies not merely the continua- tion of an existing tradition but also the discovery I Characteristically Kant did not include in his concep- tion of fundamental-philosophical problems the probleirs of new horizons. of the theory of knowledge which formed the backbone On the other hand, there are no eternal prob- of his. own teaching. This was because he regarded episte--new, lems in the sense in which the idealist philos- mological inquiry merely as prolegomena to the opher, metaphysical or agnostic, interprets them. transcendental metaphysics which he sought to erect on problems the basis of philosophical criticism. For this reason Kant There are no independent of history. failed to understand the historical prospects of develop- There'are no immutable problems whose cohtent ment of epistemological problems in^phiiosophy. He ima!- remains forever one and the same despite the ined that he had succeeded in posing and solving all epii- changes occurring in history; there are no insol- temological problems, a belief which he acquired noC so uble problems. partic- much from self-esteem as from his unhistorical approach The latter point should be to the history of philosophical problems. ularly'stressed because the problem of the unity 276 277 of the world, the problem of man, and all other in certain fields of activity. Archimedes' law eternal problems acquire fresh solutions in every provides a good example iliustrating the evolu- historical epoch according to the level of knowl- tion of the scientific conception of law. The edge that has been achieved and the character specialised sciences have proved by their dis- of social change. Subsequent development is at coveries that there are countless laws governing one and the same time the development of eternal various phenomena, that these laws bear definite problems and their historically defined (and hence relations to one another, some of a more and irievitably limited) solutions. Eternal problems others of a less general nature. There is no one have their own history; they do not merely law for all phenomena. The discoveries of the chanEe but are actuallv transformed. specialised sciences prove that it is naive to To"be able to undeistand the specific nature of believe in any one universal law, but they them- philosophical problems one must- take fully into selves create a basis for a new scientific propound- consideration their historical transformation, ing of the question of the nature of laws, the most owing to which transient 'phi.losophi,cal problems general laws of development of all that exists, arise alongside problems that retain their eternal the distinction between laws of social develop- significance. Thus, for example, in the ancient ment and laws of nature, and so on. Chinese teaching of "Tao" and in Heraclitus's The present author believes that the problem "'tlogos" we have no difficulty in perceiving.the of a single lazo is a historically transient problem original naive statement of the problem of a of philosophy, despite the fact that it constantly universal law governing all existence, an approach recurs in the philosophy of modern times. This that had not yet freed itself of religious notions. does not mean, however, that the problem of one, Universal law here means a single law of absolute universal law is a pseudoproblem, because it necessity holding sway over everything, and not incorporates (even in the naive form in which it various types of interconnection constituting was originally stated) the idea of most general aarious laws. How does this naive notion differ laws, an idea which admittedly has become from the religious idea of eternal and immutable established in philosophy only thanks to the dia- fate? The history of philosophy has not yet fully lectical negation of its pre-scientific prototype. investigated this question, but in Heraclitus, for Problems that are in a certain sense eternal example, it differs in so far as "logos" coincides and also problems that are transient do not enter with a natural process, i.e., with fire, in"which into philosophy at all stages of its development. case "logos" becomes a law immanent in nature It has already been shown that early Greek phi- and not something dominating nature from the losophy had no notion of social progress. The idea- outside. But does there exist any law that may was elually unknown to medieval philosophers. be applied to everything? Here we come to the This problem was able to gain a place in philoso- historical definiteness of the problem. phy only when the constantly accelerating expan- The development of the scientific conception sion of social production became the dominant of law is related to the discovery of definite laws economic tendency of social development, that is 278 t9 say, in the age of the early bdririieois revolul only Hegel who in analysing social development . .. tiOns. . : I ., :, t:. 1,, .T discldses the actual historiial' content of the Ancient philosophy, right un tci the Hellenit p:oblem of alienation, although it is at once period, did not in effect loncern itself with the obscured by the idealist identification of aliena- p-roblem of freedom, nihich is onE of rthe.inajo-r tion with the dialectical process in general: the philosophical problems. Aristotle draws'a distiic, dichotomy of unity, contraldiction, thE unity and tion between voluntary and involuntaryrhtrman contradiction between subject and obiect, and action, but does not discuss the ess'enc6,,of tho so on. problem. ' ,-":r.. '' I tr'euerbach re-iects'the idealist universalisatidn The problem of alienation, _ which is central to of the -concept o-f alienation, limiting the sphere German classical- philosophy, plays no silnificanf of application of this concept to religious^ and p_art in .any previous philosophies. It is true that speculative philosophical consciousnessl Kierke- the seeds of the idea-of alienation may be per: gaard, who subiects Hegel's panlogism to irration- ceived in Plato's doctrine of the soul lariguisfiing alist criticism, treats the problem of alienation as in.the human body, in the Platonic ctrnce"ption oT a problem of the transience of all that is human, things as a corrupted form of transcendentil ideas, burde_ned, as it is, with wickedness, original sirr in the neo.Platonic theory of emanation, in the and the wilfulness of existing in the faie of an scholastic interpretation .on.- of the legend of oiigipal infinitely distant and unknowable God. This si!, and so Esseritially, howc"ver, the idJa'of sub.iectivist conception of alienation as the essence alienation is a product of modern timesi The theo. of everyday exist-ence has been further developed ries of natural law, current in the ITth and ,l8th in existentialism. centuries, treat of the alienation of everyonels In his Economic and, Philosophi.c Manuscripts of right to everything in favour of the stat6. But 1844 Marx places the problem of alienatiorr on ; this is still not the problem of alienatioh, even fundamentally new basis. He gives an all-round in its.le.gal asp-ect, because the essence bf the quesi criticism of the speculative-idealist and also of tion is reduced to the legal restriction of arbitrary the anthropological conceptions, enriches the action -in the interests of the individual, iestric'r- problem with a specific hislorical, economic and tion of the arbitrary action that is inseparable political conteht, reveals its material sources and from man's "natutal" state, alien to civilisition. proves its historically transient character. . In Fichte's 4octrine the concgpt of ali€nati,on I have touched very briefly upon the history of is used to..analyse the.relationshrp rhptwcen ithE the problem of alienation, whoJe significance in op-posing "E.go" and "non-Ego". The iabsolut6 the philosophical doctrines of the lgth'and 20th sub-fect generates 'same a reality that opp.oses it and,at centudes.'is'quite obvious, merely to show how a the time constitutei a necedraryi, conditi'orr new philosophical problem comes into being.l for- its activity. These ontological ipd episte. mological aspects of concepf the of alienation still r i have'made a special study o[ the problem of aliena- do not express its essential sqcial co,ntent. It is tion in the following works: 7frc Formation of the Phi- 280 281 This problem actually acguired tangible shape humanity in Europe had awakened from the long only in modern times and has retained its signif- hibernation of the Christian Middle Ages".l The icance because alienation is still a social reality same may be said of many other philosophical which can be overcome only through the com- problems. munist transformation of social relations. Despite Some contemporary philosophers counterpose the traditional historico-philosophical view, we to the metaphysical conception of immutable maintain that the key to the understanding of philosophical problems a historico-philosophical philosophical problems is to be found only in the relativism which maintains that there are no dialectical materialist analysis of their emergence, intransient problems at all, because each great development and transformation into other philosopher has his own problems and it is this problems. It would be an oversimplification to that lends his teaching its permanent significance. ignore the fact that one and the same name quite The most resolute defender of this subjectivist often conceals problems that are entirely different. interpretation of the history of philosophical Of course, if we interpret the embryonic form problems is the Paul Ricoeur we mentioned ear- of existence of philosophical problems in the lier, who declares that it is the task of the histo- spirit of preformationism, we shall have no rian of philosophy "to launch a direct attack on difficulty in concluding that the philosophers of the idea of eternal problems, of problems that Ancient Greece were already posing modern areimmutable".2 Ricoeur presents intransient philosophical problems. However, it is enough to problems as immutable problems, which is of compare the discussion of what are formally the course an oversimplified approach. same problems in the philosophy of various The point of departure of Ricoeur's historico- historical epochs to realise that these problems philosophical conception is the notion that phi- differ essentially from one another. Thus, for losophy is a specific expression of the unique example, what the ancient philosophers have to existential originality of the philosophical genius. say about the soul as a peculiarly delicate form From this standpoint every attempt to typify of matter may formally be regarded as the first or classify philosophical problems is presented as positing of the question of the relationship be- the result of an oversimplified view of philosophy tween the spiritual and the material. In reality, and a failure to comprehend the fundamental however, the problem is only touched upon and difference between philosophical knowledge and Engels had every reason to emphasise that this scientific knowledge, in which answers are alleged fundamental philosophical question "could for to be far more significant than questions and to the first time be (put forward) in its whole acute- have the more value the less they reflect the ness, could achieve its full significance, only after investigator's individuality. Philosophy, on the losophy of Marxism, Moscow, 1962, and The Problem of I K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Uorks in three Aliindtion and. the Bourgeois Legend of Marxisrn, Moscow, volumes, 1970, Vol. 8, p. 346. 1965. 2 P. Ricoeur, Histoire et virit6, Paris, 1955, p. 61. 282 other hand, is the realm of self-validating human merely the laope df exi,sti,ng'in truth. ,Ricoeur's subjectivity, which rejects, the formula !.'I possess propositions remind one of the reasoning of the truth" in favour of the belief "I hope to exist in religious person who dares not believe in the truth". For this reason every outstanding philo- possibility of attaining divine wisdom which, sophical system is grounded in the conviction that though expressed in Scriptures, nevertheless "if my existence has any meaning, if it is not for remains unknowable.l nothing, this must mean that I hold d place'in But philosophy is not theological wisdom. Phi- life that invites me to pose a queition which no losophy poses and solves problems, and if iti one in my place has ever posed before".l It would solutions later require development or revision, be absurd to deny the greatness"of the philosopher this by iro means dibcredits them.'- who poses a question that hobody'has posed Lenin wrote, "The ginius of Marx consists before him. But why should we deny the great- precisely in :his having furnished answqrs to ness of the philosopher'who solves tha proilems questions already raised by the foremost minds that his forerunners propounded? Simply be- of mankind."2 This. did not, of course, prevent cause, according to the ' contemporary idealiSt Marx from posing new questions which ho one "philosophy of the history of philosophi"' (one of had posdd befoie him. On the contrary, ,Marx whose representatives ii Paul Ricoeur), philosbphy was able to pose new questions also, beiause he does not solve questions, but mefely propounds had solved the problerns posed by his predeces- them. sors. The essence of this conception'lies not merely To sum up on this question, we may conclude in the admission that philosophical prdblems are that the qualitative difference between thie prob- insoluble. The contemporary idealist "philosophy lems of philosophy and those of the specialised of the history of philosophy", by formulating new sciences is relative, like all other differences inci- criteria of the value of plr,ilosophical knowledge, dentally. Metaphysical absolutisation of this also seeks to pose questions that no oire has ever difference leads to scientifically unfounded con- posed before, ind chief among these problems is the question whether philosophical problems do 1 This modification of the Socratic "I know that I not belong to a category of problerns that should know nothing" is specially substantiated in Maurice Mer- not be solved but only discussed, elucidated and leau-Ponty's Eloge de la philosophie (Praise of Philoso- explained. Is not the very, attempt to solve' a phy). "What the philosopher does is to move ceaselessly philosophical problem tantamount to forgetting from knowledge to ignorance, and from ignorance to knowledge, achieving in this motion a kind of rest. . . ." the specific nature of philosophical problems, (M. Merleau-Ponty, Eloge d.e la philosophie et outres confusing them with the problems'of the special- essais, Paris, 1965, p. ll.) It is not hard to see that this ised sciences? In the specialised sciences it is conception of philosophy reflects a disillusionment with possible to possess kno*ledge, but philosophy is philosophy and at the same time an apology for the intel- lectual anarchy reigning in contemporary bourgeois philo- sophical studies. I P. Ricoeur, op cit., p, 65. 2 V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 19, p. 23. 284 ceptions regarding the immutability of philosopJr- Chapter Six ical problems or equally unfounded conceptions implying that problems have no objective mean- THE SUBJECT.MATTER ing. Both views are equally one-sided and fail OF PIilIOSOPHY to recognise the diversity of philosophical prob- lems and their development. As we have already seen, philosophical prob- lems are originally formed out of people's everyday experience. Thanks to the development of the specialised sciences and theoretical expla- nation of human history the scope of philosophy undergoes substantial change and is enriched with problems the natural and social new concerning 1. THE SUB,TECT.MATTEB sciences. Idealist philosophy ignores this tendency OF PHILOSOPIIY AS A PBOBLEM or, as in the case of neo-positivism, interprets it the spirit of nihilistic repudiation of the objec- in The point of _ departure in the study of any tive content of philosophical problems in general. science is the definition of its sublect-matter, thai No one can understand these problems correctly is to say, the elucidation of what basic questions who sees only a yawning chasm between the it sets out to solve. This is not to be ionfused sciences and philosophy and makes no effort to with the definition of subject-matter provided at bridge it. the beginning of a textbook for the beginner, to whom any such definition will for some time appear incomprehensible and somewhat formal because he does not yet know the basic concepts, categories and departments of the science in ques- tion and its connection with other, related sciences. The definition of the subiect-matter of a science has quite a different and far deeper meaning for those who have already masteied its problems and gained a notion of its history and methods of inquiry, since they will under- stand its place in the system of knowledge and realise that this place cannot be retained forever permanent and unchanged. When studying a science we become aware of the changes which its sub.lect-matter has undergone in the cqurse of historical development and understand the inev- itability oJ discussion of thi$ sub.l'ect-rriatter among definitions and explanations-should concerning the people who specialise in that partieular science-. subiect of inquiry not, howev6r, be Such discussion is essential to the development of allowed to restrict the possibilities of scientific science and takes place not because scientists do development, which brings to light targets of not know what they are doing, what they are investigation that had not been previously en- investigating, or what they are teaching. visaged but which, once discovered, have to be The scientific definition of the subjett-matter included in the subject-matter of the science, even of any science cannot, of course, be the starting if its definition specifically excludes these targets. point of its actual historical development, since ln such cases the definition has to be revised in such a definition becomes possible only at a rcla- the interest of the further development of the tively advanced stage of its development and is science. In other words, the definition of the the summing up, the generalisation of the path sub.iect-matter of any science should remain open travelled and the results achieved. Thus, for and should take into consideration its prospects example, the'scientific definition of the subject- of development, that is to say, it should not only matter of political economy as a science investi- point out what it is investigating but should also gating the laws of social production and the distri- indicate possible or probable directions of inquiry. bution of material goods at various stages of So, any definition of the subject-matter of a social development was provided only by Marx, science is necessarily approximate and should although political economy had existed as a remain so because the range of questions that it science as far back as the lTth centurv. investigates is bound to change. The boundaries The definition 9f the subject-matter of any of posiible change in the subject-matter of a science entails considerable difficulty also be- science are determined by its specific nature, its gause'it is by ao mean$ gufficierit merely to:indi- place in the system of scientific knowledge, and cate the ob.lects that it investigates; it is essential the demands of social practice. to pxplain on what basis these obiects have bqen If we take a science like biology, we see that btrosen as the subject-matter of the given science. it would have been possible about one hundred Further, it is essential to define these chgsen and fifty years ago to indicate the visible, immg- oblects of inquiry as being qualitatively differgnJ diately definable bbt'ects of its inquiry, as animals from others and consequeotly excluded from the and plants. Accordingly, biology consisted of two frame of reference of the given science.t These main scientific disciplines, zoology and botany, each of which could be broken down into the l Definition of subject-matter is seen to be'imporiant disciptines subordinate to it, whose subject- even in sciences that are largely empirical aitd which do matter could be defined without any special dif- not so much define as simply record their subject of inqui. ficulty: ornithology, entomology, ichthyology, ry. P. N. Pilatov points out .that the selection and defini- tion of such a subject as the steppes presents considerable difffculties. And'yet the area covered by steppe in the Some scientists, for instance, hold that there are 4 million USSR depends on how the concept of steppe is ilefined. sq km of steppe while others put the figure at 1.6 million. 288 anatomy, morphology, etc. As biology developed it justified by the fact that what it studies is spe- acquired new disciplines. The study of the micro- cifically relationships that have a universal and s-copic structure of plants led to plant anatomy, necessary significance, constitutes the basic pre- then came the theory of evolution (Darwinism), requisite for its existence as a science which does to be followed later by genetics. New means of not rely on observation and experiment but observation made possible microbiology. The achieves new conclusions and discoveries by pure- application of chemical and physical meihods of ly logical means. "The subject-matter of mathe- research to biological processes laid the founda- matics," A. D. Alexandrov points out, "is tions of biological chemistry, biological physics, composed of the forms and relationships of reali- molecular biology,-bionics, etc. Today it would ty which objectively possess such a degree of be more correct to define biology not merely as indifference to content that they may be complete- a science, but as a system of sciences, each with its ly abstracted and defined in general form with own specific subject-matter. This does not negate sufficient clarity, accuracy and wealth of relation- the unity of biological knowledge, but it does ships to serve as the basis for a purely logical indicate the relative independence of its major development of theory. If such relations and branches, its diversity and range. Biology could, forms are called quantitative in the general sense of course, bb defined as a complex scienie, but it of the term, it may be stated briefly that the is,not really a matter of terms but of being aware sub.iect-matter of mathematics is quantitative of the f.act of. the differentiation, the splitling up relationships and forms taken in their pure of its subiect-matter. Many sciences are'character- state."l ised by a similar versatility of inquiry at the As we know, the fact that mathematics takes present stage. From this standpoint it would be quantitative forms and relations in their pure correct to speak of the components of the subject- state has been idealistically interpreted by some matter of any science that had become significant- philosophers as meaning that the subject-matter ly developed, just as Lenin does in characterising of mathematics is an a priori, construction without the components of Marxism. any relation to any empirically definable reality. Unlike biology, mathematics investigates Without going into these subiectivist interpreta- obiects whose presence cannot be directly record'ed tions of the subiect-matter of mathematics at because they are not really objects but their length, we would merely emphasise that they are idealised spatial forms and quantitative relation- epistemologically connected with the peculiarities ships. Engels pointed out that, in order to become of mathematics itself, with the difference between mathematical objects, real objects and their rela- it and those sciences in which theoretical conclu- tionships must assume an "extremely abstract sions are based on the analysis of empirical data form".l Like logic, mathematics abstracts itself and may be experimentally tested. from the content abstraction, is and this which 1 A. D. Alexandrov, "A General View on Mathemat- ics", in Mathematics, Its Content, Method and, Signif' 1 F. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. 52. icance,Moscow, 1956, p. 68 (in Russian). 290 noted that the speculative have sufficient meaning to make a mystery of- !h: It should also be philosophical inquiry, whtch of mathematics, like the unlimited possi- actual subiect of character the subject-matter ot bilities for its application in other sciences, h-as idealism cannot avoid. Thus, easily It comes to led some philosopfiers and mathematicians to infer ptritotopt y is not -established' have any particular ii;i;i;i;i"ally as a result of historico-philo-soph- that mathematici does not at delim- of inquiry that may be singled out from i[t iiq"itv. So it is not enough to stop subject stated, abstract and im-ag- diversity of reality, but is rather a iti"o iti. empiricallv -b the"whole phil'osophical inquiry ecau-se they investig'ating the subject- i;;r ;l i *tt' oi universal method 6f connected with one r"itt., of any science. KarI Popper, for e-xample, ,r.-6pittl-"logically'att "pure mathematics and it becomes the zubject.of maintains thit -l-ogic, """tir!.."1ii;#;;[-;' is not only that which as they^do of proofs, do-not provide us piriGrpt i.al inquiry nature consisting -the of being perceived *itt it fdr*ation about world, but merely ir siven and capable bv"-riii.rtlv the senses] Philosophy analyses the system elaborate- the means of its description".l matter' these-aspects of biology of .aiegoties expressingnature: substance, We have touched upon pherromenon' mathematics onlv to make it easier to find motion,' space, time, unity',essencei and subiect of philosophical out what is investigat;d by phitosgRhl.On the one ffi;";;;iiy, it".'The a system ot categolrres' hand, the targets d,i philoiophical inquiry. (nature, '..Th;inouirv thus emerges as on) may be given ditii".tio""between toncrete- and abstract society, man,"cognitibn, andi-so the.distinction same degree- of empirical of i"q"itv in philosophv is uooio'*i-ut.iv [h" "bi";it abstiact and the theo- dehnition as'the obiects studied by biology' On #ffi;th.ir,"6t.ti*tlv shor,vn- by its ;.tt.;lIr;;;.;;i. Any objects exist for Rlrilosophv ttre other hand, philosophy, as is philosophy idealised forms i""" r"Ji."ii" seneralised iorm because wliol. history, is concerned with specific and categories, which ;;ai.r'lh; ipEcific forms of universality, nf iealitv. abitract obiects the most general quite evoke doubts con-cer-ning the obje-ctive il;il t."t"'tt ut they entail often cognrtron, malo^s realitv of their content. We have in mind not definitions of nature, society, gas r"J to'on. Caiegorie" are,scientific abstract obiects such as the ideal it lhysics i.iJr"Ii'iir., which Schopen- abstractions, most general concepts, -q1ay ["i- for instance, the monads of Leibnitz, phil-o- and Schelling's absolute h;;;it"-hitr.i."I meanings in various tiir..tt universal will, compare the For the materialist, we may-be sure, all ;ht;l-d;.tti"it. One has dnly to iil"tity. of seniation as reflection these ire imaginary obiects. they cannot -i't.tiriiJ -But interpreta- ;t-th" ;;;l-*oita""a.tttu"di"g *ith th. subiective idealist simolv be discirded, because they are as "ele- interpretatiirns) of objective of Ernst Mach on sensations iids'(albeit, idealisl "..""tiii"" h-oweve^r, are not what actually exists, and consequently I""ritr;; reality. Categories, ;;;iity, of "f They also reJl.ect essen- it .r.ii"usinary objects'are not meaningless; they .i-olv forms of ihought. ;i;i";r;;d of obieciive realitv in which' apart t, ttrerb exist causaiity, necessity' law' 1 Open Society and lt's Enemies, Vol' II' ii'i--fi""i,t K. Popper, and so on. London, 1945, p. l3' essence, ooo There are certain philosophical doctrines which appear to be unavoidable since when analysing interpret the category of essence as a meaningless any philosophical doctrine a general notion of the fiction. According to Wittgenstein, ". . .there is subject-matter of philosophy is completely inade- only logical necessity"r. Pre-Marxist materialism quate for elucidation of the subiect-matter of that usually denied the obiectivity of chance. Contem- particular doctrine. From this standpoint the porary irrationalism regards the concept of obiec- subject-matter of philosophy is a totality of prob- tive law as a 'oscientific prejudice". Existentialism lems formed on the basis of everyday and histor- discards general scientific categories as well as ical, individual and universal experience, science those that are accepted by most philosophical and practice. There is not one philosophical doctrines, substituting for them such categories as system that embraces all these problems. Even fear, anxiety and the absurd. Moreover, each of those of an encyclopaedic character are bound to these categories is given a meaning that differs restrict themselves to a certain range of questions, from the .generally accepted. So, examination of excluding certain problems that played a signif- the subiect-matter of philosophy as a system of icant part in a previous philosophy and sometimes categories does not reveal an obiect of inquiry attaching special importance to certain questions common to all philosophical doctrines, although it (or one particular question) that have not pre- does indicate some of the obiect's essentially viously received much attention. Philosophical common features. doctrines that do not claim to be encyclopaedic or Characterising the subiect-matter of philosophy reiect in principle the possibility of encyclopaedic as that which is concrete in reality and becomes ohilosophical systems usually give pride of place abstract in philosophical speculation, as that which to one particular philosophical problem, subordi- is concrete in philosophy and can become so only nating others to it or even rejecting them thanks to the synthesis of various definitions and tl*t substances were compounds of chemical ele- categories, we arrive at the conclusion that these ments"rg""t. &isting in inanimate nature, posed the question of concrete-abstract objects of philosophical inquiry whether it would be possible to create organic matter from always real objects, independent of the elements discovered in it by chemical analysis. The are not answer to this question was the synthesis of urea. This is consciousness (the analysis of idealist philosophy a purely hypothetical example and I have no intention of makes this quite plain), and they are to be under- lmplyin1; tLit Wiihler posed the question in exactly this stood primarily as problems in the sense suggested form. All I wish to do is to bring out the logic of the the previous chapter.2 This conclusion would discovery, since it was not arrived at by chance. The in definition of the sublect-matter of science (and philosophy) as its problems does not, in our view, contain an atom t L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p. l8l. of subjectivism. although it does emphasise the subjective 2 It is not hard to show that in any science the subject side of scientific research by suggesting that the scientist of inquiry, since it is singled out from the totality of himself determines the subject of his inquiry, limiting or other subiects and draws the attention of the investi- expanding it as he chooses. This point has to be particu- gator, is understood by means of a series of questions to Iarly streised because cognilive activity includes the posing which the investigator tries to supply answers. At the be- of problems and cannot therefore be reduced to investiga- ginning of the lSth century Friedrich Wiihler, believing tion of that which is given from outside. 294 295 altogether, that is to say, selecting a relatively This unevenness of emergence and develop- narrow range of philosophical themes. Such are ment of certain philosophical problems does riot William James's treatment of the problem of depend on the arbitrary will of individual think- truth, the problem of the human individual in ers, for in choosing certain problems or discover- philosophical anthropology, the problem of lan- ing new problems they express the demand of the .ggage in contemporary English analytical philoso- tim,e, the level of knowledge already achieved, phy, and so on. However, within the framework and so on. of tlre basic, specialised theme an attempt is Conseq,uently this indicates that the subject- usually made to examine, admittedly from a matter of philosophy changes according to o6jec- certain angle, and, as a rule, one-sidedly, all the tive conditions. problems of philosophy. Hence the restriction of It is n_ot only philosophy that changes. Arry philosophical problems becomes no more than a science changes, because it, too, develops and is means of solving an unrestricted range of philo- subordinated to the general laws of the process sophical problems. This restriction or, in other of development. Not every new discovery indi- words, selection of problems, which a philosopher cates a qh-ange in the subiect-matter of the given performs, significantly characterises the direction science. If this were so, it would be changing at of the doctrine he creates. However, in any science a great rate all the time. A change in the subject- the investigator is compelled to confine himself matter of a particular science should be under- to certain definite problems, but in philosophy this stood as a radical, fundamental change in the is mainly a matter not of specialisation but of the whole range of its problems and also its methods basic world view that is assumed. of research. The introduction of alternating quan- The fact that philosophical doctrines differ not tity into mathematics in connection with the only in how they solve certain questions but also discovery of analytical geometry, and also the in uhat questions they pose has profound histor- differential and integral calculus, provides a con- ical causes. Philosophical problems do not arise vincing example of how the subiect-matter of a simultaneously in a particular epoch; they take science actually changes. As Engels noted, this shape, develop, and are transformed in the course became a turning point in the development of of the development of society, philosophy and the mathematics, because up to this time mathematics sciences. V. F. Asmus writes of the uneven had been a science of constant quantities.t development of philosophical problems: "In t different countries, different sta.qes their Th. f*ther development of mathematics has also in of entailed change of subject-matter. This is pointed out by history and among different philosophers, we do A. N. Kolmogorov: "Both as a result of the internal not find the same range of questions or identical, demands of mathematics and also of the new requirements equally thorough elaboration of them."t of science, the circle of quantitative relations and spatial forms investigated by mathematics has greatly expanded: I V. F. Asmus, "Some Problems of the Dialectics of it now comprises relations existing between elements of the Historico-Philosophical Process and Its Cognition" in the arbitrary group, vectors, operators in functional spaces, Problerns of Philosophy, 1961, No.4, p. ll8. the whole variety of forms of spaces of any number of 294 Another, equally striking example is the revolu- in physics, biology and mathematics. In philo- tion in physics caused by the discovery of radio- sophy we have not only changes in the subiect of activity, the electron, the special theory of rela- inquiry but also a perpetual controversy as to tivity, and so on. what this subject is (or should be). We have a The changes in the sub,ject-matter of science in quest for its subject of inquiry and various, some- the course of its historical development naturally times diametrically opposed conceptions of this make it particularly difficult to define. People subiect. sometimes protest that the obiects investigated by There was perhaps not a single prominent science, by physics, for example, have not changed philosopher in the pre-Marxist period who did not throughout its existence. But did physics previous- claim to have revolutionised philosophy. Not with- ly study the microcosm, the elementary particles, out reason, for instance, the historians of philoso- etc.? All this has come into the subject-matter of phy speak of the Cartesian revolution. Kant physics as it has developed. Hence it is clear that believed his doctrine to be a Copernican turning- increasingly profound knowledge of obiective point in philosophy. Any number of examples reality brings to light new, hitherto unknown could be given. But it is essential, of course, to obiects of investigation, as a result of which the distinguish between real revolutions in philosophy subiect-matter of the given science changes. and philosophical declarations to this effect, that Consequently, science itself takes part in the is to say, between the objective content of tbe process of change of its subiect of inquiry, which historico-philosophical process and its subjective in such cases should be understood not only as form of expression. The "revolution in philoso- something obiective and existing independent of phy" which the British neo-positivists write about science, but also as the circle, the system of ques" in a collective work of this title, is rather just tions with which science deals, the latter being another palace revolution in the history of posi- organically connected with the former. This means tivism. It is quite obvious, however, that the stop- that the change in the subiect-matter of science is .qo effect in the historico-philosophical process has a special kind of cognitive, obiectively conditioned a different quality from what we find in the histo- process taking place in the sphere of reflection of ry of the specialised sciences. So, while noting objective reality. the specific nature of the philosophical form of Change in the subiect of inquiry is therefore knowledge, of philosophical problems, many of not something peculiar to philosophy. This is a which are examined by all philosophical theories, general law of the development of scientific and the general definability according to world knowledge. But the development of philosophy view, common to all philosophical doctrines, we differs qualitatively from the analogous process believe that it would be wrong to infer that the subject of philosophical inquiry was integrated in dimensions, and so on." (A. N. Kolmogorov, "Mathemat- all periods of history. The existence of certain ics", an article in Big Soaiet Encycloltpf,ia [Second Edi- general problems in ancient Greek philosophy, in tionl, Vol. ?6, p. -176 [in Russian].) the philosophy of modern times and in Marxist- 298 Leninist philosophy does not by any means prove concerned with specialised questions, this selec- that the subiect-matter of philosophy was one and tion of subject-matter, if it does not turn out to be the same in all these periods.l in fact only a new interpretation of what is al- We said earlier that every philosophical ready accepted, is bound to be (to some degree) doctrine implies a specific world view, and that a venturing beyond the bounds of its field of herein lies the objective unity of philosophical study. knowledge, which in principle has nothing to do The most scrupulous investigation of pragmat- with the fact that a considerable number of philo- ism, personalism, structuralism, philosophical an- sophers do not regard their philosophy (or phi- thropology and many other philosophical doctrines losophy in general) as'a world view. Naturally the offers no grounds whatever for the conclusion that question arises as to whether this methodological these doctrines study the most general laws of approach (delimitation of the obiective content development, as the philosophy of Marxism does. and subiective form of expression) may be applied Failure to appreciate the fundamental difference to the question of the subiect-matter of philosophy in subiect-matter between Marxist philosophy and as well. Is not the subiect of inquiry basically the other philosophical doctrines undoubtedly detracts same in all philosophical doctrines? We maintain from the essence of the revolution in philosophy that the answer to this question can only be No, brought about by Marxism. because the subiect of inquiry, the objects of Since philosophy, however much it may change, study, are consciously selected by the investigator still remains philosophy, the proposition that the within the framework of the field of knowledge in subject-matter of philosophy changes qualitatively which he is working. Since philosophy is not in the process of its development presupposes acknowled.qement not only of the specific nature of the philosophical form of knowledge but also I Strictly speaking there is no such unity even in the history of the specialised sciences since the changes in the specific nature of the objective content of the the subject of their inquiry over the centuries inevitably various philosophical doctrines. This fact, which entail qualitative differences that show that the changed is characteristic of the problems of philosophy, subject of inquiry is not what it was before, that it is makes possible to determine the limits within becoming or has already become something different. In it another case the change of subject of inquiry is restricted which the subject-matter of philosophy changes by unjustifiably narrow limits, whereas the introduction and also that which is common to the subject- of new departments in any specialised science and the matter of various philosophical theories. This com- multiplication of new objects of investigation are a clear mon ground may be defined as the fundamental indication that the subject-matter of that science has altered. It may not have altered completely, of course, themes of philosophy, and it is by investigating because it will still retain its connection with the previous these fundamental themes that we are able to development of knowledge, but this connection should not prevent the metaphysical opposition of certain be interpreted as unity of the subject of inquiry, because philosophical doctrines to others. the science in question has passed on to a new range of questions that it neither posed nor attempted to solve in the past. 800 301 2. FUNDAMENTAL the idea of the prime cause and primordial matter PHILOSOPHICAL THEMES is not scientific but, if we remember that what is meant is not the beginning the meditations the ancient of world in time In the cosmological of but only th-e general basis (and source) philosophers, materialists, we of the particularly the diversity of individual things, becomes fundamental theme of philoso- it clear discovei the fiist that this original proposition does not contradict phy-the problem of absolute reality, independelt the fundamental materialist contention and con- of man (and mankind), upon which man depends tains a^profound dialectical insight into the unity and which is boundless, intransient, and infinitely of the finite and the infinite, thelransient "The world, and thi: exceeds his strength. .Heraclitus said: eternal, the individual and the general. which embraces everything and is not contingent In our day philosophy, in so far as rests on any other worlds or any creator, was not it with natural science, does not claim to create its own by any of the gods or people; it has always created special picture of the universe; it proceeds from existed and will exist forever as living fire, now the natural scientific picture of tht world and flaring up, now dying down."l Greek mythology explains, ilterprets generalises limited and this picture by depicted the world bounded by the means,of philosophical categories, drawing conclu- geographical notions of the ancients as having sions that are at any rate not directly implied the in been wrought out of chaos by the might of the data of natural-science and at ttre saire form were ani- time .qod titans,-who in their original do not contradict them. We have mind, of personifications spontaneous forces in mistic of the course, materialist philosophy, idealism, Philosophy breaks these notions since even of nature. with in its scientifical form, rejects the idea of explain- and the first materialists try to explain the world ing nature out of nature itself and quite-often replace the supernatural forces out of itself, to refuses to admit that it exists apart from human incomprehensible to the thinking person by consciousness. processes and phe- natural, generally observable Thus even today, just as at the dawn of civilisa- nomena. The orig'inal materialist conception of the tion,- the first question that the philosophically cause, the world's unity, oJ the prime and of minded person asks himself is: What is were thi worlil primordial matter from which all things in which we live and which we think we more desire to or created, implies nothing more than a less know? What is it that we do not know, but and the inter- understand the natural connection that undoubtedly exists-unless, of course, we hold phenomena, exclude the dependence of and thus the view that what we do not know does notrexist? religious notions of supernaiural beings. Of course, Is this unknown, this thing that is not yet known t A. O. Makovelsky, Pre-Socratics, p. 152. In citing but that nevertheless exists, something more or less this proposition of Heiaclitus's, Lenin adds a remark that resembling that which exists and which we know? point is hiAhli significant from the historico-philosophical- Or is it so different that the knowledge we have of vlew, "A very good exposition of- the piincip-les -of dialectical materiiliJm" (V.- L Lenin, Collected Worhs, already acquired will not help us at all to com- Vol.38, p. 3a9). prehend it? 302 Already in ancient philosophy we find many matter. The philosophical categories are expressed answers to these and other similar questions. The in the words of the natural, everyday language, ancient Greek materialists proceed from a senso- which, gradually accrete meanings- extending rily perceived picture of the world and in this beyond ordinary everyday usage. T-hus the word respect differ little from the scientists of modern "being" in the teaching of Parmenides has the times, who have at their disposal far more exten- meaning of category, since it refers not to every- sive sensory data and thanks to the development thing that exists, but rather to that which funda- of theoretical knowledge have been able to analyse mentally differs from sensorily perceived reality. these data critically. The ancient materialists do The philosophical doctrines of ancient times, not consider the sensorily perceived picture of the diverging from the original spontaneous material- world to be exhaustive. On the contrary, they set ism, interpret what cannot be sensorily perceived, out to discover what is not directly perceivable by the general, the essential, as radically opposed to the senses but may be discovered on the basis of the evidence of the senses, thus preparing the sensory data by means of ratiocination, by infer- ground for the idealist teaching on the dual ence. This is how the questions of the first cause, nature of existence, mundane and transcendental. elements, homoeomeries, atoms, the essence of the To the idea of the unity of the infinite diversity sensorily perceived world in general, the ideas of of the phenomena of nature, which in its original the multiplicity of worlds, of the infinity and unity form is synonymous with the materialist world of the lfniverse, and so on, have arisen. Even view, Plato's idealism counterposes the doctrine those materialists who regard primordial matter of the fundamental opposition between the or elements as sensorily given reach this conclu- sensual reality and the reality that cannot be sion by means of inferences because it does not perceived by the senses but is theoretically con- directly follow from the fact of a definite sensori- ceivable. Moreover, the reality perceived by the ly given matter that it is primordial, or that it lenles is interpreted as something generated by a forms an essential component of all that exists. higher, transcendental, incorporeal reality. Thus, This matter must be singled out from the great there arises the idea of the fundamental opposi- diversity of sensorily given phenomena and proof tion between the general and the particular, the must be furnished of its peculiar role in nature. material and the ideal, the idealist devaluation It is in connection with attempts to classify sensori- of sensorily perceived reality as something untrue ly perceived phenomena, to establish relations of a-nd unreal although existing. Epistemologically, similarity and dissimilarity, coordination and this propounding of the question is a metaphysical subordination between them, that the basic cate- opposition of theoretical knowledge to the em- gory characteristics of objective reality arg pirical, of concepts to sensory data, of words to formed, such as being, becoming, identity and individual obiects. The higher thing, the k.y difference, the unity of opposites, the individual factor, in the process of cognition is-interpreted and the general, the single and the many, essence ontologically, and in place of the naive mythology and phenomenon, necessity, form and con{ent, or that made no claim to explain the world theoreti- 304 theoretically substantiated, cally there arises a world out of sensory data. The problem of the idealist myth-making. This is particularly obvious world as such, existing outside and independent in the teaching of Plato, who not only reproduces of human consciousnesi, a world ,.rrr.rr"o*plssable, of j the ancient myths, but also makes wide use nexhaustible and spo!tane_oys, although gor.r.r.d conception the them to explain the idealist of by' certain laws, is replaced by the proUtelm of the times we are IJniverse. Thus, already in ancient oneness of human knowlfdgl. This belittling of opposition be- confronted with an irreconcilable obiective reality that is chaiacteristic of ideaiism tween the two basic philosophical views of nature, commits to oblivion the most important philosoph- of the world as a whole, and of the external worl 306 20' 8o? of substance with the problem of the substantiality nation in the materialist doctrines of the 17th and of nature, that is to say, a return, admittedly on 18th centuries. idea the contingency, the a new, scientifically enriched basis, to the ancient The scholastic of notions of the infinite lJniverse which exists eter- chance nature of the world, inseparably connected the notion of the nally and eternally generates an infinite diversity as it is with creationism, with phenomena. finitude of nature, was of soatial and temporal From the hazy notions first cause and by the heliocentric world view, whic! of a discredited abstract, essentially tautological propositions (such the conventional picture of the world overthrew as the famous "nothing comes from nothing") the appeared to be consistLnt with eLe.lI+aI that materialist philosophy of the new age in the .*oeriirice and alsri had the sanction of Biblical the earth was presented to struggle against theology and idealist doctrines legend. Henceforth comei ever closer, thanks to the philosophical min not as the centre of a finite (Jniverse but as countless solar explanation of the discoveries of natural science, one of the planets in one of propounding problem ol heliocentric system and thi: to the scientific of the r"rt.*t. Co'pernicus's reality. substance which the naive w.te drawn from it by Giordano oblective The ctnclusions ihut philosophical consciousness of ancient times had and other philosophers revealed to human Bruno the absolute prime substance comes ives the physicaf infinity o{- tle material world conceived as time piovided a new yardstick to be regarded in the philosophy of the new age ut d ut the iame substance, as primordial processes at work on Earth'l no longel as an absolute io. -.utrrting the matter on which the Universe "rests" or out of this transfo#nation of the question of infinity, previously conffonted- philosophers which it is created. *tri.t had Spinoza's concept of nature as substance, as the mainlv connection with the mathematical no- in cause opens the splendid vista of the '"r- succession of numbers and of itself, up i1""t in. nit.,tu1 scientific and philosophical cognition of the mate- infinite divisibility, signified, at least fo-r the mate- (and conseq"iirtty also for the natural rial unity of the world. But Spinoza's substance ,litiri - Iacked motion activity. Leibnitz endowed world view, the merging of the problem and r.ii"tin.l substance with force. In fact, he turned it into a force, but idealistically counterposed it to an alleg- r M. A. Dynnik stresses the philosophical. significance edly passive matter and, not daring to break with of the heliocentric doctrine: "Th6 starting point, the inner ri.t.i goal of Giordano Bruno's world view the theological interpretation of the lJniverse, *"r-iti ""J,.* "tti-ate mut-the man of the Renaissance, who saw regenerated tlie idea of pluralism of substances, of the medieval night the glow of the rising which in turn involves acknowledgement of ;"*;"J--G;;d"iit.-.t"* his gaze upon" the boindle-ssness of the predetermined harmony. truth to the light of the sun' U"irii...... Bruno co"-pa.ei Locke's criticism of the concept of substance is firlr lo*pu.ison was pirticularly -meaningful in the- age .i-.tt"nof'. {or the ne* heliocenlric underltanding of the aimed against the idealist conception of the tran- "a"nd against the old geocentric perceived. world struggle -system' scendental essence of things sensorily iM. A. il;ik,"HMao," Srn and Cosmos in Giordano Locke reiects the purely speculative, rationalistic ffi;i pt'it"t"rity" it'Problems of Philosophy,1966, No' 9)' 809 308 notion of supersensual substance, because every- treats of "substantial characters", which manifest thing real, he maintains, can be registered on the themselves in tragic situations. basis of the evidence of the senses, observation Dialectical and historical materialism, which and experiment. Locke's successors of the mate- criticallysummarises previous philosophy and rialist school reduce the concept of substance to generalises the scientific proposition on the trans- the concept of matter and, developing Spinoza's formation of the forms of the motion of matter idea, formulate the ma1'or proposition on the self- into one another, argues that substance is not any motion of matter (John Toland and the French particular absolute essence, the immutable founda- materialists of the 18th century). tion of a diverse and changing reality. Spinoza's The advocates of idealist sensualism (phenom- concept of reality, Engels points out, expresses the enalism), on the contrary, discard the category reciprocal action of phenomena. The dialectical- of substance. Berkeley, for instance, dissolves the materialist interpretation of this interaction is material world into man's sensations on the one based on recognition of the universal transmuta- hand, and on the other, seeks the absolute cause bility of the forms of motion of matter. "We and basis of this world of sensations in God. In cannot," Engels wrote, "go back further than to place of an incomprehensible, undiscoverable knowledge of this reciprocal action, for the very supernatural essence obiective idealism tries to set reason that there is nothing behind to know."l up "universal reason", as allegedly inherent in Substance is, therefore, the unity of matter and nature and expressing itself ultimately in man, in motion, universal determinism, which manifests human history. According to Hegel, substance is itself in all its aspects in motion, change and the all-embracing dialectical unity of the subject development, in the unity of mutually exclusive and obiect, absolute thought forming both nature opposites or, in other words, in the eternal dia- and man, the unity of opposites, and the universal lectical process of self-motion, self-development process of motion, change and development. immanent in matter, whose various forms are Therefore, Hegel says, substance must be regarded united both genetically and in the process of not only as the beginning but also as the result coexistence. Substance as an absolute substratum, of the development of reality. This speculative as something distinct from matter and its inherent conception is the idealist-dialectical interpretation motion is a metaphysical abstraction which has of the universality and essentiality of the process been entirely invalidated by the philosophy of of development, which is thus regarded as a Marxism and the sciences of nature.2 substantiai process. In the Science of - Logi.c substance is regarded'as one of the basic definitions r F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 307. of essence, which Hegel characterises as a system 2 Nevertheless the idealist doctrines of the 20th century interconnected categories. He applies the treat the recognition of the material unity of the world of priori concept of substance not only to nature but also as unjustifiably schematic, as aL a of realitn speculative monism, and so on. While-u;nification natural to society, in which he tries to find substantial scienie confirms the materialist theses on the unity of the differences and their unity. Hegel's aesthetics world, contemporary idealism rejects any such unity and 310 3ll o'the Substance is the material unity of the world or, points out, formation of an exact mental in other words, the material unity of the world is image of the world system in which we live is substantial, i.e., unlimited in time and space and impossible for us, and will always remain impos- hence eternal, absolute and all-embracing. "The sible".l The problem remains open for advancing unity of the world," Engels says, "does not consist knowledge, and thanks to the achievements of the in iis being, although ils being is a precondition latter it is forever closed to idealist mystification. of its unitl,, as it must certainly firit be before This, then, is the first theme of philosophy. Its development leads the formation of it can be one. Being, indeed, is always an open logically- to of philosophy's second fundamental theme-the question beyond the point where our -s,phere vision ends.'The real unity of the world consists problem of the subject. Protagoras maintained that in its materiality, and this'is proved not by a few man is the measure of all things, assuming that juggled phrasei, by a long and wearisome no matter how different the perceptions of various ".tor-.rrt but aJ't of philosobhy at d natural science."l individuals may be they all point to the existence This means thaf not oirly materialist philosophy of that which is contained in sensory perception. but also the collected data of science and practice Hence, according to Protagoras, honey is both prove that the phenomena of nature and society sweet and bitter: the man with jaundice perceives do not have a dual existence (in this world and honey as bitter, which means that he discovers the next), that there is nothing external to the in it a bitterness that the healthy person fails to world, i.e., above it or below it, just as there is notice. nothing within the world which differs fundamen- Protagoras apparently did not counterpose subject ind object, although he regarded sensual tallv fiom the material processes- that mankind .ogrrir.t and transforms. Of course, as Engels consciousness as the criterion of reality. This con- sciousness had no subiective content, since the pluralism, leaves hope for the reli- *ith which consciousness always reflected, or reproduced, the "rr**l-tnio'us .orrsciousni:ss. Thui, William .James,- describing the iroblem of the one and the manv as lentral to philosophy' objectively real. However, recognition of man as lssumes that all conceivable ispects of philosophical thi measure of things did imply a possibility of monism; though practically justifying themselves within subjectivist interpretation of reality. This possi- Criti- certain'limits,"cannot be t[reoietically-sub-stanliated. bility was later to be realised by various ideal-ist cising obiective idealism of the rationalist kind, .James attriEutes''its views to materialism. ". . .The universe's one- doctrines. (is) principle blankness'i philosophical ancient ness a 'Pragmatism,sublime in all its The cosmology of the (W. ja'nres, London, 1907, p. 165). But Greeks could not be concretely elaborated because the concep- ia-ei's pluralism-, which he sets up-nothing against of the absence of natural scientific data, and also iion of "'monised being", contains positive that can b'e confirmed by siience' It is merely a repudiation because there was not as yet a developed episte- of monism, treated'as a repudiation of dogma and the mological and logical analysis of concepts allow- srantins of f reedom to scientific rescarch and-religion. ing the problem to be systematically broken down i.{.o-poiitiuirt epiitemological pluralism adds nothing to this conception. I r F. Eigels, Anti-Diihring, p. 58. lbid., p. 50. 3r,2 313 for the purpose of investigating it in all possible For Socrates the chief philosophical questions directions. The disagreements between the ancient are the questions of the nature of human essence natural philosopheri were to a certain extent of (soul and. body, life ald death, the meaning of a subieciive nat-ure, just as their beliefs concerning life,- man's- destiny), _the nature of knowletge, orimordial matter or the basic elements were truth and justice. Admittedly, Socrates is not suppositions rather than knowledge, confirmed by interested in man as an individual distinct from fa'c,ts. fnis brings us to the turning point in ancient other individuals, man in his subjective aspect. He regards man's essence Greek philosop'hical thought"and, connected with the not as a corporeal, activities of tlie Sophists later, of Socrates. sensual, individualised essence. Human essence, The Sophists repudiated cosmological problems according to his teaching, is incorporeal and because they were interested oqly !n wfrat had a immortal, and man's body is only a transient direct bearing on the life of the individual. invelope that imprisons the soul, an envelope that Socrates, whlle disapproving of the Sophists' dissolves upon the death of the corporeal indi- methods of reasoning and proof, actually contin- vidual, thus releasing the imperishable soul. But ues and deepens this turn away from considera- what is the essence of the soul if it is internally tion of the Universe to the examination of man. alien to man's corporeal existence? This question Socrates declared that philosophy was incapable receives a thorough answer from Plato: The soui is knowledge of the other world of ideas from of solving cosmological- problems, and -that -they should n5t really dot.etn the lover of wisdom, which the human soul arrived into this alien world who should be aware that the main thing in phi- of sensual things. Human souls differ from one losonhv is for man to know himself. However, this another in the amount they know about the tran- opp6ti[ion of the task of knowing the external scendental. Plato attaches no significance to any world to the task of self-knowledge turns out on other distinctions because he believes them all to be derived from knowledge. But this knowledge is closer inspection-intellectual to be a further development of the very need that generated phil"- divorced from the real, sensorily perceived world, sophica[ cosmology. While the natural phi]o- whose phenomena at best may help the soul to roph"rr sought tJ'create a view of the external recall that which it has known all along. w6rld, the world as a whole, independent of myth- This idealist, intellectualist conception of the oloEv. the Sophists and Socrates set about evolv- subject is consistently argued by Plato not only ing"i'philosoihical view of man that would be in his teaching on knowledge and its origins but independent of mythologY. also in aesthetics and the theory of the emotions. ResardinE Sociates's-ieaching, Hegel remarks The path of aesthetic knowledge leads from the that in it "ihe subiect took upon itself the act of beautiful in its bodily, transient form to the beau- tiful soul, and thence to the transcendental idea making a decision". This, in fict, is the -philosoph- ical ex"pression of the antimytholo^gic-al tendency of the beautiful. generated by the development of slave-owning Plato's attempt to reveal the transcendental society. essence of love as a feeling directed towards the 3r4 3r5 absolutelv beautiful, which is incompatible with Medieval European philosophy adheres to this uf..tio"'for anything single,or individual, is.also usage, although it goes beyond the bounds of the orsanically connected with this conception of the ancient Greek understanding of the human per- L;?;tif"t-'The beautv that is worthv- of love' sonality in that it endows it with free will, which Fi;t"-;;;r, is to be seen not "... in the likeness is usually interpreted as license, i.e., a departure ;f;i;J ot t u"at or anv other part of the bodily from the divinely established order of things. This f;;;:;; i, utv form of speech-or klowledge, or is a negative characterisation of human subjec- ;;tttric il u"y'i"aiuiaual'being as, for example' tivity, which is wholly consistent with the medieval i, a liiins creature, whether in heav-en or on earth view of man as a creature predisposed to wicked- o. iou*li"re else; but beauty absolute, separate' ness on account of his bodily, sensual nature. ri*pt,!. and everlasting, which is imparted to the The new posing of the question of the subject, ;;;i^il;;s ;d p".i'hirg beauti.es of all other of the conscious self, arises in the bourgeois phi- [.""tit"t tt firgs, without iiielf suffering diminu- losophy of the 17th century, which reflects the tion."'TL;;, or -Gi".kincrease, or any change"'l struggle of the bourgeoisie to liberate the indi- philosophv, haiing. posed the-ques- vidual from the fetters of feudalism. Descartes ti""-"flft" *bjlct, stili d'oes not sin-gle out clearly proclaims human reason the infallible judge in ;;;;;h tr*uri subjectivity, or rather does not questions of truth and error, for reason is in fact ooooi. the subiective to the obiective'z. the ability to present things clearly, in a way ""tir; e;;il';hiioioph."' claracteri:tic use of that excludes all doubt. According to Descartes, *otJt .oit*tpd"at to'this approach' The bearer error is caused by free will, which is independent ;i;;i" q;^uliti.t, the substiatum, t!9 substance' of the reason and prefers the desired to the true. ;i-;I;- irr.- trri".t of a- proposition' -.ar9 fll This view of the will, which is close to that of ie;'i6;A ;;"bi;.l. What thb Greeks.called the John Duns Scotus, helps Descartes to magnify ilil.1h;;.roi!, it often what w9^ in modern human reason, which is accordingly absolved of ii*'"r-.Lfi lt. This shows itself in the yay responsibility for error. Reason recognises no ;ii;"L';;;i;-i".ti.a"ni.*. the problem -of m3n' whose authorities; it trusts only in itself, its intuition, specific attributes they interpreted as. the specrar which reveals axiomatic truths-the basis of all oualities of a certain obiect poss-essrng a soul' deductive knowledge the ideal of which is mathe- on' sense organs, bodily attributes, and so matics. The first of such absolute axiomatic truths is the thesis "I think, therefore I exist". All else -Gi, olotoguesrin ol Plato,pp' 542-43' -i; of. what exists is subiect to doubt, at least until its existence has , ;;;-;i.; fi.-o.ritrit';t opposijion proceeds irroririo"towhatactuallyexistsshouldnotbeinterpret- been proved in logic which from this :'i ;:1iii";;pili;;i ;;ti..iivism' Democrit-us. did not denv fundamental intuitive truth. ";;-litv-;i';i;i"i;';;;i;;J-to'ght bv. the general Descartes glorifies the critically thinking indi- ;r;. oti;.-t't basis' consensus oi oprnlon; f't to tiscover'its 'its knower, t'lip"thesis is his explar,'ation vidual as the subject of cognition, the but ;ffit:"Ini;"d:-ih; lt"-lt- i'e" his notions the moral nature of man are not l?"r"iia'iia-iiq"ia-, h;;;t u"i'tigl'1' rvartn and cold' of p...ir.ty those ihings about which therc is a consensus' devoid of medieval prejudice: he regards reli- 316 317 gion as the basis of morality because the will's also takes part and is an essential factor in this independence of reason makes it incapable of determination. Therefore man is not merely a submitting to its authority. The will needs another machine, but "a machine ahiclt itself supplie's its authority, and this is to be found in religion, good oan (emphasis added-7.O.) resources; the living traditions and the order of things established by image of perpetual motion".l the state. Diderot, who firmly disagrees with La Mettrie In contrast to this abstract rationalistic concep- on a number of questions and maintains despite tion of man, which sees man's sensuality and emo- his predecessor that "man is not a machirre",2 tions as the lowest, almost as animal manifesta- nevertheless cannot forego mechanistic analogies: tions of the human essence, the materialist philos- "We are instruments endowed with sensation and ophy of the 17th and particularly the 18th ctntury memory."3 He, of course, has in mind musical evolved an empirical theory of the subject, instruments and he compares man to the piano- proceeding from the sensualist proposition that forte with nature operating its keys. knowledge and man's whole emotional life origi- In the view of the present author historico- nate from sensory perception of the external world. philosofhical literature-has not done enough to Mechanistic materialism treats man as a natural show that the central problem of mechanistic body subject to the laws of nature. This concep- materialism is the problem of the human subject, tion of man's "natural" essence, necessarily condi- of man as a conscious being. Philosophical mechan- tioned by the surrounding reality, is a humanistic icism cannot be treated merely as the mechanistic rehabilitation of sensual human life, which was explanation of nature, which was proposed by condemned by religion and obviously underesti- natural science. Materialist philosophy develops mated by the rationalism of the lTth century. its methodological principles and applies them La Mettrie, unlike Spinoza, rejecting the opposi- directly to man, to society. In Spinoza, the study tion of the rational and the sensual, argues that of nature is merely an introduction to his system, sensual life can and should be varied and full- the exposition of its fundamentals, while the blooded, but at the same time rational and natural. system actually pivots on the problem of man and "I neither moralise, nor preach, nor declaim, I his freedom, to which three quarters of his Ethi,cs simply explain," La Mettrie writes.l And in ei- is devoted. Thomas Hobbes also sees it as his plaining that "man is a machine imperiously main task to evolve a doctrine of man (the citizen) guided by unconditional fatalism",2 1u Mettrie is and society. Locke's essentially epistemological far from bewailing man's miserable fate. On the doctrine is primarily a doctrine of human sensu- contrary, he assumes that man, determined by his ality, in which the philosopher sees not only the feelings, can be huppy, because his own reason I Ibid., p. 14. 2 1 La Mettrie, Oeuures philosophiques, Amsterdam, 1752, Denis Diderot, Oeuures philosophiques, Paris, 1961, p. 100. p.175. 2 Ibid., p.25. 3 Ibid., p. 274. 318 319 basis of all human knowledge, but also the source the qu,estion of peoplek interests, in the propound- of morality. ing of which they take a step forward ii com- Marx and Engels stress that the problems of parison with the materialists of the 17th centurv. human life are central to the teaching of !'rench who treated man as analggous to a natural body experiencing 18th-century materialism. Characterising Helve- -external influences and reacting tb tius's philosophy, they point out: "Sensuous quali- them. According to the !-rench materialisis, a ties and self-love, enjoyment and correctly under- person. has his oan interests,' which it is his duty stood personal interests are the bases of all mo- to realise inhis outn interests. rality. The natural equality of human intelligence, Summing up the fundamental tenets of French thb unity of progress of reason and progress of materialism, the founders of Marxism write: "If industry, the natural goodness of man and the co-rrectly-.understood, interest is the principle of omnipotence of education are the main points in all morality, man's private interest must be'made his system."r It may appear that in Holbach's to coincide with the interest of humanity. If man philoiophy, most fully eipounded in The System is unfree in the material sense, i.e., is free not of Nanrb, the probiem bf man, of social life, throu.qh the negative power to avoid this or that, occupies a secondary place. It should be- remem- but through the positive power to assert his true bered, however, that the doctrine of nature individuality, crime must not be punished in the forms the content of only the first five chapters individual, but the anti-social source of crime must of this work. The remaining twelve chapters of be destroyed, and each man must be given social the first part, like the whole second half of this scope. for the vital manifestation of his being. If work, are devoted to the nature of man and to man is shaped by his surroundings, his surround- the criticism of religion as a system of prejudices ings must be m-ade human."l Marx and Engels that deform human nature. As for Holbach's also point out the ,connection between Utop-ian other works, they are all concerned with the socialism and French materialism. analysis of sociaf problems and substantiating the German classical idealism, in which the prob- ideals of bourgeois humanism' Nature interests lems of bourgeois humanism are modified accord- the French ma[erialists as the immediate founda- in.q to the objective conditions of development of tion of human life, as the sensual evidence the an economically and politically backward Germa- study of which refutes the religious picture of the ny, investigates the problem of "the subiect" from worid. the-standpoint of an abstractly understood episte--Kant French 18th-century materialism is the ideology mological and ethical ideal of humanity. of the revolutionary bourgeoisie whose anti-feudal, reiects materialist teaching on human nature humanistic attitude determines the range of its along with all the conclusions to be drawn from philosophical problems. The key issue in ,the it. Nor is he satisfied with the concept of the teaching of the French materialists is ultimately sub.iect devised by 17th-century rationalism. t K. Marx, F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 4, S. 137. I Ibid., p. 176 2t--22 320 821 Kant's philosophy is a radical reassessment of the .gorical imperative, which it obeys because it is cosnitive abilities of the human self and at the truly moral. Man's potential moral capacity same time a fundamentally new posing of the exceeds his cognitive abilities. Whereai foi question of the fundamentals of morality. In both Descartes the sole intellectual ideal of humanitv respects Kant is diametrically opposed not only is the theoretical reason, clear and definite think'- to [he materialists of the 17th and l8th centuries, ing, capable of knowing all that exists, for Kant but also to rationalist idealism. He denies the the o-nly possible ideal is practical reason (pure possibility of intellectual intuition, the knowability moral consciousness), freely obeyine the morai. law of the world independent of consciousness, and the inherent therein. iherefoie th6 supreme goal of ability of the reason (clearly distinguished from philosophy, Kant says, is to help man to assume intellbct) to resolve the theoretical, or rather his proper place in the world, to teach him "what philosophical, problems confronting it. Cogn-ition, he must be in order to be a man".l according to Kant, is confined to the world of Fichte, Kant's immediate successor, seeks to phenomena, these latter being formed by thg overcome the contradiction between Kantianism human intellect and the productive force of and classical rationalism. His philosophy is built imagination out of the chaos of the sensations around the idea of the substantial subieci, the self evokld by the unknowable "things in themselves" as substanc-e. Taking Kant's transcendental apper- that awaken our sensuality. Kant criticises the ception as his starting point, he goes againstTant teaching of Descartes and his followers for its in interpreting man's a priori. consciouiness of his invalid claim to knowledge that is beyond expe- own Self as intellectual intuition, which makes it rience, such as knowledge of a reality independent possible to discover in the self-consciousness of of the subject, which he regards as impossible. the empirical Self and Absolute Self, the mystical Kant's ignosticism, as he himself - admits, expression of the unlimited theoretica[ and restricts reason in order to make room for faith. practical- powel of Man to the fullest possible But unlike Descartes, Kant maintains that faith extent of his historical development. Pbtential is not the basis of morality, that, on the contrary, infinity is transformed into actual infinity, which religion is founded on moral consciousness. Kant is realised to the extent that human individuals thuJ seeks to prove the moral foundation of rdli- and their purposeful association (society) become gion as oppoied-According to the religious foundation of aware of their omnipotent Self, in which the will morality. to Kant, a person may be and reason are identical, i.e., the will is reason- moral without being religious, while he becomes able, and reason is not only knowledge but also religious because he has an inherently moral con- universal, practical, all-creating activity. The sciousness. The moral consciousness is autonomous, Cartesian infallible reason is realised in Fichte's that is to say, independent of everything else, Absolute Self, which creates all reality that is including feeling, interest, and religion. It is only to itself, heeds only its own voice subordinate I Kants siimtliche Uerke, Theil ll, Abt. 1, Leipzig, and is determined by its a priori form-the cate- 1842, s.241. 822 21. external to the Self (the Non-Self) as the essential tion of the personality and human activity to con- condition and material for its creativity. The sciousness, self-consciousness and knowledge. The unknowable Kantian "thing-in-itself" is discarded individual is treated as identical to the social, and regarded as and mankind, accordin.g to Fichte, creates not only the difference within this identity is the world of phenomena but the whole universe removable by dialectics. The relations between and, hence, itielf. The true subject-matter of individuals are only a means of realising the philosophy thus emerges, according to this view, common human goal, that is to say, in themselves, meaningless. as the Absolute Self-its point of departure and simply as human relations, they are culmination, thanks to which philosophy is inter- The individual's ultimate self-consciousness is lost preted as the scienc6 of the principle-s of all in the infinite self-consciousness of mankind, self- knowled.qe and creativity, the science of sciences. which in its turn is treated merely as the Fichte;s subiective idealist expression of a rationalised God. The idealist Hegel" revises "dialec- doctrine of the Absolute Self fiom positions of opposition of the spiritual to the material obiective, dialectical idealism. Substance, he tically" oyercomes people's actual relationship to man's teaches, must be understood in the same way as nature, since the natural, including the Self. The Absolute Self merges with Spinoza's "rratutal" essence, is regarded by Hegel as alien- idealistically interpreted substanc-e,- an-d the sub- ated existence, unworthy of its true essence. Ludwig Feuerbach had good reason to believe stantiality'substantiality of nature ("Absolute-Idea")..develops into the of mankind ("Absolute that his philosophical anthropology was the mate- Spirit"). rialist conclusion to be drawn from the history 'In itt these outstanding speculative idealist of German classical idealism. He makes a human self dissolves into thorough investigation of the evolution of the doctrines the empirical In its generic essencl, into mankind. The "subjective speculaiive idealist conception of the spiritual. spiiit" (anthropology, phenomenology and psy- his view this evolution inevitably leads to the chology) is, aciording to Hegel, only the lowest conclusion that man, and man alone, is the reality stase"oi developmenf of the human essence. A of what was originally regarded as God and higher stage, it is argued in his Philosophy of subsequently as the developing universal reason' essence Christian- Iuiind., is thl state, and ihe supreme and final- stage Philosophical analysis of the of of human development is "Absolute Spirit", art, ity convinces Feuerbach that religion, which the reliEion. philosophv (the latter, according to Fiench materialists believed to be incompatible Hes"el, irrilud.t lt 6 philosophically interpreted with "natural" human feelings and common sense, sciinces). German classical idealism strives to is the alienated existence of man's sensual essence. reveal the unity of the individual and the social The source of this contradictory duality of man in its historical-development, to understand social is not sensuality in itself but the human essence happiness. as development of the human personality, that suffers and cannot find its path to Drosress for Lut"the abstract, idealist conception of personality Man is for Feuerbach the point of departure is inevitably impoverished by-the idealist reduc- understanding all that exists in society, no matter 324 how deeply it contradicts man's feelings and problem is not only an ontological but also an reason. What is more, Feuerbach maintains that epistemological problem. As such it draws most of through knowing the essence of man we also get its development from the middle of the tgth to know nature, because it is in ma11-n2fg1s'g century, when philosophy is generally becoming supreme creation-that nature perceives and aware of the necessity for an epistemological proof understands itself. By turning philosophy into of ontological premises. What philosophy has to philosophical anthropology, Feuerbach summarises say about practice is also an epistemological (in the efforts of his materialist predecessors to under- Marxist doctrine, historical-materialist) develop- stand the unity of man and nature, and rejects ment of the subject-obiect problem. From this the supernatural and-superhuman as products of standpoint philosophy is the movement of cogni- the alienated human consciousness. But the unity tive thinking from the obiect (material reality) of man and nature lies in social production, whose to the subiect, the Self, understood as derivative; true significance is revealed only in its historical or, vice versa, from the subject, the Self, under. development. And pre-Marxist materialism, limit- stood as spiritual, to its opposite, the material. ed by its materialist (and usually metaphysical) The classics of pre-Marxist philosophy usually examination only of nature, finds no answer to realised the inevitability of this alternative. the problem it has posed. The solution is to be Schelling, for instance, wrote that there are two found only by proceeding from the positions of possible paths for a philosophy that systematically historical materialism. develops its propositions: "Either one tahes the We have briefly outlined two basic philosoph- objectiae as primary and asks hou anything ical themes and, in so doing, have arrived at the subjectiae that agrees rt;ith it cornes to be here."L third basic theme of philosophy: the relationship "But it is possible," Schelling wrote further, "also between sub'iect and obiect. G. V. Plekhanov to tahe the subjectiae as primary, and then the observes that the opposition between materialism tash is to find, out uthence conles anything objectiae and idealism is closely bound up with their that agrees with it."z Though clearly aware of the different approaches to the problem of subiect and radical opposition between these two approaches, obiect, self and non-self: "Anyone who starts from Schellin.q tried to marry them, and on the basis the obiect, if only he has the ability and daring of idealism at that. In his natural philosophy he to think consistently, will build up one of the starts from the object, understood as the absolute varieties of. materi,ali,st aorld uiea. The person identity of the subjective and objective (uncon- whose point of departure is the subiecf, the Self, scious state of the world spirit) and comes to the again if he is not afraid to go through with it, subiect-the human intellect. In his System ol will turn out to be an ideali.st of one shade or Transcendental ldealism Schelling chooses the another."l Needless to sdy, the subject-object 1 F. W. J. Schelling, System des Transzendentalen 1 G. V. Plekhanov, Selected Philosophical Worhs in Idealismus, Hamburg, 1957, S. 7. five volumes, Vol. 5, Moscow, 1957, p.615 (in Russian). 2 Ibid., s. 9. 326 E27 opposite, but also idealist, approach; taking the to perfect Berkeleianism, which regards the human Self, subiectivity, as his point of depar- subject as spirituhl essence independent of the ture, he tries to explain the genesis of the objective oblect (matter). Avenarius, on the contrary, main- in human knowledge. tains that the subiect is impossible without the Hegel, having reiected Schelling's idea of the object, but that neither does the object (obiective primary absolute identity of subiect and object, reality) exist without relation to the Self. This argued that the identity of thinking and being that amendment to Berkeley's idealism does not affect he postulated as his point of departure always, his basic proposition because obiective reality by virtue of its dialectical nature, comprises the (interpreted as merely a possible object of cogni- difference between the subiective and obiective. tion) is regarded as conditioned by the subject. Absolute thought, forming the universal essence Thus, the themes of philosophy also comprise a of all that exists, is thus thought about thought; definite understanding, interpretation of their it is therefore both subiect and object in equal content; these themes and "subthemes" constantly degree. Thus, Hegel, like Schelling, ruled out any vary owing to the realisation of the possibilities other alternative; either the subject or the object that are implied in this unity of philosophical must be taken as the point of departure. They theme and its interpretation. In the final analysis interpreted reality as the subiect-ob-iect. But these variations are conditioned by the develop- Hegel, like any other idealist, took the sub-iective, ment of philosophical knowledge itself and the the spiritual, as his point of departure. struggle of the basic trends in philosophy. We have dwelt on these classical examples to Heinrich Rickert distinguished two basic show that the philosophical theme is constantly methods in philosophy-objectivism and subject- modified in the course of the development of ivism. Obiectivising philosophy proceeds from the philosophical knowledge. As far as the object is concept that the world exists independently of concerned, some philosophers regard being as man, and regards everything subiective, includ- absolute reality, as something that exists without ing the mental, as part of the world and subject any relation to the subiect; others, on the contrary, to its laws. According to Rickert, of course, the regard the obiect as something carved out of obiectivising philosophy that allegedly ignores being by the consciousness, and therefore differirig the problem of the Self is chiefly materialism. from being in itself, and only existing for the However, as a subjective idealist, Rickert also subiect; and yet others oppose the fundamental classes as obiectivising philosophy pantheism, distinction between object and subiect, regarding which he calls panpsychism. (Actually this is this very distinction as derivative, secondary, objective idealism, which strikes Rickert as naive subjective, and so on. Subiective idealism counter- from the standpoint of neo-Kantian "scientific poses to the idea of the object's independence of idealism".) Rickert believes that objectivism, while the subject, the Knower, the idea of their correla- fully iustified in natural science, has nothing to tion. In the doctrine of Richard Avenarius this offer in philosophy, whose chief content should conception of coordination on principle is designed be axiological problems. "Only subjectivism," he 328 maintains, "actually gives us a unified concept of tive," Lenin writes, "but it, too, has i.ts the world, a concept that explains to us our rela- limits."L tionship to the world, whereas objectivism only The philosophy of Marxism differentiates be- aggravates the universal problem, endlessly deep- tween qualitatively different forms of the objective ening the gulf between life and science."l It is not and interprets the multiplicity of the subjLctive- hard to see that the neo-Kantian opposition of obiective relationships accordingly. The objective ob.jectivism to subjectivism stems from the idea is above all a reality i-ndependent of the subject, that the object and the subject are logical con- and the fact that for the dubiect it exists orrly in structions,of cognitive thinking that give shape so f,ar as the subject exists,'.is not, of course, a through their a priori forms to the sole reality condition of its own existence. The object as an accessible to man-the chaotic flow of sensationi. epistemological-category presupposes tht singling Cognition brings order to this flow of human orlt of certain fragments of reality in the process sensations, builds them into a world, that is to say, of cognition. Since this singling out is periormed according to neo-Kantian doctrine, into a definite by the cognising subject, the Knower, the qbject construction, because the world does not exist as emerges as the content of the process of cognition. anything else but the object of the specialised But it continues to exist in ihe objective world sciences. For this reason subjectivism or subiective independently of the will and consciousness of idealist interpretation of the sensorily perceptible man. Here there is none of the "coordination on reality, is characterised as a mode of philoiophy principle" of which Avenarius spoke: there is that completely discards the illusioni of naiv'e correlation only between the subject and the realism. In f.act, certain illusions are merely appar,ent object qf cognition. Even abstract objects replaced by others. are idealised reflections of obiective reality-and Marxist philosophy proceeds from acknowledge- are, therefore, obiective in their basic content. ment of the dialectical unity of subiect and object. The obiective exists also in the subject, and not This unity takes many {gims. Tfre subjective- sim-ply in the sense that man-his biological, man, consciousness, self-consciousness, anthropological cogni--the and social characteristics-iJ an tion-is the product of the development of obiectiv-e reality, like any product of the develop- material world. The subjective comprises an' ment of matter. The objective also exists in the objective content inasmuch as it reflects objective theory of knowledge: obiective truth, the laws of reality. The existence of the subjective is an the sensory and logical reflection of the external obiective fact, independent of man's consciousness. world. Consequently, even the opposition between the But man does not only reflect the external subjective and the objective is relative. "There is world. He also transforms it and thus creates a difference between the subjective and the objec- something that did not previously'to exist in the world-"second nature", that is say, society. I H. Rickert, "Vom Begriff der Philosophie". In Lo- 1 gos, Band I, Tiibingen, 1910/11, S. 7. V. I. Lenin, Collected (l)orhs, Vol. 38, p. 98. 8S0 88r What man has created in nature is an objective united for all the philosophical doctrines that have reality, subordinate to the laws of nature. Here, ever existed, we are able nevertheless to single out however, there is "dual subordination", since man the subiect-matter of philosophy, which changes constructs machines, buildings, makes new historicilly within the-limits determined by_lhe substances and, consequently, directs obiective specific nature of philosophical knowledge. Not processes the essence of which is independent of one of the basic philosophical themes can be dis- his consciousness and will. The instruments of carded or complttely isolated from the others. labour, Marx said, "are natural material converted But some philos'ophicil doctrines deal mainly with into organs for the domination of the human will the problems of ihe obiect, obiective reality and over nature or organs for the execution of this existence, while others, on the contrary, reduce will in nature".l The productive forces of society the subiect-matter of philosophy to investigation are the spontaneous forces of nature converted by of the iublect, the subiective, and ,yet others, -to social labour into human forces, that is to say, the subject-obiect relationship. In the philo-sophy the forces of the subiect of the socio-historical of Maixism itl ttre basic philosophical themes process. Man in changing nature creates new are regarded as equally significant and organical- obiects. "Nature," Marx wrote, "does not build ly linked with one another. machines, locomotives, railways, electric tele- graphs, self-acting mules, etc. All these are prod- 3. THE SUBJECT-MATTER ucts of human actiYity."2 OF DIALECTICAL The obiective in the socio-historical process is AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM the result of objectification of the activity of The philosophy of Marxism differs fundamen- succeeding generations of people. Its objectivity is tally fiom ali preceding and currently exis.ling specific: the social conditions determining the phiiosophical dottrines. The revolution in philos- development of society (productive forces and iphv a.hi.r,ed by Marxism signifies at the same production relations) are created by people in the tiintj a qualitative change in thi subject-matter of course of human history. This is a new ontological philosophy. Philosophy's tradjtional themes are relationship between subiect and obiect which does not casi aiide but enriched and developed in every not exist innature: here the subjective and obiec- way on the basis of the dialectical materialist tive form a unity of opposites that are transformed understanding of nature, society and cognition' into each other. Hence the philosophy of Marxism Dialectical"and historical materialism proceeds fundamentally enriches this third, basic philosoph- from a fundamentally new assessment of the ical theme as well. ohilosoohical sisnificance of the advances of the Thus, while not considering it possible to natural' sciences" and social practice that is quite recognise a single subiect of inquiry, one and alien to all preceding philosophy. The philosoph- communist transforma- 1 K. Marx, Grundrisse der Kritih der politischen Aho- ical substaniiation of the nomie,Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1968, S. 594. tion of social relations, direct, open and militant 2 lbid. partisanship-all this strongly distinguishes the 332 subject-matter, the problems and aims of dialecti- particular psychical processes on a scientific foot- cal and historical materialism from the philosoph- ing."1 ical doctrines of the past, whose basic features are Of course, this is not to say that there is no retained in modern bourgeois philosophy. meaning in such questions as: "What is matter? The creation of a divide between philosophy What is nature? What is man? What is the soul?" and the specialised sciences investigating nature They remain unsolved until specialised research and society was a highly progressive historical into specific forms of the motion of matter, the process, in the course of which the pre-conditions history of mankind, of psychical processes have were created for building up a scientific philoso- provided a scientific foundation for the concrete, phy and scientific tinderstanding of its subject- substantiated statement of such general philosoph- matter. Marxism summarised this process of divi- ical questions. Philosophy did not pose these ques- sion, which made it possible to reveal the weak- tions in vain. By posing them it stimulated special- ness of all the philosophical doctrines which ised research, the results of which could not, sought to explain the concrete, definite phenomena however, be given scientific-philosophical general- of nature and society on the basis of general isation from idealist and metaphysical positions. conceptions of the nature of things. Incidentally, Marx and Engels criticised the previous soci- science as well as philosophy was confronted with ology for trying to answer the questions: Uhat is the task of oyercoming the former approach, that soci,ety in general? Uhat is progress in general? is, it had to become aware that the answer to without studying the concrete, historically general questions presupposes the solution of transient types of society and progress. Marx specific questions as an essential prerequisite. made an all-round study of capitalist society and Lenin wrote: ". . .as long as people did not know laid the foundations of a special scientific inquiry how to set about studying the facts, they always into other social formations. This made it possible invented a priori general theories, which were to solve general sociological questions as well. always sterile. The metaphysician-chemist, still Study of the parts should not be metaphysically unable to make a factual investigation of chemical counterposed to study of the whole. We have processes, concocts a theory about chemical affinity already referred to P. V. Kopnin's remark that as a force. The metaphysician-biologist talks any specialised science investigates the world as about the nature of life and the vital force. The a whole, not only in the one definite aspect deter- metaphysician-psychologist argues about the mined by its subiect-matter. This particular nature of the soul. Here it is the method itself investigation of the whole prepares the ground that is absurd. You cannot argue about the soul for a scientific-philosophical understanding of the without having explained psychical processes in material unity of the world. In this connection particular: here progress must consist precisely T. Pavlov writes: "Philosophy is and should be in abandoning general theories and philosophical the science of the whole, but even then it is not discourses about the nature of the soul, and in bein.g able to put the study of the facts about 1 V. I. Lenin, Collected. Worhs, Vol. t, p. 144. 884 835 merely a science of the whole in general, merely of Marxist philosophy lies in recognition of the about the whole; it is a science of the whole cxistence of most general laws of the development taken in the dialectically indissoluble connection of nature, society and cognition. This definition of its parts, aspects or qualities, i.e., of the whole certainly needs to be elucidated and made more and of the parts, of matter in general and of its concrete, and this is bound to entail a certain basic qualities, aspects and forms of existence."l degree of limitation. Natural science also studies This is not to say that scientific philosophy studies certain universal laws of existence, the law of everything; it would be more correct to say that gravity, for example, the laws of the transforma- it studies that which is inherent in eaerythi.ng. tion and conservation of energy, and so on. But The general, the universal is in dialectical whereas every specialised science investigates the unity with the particular and the individual. The universal in a special form of its existence, it also, universal as the concrete in theoretical cognition in so doing, discovers certain special, general laws. is the unity of various definitions. Thus scientific A law is a form of universality, and this univer- philosophy studies the basic, special forms of the sality, at any rate in terms of quantity, cannot universal. always be limited. The mechanistic materialists The development of the specialised sciences that of the 18th century were wrong not in recognising study specific forms of the motion of matter and the laws of mechanics as universal, but in reducing the special laws inherent in each of them reveals the qualitative diversity of the laws of matter to to man a world of diverse laws that are relatively mechanical laws, whereas the universality of laws independent of one another. But to stop at stating and their qualitative limitation are in no way this-fact, that is, to admit that certain special mutually exclusive. laws "reign supreme" in each qualitatively limited How, then, are we to understand the most sphere ol phenomena would be to adopt the posi- .general dialecticat laws of motion, change and tions of philosophical pluralism, which is constant- development studied by Marxism? If these are Iy refuted by the specialised sciences, whose total qualitatively limited laws, they must relate only achievementi indicate the interconnection and to a certain class of phenomena and, consequently, mutual transformation, the dialectical unity of are no different from the laws discovered by all forms of the existence of matter. It is for this physics, chemistry and other specialised sciences. reason that the significance of the question of the Does this not rule out any recognition of absolute- most general lawi of all that exists is Pro-gressively ly universal laws determining the course of proc- increa"sing thanks to the discovery of-the sp^ecial esses in all spheres of reality, any recognition of laws of each qualitatively distinct sphere of the the real, empirically established action of physical, phenomena' of nature or societY. chemical, biological and other laws? Here we are The first basic definition of the sub.lect-matter confronted with extremely important and complex philosophical questions and we are far from claim- Materialist Philo,sop\y T. P""l"v, "Dialectical and have complete solution. The and' Specialised'sciences" in Selected Phi'losophical Uorhs ing to arrived at their in foui volumes, Vol. I, Moscow, 1962, p. 189 (in Russian). most general dialectical laws constitute the 336 essence, the general nature the specific laws of emphasise, is "the process of self-motion, of self- studied by the specialised sciences. Every law of development, of the unity and the struggle of nature or society is a definite form of dialectical internal contradictions, which is inherent in relationship phenomena. of The laws of dialectics matter and whose necessary creation is the non- are the most general form of this relationship. material, that is to say, the consciousness, the Investigation of the nature of laws, cognition of reflection of the material world".t the oblective unity of all laws reveals to us the The delimitation of the objective dialectic, laws of dialectics, which do a special not constitute whose qualitatively diverse forms are revealed in class of laws opposed to the laws of physics, nature and society, from the sub.iective dialectic chemistry and the other specialised sciences, be- of the process of cognition is carried out within cause all laws are dialectical. Otherwise the philo- the framework of the fully integrated subject- sophical concept of certain universal laws govern- matter of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. This unity ing everything would be vague and unrelated to qualitatively dialectical processes qualitative of different the real diversity of phenomena, like constitutes the objective basis of the Marxist- Heraclitus's "logos", which, so to speak, stands Leninist principle of the unity of dialectics, logic above all things and dominates them. and the theory of knowledge. From this stand- InCapitat Marx investigates the specific econom- point dialectical materialism and materialist production ic laws of capitalist and, in so doing, dialectics are synonymous, because Marxism has investigates a historically determined form of the welded materialism and dialectics into a single dialectical process modifying the universal dialec- whole in accordance with the objective unity of tical laws, which nowhere exist in any pure form. the material and the dialectical. Marxist dialectics Engels's Dialectics of Nature expounds the laws is materialist dialectics, Marxist materialism is processes of dialectics, the universal dialectical dialectical materialism. The essence of dialectical which natural scientists consciously or uncon- laws, like all concrete identity, implies essential sciously reveal when discovering the specific laws distinctions: the dialectics of nature differs from of individual forms of the motion of matter. This the dialectics of social life; the dialectics of the is why we believe that it would be a concession process of cognition is different again, not only to the idealist conception of dialectics to single out in form but in content. In other words, dialectical a special sphere of activity as the domain of uni- laws are many and various, and knowledge of the versal dialectical laws. general, basic features of dialectics is, of course, Thus, the subject-matter of the philosophy of insufficient to provide an understanding of the Marxism is the universal objective dialectical specific nature of the dialectical process in various process. Engels distinguished the objectiae spheres of obiective reality. This is, in our view, dialectic and its reflection in historically develop- what determines the inner articulation and struc- ing cognition from the subjecti,ae dialectic. Dialec- ture of the subiect of Marxist philosophy. tics, as the authors of the six-volume Hi.story of t History of Philosophy, Vol. III, Moscow, 1959, p. 281 Philosophy published in the Soviet Union (in Russian). 338 Historical materialism- investigates special qeneral forms of the universal dialectical process. universal dialectical laws of development inlierent On the -other hand, study of the dialeciics of only in society. It must be stressed that historical social life entailed a necessary scientific restric- materialism-philosophical science applied to so- tion of-the qualitatively determinate action of ihe ciety-occupies a special place in Maiiist philoso- larus of nature, which-is also manifest in the life phy. Marxist philossphy took shape hisforically of society blt does not determine its rp;.ifi; as the substantiation, the proof, of ihe communist character. This restriction could not havd been world view, which combines the materialist under- made by pre-Marxist materialism, because it had standing of nature with the materialist under- not overcome the naturalistic understanding of standing of social life and attaches primary history, which on closer examination proves io bi importance to the fact that man transforms natur-e sociologic-al empiricism with idealisf overtones, and, in so doing, his own, human nature. Spinoza's !es.U!te all its implac-able opposition to the theolog- natura naturata, which in his philosophical system ical interpretation of the hiitorical process. was the totality of things (modi) generated by the In recent years Soviet philosophers have done a original, substantial naturanatu,rans, has in Marx- great deal df research in ordei to elucidate the ist philosophy become the "second nature" created place in Marxist philosophy occupied by the by man, a qualitatively new reality in which the problem of man, of creitive activity. of the natural and the social are united. personal and the social. This has undoubtedlv Study o{ th-e formatio! of Marxist philosophy helped to provide a more concrete and diversifiei convincingly shows that the creation of the mate- understanding of the subject-matter of Marxist- rialist conceplion of history, the philosophical Leninist philosophy and-to prevent its unwar- elaboration of the doctrine of man and the role ranted one-sided "ontologisation". of labour in his anihropological development, of Cognition is the necessiry, spiritual form of the obiective human activity and the unity oI spiritual social proceqs, whi-ch is conditioned by the objec- and material production, constitute vital elements tive laws of social development. But the spe"cific in the historical process of the formation of dia- nature of cognition as pro[ress from ignorance to lectical and historical materialism. This truth is knowledge, and_from one-knowledge"to another, sometimes ihterpreted in the sense that dialectical more pr-ofound knowledge, presupp-oses the exis- materialism was created after historical material- tence of a special kind of dialectical laws of ism, This seems to be an oversimplified view, cognitive reflection, logical thinkine, etc. It need although it indicates certain fundamental peculiar- not .be proved that the significance"of*Marxist this aspect ities of the formation of the philosophy of Marx- of the subject-matter of philosophy is ism. Dialectical and historical materialism is a constantly increasing-differentiation thanks to it e intensive unified philosophical doctrine, and the investiga- development and of scientific tion of the dialectics of social development to knowledge, the elaboration of new methods of which Marx and Engels devoted mosf of their research, of cylerletics, and the development of writings also implies investigation of the most new, extremely important logical diiciplines, 340 941 which, strictly speaking, are no longer a part of Chapter Seven philosophy. The question of the subject-matter of Marxist- PHILOSOPHY Leninist philosophy is of fundamental importance, AS THE SELF.CONSCIOUSNESS The Marxist scholars who try to reduce the diverse OF THE HISTORICAL EPOCH content of the subject-matter of Marxist-Leninist philosophy to investigation of only the process of cognition are profoundly mistaken. But equally mistaken are those who restrict the subiect-matter of philosophy to the universal laws of develop- ment, thus ignoring the general sociological laws of the cognilive process, their specific character. Marxist-Leninist philosophy today is a system 1. ROLE OF TIIE PERSONALIIY of philosophical disciplines, each of which in the IN THE DEVELOPMENT framework of the subiect-matter common to the OF PIIIL(NOPHY Marxist philosophy has its own target of whole empirically obvious diversity philosoph- Practical research has shown the wisdom . Thg of research. ical th-eories (incl ,-ding the contemporaneous) of delimiting dialectical materialism, on the one i, 1alurllly associated evtn by those with a super- hand, and historical materialism, on the other, as ficial philosophy of knowledg-e of the history of philosophv iritt the two basic parts of the whole the notion of great philoiophers Marxism. Specialised research in the field of the ihe who cieated them. In itself this notion is an'acknowledgement theory of knowledge, the philosophical problems of historical shows fact. Heraclitus and Dem6critus, of naiural science, and also dialectical Io.gic, Plato and Aristotle,_ questions also breaks down into Kant and Hegel, like many that this range of other Jounders, philosophical and of doctrines, were specialised philosophical disciplines. Ethics indeed great philosophers,-and may in the not far distant future become it would be'absurd aisthetics to deny the- part disciplines, although at present they -tremendous they played in independent advancing phllosophical (and not only philosoph- are part of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. ical) philosophy cultu-re. But if we confine ourselves'merely to Thus, the subject-matter of - -in acknowledgement the general scientific, of fact, that is to say, ac6ept and the subiect-matter of it as self-evident and requiring Marxist-Leninist philosophy in particular, no expianatioir, -cannot if we turn this empirical fact iito a *.ihodolog- be simply stated or reduied to a single definition ical principle philosophy naturally for our, inquiry into the developmeit because lhe development of of philosophy, we shall subiect-matter of philosophical in- unwittinElv fall in with transforms the the subjective historico-philosophical quiry a system of histor- -idealist into a system of targets, col-ception according which ically developing philosophical disciplines that to the' outstanding philosopher is not tlie immediate but the are constantly being enriched with new content' ultimatE cause of the philosophical system he creates. In which case his philosophy loses its obiective social pretation of philosophical creativity. Francis content. Suppose we are asked why it was thatata Bacon wrote: *I myself certainly am wont to given time in a given country such and such a phi- consider this Work'rather as the offspring of losophy appeared. Because, we repln the philos- Time, than of Intellect."l And elsewhere he iimi- opher who created it was born there at that time. larly affirmed: "For rightly is truth called the But this, of course, is no answer. Hume could have daughter of time, not of authority."2 been born a philosopher only in the England of An even more determined stand was taken by the early 18th century, and this means that the Descartes, who maintained that "the ability to philosophical ideas whose development subse- iudge correctly and distinguish truth from false- quently came to be called Humism, emerged even hood, which strictly speaking is what we call before Hume appeared on the scene. common sense or reason, is by nature equal in all Plato and Aristotle, who were the first to take men".3 What, then, distinguishes the outstanding an interest in the history of philosophy, evolved thinker from other people? Descartes replies thal no theoretical conception of the historico-philo- it is knowledge of the correct method, thus assum- sophical process. They simply expounded and ing that everyone is capable of mastering it. criticised the views of their predecessors as the The revolutionary age of the establishment of errors committed by philosophers on the path capitalist society evoked in the most progressive towards truth or away from it. Nbither of them representatives of the new class an awareness of associated the theories under consideration with the historical necessity of their ideological aspira- certain historical conditions, and they likewise tions. As bourgeois society developed, this aware- considered their own doctrines to be entirely the ness was lost by the maiority of its ideologists. result of their personal intellectual efforts. When The theoreticians of romanticism (some of pointing out that some of their predecessors took whom defended the old ways of feudalism, while a different approach to a particular question, Plato others were petty-bourgeois critics of capitalism) and Aristotle saw in this only the individuality created the theory of heroes and the crowd, which of the philosopher. Admittedly, Plato in his became their philosophical credo. Schelling in doctrine of chosen souls having been initial.ly Germany and Carlyle in Britain endowed this linked with the absolute, with the very subject of theory with philosophical and historical meaning. philosophical inguiry, laid the foundation for the In his Lectures on Aesthetics Hegel fulminated mystical interpretation of the philosophical genius. sarcastically against the romantic conception of But only in modern times has this conception of art as the manifestation of the "divine genius" the divine inspiration of outstanding philosophers to which everyone and everything else are but (and artists) been treated in a subiectivist way, "trivial creatures". Condemning aesthetic aristoc- that is to say, by reducing philosophical doctrine ratism and the attempt to apply it in philosophy, to a purely individual vision of the essence of I philosophy, F B".r", Noaum Organum, Oxford, 1855, p. l. things. The founders of bourgeois 2 Ibid., p. 108. however, were opposed to the subiectivist inter- 3 Les pages immortelles de Descartes, p, 54. 344 845 Hegel wrote: "Anyone who takes this stand of themselves to it".l Hegel, however, was very far divine genius looks down with scorn upon all from underestimating the si.gnificance of human other people, whom he declares limited and subiectivity; he proceeded from recognition of the dull.. . ." Hegel stressed that the arrogant subjec- dialectical unity of the subjective and the objec- tivism of the romantics is in no way l.'igher than tive, reiecting only the subjectivity that is divorced the common everyday things that it ruthlessly from reality, the arrogance of subjectivity which mocks: "If the 'I' takes this standpoint, everything forgets that the measure of its wealth is its pene- appears to it paltry and worthless, everything tration into obiective reality. In this sense Hegel but its own subiectivity, which in consequence declared that the ribhest reality would be the becomes a hollow and 'ivorthless aanity."L most concrete and most subiective. Lenin stressed He.qel saw in art (and even more in philosophy) the significance of this Hegelian understanding something besides the self-expression of outstand- of concrete subiectivity embodying the wealth of ing individuality. He understood an outstanding the obiective reality it assimilates. This concep- individuality as the individualised expression of tion of subiectivity,'of course, has nothing in the "people's spirit"-the concrete-historical form common with the subjective, anti-historical inter- of existence of the "absolute spirit", that is to say, pretation of the originality of the philosophical (or idealistically interpreted mankind. Whereas for any other) genius. the romantics "divine genius" appeared to be an In Hegel's view the great man is great because asocial phenomenon, Hegel saw it as an embodi- his personal ideas coincide with historical necessi- ment of socio-historical necessity. In other words, ty, of which he becomes aware at a time when far from contrasting it to the development of other people either cannot see it or are actually society, he viewed it as the rational solution to the fighting against it: "The great people in history riddle of genius. Far from belittling the role of are those whose personal aims contain the outstanding historical figures, Hegel actually ele- substantial element that constitutes the world vated them by seeking the "absolute" source of spirit. It is they who should be called heroes, their greatnesi, For this reason he called them "the inasmuch as they have acquired their aims and confidants of the world spirit", stressing that the vocation not merely from the calm and orderly great men are "those that have understood the course of things hallowed by the existing system, essence of the matter best of all and from whom but from a source whose content had remained everyone else has subsequently gained their under- hidden and had not developed to the point of standing and approved it or, at least, reconciled personal existence, from the inner spirit which is still below ground and knockin.g to be allowed r G. W. F. Hegel, Siimtliche Uerhe, Bd. 12, S. 102-03. into the outer world, as though pecking its way Hegel also ridiculei the romantic contempt for the ultimate out of a shell, because this spirit is a different in his Iogic: "Anyone who has no patience with the ulti- nucleus, and not the nucleus contained in this in mate will not attain to any- reality, but will remain the sphere of the abstract and be utterly consumed in t himself" (Ibid., Bd. 8, S. 220). Ibid., Bd. ll, s.60. 346 E47 envelope. Thus it appears that hero-es create out ship between genius and social conditions, of themselves, and thit their actions have brought Schopenhauer takes the romantic conception of about a state of affairs and relationships in the alienation to its logical conclusion. He writes: "In world that are solely their work and thei,r crea' order to have original, unusual and perhaps even tion."1 immortal thoughts, it is enough to be completely In our view this understanding of the role of estranged from the world and things for a few great historical figures, which Heggl, unlike the moments, so that the most ordinary obiects and iomantics, applied-to all spheres of human activi- events appear quite new and unknown, because ty, not only excels the romintic-conception in real- this is how their true essence is revealed."l A iim, but also points the way for concrete histor- genius, according to Schopenhauer, differs from ical investigation of the actual content of social ordinary people in that for most of his conscious, development, which finds its personified expres- creative life he experiences "estrangement in a sion in the activities of the outstanding historical world that is alien and unsuited to him",2 yi11, personalitv. As for the romantic conception of the result that atl othEr people strike him as genius, it implies from the very start a failure to trivial, paltry and unbearable. The greatness of understand ihe meaningfulness of social life, genius is relative because it is measured by the which struck the romantics as the dull and deso- worthlessness of its entourage. So the genius late prose of a monotonous everyday- existence. cannot help being arrogant, modesty being the One can, of course, understand and to a certain lot of the mediocre. The genius is, in principle, extent iustify the petty-bourgeois romantic protest incomprehensible to his contemporaries because against capitalist reality. But this does not warrant he belongs to the future. a' theoretiial conception compounded of-idealisa- A physiological interpretation of genius (and tion of the patriarchal social system, failure to an extremely naive one, incidentally) serves understand the obiective necessity of social Schopenhauer as theoretical proof of his thesis on progress and its inevitable contradictions, aqd the inimicality of genius to society and the time futile attempts to escape these contradictions in in which he lives. According to Schopenhauer, the the sphere of a subjectivity that turns its back genius is a physiological anomaly. In ordinary and on realities. even talented people the intellect serves the will In contrast to Hegel, Schopenhauer, who largely and practically oriented, impersonal aspirations. anticipated contemporary irrational idealism, tries The genius, on the other hand, is the "intellect conception of that has altered its destination",3 that is to say, to develop the romantic - - .genius. Schopenhauer, it is true, does not speak-of "divine that has to a great extent freed itself of the will. seniuso' and tries to furnish a physiological ex- The cognitive power of the genius, according to planation phenomenon genius. In the of the of 1 Schopenhauer, On Genius, St. Petersburg, 1899, p' main, however, that is, in examining the relation- 45 (in Russian). 2 Ibid., p. 48. 3 1 G. W. F. Hegel, Siimtliche Werhe, Bd. ll, S' 60' Ibid., p. 16. 348 849 incommensurate with one another and expressing Schopenhauer, is independent, of ..accumulated [;;;;;plii.r,.. and knowledge'."The man of not a definite s_tep towards obiective truth but I who has devoted much time to unique vision of the world. f.ir"i"g is someone The representatives ;;;d;; iit;;et i,rt is someone from whom- mankind -, of the Baden school of neo- that he has learned from no Kantianism, having-debarred from history regu- ;itl i.il iomething larity,. repetition, one else."1 determinism, continuity, u"rrd anything possessing statements of Schopenhauer's imply-. a any g-eneral essence, inteipret- These ed philosophical whole programme of subiictivist, irrationalist systems-formalistically as the free the history of^ philosophy, c,onstructions of genius, the specific expressions of ;"1*"rJt"1i'"n of art, priori ;;;-it;; philosophy of historv, a-programme that the a ability-to achieve-theoreticil synthesis, ilur U.."""aliseld'by contemporary eiistentialism measured by thg degree of the thinker's indepen- dence of the philosophical legacy and u"a-^Th;.lr"ticexponents tn" doctrines reiated to it.2 histoiical of idealist philosophy conditions. "The History of fihilosophy,,, wrote r.suid.a philosophy as an intellectual quest ot Wilhelm Windelband_,.'confirhs tha't iristory is iriE iLtotrite. Thb tonceptions of philosophical the realm of individualities, of unique and isolited units. . . ."1 senius that they evolved presumed the compar-a- philoiophical d-octrines, thg Ortega-y-Gasset, who discovered and continued ii". of the irrational critical^**-int' analysis of ideas, a9.d t\e- elucidatton oI tendency in the neo-Kantian inter- ;h;1;;;;;aiion with preceding ideas, separation pretation of the outstanding historical personality, ;aiir. d;; -whi.tfrom the false, a.,d so on' The crisis regards philosophical doctiines as'intellectuii ialrfitrir began in the second half of revelations of the spiritual situation of the out- tfi."i ibift century *aii..d a distinct b-reak with standing thinker who is bound to break with exist- iiiir trend, which was supe-rseded by at- ing views and create his own vision of the world. tl-"it"otiti"e to prove the eternal significance of the The o}tstanding thinker studies the cultural legacy pl"Julit* oi philosophical systems, the interpreta- and the social environment only in order tJ sei ii*?-pnilo'topti.dt doctrines as fundamentally ofl h.iq own- ideas against them,'because philoso- phy "is nothing but-the tradition of reiection of S.lrr*"hauer, op. cit., p.45. tradition".2 Philosophy thus interpreted - 'h^owever, polemic is as a i;}i;iA-;;'t6t.a, that -in^their mode of existence the ' a-pPly Schopenhauer.s of free human iub.iectivity, with irrationalism the neo-positivists- which is in constant opposition conceotion after their own fashion' While assenttng to.nrs to the "inhuman,; Uuti.'ttr.ti, on the-piriro.Jpt purely individual.nature ot creatlve oblectivity of science. ;;;: ;;;ii;rh'rv, ical activity, thev infer that Existentialism treats philosophy (unlike science) o[ anv- objective l'Jit "Jii"r*i,iilt'Jo.t.iri.s are devoid as a "human" and personal attituab to the world, E"i"itil,.'^ti*iin.r"..--;";;;i:th" torit Rougier, -[or example' writes: ;W;';;; great philo"sophical only _systems .a Geschichte d.er philosophie, Frei- sentimental- and subiettive value' As Schopenhauer act- . ' It.-**delband, 'an when burg, 1890, S. tl. ;il;";h;; u.. u"t e*pression of temperament 2 pensie ti"iu..i." (L' Rougierl La Metaplry' .Les _grands courants de la mond,iale contenx- ;;i;;"ffi'Jth it. poraine. I'anorames nationaux, Virl. I, Par.is, 1g64, p. 164^ sique at le Langagc, Paris, 1960, p'247)' 35r 350 which may be acquired only to the extent that the bourgeois thought is the idea of the unconditional individual frees himself from the power of imper- autonomy of philosophical creativity, that is to sonal social relations and thus acquires genuine say, its fundamental independence of ob-iective existence. The great philosophers, declares Karl historical conditions, social practice and scientific Jaspers, live both in time and simultaneously knowledge. This conception, which Martial above it. The greatness of the philosophical genius Gueroult, its main advocate, calls radical idealism, lies not in the fact that he adequately expresses stems from the notion that every outstanding his epoch and makes an outstanding contribution philosophical doctrine is "a world confined in to thE cognition of reality, but in the fact that in itself, a universe of thought dependent on itself, passing through a historical epoch he comes into in short, a system, Every system is, in fact, a proof contaci with that which is eternally transcen- of itself, perfect in itself and within the limits dental. Thanks to this phenomenal independence that it has marked out for itself a priori, that is, of his time and the knowledge accumulated by according to the norm established by fundamental humanity, the great philosopher reveals anew, thinking. This self-sufficiency is an attribute of its philoso- through his own existence, the essence of absoluteness, and it implies a claim to all-embrac- phy ihd the initial reality, which in pbilosophy ing and exceptional significance."l In Hege!'s day above all acquires the individual, imperfect form people were-still asking themselves whether a that is the only possible one for anthropologically philosophy was true or false. The contemporary limited man. "The great man," Jaspers writes, "philosophy of the history of philosophy" resolute- "is a reflection, an endlessly significant reflection ly dissociates itself from any such naive state- of being as a whole. He is its mirror or its substi- ment of the question. Reviewing the historico- tute. Without losing himself on the surface, he philosophical process with all its hopes and stands within the all-embracing that leads him disappointments, it claims to solve only one ques- on. His appearance in the world is simultaneously tion: what was the philosopher trying to say? And these grand a penetratibn through the world."l All since he was an ori[inal philosopher he must have mo- words may sound highly signifcant, but a said something that no one else had said before ment's consideratibn reveals their completely un- him. Therefori the principle of the historico- original source-the Christian{aith, which Jaspers philosophical inqui-ry must be the "principle-of Iibirates from its dogmatic form in order to iingulaiisation",-philosophical llial is to say, an interpretation "deepen" its meaning. doctrines that takes uniqueness philosophy", of The "philosophy iif the history-of as the basic criterion of their significance. The which has acqulred significant influence in recent question of the truth of ce-rtain philosophical years, has much in common with existentialism. propositions is not worth discussing, because The key to this idealist trend of contemporary "philosophical doctrines are no longer either true t Die grossen Philosophen, Miinchen, 1959' K. Jaspers, I Etudes sur I'histoire de la philosophie, en hommage s. 29. ti Martial Gueroult, Paris, 1964, p. 131. 352 or false, they are different".l To what this maxim ggneral tendency to agnosticism and empiricism. leads is shown by Augusto del Noce's study of This assertion is an obvious exaggeration, but even Descartes. if we accept it, it should be streised that Cartesian . Seeking to-reveal the originality of the great rationalism was opposed to these tendencies. thinker, del Noce isolates hlm from the ideirlog- _ D.t Noce says that Hobbes, Gassendi, Roberval, ical trends and from the tendencies of develoi- Pascal and Mersenne launched polemics againsi ment of science in the l6th and the first haff bf Cartesian mechanicism. But the first three oflhese the 17th century. He is not interested in the close philosophers were themselves mechanists, which connection Cartesian philosophy has with mathe- shows that, despite del Noce's claim, Cartesian matics and the heliocentric picture of the world, mechanicism, like his rationalism, was only the despite the fact that the philosopher's discoveries supreme, sys^tematically creatively point and applied straight in that direction. Acknowledging expression of the historical trends in the siience that some rationalist themes emer.qed even beTor6 and philosophy of his time. There is no basis for Descartes, del Noce denies juxtaposing "it fundamental mechanicism and rationalism in the difference between the Cartesian rationalist world teaching of Descartes. On the contrary, they are view-and the previous slowly emerging rationalist merged into one, as though confirming Leonardo trend. Cartesian rationalism is in effeil cast aside da Vinci's well-known remark that mechanics is as something that does not express the philoso- a paradise for the mathematical science. is no pher's It real originality. Along with rationaiism the accident that the great mathematician Descartes significance of the cogito*the central point in the was also the great founder of the rationalist and Cartesian revolution in philosophy-is also played mechanistic line in philosophy, whose significance down. What then is left that miy be consideied in the fight against the theological inteipretation great in the teaching of Descartes? "Descartes," of nature was enormous. del Noce replies to question, "begins this -amongmodern Unlike del Noce, Descartes was well aware that p-hilosophy inasmuch as his position the his teaching was organically linked not only with theoreticians of the new science is uni.aue and his the great discoveries of mathematics and natural philosophy may be regarded as a 'm'etaphysical science of his day, but also with the trends of accident' in the history of mechanistic phyiics."z capitalist development. Not by chance did he So, according to del Noce, it is not Desiartes's proclaim that it is the chief task of philosophy rationalism but his mechanicism that constitutes (which he did not separate from other siiences but his main and unique contribution to philosophy. In regarded as the first among them) to seek truth the days of Descartes, we are told, there was a for the purpose of mastering the forces of nature. 1 Nor was it accidental that Descartes left feudal P. Ricoeur, Ilistoire ct airiti, Paris, 1955. p. 63. I,'rance for the Netherlands, 2 Augusto del Noce, Problimes de la heriidisation h,is- where a bourgeois revolution had occurred. torique. -Le_.dibut de la-"philo_sophie. moierne". Le philo- sophie de l'histoire d,e la philosophie, Rome, Paris,'1956, The_ example of del Noce illustrates clearly p. 147. enough what kind of subjectivist, anti-historical 854 interpretation. The main thing interpretation philosophy is produced by the their formalistic of philosophical doctrines from this standpoint idealist doctrine of the uniqueness of philosoph- in be not so much their content as ical genius. The real originality of the brilliant wodld appear to their mode of expression, and philosopher, mathematician or natural scientist is the originality of that of the philosopher's own person- reduced to a meaningless subiectivity, the source particularly more and more emphasis of which is proclaimed to be an amazing, ability ility. Whereas in science teamwork research, to isolate oneself from one's day and age. Del is being laid upon in _conti- "philosophical nuity, mutual assistance, the division of labour Noce writes that analysis leads us of which has prevented to a Descartes, who stands in isolati,on (my italics- and-specialisation-none great fot T.O.) new the emergence of theories-philosophy with regard'to the men of the historico-philosophical science...."1 profoundly erroneous conclu- from the" standpoint of This forever to remain a kind of sion follows directly from the metaphysical oppo- subiectivism, doomed hackwork turns back on sition of the individual to the social, the absurdity intellectual that its modern methods of scientific research. of which becomes all the more apparent in the philosophy, particular- case of a truly great thinker. In point of fact, Contemporary bourgeois school, is in a state,of permanent however, it is the great thinker in contrast to the ly the irrational conflict with positive knowledge and the plactig?l ignoramus who most receptive (criti.cally so, is knowledge is This course) content intellectual activity on which this -based. of to the social and and the "philoso- attainments of his conflicl requires some apology, age. phy philosophy" supplies it by The advocates of "singularisation" phi- of the history of the of philosophical proposition! possess counterpose philosophical to irguing that -whereas losophy creativity science is interested cognition reality, which is allegedly the domain oniy himan content, of as considers man qual- only in objects and, in so far it of the specialised science. They obliterate the obiect. This breach philosophical at all, treats man, too, as an itative distinction between studies philosophy and science is clearly an and art.2 Investigation of content of between works of the the profound crisis that contempo- philosophical doctrines is virtually replaced by expression of rary bourgeois ideolo.qy is experiencing. ' ArrCrrt" del Noce, op cit., p. 153. Historiio-philosophical subjectivism is inevi- 2 As A. G. Yegorov has pointed out, the artistic reflec- tably anti-historical. The historical approach to tion of reality is qualitatively different lrom its reflection phil6sophy is treated by the advocates of this in the form of concepts. "The specific nature of the artistic image as compared to scientific concepts lies in the fact ichool as almost sacrilegious. that the artistic image retains even at the stage of gener- The fundamental deTect in the individualistic- alisation (typification) its specific sensual expression, reveal- irrationalist characterisation of the philosopher ing the general in the form of the individual character, (and philosophy) is not that it stresses the indi- and the concrete event. . . (A. Yegorov, and, ." G. Art greatness genius whose works Social Life, Moscow, 1959, p. 42 [in Russian].) It is not viduaiity or of the but tbat makes a hard to understand that the aesthetic interpretation of are of epochil- significance, it philosophical doctrines is an extreme expression of philo- mystery of his originality and independence, sophical subjectivism. 356 opposing thes-e real qualities of genius to the the main force determining man, is a unity of socio-his-torical process-, to the preciding achieve- obiective and subiective determination, that is ments of culture and advancej in koor.iledge. So to s&y, self-determination, the boundaries of the outstanding thinker's intellectual indeperidence which vary in different circumstances and depend is interpreted metaphysically, that is to say, it is to a great extent on the level-social and indi- contrasted to his equally obvious dependenle on vidual*of development of the personality. The the historical conditions'and achieveirents of the existentialists are wrong in seeing determinism age, -which- are acknowledged only as a spring- as a mechanistic one-sided conception and insist- board for the leap into thJunknown. ing that the principle of determinism cannot be Historical deteiminism is reiected on the basis applied to the subject-obiect relationship. Existen- of an oversimplified interpretat"ion of determinism tialism consequently ignores the dialectical as the total conditioning of ,the individual by character of actual determination, which manifests external circumstances. But the individual, who itself to the full precisely in the subject-object is totally determined by external factors, ceases relationship. Both sides of this relationship to be a subject, i.e., he 6ecomes merely the conse- influence one another and the character of the quence of cir-cumstances beyond his control, which mutual relationship between them is determined rule out all freedom and creativity. gut the both by the subiect and the object. The most determination of behaviour and creative activity, essential thing about this relationship is the fact if understood dialectically, does not for a moment that the subject itself, within certain limits, rule out individuality, oiiginality'actually or freedom of creates the cbnditions, the circumstances, the choice because the individual creates factors which determine its activity. circumstances as well as being determined by The "philosophy of the history of philosophy" them. The very influence of iircumstances on completely ignores the dialectics of the subjective human activity should not be understood as the and the objective, of the individual and the exclusion of a wide range of possibilities and social, of freedom and necessity. It cannot see how ways of realising them, belause fhese possibilities the obiective enriches the subjective, the social exist in the circumstances themselves and are the individual, and necessity freedom. So the brought to light by the influence which man exerts possibility of creative activity is allowed only if upon them. the subiect achieves optimal internal indepen- The same applies to the interwoven activities dence of the external conditions of his activity. The of human beings the product of which is society. subiect must overcome the "pressure of reality", Here it is even more obvious that the activity of rise above it and cut it out of the game. Hence a single individual cannot be treated merelv as the actual historical conditions in which the out- the consequence of the determining influLnce standing philosopher works are regarded as hav- lgop hjm- of another person or masi of people. ing no-positive-meaning or impulse that could Dialectical interaction rules out one-sided- deier- inipire hlm: philosophy can be motivated only by mination of human activity, and the latter, as their denial.- This- one-sided approach to the 358 analysis of the actual conditions shaping the great Bacon's battle against the schoolmen, against the philosophical doctrines is the result of the subiec- worship of long-established authority and authori- tivist interpretation of the entirely obvious fact ty in general, his conviction that the sciences have of human subiectivity. only one system and that systern has always been Revealing the epistemological roots of idealism, and remains democracy, his remark that an Lenin spoke of one-sidedness, rigidity, subjectiv- author may not be both worshipped and excelled, ism and subjective blindness. Of course, this interpret and substantiate the needs of the age of narrowness, which is formally present in any emergent capitalism and characterise his creative theoretical thinking, since it is abstract by its originality in the most direct way. The fact that very nature, also characterises the personality of paco_n convincingly expressed, and philosophically the idealist philosopher. The idealist worship of deaelo'ped (this must be stressed because'a great philosophical individuality reflects and at the philosophercannot be considered merely the same time obscures certain specific features of the mowthpiece of his time) ideas that many of his development of idealist philosophy, particularly contemporaries were only vaguely aware of, points that variety of it which tries to put objective directly to the social content of his creative indi- reality and its scientific reflection out of the viduality. To draw any other conclusion, that is, picture altogether. But these features of idealist to attribute Bacon's ideas simply to his individ- philosophy, which are wrongly attributed to phi- uality, -instead of regarding this individuality as losophy in general, are rooted not merely in the a social phenomenon of the age, would be to act philosopher's individuality, but in the social con- like those pseudo-rationalist scholastics who, as ditions, interests and needs of certain classes and the philosopher himself aptly put it, are like social groups, which, owing to their historical spiders that draw the mental thread of their narrowness, cannot find adequate scientific ex- reasoning 9ut qf themselves. It must have required pression. exceptional individuality to be able to oppoie the The individuality of the philosopher, as a social prejudices not only of everyday consciousness but personality theoretically evolving a certain system of the dominant ideology and learning of those of views, is brought about by development-social days. as well as individual. This is not to say, of course, The great historical personality is to a large that individuality is something of secondary extent represented by his historical achievements. importance. Man differs from a tree, a rock and The great thing about him is that to which he _other things in that his individuality belongs to devotes his exceptional abilities, energy and zeal. his essence. Freud's biggest mistake, which even his most The very fact that the individual philosopher devoted followers have been compelled to depre- expresses a certain social need to a f.ar greater cate, was his attempt to deduce from the subion- extent than anyone else testifies to his originality, scious psychological complexes that he believed to that is, his ability to express more than what his be inherent in the human personality the content a bearing on his own individual existence. Francis of its creativity, including its social iontent. The 860 861 failure of this attempt has obviously not been social consciousness, however, is not its mass understood by the advocates of the subjective character or its impersonality, but the manifold interpretation of the history of philosophy, who wealth of its spiritual content which is to be have tried to explain Freud's one-sidedness as found in science, philosophy, art and so on. The "psychological depth", as the psycho-analytical confusion of the social consciousness with every- interpretation of the subconscioui, and so on. But day consciousness, which indeed has a mass but the fundamental methodological failure of the bI ,q means an impersonal character is a glaring Freudian interpretation of poetry, philosophy and mistake on the part of today's exponents o-f sociology lay not simply in its one-sidednesi, but "6litist" theory, a mistake that inevitably leads in its denial of the specific nature of the social, in to the sterile opposition of the great historical its idealist, irrationalist reduction of the social to personality to the cultural heritage and the the individual, and the individual to the subcon- age that he expresses and enriches by his ac- scious, to the impersonal. Neo-Freudianism, which tivity. supplemen-ts Freud's doctrine with a psychological Historico-philosophical subjectivism despite its analysis of the cultural environment, las not over- own direct intentions detracts from the signifi- come this weak spot in Freudianism, nor the cance of the brilliant philosophers because it metaphysical opposition of the individual to the excludes from their creative individuality the social, since it interprets the social mainly as a accumulated historical experience and intellectual factor that deforms ihe hu-an personality. attainments of their predecessors and contempo- The difference between the individual and raries. The idealist 'oelevation" of the great thinler social consciousness is an empirically obvious fact, to a position above his time is based on a com- which can, however, be correctly understood only pletely indiscriminate notion of the historical by means of scientific investigation of the follow- epoch, failure to perceive its inherent internal ing dialectical unity: the individual consciousness contradictions, the class struggle, and the law- is social in character, and the social consciousness governed tendencies of social developmeni. This exists in the minds of human individuals and, like idealist -conceptio!, which today flies the flag of all that is social, is a product of the interaction non-conformism (with the outstanding thinker of these individuals. The advocates of the his- supposedly as its spokesman), is quite unexpect- torico-philosophical varieties of the theory of the edly transformed into traditional philosophical hero and the crowd usually agree con- conformism, which makes a show of its fictitious o'ayerage"that the sciousness of the ordinary individual uncommittedness. as Sartre, while admitting has a social or, Western sociologists now put Jean-Paul o'the that historical it, a "mass" character, but they maintain that the materialism is only acceptable interpretation consciousness of the outstanding personality differs of history",l nevertheless reproaches Maixists for from that of the "impersonal masses" precisely because it is radically opposed to the social con- 1 J.-P. Sartre, Critique d.e la raison dialectique, Paris, sciousness. 'Ihe essential characteristic of the 1960, p. 24. 362 not explaining why one particular individual and not another became an outstanding historical biographical and psychological study which, if personality. "Yal6ry is an intellectual petit- sufficient historical data are available, will solve bourgeois, there is no doubt about that. But not that particular problem. every intellectual petit-bourgeois is a Va16ry. The Contrary to Sartre's assertions, historical mate- heuristic deficiency of contemporary Marxism is rialism does not need to be supplemented in a contained in those two phrases. Marxism lacks way that would turn it into a theoretical investi- the series of intermediate links that are needed to gation of the biographies of separate individuals. grasp the process that produces a personality and When Marx studies the causes of Louis Bona- its product in a given class and a given society parte's counter-revolutionary coup d',itat, he at a given moment in history. By qualifying applies historical materialism in analysing the Val6ry as a petit-bourgeois and his work as particular circumstances that gave rise to the coup idealist, Marxism fails to discover in either of and scientifically explains why Louis Bonaparte them anything but what it has put there. Because in consequence of his social position, personal of this deficiency Marxism ends up by discarding qualities, historical tradition and the specific the particular, which it defines as merely the features of the class struggle in France between effect of chance."l 1848 and 1851 emerged as the leading historical It seems to me that Sartre completely misap- fi.gure in these events. Sartre himself refers to prehends the subject and tasks of the materialist Marx's The 18th Brumoire of Louis Bonaparte interpretation of history and the limits of theo- as a brilliant example of the materialist inves- retical sociology in general. Historical materialism tigation of the fate of certain historical personages, studies the most general laws of development of but his own proposal that historical materialism social formations, the totality of social relations, should be supplemented with Freudian psycho- that is to say, society as a historically defined analysis, empirical bourgeois sociology and the social organism, the relationship of social con- like does not make sense because this very work, sciousness to social being, o{ the economic basis like other works of Marx and Engels, provides to the superstructure and so on. Such investiga- ample evidence that historical materialism sup- tion fully explains the appearance of outstanding plies not only a global characterisation of the figures on the historical scene, but it does not, of socio-historical process, but also, when applied course, set out to explain why a particular indi- as a method in specialised historical, biographical vidual becomes a great poet, philosopher, scientist and socio-psychological research, furnishes a or anything else. This is a specialised task and genuinely scientific explanation of particular and to deal with it one must apply the principles of unique social phenomena. historical materialism to a special historical, Nor does the scientific history of philosophy seek to explain precisely why a given individual, for example, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the son of a peasant, became gteat philosopher. 1 J.-P. Sartre, op cit., p.44. German a It studies his doctrine as a definite stage in the 864 t65 development of philosophical knowledge, as a context of the actual historical process.l But this social phenomenon. This, of course, does not "contextual" or "cultural-historical" approach to preclude the possibility and necessity of special the history of philosophy is usuallv-utterly oire of the b^iogra-phical a special biographical itudy variants of the well-known (and bank- -research, -presumably'give rupt)- "theory of Fichte, which would -and us a of, factor,s". Realising that tire study better understanding of liis views some of of philosophy in isolation from- other cultural the peculiarities of his doctrine and the form in phenomena does not work and trying to trace the which it is delivered, although this could not in interaction between them, bourgeois scholars principle make any essential difference to the nevertheless continue to ignore the i-ocio-economic scientific understanding of his teaching. content of social development. They talk of the Thus, only historical materialism, Marxist- "intellectual climate" and the "hisiorical situa- Leninist 1ristorico-philosophical science, correctly tion" giving rise to certain philosophical views, propounds and solves the problem of the historical thus interpreting historical conditibns as states personality, which is obscured by idealism, and of mind, spiritual needs, a sense of dissatisfaction, problem and so on. But to treat philosophy as part the of the great philosophers, .one of the - of the aspects of this more general problem. practical life of society, as pait of the socio- economic process, to investigate the connection be- tween. philoso-phical ideas 1nd the development 2. EPOCHS rN PTULOSOPHY of social production and its social consequences, AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC EPOCHS the prevailing social relations and the class struggle-all this appears to the bourgeois scholar to be a vulgarisation of the scientific - In the previous section of this chapter we understand- showed the insolvency of the subjectivist interpre- ing o-f philosophy, because in the alienated, ideal- tation of the historico-philosopLical processl It ist form of philosophising with which' he is should be noted that some bourgeois plilosophers The neo-Thomist and historians of philosophy also oEiect to this .1 Johannes Hirschbcrger, for instance, writes.that."every exponent of the science int-grpretation, since present of the spirit is they realise that to a.child- of his time, cannot step beyond its boundaries and philosophy as the intellectual self-expresslon of will, th-erefore, always proceed from it, in his initial an outstanding individuality robs it of much of philosophical po-s$ons' and notions of vaiue, although he its social meaning and significance. As modern may never be fully aware of the fact" (T. Hirsch6ercer. Geschichte der Phil-osophi,e, Bd. I, S. 2). Ili.schberger," of times have clearly demonstrated, philosophy an is course, does not take this historical approach to TYhomas active_participani in the ideologiial and^p6litical {9uinas, who appears to. him to be a sirlernatural philoso- struggle. researches of bourgeois sociologists pher, the creator of an "eternal philosophy" endow-ed with _The truth and significance that confirm this fact and it is, not surprising that rnany are above hiistbry. But Hirsch- researchers berger readily app_lies- the historical method when studying who are f.ar from accepting th'e philosophers outside the Thomist fold, whose doctrines'arE materialist view of history recognise to a greiter or treated as having been conditioned by history and therefore lesser degree the need to study philosophy in the limited. 366 chiefly concerned he fails to see any real social prehended in thought, as the consciousness of the content. "To understand an age or a nation, we age, is far more profound than Russell's "realistic" must understand its philosophy, and to understand conception, because it rules out in principle any its philosophy we must ourselves in some degree ambivalent idea of partial determination. become philosophers. There is here a reciprocal Because Hegel is an idealist he refuses to see causation: the circumstances of men's lives do in philosophy any particular reflection of the much to determine their philosophy, but, con- historically determined social reality. But as a versely, their philosophy does much to determine historian of philosophy, who attaches primary their circumstances."l importance to f4cts, he constantly tries to iiiscover Russell prefers to judge a historical epoch by the unity between philosophicil doctrines and its consciousness, which in his opinion partly historical conditions, although from the stand- determines the epoch and is partly determined by point of absolute idealism philosophy is the it. But what is there in a historical epoch that substantial content of the histoiical age, that is to is determined by philosophy? What is there in phi- q?y, it ranks first in importance, if not in time. losophy that is determined by the historical This contradictory combination of historicism and epoch? The concept of reciprocal causation that idealism, or the idealist interpretation of the Russell suggests fails to answer these questions for historical process, its reduction to an immanently the simple reason that the interactin.q sides developing logico-ontological concept, was inevi- are themselves to a considerable extent the prod- table in the system of HCgelian panlogism, which ucts of interaction. Consequently, what we have takes-as its point of departure the identity of being to do is to study the basis of this interaction, and thinking. which cannot be reduced to the circumstances Even so, Hegel's dialectics constantly compelled directly influencing philosophy. him to reckon with the historical facts and to The weakness of this descriptive approach to consider philosophical systems not simply as the the development of philosophy lies not in the result of the self-motion of pure absolutl thought, zeal with which it emphasises the influence of but as the necessary-social intellectual expression of philosophy on social life. Philosophy is a form of radical changes in life. Thefu changes, man's spiritual life and as such undoubtedly has incidentally, are attributed to changes in the spirit an effect on social being. But the contemporary of the time, or the "spirit of the peoples". It is bourgeois scholar lacks the scientific concept of from these positions that Hegel considered, for social being that Marxism has evolved, and con- e1q1nple, the Sophists, Socrates, and the philosophy sequently fails to understand that philosophy's of Enlightenment. influence on social life is conditioned by what it Regarding the historical sources of stoicism and has to say about society, by its social content. Epicureanism, and Roman scepticism, Hegel notes Hegel's definition of philosophy as the age com- that, despite their differences, all these doctrines express one and the same tendency-the striving 1 B. Russell, History of Uestern Philosophy, p. ll. "to make the spirit in itself indifferent to every- 868 thing presented in reality".t But where does this kind of speculative thought which makes thought tendency come from? ls it rooted in the self- itself the subject-matter of thought. But such in a development philosophy of or in changes in the sense was Hegel's own philosophy, with the one, structure of society? Hegel, as we know, is inclined admittedly important, difference that he trans- to accept- the Iatter conclusion. He points to the formed thought, the logical process, into ,absolute decline of the Roman Empire, comparirrg it to the being and, by following up this purely speculative of the i'The 4gquy living body; stati orginism had identity, perceived the laws of development disintegrated into the atoms private of ^a individuals. immanent in both thinking and being. Roman life had come to such pass that, on the Hegel asserts: "The particular form phi- one hand, there was of fate and t-he abstract uni- losophy is, therefore, contemporaneous with a par- supreme power, and, on the other, individual.ve1sa.l$f -of ticular form of peoples among whom it emerges, abstraction, the personality, which with their state system and form of govern- implies that the individual in himself amounts to ment, with their morality, with their social life, something not because of his vitality, not because with their abilities, habits and conveniences of of his fulfilled individuality, but us un abstract life, with their aspirations indivrdual."2 and works in the sphere Some people gave themselves up of art and science, with their religions, with-their 9n!i19ly to sensual pleasures,-others by violencd, military destinies and external relations, the rnsldrousness with and cunning sought to obtain wealth collapse oJ states in which this particular principle and sinecures, and still- otheis withdrew from has manifested power, practical its and with the rise and activity to the sphere of philosophical activity of new states in which a higher principle speculation. But even they, for all ihe lofiiness is born and develops."l It is highly significant that of their intellectual aspirations, still expressed the Hegel speaks of the contempoianeity same social of the exis- phenomenon-the breaklup of this tence of a certain philosophy with such definite particular s-ociety, because "thought *lhich, as peculiarities of a given historical epoch. He seems pure thought, became the subject of its own to have been inquiries, aware that the specific content of the reconciled itself to itielf and became historical epoch to which a given philosophy be- completely abstract. . ."3 longs cannot be inferred from the latter. But to H_.1., as many - in other -Hegelparts of his lectures on an even greater extent was he convinced that the. history of philosophy, not only passes philosophy, judgement being substantial by nature, could not on the philosophy o]f classical irraivia- be determined by any "civil society", which ualism,, which saw its chief *thegoal not in mental appeared to him to be the alienated sphere of the knowledge of reality but in attainment of "Absolute Spirit". whose creative activity is again ataraxia; he also points out the insolvency of the speculative thought. Coirtemporaneous existence is a kind of historical parallelism, the basis of : 9, lV.^F. Hegel, Siimtliche (l)erhe, Bd. tl, S. 408. which Hegel seeks in the "spirit of the time", the 2 Ibid., s. 407-01. 3 Ibid., s.409. I Ibid., Bd. 17, s. 84. 370 871 "spirit of the peoples", and ultimately in the sions he draws from concrete historico-philosoph- "Absolute Spirit", whose highest expression is ical research as theoretical principles. This was once again philosophy. The development of philos- also because, as a bourgeois thinker of the early ophy is an immanent process of the self-cognition 19th century, Hegel placed his whole faith on of the "Absolute Spirit" and Hegel, ai Marx the spontaneous development of society, which aptly remarked, was inconsistent in that, while was drawing Germany into the capitalist process regarding his philosophy as the ultimate perfec- of production regardless of and even, as it seemed tion of absolute self-cognition, he did not regard to Hegel, despite the conscious attempts at social himself as the subject of this process, that is to reform, most of which struck him as subjectivist say, the "Absolute Spirit" itself.r interference in a process, objectively reasonable Hegel is equally inconsistent in his estimation (whatever its appearance), of social development of the role of philosophy in the development of that was realising the substantial aim of world society. Assuming that thought, particularly in its history. philosophical (authentic) form, is all-powerful, Feuerbach's criticism of Hegel's philosophy Hqggl nevertheless treats philosophy as a peculiar already implies an awareness of the fact that the epiphenomenon of the contempoianeous historical speculative idealist understanding of the develop- epoch, since this epoch is a definite stage of aliena- ment of philosophy as the self-generation and tion of the "Absolute Spirit", and only to the self-motion of pure thought inevitably comes into extent that it overcomes this alienation can it find conflict with the historical view that philosophy its adeguate expression in philosophy. But in this specifically expresses the real demands of its case philosophy, naturally, cannot be one of the time. Rejecting Hegel's panlogism, Feuerbach spiritual potentialities that form the epoch, since it insists that philosophy is rooted not in thought but always appears later. "When philosophy," Hegel in feeling, and that the philosopher as an actual says, "begins to trace its grey paint upon the gr-y, human being thinks only because he feels and this shows that a certain form of life has grown old experiences along with other people like himself, and with its grey upon grey philosophy cannot people of a definite historical epoch. rejuvenate it but only understand it; the owl of The narrowness of Feuerbach's anthropological Minerva does not take wing until the twilight."z materialism precluded any possibility of under- This conclusion, which follows inevitably from standing human essence as a historically deter- Hegel's whole system, is quite often disproved by mined totality of social relations. Nevertheless his own historico-philosophical researches, which Feuerbach, bourgeois democrat that he was, fully show philosophy blazing the trail to a new social realised that the changes qccurring in philosophy structure and taking a direct part in its develop- reflect the demands of the time, and that these ment. But Hegel does not formulate the conclu- demands, particqlarly in periods of crisis, are profoundly contradictory. He noted that "some see 1 K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, p. 115. the need to retain the old and drive out the new, 2 G. W. F. Hegel, Siimtliche Werke, Bd. 7, S. 36-37. while for others the need is to realise the new. 872 873 Only the desire to realise the new adequately made it impossible for Feuerbach to understand e.xplesses the real demands of social progress". the unity of philosophy with the historically con- As for attempts to retain the old, they lppiar to crete, socio-economic, political content of the Feuerbach, who regards history from the-stand- e-poch, the class struggle and the development of point of abstract humanism, merely artificial and the capitalist formation, the contradictions of strained, although he cannot fail to see that these which he was beginning to comprehend. attempts are made by certain, quite definite The doctrine of the dLvelopment of the produc- classes of society. Admittedly, at the time of the tive forces as transformation of external nature 1848 revolution Feuerbach tries to obtain a more and human nature itself, the analysis of the concrete idea of the origins of the opposing social a-ntagonistic contradictions of social progress in forces. "W!re1e,ll he asks, "does a new epoch begin class society, the theory of socio-economiC forma- in history? Wherever the oppressed mass or tions, the class struggle and social revolutions, the majority advances its entirely legitimate egoism investigation of production relations, of the against the exclusive egoism of a nation or caste, political, Iegal, and ideological superstructure, the wherever classes of people or whole nations, hav- scientific understanding of the necessary connec- ing vanquished the overweening arrogance of the tion between material- and spiritual production patrician minority, emerge from the wretched and of- the specific laws of thi social process in condition of the proletariat into the light of general-such is the true theoretical foundation historical renown. So, too, the egoism of the pres- of the scientific conception of the social role of ently oppressed majority of humanity must and philosophy. Thus, only historical materialism does will assert its right and launch a new epoch of away with the naive notion of the autogenesis of history."l philosophical knowledge, includes the"develop- These seeds of the materialist understandinq of m-ent of- philosophy in the law-governed proceis history remain undeveloped in Feuerbach's teich- of development of society and ihows that "the ing. He regarded his philosophy as the ideological philosophers", as Engels said, "were by no means expression of the "egoism" of the oppressed i-mpelle-d, as they thouqht they were, solely by the majority of humanity among whom he,lnciden- forc_e of pure reason. On the contrary, whit r'eally tally, as an ideologist of the bourgeois-democratic pushed them forward most was the powerful and revolution, also included the bourgeoisie, since it ever more rapidly onrushing progress of natural was fighting the ruling feudal forces. Bourgeois- science and industry. democratic illusions, the idealist explanation of No-t a single plilosophy can .be understood history, and the inspiration of the anti-feudal purely out of itself, purely on the basis of what struggle against religion, which he imagined to the- philosopher himielf writes. Historico-philo- be almost the chief enemy of freedom-all this sophical inquiry must first of all understand philos- r 1 Tl'dwig Feuerbach, Siimtliche (l)erke, Bd. 9, Leipzig, K. Marx and F. Engels. Selected (Dorks in three r851, s. 398. volumes, Vol. III, pp. 347-48. 874 ophy as epochal consciousness, the consciousness emergence and development of the capitalist mode of -the age, disclose its social ethos, its specific of production. problems which in the course of subsequent social Even while his own views were still taking development break away from the historical con- shape, Marx said: ". . . philosophers do not grow ditions that generated them and become an ele- out of the soil like mushrooms, they are the product ment of the philosophical tradition and the of their time and of their people, whose most property of new philoiophical doctrines. These subtle, precious and invisible sap circulates in problems thus acquire a new interpretation philosophical ideas. The same spirit that builds independent of the epoch that gave birth to them. railways by the hands of the workers builds philo- Philosophy (like art and the cultural heritage in sophical systems in the brain of the philosophers. general) retains a certain significance and influence Philosophy does not stand outside the world any beyond the bounds of the epoch that engendered more than rrian's brain is outside of him because it and this creates the idealistic illusion of its it is not in his stomach. . . ."1 Marx emphasised being independent of the historical epoch. But the unity of philosophy with the whole ensemble this illusion is dispelled as soon as we begin to of social relations. The social division of labour, analyse -the social content, the cognitive iignifi- as a result of which some build railways, others cance of philosophy, and also the historical con- create philosophical systems, while others discover tinuity of epochs in the progressive development the laws of nature, and so on, should not be of societv. allowed to overshadow the dialectical unity of the The tiheories of natural law propounded by socio-historical process, which acquires its fullest Hobbes, Spinoza, Locke and Rou'sseiu, the rult expression in the philosophical doctrines of the of reason proclairned by the Enlighteners, the progressive classes. For this reason Marx also idea of enlightened self-interest, Kant's "go6d said that philosophy "is the spiritual quintes- will", the doctrine of freedom as the essence of sence of its time", that "it is the living soul of rnan, the philosophico.anthropological conception culture".2 of the unity of the human race,--the materialist The great philosophies are epochal events in systems of nature, the concept of the self-motion world history. And not only because they are of matter, deism and atheism, mechanicism, epochs -in mankind's intellectual development. rationalism, the sensualist doctrine of cognition Each of them is a powerful spiritual force con- and affects, the idea of the law-governed-doctrine nature tributing to the emergence and developmgnt of of everything that exists, the of the the new epoch. Thesd doctrines revea[ eiplain universality of development, the idea of social progress-all philosophical these diverse problems l S.MqIr and F. Engels, On Religion, 1962, pp.30-81. of the new age can be coriectly underst6od only 2 Ibid. These statements of Marx iiate from the middle as the epochal expression of the tremendously of. 1842, i.e., from the time when he had not yet created accelerated progress of the productive forcei, the theory of scientific communism. Nevertheleis, in our view, they give a profoundly true characterisation of the science and culture, which came about with the epochal significance of outstanding philssophical doctrines. 876 377 and substantiate the needs of the historical epoch, historical types of society (socio-economic forma- its struggle with the forces of past and present that tions), the laws of social progress and spiritual are opposing it, its intellectual, moral and social continuity, the class nature of social relations ideal. The law-governed connection between the in the capitalist and other antagonistic formations various historical epochs, forming the necessary preceding it, and also thanks to investigation of stages of development of humanity, is reproduced the struglle of the philosophical trends, i struggle on the spiritual plane by the development of that precludes any possibility of the harmonious philosophy. The gains of each historical epoch in continuity of philosophical ideas of which Hegel the sphere of material and spiritual production wrote. and socio-political progress are inherited by The Marxist-Leninist conception of philosophy to subsequent historical epochs not only thanks as -epochal consciousness, while tracing the origin the continuity of economic development but also and social content of th-e outstanding philosophies, through the spiritual development of society, in makes no attempt to limit the significancd and which philosophy plays a tremendous part. influence of these philosophies to the framework The historically transient social problems of of_,one particular epoch. It is, consequently, radi- every epoch imply intransient aspirations. And a cally o-pposed to the idealist-relativist interpreta- great philosophical doctrine, inasmuch as it ex- tion of the historicity of philosophy, which- was presses these aspirations, advances beyond the extravagantly e-xpressed in Oswald Spengler's boundaries of its time and becomes part of man- philosophy o.f culture. "Every philosophy-," Spen- kind's spiritual heritage. In the history of philos- gler wrote, "is the expressl-on of its own and bnly ophy, in which for every new generation a1l the its own time. .. . The difference is not between stages of the previous philosophical development perishable and imperishable doctrines but be- are presented simultaneously, we have the only tween doctrines which live their day and doctrines b intellectual plane in which the thinkers of various i which never live at all. The immortality of epochs meet as though they were contemporaries. l thoughts is an illusion-the essential is, what'kind We can put questions to our predecessors and, oJ man comes to expression in them. The greater although we have to answer these questions our- the man, the truer the philosophy, with the irr- selves, the philosophical doctrines of the past help ward truth that in a great work of art transcends us to solve contemporary problems. The under- all proof of its several elements or even of their standing of philosophy as epochal consciousness, compatibility with one another."r In this proposi- which is "removed", i. e., negated, but at the tion, which is a very thorough mixture of co-rrect same time preserved in a new form by subsequent and incorrect ideas, historicism is converted into development, was enunciated in idealistically its opposite, because every epoch is interpreted as obscure terms by Hegel. In the teaching of Marx a unique complex of cultural phenomenl and is and Engels it acquired a scientific, materialist substantiation thanks to the concrete historical 1 O. Spengler, The Decline of the (Dest, Vol. l, N.y., investigation of the development of the different p.41. 378 thus separated preceding from the and subsequent of scientific and philosophical knowledge (and development of society. also works of art) of the past for the preient. To substantiate his irrationalist mythology of Thus the theories that aitribute the iignificance culture, Spengler relies mainly on the subjective eternal truth to philosophical as argument. of systems are idealist Nature is only a cultural- invalid as those thaideny any element of peren- historical image, the unity of man's immediate nial significance great philosophical perceptions in the doc- of a certain epoch. History is an trinds of the past. Philosophical doctrines (like any equally subiective, but-unlike "poetic" nature-a knowledge in general) retain their significanc-e construction, which realises the desire to bring only to the extent that they are confirmed, ad- the "living being of the world" into a certain justed, developed and enriched by new proposi- harmony with human life. No wonder, then, that tions, and this course philosophical of depends not simply on doctrines lose their specific nature, the zeal of their proponents, but primarily on how because they are regarded as works of art. The well they express new historical needs, how they social content of philosophy is interpreted in the reflect objective reality and assist in its furthei spirit of the irrationalist approach to life, from cognition and transformation. Thus the definition positions that deny the existence of obiective truth of philosophy as the consciousness of the not only philosophy, epoch may in but in mathematics and be interpreted both dialectically and metaphysi- the natural science as well. Every epoch, accord- cally. Sirengler's interpretation of the efoit ut Spengler, creates mathematics, ing to its own its consciousness is not only idealist but metaphysical. own natural science, which have no cognitive value In his letters of 1880-1890 Engels wrote against beyond the bounds of their own epoch, because the vulgarisation of the materialist conceptibn of they are not cognition of objective reality but history as practised by the notorious "eionomic historically transient forms of spiritual life. Every- I materialism". Lenin and Plekhanov were severely thing that happens in history is for once only, critical of V. Shulyatikov, who in a book that unrepeatable, because of d of the irreversibility appeared in 1908, The Justification ol Capitali,sm quotation ii "time". The marks drive home the point i.n West European, Phi.losophy, interpreted the that Spengler even for time is not an objective philosophies of modern times as a disguised reality. It is surely obvious that given such an representation of the development interpretation of the capital- of the historical epoch and its is! economy. Shulyatikov wrote, for example: culture the assertion that philosophy is the ex- "Every single one of the philosophical terms and pression (and, of its own time as he stresses, "only { formulae with which it (philosophy-7.O.) oper- its own time,") amounts to a complete denial of {lll il ates . . . serve to indicate social classes, groups, sub- the cognitive significance of philosophy. This *l groups and their interrelationships." The philo- conception, which lays claim to a historical vision sophical doctrine of antithesis of the spiritual and of the phenomena of culture and reality, denies the material expresses, Shulyatikov's view, philosophy's in deaeloQment and in no way explains nothing but the opposition between the organis- the empirically established fact of the significance irrg "upper strata" and the operative "lower 380 381 strata". Spinoza's doctrine was described by Shu- natural science in the lTth and 18th centuries lyatikov as, the "song of triumphant capital, absorb- reflected the transition from the feudal to the ing e_verything and centralising everything". Cit- capitalist mode of production. The very need for ing these and other statements of Shulyatikov's, scientific research arises not merely out of the Lenin wrote: "The entire book is an example of existence of nature but out of social historical extreme vulgarisation of materialism. . .. A cari- development. And yet the link between society cature of materialism in historv."l and the natural sciences gives no grounds for If we ignore Shulyatikov's'pretentious claims ignorin_g the specific nature of the phenomena they and seek out the theoretical roots of his concep- study. Scientific analysis always makes it possibl-e tions, we discover an' obvious failure to under- to separate what, for example, in the teaching of stand the basic proposition of materialism that Galileo reflects natural procEsses, and what refltcts the social consciousness is conditioned by soci,al the anti-feudal social movement. The concept of being. Agre,eing with this proposition but misinter- epochal consciousness is applicable, of course-, not preting it, Shulyatikov maintains that philosophy only to outstanding philoiophical doctrines but expresses only the ecOnomic structure of society also to natural science, art, and so on. The defini- and has nothing to do with cognition of natur-e tion of philosophy as the epochal consciousness and society. This emasculation of the objective does not claim to indicate its specific attribute, content of philosophy led to an idealist eiror in it seeks to reveal its historical content, its sig- the spirit of Spengler. But the content of philos- nificance, as conditioned by major socio-econom'ic o_phy (like any other form of knowledge in gener- advances and the achievements of scientific al) is to a great extent dete_rmined by the zubject knowledge. of _its inquiry, whose modification only indireltly The Marxist-Leninist periodisation of the refl ects socio-economic advances.2 history of philosophy according to the succession Theoretical natural science, whose subject of of the socio-economic formations and the basic inquiry is independent not only of social con- stages in their development provides the socio- sciousness but also of social being, nevertheless lggiqql foundation for the scientific understanding also reflects the socio-economic processes because of philosophy as epochal consciousness: ancientl science expresses certain social needs and is feudal, bourgeois, and so on. stimulated by the development of production and -F,ngels characterised the French Enlightenment the technical means of research- for which it gf the 18th century as a philosophical revolution in provides the basis. The vigorous advance of France, as the ideological preparation for 1789.1 1 V. I. Lenin, Collected lDorks, Vol. 38, p. 502. I Vivid historical confirmation of Engels's proposition 2 In our view, a systematic elaboration of the Marxist- is provided by Joseph de Maistre's Conidiratilons' sur la Leninist- sociology of cognition 1nd, as a special depart- France. De Maistre was a zealous defender of feudal ment of it, the sociology of philosophy, ii required to absolutism, who maintained that the Great French Revolu- overcome the one-sided, oversimplified i,iew of the rela- tlor was brought about by the "outright.in conflict of tionship of philosophy to the mattrial life of society. Christianity and Philosophy". Since pre-revolutionary 382 Engels called German classical philosophy the an essential stage in world history. It is a differ- philosophical revolution in Germany. These are ent matter thit everv stage in world history ilassical characterisations of philosophy as epoch- achieves its culminatioir in t-he history of certain al consciousness. Lenin's definition of the revo- peoples and countries, where the new epochal lutionary-democratic essence of the teaching of ioniciousness is formed. Marxist doctrine arose the outstanding Russian materialists of 1840-1860 in Germany, but it summed up world -historical has the sameprofoundsignificance. This definition, experience and the advances of social thought.in as we know, is connected with the fundamental the most progressive countries, of Europe. Lenin- division of the basic stages of the liberation moye- ism-the Marxism of the modern age-was born ment in Russia. in Russia, it summed up the new &perience of The more significant a philosophical doctrine the world historical development and for this becomes, the more profoundly does it reflect the reason acquired international significance. history of a given people, and the more power- Thus, tire investigation of philosophy as the fully does it expresi th1 basic interests of social epochai consciousness presupposes- -all-round progress, sum up historical experience, the devel- a'nalysis of the social deve[ogeqt and the specific opment of philosophical thought and other forms nature of its philosophical reflection in the various of social consciousness. A mere historical notation historical ep-ochs. Ih this respect the Marxist indicating the epoch that engendered a given historians of philotophy are confronted with a philosophy cannot reveal its full meaning, first, formidable task, which^ cinnot be performed with- because philosophy is not just a specific expression out completely overcoming oversimp!fied sociolo- of the historical- epoch, but also one of the power- eisinE o-r e*piri.al description of the historical to its formation 'the existence and development of ful spiritual- forcei that contribute Eorrdi-tiort of and development. Second, because philosophy philosophy, without special research into the does not merely reflect the epoch; it also ex- j losrritive'iignificance, content and meaning of tendencies significa-nce- which as presses the constantly operative, basic ph'ilosophical--goes doctrines, a of its development, that is to say, the histor- t a rule beyond-that the bounds of the historically ical processes that take place over very long defined-epoch engendered them. Moreover, -periods. it should'not be forgotten that the sociolog-ical The historical epoch cannot be reduced to the { analvsis of philosophlcal doctrines reveals their history of one people, or one state, because it is I social content and Jignificance and cannot, there- fore, answer the queition, why, for example, lhg France all the philosophers of any importance were enemies rationalists recognised the existence of a -pri;ori of the old regime and its religious ideology,. de Maistre knowledge, and- the sensualists maintained that reaards philoiophy as the dire enemy of "order" and all knowledge was ultimately rooted in sensory ihut phil'orophy is an "esseniially disorganising perceptions. answer such questions there must "*"plairrs religion (J. de To foice". iust bdcause it-is not based on p-hilosoph- Maistre,- Oeuures Complites, Vol. I, Lyon-Paris, 1924, Le specia'L-doctrine, epistemological anilysis of p. 56). ical study of the history of science 384 E85 philosophy and which fully takes into account ph-ilosophy as ideology? Is the content and sig- the results of socio-economic research and also nificance of philosophy limited to its ideologicil the relative independence of philosophy. function? It need hardly be said that these questions, 3. IDEOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS which have been keenly debated in Soviet and OF PHILOSOPHY foreign Ma-rxist literature in recent years, require a more thorough investigation than can be Philosophy, as the self-consciousness of a accomplished in the present monograph. Therefore historically- d-etermined epoch, is ideology. The we shall confine ourselves to a biief examination analysis of the relations6ip between phliosophy of the main features of the problem, in order to and ideology presents certain difficulties, becalusb make the concept of philosophy more concrete. !{eology has not yet been sufficiently studied in A number of Marxist studies of the question Marxit literaturl, despite the fait that the stress that the founders Marxism used the scientific of term understanding bf ideology and particu- "ideology" in the negative sense that it had his- larly the development;f the conc-ept of. icientific torically acquired in their time. There can be no id,eology are of paramount importarice in the con- doubt, however, that Marx and Engels did not temporary ideological_ and pblitical struggle. - confine themselves to this interpretaiion of ideol- majority of Marxist-scholars agr"eE that ogy, as illusory consciousness philosophy--The and the speculative is a s^pecific form of ldeology. idealist mystification of objective reality. fact, Acknowledgement - In of this fact, however, is iirt they built up a scientific interpretation of ideology. enough produce to a solution to the problems that The concept of ideology as alienated soclal it raises. Is the concept of ideology"to (including consciousness, which we find in the works of Marx scientific ideology) broad cnough iover thE and Engels, implies a positive as well as a nega- content whole of philosophical doctrines, which, tive meaniug and this positivc meaning was as we have seen, cannot be reduced to rlflection thoroughly developed by Lenin, who substantiat- of--only the social reality? Since there is a definite ed the concept of "scientific ideology" and includ- difference between social consciousness and sci: ed it in the system of the materialist conception of ence, does not ideology characterise only the social history.l consciousness? Does the concept of the philo- sophical,. and particularly the scientific-philosoph- fbir is, of course, not ical - _ 1 the only instance when Lenin, world view coincide with the concept of basin-g. himself on .the propositions of Marx and Engels and !d,eol_ogy! What does the concept of "sciintific enriching them with new historical experience, foimulates ideology" mean? Is it identical to the concept of new concepts which, as he himself often stresses, were the science society? essentially outlined by the founders of Marxism.' Such, of How does the scieirtific for example, are the concepts of the bourgeois-democratic ideology differ from the non-scientific? Does this revolution and the revolutionary-democralic dictatorship distinction apply only to its form or to its content of th_e proletariat and peasantry, which Lenin contributel as well? What constitutes the specific nature of to Marxist theory. Regarding'the latter concept, Lenin cites the experience of the German retolution of 1848, 886 of reality with a system of scientific concepts. This "We set out," Marx and Engels wrote, "from approach to the problem differed significantly real, active men, and on the basis of their real fiom the notions of ideology as illusory conscious- life-process we demonstrate the development of ness devoid of objective content that were the ideological reflexes and echoes of this life- widespread in the time of Marx and Engels. By process. The phantoms formed in the human analviinE not onlv the form but also the real brain are also, necessarily, sublimates of their contbnt 6f ideoloiy, the founders of Marxism material life-process, which is empirically veri- ploved the necessi[y for a positive apPraisal of fiable and bound to material premises. Morality, ihis social -highlyphenomenon. And this, undoubted-ly, religion, metaphysics,_ all the rest of ideology and provides a important theoretical founda- their corresponding forms of consciousnesi, thus tion for the siieritific understanding of ideology. no longer retain the semblance of independence."l Criticising Young Hegelianism ai a variety of Thus, the methodological requirement formulated the "German ideology", Marx and Engels were founders by the of Marxism runs as follows. not content to prove-the scientific invalidity ,of When investigating pro- social reality one must its speculative-idealist constructions; they at- !h-e ceed not from ideology, not from consciousness in same- time revealed its social content, of which general, but from the actual living, historical the Young Hegelians themselves had not been process, analysis of which should explain also its awate. "German philosophy is a consequence of reflection, including the ideological form of that German petty-bourgeois relations."l Marx and reflection. This methodological-principle, organi- EnEels reveal what is behind the alienated ideo- cally linked with the historico-materialist solution logicaf form of the reflection of social reality-the to the basic philosophical problem, is a categorical soiial programme of a certain class.2 They ex' imperative of Marxist sociology: to return f.rom r conceptions, from ideas about things to the things K. Marx and F. Engels,The German ldeology, p. 492. 2 Thus, for example, in criticising the Young Hegelian themselves, so that through scientific analysis we conception of self-consciousness, Marx and Engels show that may know their actual relationships, discover the it is ipeculative idealist expression of the demand for the mechanism of their false reflection in people's civil &uality of all membirs of socicty advanced by the consciousness, and replace these distorted images French-bourgeoisie. "Self-consciousness is a person's con- sciousness of himself in the sphere of pure thought' Equality is a person's becoming-of awaie of himself in- practic,e, i.e., which was generalised by Marx and Engels. "There is no his becoming aware other people as his equals, and doubt," Lenin wrote, "thit by learning frim the experience his attitude to them as such. Equality is the French expres- of Germany as elucidated by Marx, we can arriie at no sion for denoting the unity of the human essence, for other slogan for a decisive victory of the revolution than: a denoting man's gineric conscioust ess and generic conduct, revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat the praitical ideirtity of man with man, that is to say, fo.r and the peaiantry." (V. I. Lenin, Cillected U)orh,s, Vol. 9, denoiing the social'or human attitude of man to man." p. 136.) Lenin constantly stressed that fidelity to the i (K. Maix and F. Engels,Uorhs, Vol.2, p.42, in Russian.) sqirit of Marxism lies not in the dogmatic inteipretation i Th. diffe.ence between the Young Hegelian conception of of its propositions but in their creativl development. {' eouality and the Frerrch conception reflects, accarding to 1 K. Marx and F. Engels, The German ldeology, Marx and Engels, the weakness of the German bourgeoisie. pp. 37-38. 389 E88 plain that the illusoriness of the ideolosical beliefs the sci.enti,fic character of classical English politi- of this class springs not from the imieination of cal economy and contrasts its it to the theories of spokesm-el, bgt from its actual pos"ition. Only the vulgar economists, who substituted delib- the their form of ideology is illusory, *li.r.u, its con'- erate apology for real research into the economic tent is the socio-historical piocess conditioning relations of capitalism. Marx drew a fundamen- the positjon, interests and c6nduct of the givei tal distinction between the historically progressive class and also the illusoriness of its ideoldli.ii ideology of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois apolo- beliefs. At a certain stage of its developmeni the getics, which reflected the transformation of the bourgeoisie_cannot avoil conceiving its interests bourgeoisie into a conservative social force. as universal and reasonable, as belonging to the "rt.rggii Moreover, he explained that even vulgar politi- whole of mankind. And since in ii, cal economy is by no means devoid of content, against feudalism it did indeed express the essen- since it reflects objective reality-the appearance tial demands of social developmeit and thus the of capitalist production relations-but in an interests 9f.-Jhq great majoiity of ,ociity, it, uncritical, unscientific form. In Capi.tal Marx ideological illusions were sribstantial and hisiori_ thoroughly investigates the origins this appear- ju.stified. of cally It is no accident, therefore, that ance, thus showing that even this should be the bourgeois-democratic reforms were regarded by "emancipa'- sub.iect of scientific inquiry. The inquiry, however, the bou{geois ideologist as the ultimate can be carried out only from positions of prole- tion of ,the human personality. tarian partisanship, because the proletariat is the In Marx's econ6mic studi'es we find a brilliant necessary negation of the capitalist social system scientific the -an_alli;is of ideological'economists, illusions of engendered by capitalism itself. the clas-sical English political who The scientific analysis of religion an ex- regarded is private propeity as the immediate eco- tremely important element of Marxist teaching. l9mi9^ precondition for all production, who Although religion expresses the interests of the identified the commodity with- the product of exploiting classes, it is also a type of social con- labolr in gen-eral, who absolutised thi .rpititiri sciousness inherent in both the exploiters and .mod.e of ?roduction, -and so on. Exposinj these the exploited. Religion reflects not the special lnuslons, lvlarx nevertheless constantly emphasises position of this or that class, but the antagonistic character of social relationships, the domination Thus, the very form-of- expression of the interests of the of the spontaneous forces of social development uerman bourgeolsre is by-.lo means without significance, slnce expresses over all people. This, in the words of Marx, is it - the difference between thi French b-our&eoisie, which had alr_eady defeated feudalism, and both the sigh of the oppressed creature and the the German that had not. Maix and Engels quently *"r. heart of a heartless world.l Religion is modified in very .far from disc-arding idEology as"orrr._ false the process of social development, but in all conscrousness whlch obscures the essence of things; they ju_xtaposed ideology and social reality and i;i;?;d..ii, inherent content (and form) from thi contradictions of # r K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, Vol. I, d 415 (in that reality. ;r Russian). 390 39r antagonistic societies it fulfils basically one and dividual position they may be as far apart as heav- the same function. The fact that both the exploit- en from earth. What makes them representatives ers and the exploited profess, as a rule, the same of the petty bourgeoisie is the fact that in their religion is certainly no testimony to its above- minds they do not get beyond the limits which the class or above-party character. The exploiting latter do not get beyond in life, that they are conse- classes find in religion a justification for their own quently driven, theoretically, to the same problems position and a specific means of psychological and solutions to which material interest and social enslavement of the working people. The exploited position drive the latter practically."L Naturally masses, since they have not yet found the road to this does not imply that every ideology may in the social emancipation, 'profess religion because it final analysis be reduced to the notions of the strikes them as the apparent form of realisation everyday class consciousness. English classical of their actual needs. political economy, the ideology of the bourgeois The religious ideology on the one hand con- Enlightenment, and other historically progressive solidates social inequality, exploitation and op- bourgeois doctrines, limited though they were pression, while on the other it provides an inade- from the class standpoint, were undoubtedly in quate form of protest against that which it contradiction to the everyday bourgeois notions sanctifies, as can be seen from the history of of their time. And inasmuch as they contained heresy, from the religious attire of the early elements of a scientific understanding of reality, bourgeois revolutions, and so on. they were more progressive than the social practice Ideology, as can be seen from the example of of the bourgeoisie. The advance reflection of social religion, is by no means always a system of reality, the anticipation of its tendencies, the urge theoretical views. The same is true of the spon- to look ahead, the theoretical elaboration of new taneously formed everyday political consciousness social criteria, ideals and historical tasks con- of the masses, which should not be excluded from stitute the characteristic feature of historically ideology, inasmuch as it is the mass conscious- progressive ideologies. ness, and not something that belongs only to the Trade-unionism and reformism are spontane- theoreticians of ideology. Marx drew a distinc- ously formed ideologies of the working class at tion between spontaneously formed and theoreti- the stage of its development when it is still not cally elaborated ideological beliefs. Vulgar po- aware of the irreconcilable antithesis of interests litical economy, as Marx pointed out, is based between labour and capital. In their theoretical theoretically on the ideas of the everyday bour- form these ideologies substantiate the everyday, geols consclousness. spontaneously formed consciousness of the prole- Characterising the petty-bourgeois ideologists, tarian masses fighting for their immediate eco- Marx emphasised: "Just as little must one imagine nomic interests. Marxism as the scientific ideology that the democratic representatives are indeed all $ shopkeepers or enthusiastic champions of shop- t K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected flJor&s in three keepers. According to their education and their in- volumes, Vol. I, p. 424. 392 of the working class is built up by means of revo- bourgeois consciousness and, in doing so, break Iu^tiona_ry critical generalisatio-n d,f tfre experience away from the unscientific ideologisii who at of proletarian liberation movement, by iesearch that time dominated the working-class movement. into the laws -of capitalist development, and by So the assertions of the critics bf Marxism that the theoretical summilg up and'working over Marx and Engels rejected all ideology on prin- of the achievements of social ciple are utt-erly unfounded. On the same grounds lrevious-and tho"ught-" philosophical, econ-omic socio-political. The one might, for instance, assert that they iejected Marxist analysis of social consciousiness and self- all philosophy; but the fact is that Marxism"is the consciousness indicates the need to draw a fun- negation of philosophy in the old sense of the damental distinction between ideolosy, that ade- term. Here we have an analogy that indicates quately expresse_s the basic interests*'of a given the concrete dialectical natuie of negation. class, and ideology that reflects the inflience This is the negation of negation, that is to say, exercised upon it by other, hostile classes. the creation of a fundamentally new, scientific Characterising the difference between the ideology. Communist Party and other working-class parties The fact that in Marx and Engels there is no that existed in the mid-l9th centuri. Marx and such expression as "scientific ideology", that they Engels emphasised: "The Communiiis are distin- counterpose, for example, the "German ideologyt' gu.ished the other and ideology general -from working-class-struggl'es parties by in to the social science they this only: l.-In -the national of ttrL themselves created, will deceive only those who proletarians of different countries, tlie"y point out are ignor-ant of the complex and contradictory and bring to the front the common inferests of process-of development of a new scientific theory the e-ntire p:oletariat, independently of all na- that is fundamentally different from all precedini; tionality. 2. In th-e va-rious stages of development theories, or who seek to counterpose Marx to T,enin ryhi+ the struggle of the woiking class against on the -grounds that Lenin, 1n developing the- bourgeoisie has to pass througl, they aiways the doctrine of the founders of Marxism, formulat- and everywhere repreient the interesti of the ed the concept of scientific ideology that was movement as a whole."l already implicit in that doctrine. The founders of Marxism do not call their Marxism-Leninism understands ideology not as system of. sci,enti.fic communist views the ideology the passive reflection of social reality, b"ui as the of the proletar_iat, although they point out that"it substantiation of a definite social- programme expresses the basi,c interests of the proletariat of founded on investigation of the positiin and a// countrie_s. By not calling their doctrine an interests of a give-n class, its relationship to other ideology, .Vutt and Engels ictually counterpose classes, the pe-culiarities of social development the scientific ideology o-f the proleiariat to'the and its motive forces. In this sense every ideology is a guide to_ social action, that is to say, to a syi- tem of regulative ideas, notions, _r K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected U)orks in three ideals and im- volumes, Vol. I, p. 120. peratives expressing the positions, demands and 894 895 aspirations of a definite class, social group or the whole of society. So even the possibility of sclentific ideology Revolutionary'change ideology argues the necessity for coincides historicilly with the ability of the given radical social in the basic direction of class actuallv to express and realise the historical social development; in so far as such change is necessity conditioned by the previous development actually needed, a revolutionary ideology, no of socieiy. F. V. Konstantinov makes the point: matter how illusory its form of expression, con- "OnIy the class that is basically interested in tains elements of scientific understanding of social obieciive truth. whose position and interests reality. A conservative or reactionary ideology, coincide with the obiectiv6 course of history and on the contrary, gives. grounds for the desire of the laws of development of society, only this class certain classes to preserve social relations that are and its theoreticai representativei are capabl! of historically obsolete, and since such a desire con- carrying out fearlessl objective, stop-at-nothing tradicts the whole course of social development, such an ideology is hostile to the scientific under- contemporarv bourgeois form of idcology (which is it- standing of social life. Consequently, social theory seli, oi .o,it.., ".-.tpectable" and "deideologised") thus because gives a .*oi.ses fairlv openlv its implacable hostility to any does not become ideology it reiolutionarv sociai chinse' The sociology free of "value distorted reflection of reality, but because it re- iudeements"'which Max Weber attempted to evolve is one given '.,i-firi traditional boirrgeois conception-of flects, and appraises the social reality -arad of the the whole soiio-historical process from definite "uncominitted""uiiutions social science, which is basically impossible positions.l in class societv, Another variation of the bourgeois ideo- social i."i".i- airt".tion of social science is the "so-iology of krr"owledse" advocated bv Mannheim and his followers. This r The bourgeois ideologists of today, in view of irr.riu .iit.t that social science cannot on principle be circumstances which they feel they can no longer ignore, an o6iective reflection of social reality, because its pre- are compelled to distinluish betnieen revolutionary and conditions, the values and judgement criteria that it ap- non-revolutionary ideologies (the latter, however, being olies. are bound to be subiecti-ve' But the fact that the considered neitlier conseivativ'e nor reactionary), Non- iubiict o[ coenition, the [nower, is called the subject usually qualified those revolutionary ideologies are as doei not neceisarily- mean that all cognition is subjective' that sanction the status quo and are supported by the ma- fully The principle of materialist epistemology is -ap- iority of "ruling groups". The revolutionary ideologies, on olicabie to' the ideoloeical reflection of reality. Sub- ihe iontrary, oppose the status quo, reject the values and iectivism in ideoloev is conditioned not simply by the norms prevailing in the given society, and are aimed at ittit.rde of ideoloeisl6 representing a certain class but b.y brinsini about 1 radical transformation of the existing *t it it ut class ac"tually dtands for-. Whereae the bourgeoi- ordei, in view of which the Amedcan sociologist Talcott sie as a class is not interested in studying the mechanism Parsons calls them Utopias (Das Fi,schers Lexicon oi ttri of surplus value, th6 pioletariat, on the Sozi,ologie, Frankfurt alM, 1964, S. 182). Parsons obviously contrari."toa".tion is interested in obiective scientific research into does not realise that the desire to preserve and eternalise caoitali'sl oroduction. The appearance of capitalist relations the status quo, whether it be capitalist or any other stage ;-b:;;; ti,; ictual enslaveirent of the proietarian's "free" of develooment. is utopian. He-makes no distinction be- itiir.it tutour. and the working class,- which is fighting tween progressive and ieactionary Utopias and ignores the lr"ituiirrn. is naturallv interested in breaking through this tact thit socialism has ceased to be a Utopia and become uot.irurr." to the truih' Thus, the possibility and necessity a science and quite definite historical social reality. The oi".ie"tifc ideology are implicit iir the objectivc position and subjective intEiest of the working class. 396 gs. research. For this reason the scientific ideology of tion will no doubt become more obvious when this class does not and cannot contradict scielniific classless communist society is established through- sociology."l out the world and the problems of the class strig- Of course, the possibility of creatins a scientific gle, the- socialist revolution, the dictatorship of ideology can be realised only in certain historical the working class, the state, and so on, are con- conditions and by.means of all-round investigation gigned to the historical -view past. But the Marxist- of the life of society. The slave-owners, thi feu- Leninist scientific world will undoubtedly dals. and the capitalists, all in their time expressed retain all its significance; it will develop on th'e the interests of social.development, the hiitorical basis of the new historical experience and achieve- necessity of which they were-the instruments. But ments of the sciences of nature and society, as the they never created a icientific ideology. The pro- scientific theory of social creativity and the meth- gressive bourgeoisie through its most" outstanding odology of scientific research. The unity of sci- ideologists c_rea!e-{ economic, historical ence and ideology that is inherent in Marxism 'materialism.and legai-to science, and philosophical But 'becomes more understandable in the light of this none of these scientific theories is the term "sci- historical perspective. entific ideology" applicatle. A scientific ideology Marxism-Leninism is a science and at the same presupposes cognition of its own historical, class time a scientific ideology. The significance of content,- origin, sig-nificance, Marxism-Leninism as the ideolosy and relationship-con- to of tt e work- other ideol,ogies, classes and epochs. It is, ing class is historically confined wiilri" the frame- sequently, free of idealist illusions and pretensions work of the epoch of transition from capitalism to to eternal significance beyond history. In this sense communism; its significance as a scienie that is constantly it i"uy be. said that -scientific ideology is the developing and enriching itself with highest achievement of scientific inquiri'into the new propositions is naturally not confined within socio-h^istoric-al proc-ess, be-cause it a-lso'comprises the limits of any epoch. scientific understanding of its specific ideol6gical The significance of any ideology, including the form. Such is scientifiJsocialist ideoloEv. scientific ideology, is conditioned 6y the histo"rical "philosophy, Marx and Elg.tr c_reated scientific and the scientific world view which is'broader in tion between science and ideology is an cssential condition content than philosophy. Marxist-Leninist science of a correct scientific, critical--attitude to any research and the scientific socialist ideology form a into social pr94em-s, including economic problems" (A. M. dialec- Rumyantsev, "October tical unity, which does not, however, eliminate and Economic Science" in, October the Reaolution and Scientific Progress, Vol. II). Whereas in difference that exists between them.2 This distinc- bourgeois studies it is essential to distinguisir the scientific from the ideological, in Marxist-Leniniit studies a t it is -F. V. Konstantinov, "The Great October Revolution matter of distinguishing between the scientific and the an-d Marxist Sociology" in October Reaolution and, Sciei- scientific-ideological; the latter may be defined as the tific^Pr_ogress, Vol. lI, Moscow, lg67 (in Russian). scientific expression of the interests,'needs and position of a Characterising bourgeois social science and ideolosv. a certain class, based on scientific research into social A. M. Rumyantsev points out: "The drawing of a distiii:i relations. 898 entific and scientific-ideological-that contradict limits of its possible social application. In this sense each other. All Marxism as a science is the sci- any ideology transient. is historically The signifi- entific ideology of the working class, the ideology cance of a science is determined exclusively by of the communist transformation and the of society, boundaries of the objective truth it contains its inherent historical clarity of content retains and the possibilities of its further development. In its actual significance throughout the epoch of the this sense science, as such, has everlasting signifi- building and establishing communist society. cance as the only adequate expression "living, of of Thus is a matter only of the two fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, it delimiting functional meanings Marxist-Leniniit science, absolute human knowledge".r of of defining the specifi,c nature of scientific ideol- Every ideology, having fulfilled its historical ogy. mission, yields place to a new ideology, equipped Thus, the essence of the Marxist-Leninist ap- to advocate new social demands, interests and proach to the question cannot be expressed either tasks. Marxism-Leninism as the scientific world by opposing science, the scientific world view, to view, as the theoretical basis the scientific of the, sclentific socialist ideology, or by erasing the ideology of the working class, undoubtedly will differences between them. The unity of cognltion become the theoretical basis of the scientific ideol- and the scientific ideological understanding of the ogy communism when is victorious on a of it world does not remove the difference betwten the world scale, since communism will naturally need two. Marxism-Leninism has put an the a new, scientifically grounded system social end to of alienated ideological form cognising the world, orientation and scientific logistics for the people's of and it did so by creating Marxist-Leninist social creativity. science, which is at the same time the ideology the The distinction between science and scientific of working class. is from this standpoinl'that ideology within the framework their It we of dialectical must set about solving the question unity that was first achieved Marxism gives no of the ideo- in logical function of philosophy. grounds for opposing them to each other. There is The philosophical power doctrines of Heraclitus, De- a of knowledge in the scientific socialist mocritus, .Plato, Aristotle ideology. provides scientific methodological and other thinkers of It a the ancient world were undoubtedly orientation towards understanding past ideological in the of character. It is not particularly history, the present age and mankind's historical difficult to iee the social limitations in Heraclitus and his interpreta- prospects. The methodological significance of the tion of dialectics as eternal flux, in his concEption Marxist-Leninist ideological the approach to of the struggle of contraries as everlasting phenomena social summed up the war, of life is in and so on. The ideological content of Ariitotle's concept of scientific Communist-Party spirit. teaching on the nature state Needless say, there are not and cannot be in of the is even more to easily perceived. And yet Marxist-Leninist teaching two components-sci- it would be a repetition of Shulyatikov's mistakes (see above, pp. 381-82) to say that Heraclitus's dialectics, the atomic theory of 1 V. L Lenin, Collected Uorks, Vol. 38, p. 363. 401 400 Democritus, the teachings of Plato or Aristotle Beyond the bounds of the socio-economic formation boil down to ideological interpretation of social that engendered them they can no longer, of or natural reality from the positions of the slave- course, perform the ideological functions they owning class. Understanding the ideological func- previously possessed. The assimilation and use of tion of the cognitive process has nothing to do these teachings by the ideologists of the new with the pragmatic, un-Marxist attitude of equat- classes become possible only as a result of a proc- ing the process of cognition with seruice in the ess of ideological treatment, that modifies their interests of progressive classes. This or reactionary original content. But it should be borne in mind is not just because the subject"matter of cognition, that not only the ideologists of the feudal system and particularly philosophy, includes natural as well as social reality. The main thing to remember but also the representatives of the anti-feudal is that the ideological function of cognition, of opposition developed the ideas of Plato, Aristotle knowledge, is an inseparable part (but only a part) and other thinkers of ancient times. Campanella, of the all-embracing cognitive process that is one of the first advocates of Utopian comrnunism, unrestricted both in content and significance. was a neo-Platonist. Neo-Platonism had a con- Cognition expresses the needs of social produc- siderable influence on the pantheist, anti-feudal tion, both material and spiritual; it makes up the world view of Giordano Bruno. In contrast to the many-sided world of manls spiritual life, which, schoolmen, who followed Thomas Aquinas, the like all human life, cannot be simply a means, Aristotelians of Padua represented the anti-feudal but is the goal. social movement. Early bourgeois scepticism, The relationship that takes shape historically which revived the traditions of the ancient world, between the ideologies of various classes, partic- expressed qualitatively new ideological tendencies ularly opposing classes, is a relationship of strug- that were alien to the Greek scepticism of gle: ideological compromises (between the bour- Pyrrho. geois and the feudal ideologies, for instance) are The transition from the slave-owning to the only passing phases in the process of the assertion feudal society, and the revived interest in ancient or degradation of this or that ideology. philosophy evoked by the development of feudal- We do, of course, find in the history of the ism, historically revealed a continuity in the ideologies of the exploiting classes a historical development of philosophical knowled.ge that was continuity born of the antagonistic production relatively independent of the ideological function relations that aie common to the slave-owning, which this transition performed. This relative feudal and capitalist societies. But this does not independence must not be exaggerated, of course: explain why the doctrines of Heraclitus, Democ- the philosophy of feudal socigty (at any rate, the ritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, the Stoics, the dominant philosophy) drew mainly on the idealist Sceptics and others outlived their age and were doctrines of the ancient world, and the very mode revived, re-interpreted, and developed by the of this assimilation was determined by the pre- philosophers of feudal and capitalist times. vailing religious ideology. 402 There are various degrees in the relative in- n91ma! yay of thinking.. .".1 This dependence of philosophical knowledge, which summing up of Locke's ideological position enlightens us as to presumably explains the existence of different and his economic, political and pedagogical views, his even opposed philosophical doctrines within the attitude to religion, his retreats from consistent framework of one and the same ideology at a materialism, and so on. But cannot, given stage in history. German classical philos- it of course, pr-ovide the basis for explanation spe- ophy basically united respect ideology. an of the is in of cific peculiarities Locke'J sensualism, fundamental difference between of his dbc- But how is the trine of simple,and Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel and Feuerbach! complex ideas, of primary'these and secondary qualities, etc. To understand The ideology of every class is characterised by particular its basic, histirrically developing content. The features of Locke's philosophy, one must bourgeois philosophy (only $_u{y th-e empirical natural science of his day. ideologically united Philoso-phy's its unity makes the term "bourgEois" applicable) dependence on the level of develop- ment of the science by an absence of of its day is not directly con- is at th6 same time characterised nected with conceptual conflict between materialism its ideological function. It would unity: b,e an oversimplification, and idealism, between rationalism and empiri- for example, to assert that rationalist epistemology ideology. cism, dialectics and metaphysics, conflict is an between The dialectical unity of philosophy within the idealist camp, polemics between various and idiology qleans that they cannot be metaphysically materialist philosophy, and so on. iden- trends in tified. with one another. thus helps Concrete analysis of these philosophical disagree- It us to-under- stand the relative independence philosophical ments clearly reveals the various trends that exist o-f knowledge bcyond the bounds framework bourgeois ideology. But of itl ideological within the of application. From this point would be scarcely correct to regard the differ- of view we are able it to see sensualists and the the relationship of historical coqtinuity be- ences of opinion between the philosophical differences, although lwge_n doctrines that differ radically rationalistJ as ideological ideologila,l certain extent connected the in content. Marxist philosophy, as the they are to a with ideology the philosophy is of working class, naturally has noth- latter. The ideological function of ing not what distinguishes philosophy from other in-common wi-tlr bourgeois ideology, and any- one who sees in Marxist philosophy-nothing forms of social consciousness; it is what it has in but Ivlarx called Locke a thinker ideology cannot, of course, understand its rela- common with them. tionship the preceding "the new bourgeoisie every to bourgeois philosophy. who represented in Marxism ariies, u.qulrer took the side of the manufacturers fo"rm aid subitahce, wav-hi and develo.ps in implacable conflict with bourgeois against the working classes and the paupers, the ideology,. And yet Marxism, as Lenin emphalises, mirchants against the old-fashioned usurers, the is financial ariitocracy against governments that the direct and immediate contintation of the were in debt; he even demonstrated in a separate work that the bourgeois way ef thinking is the 1 K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of political Economy, Moscow, 1971, p. 77, 404 most outstanding philosophical, sociological and some philosophical beliefs and find argumerits for economic doctrinei creatdd by the ideologists of others. In this sense scientists take part in- the progressive bourgeoisie. This is a- contradic- the -actual ideological struggle in so far as they assess social tion'of historical reality, in which philo- as well as the specialist significance of scientific sophical knowledge always performs an ideolog- discoviries, the prospects of science and its role in icil function, while at the same time remaining solving social problems. Today, when natural knowledge that does not depend on this or any science to an ever greater degiee determines the other fuiction. The attitude-of Marx and Engels peculiarities and growth rate of material produc- to bourgeois doctrines was expr-essed primarily tion,,the natural scientists, like the philoiophers, in criticism of class nhrrowness of these doctrines sociologists and economists, are compelled to face in selecting and developing what was of value in up to the practical application of scientific dis- them, and-in solving the questions posed by their coveries, the social consequences of scientific and bourseois predecessors. It would have been im- technical progress, which are predicated on the possille to'create dialectical and historical mate- social system, the policy of the ruling classes, and iiulir* if the positive knowledge contained in so on. We thus find scientists taking up certain pre-Marxist philosophy, despite its ideological ideological positions outside their own particular iorm, which rias alieh io the ivorking people, had field of research. Fo-r instance, many prominent , not been liberated. scientists are actively campaigning for peace, Natural science, as well as philosophy and against the military use of atomic energy, chem- sociology, also has a certain degree of ideological istry and bacteriology function, inasmuch as its discoveries overthrow the The ideological struggle between capitalism and relisious and other ideological preiudices of the socialidm embraces all fields of knowledge and classes. It disposes-of racialist gibberish, ruliig -aciivity, but primarily; of course, it is a struggle the ieo-Malthusian apology for capitalism and between the communist, the dialectical"-mateiial- imperialist war, etc. This goes to show that in ist, atheist world view, and the bodrgeois 'world cer--tain conditions even non-ideology may have view, which is idealist, metaphysical and reli-. an ideological function. There is no such thing as gious. This indicates- the vital role of philosophy in bourgeois"(or proletarian, for that matter) physics, the_contemporary iddological struggle of the opr chem-=istry or fhe like, but there are various philo- posing social systems which, as we have'seen soohical'interpretations of scientific discoveries above,_, is becoming increaSingly a struggle of *hi"h have ideological significance. Because of mutually exclusive world views. The present-day this the opposition betwetn various ideological bourgeois, predominantly anti-intellectual philos- approaches-fomes out even in the non-ideological, ophy disparages cognition and the pursuit of nitural-scientific field of knowledge. knowled.ge and seeks to prove that science and Needless to say, scientists dra* philosophical scientific and technical progress only appear to conclusions from scientific discoveries, that is to liberate man from the power of the elemental say, on the basis of scientific data they repudiate forces of nature, while in reality alienating him 406 from himself and nature and making him the Chapter Eight slave of his own inventions. The social pessimisrh ON TIIE NATURE preached bourgeois by numerous contemporary DEBATE philosophers proclaims the thesis of the f.atal OF PHILOSOPHICAL disharmony of human life which, they maintain, cannot be attuned by any remoulding of society. This pessimism cultivates fear of the future and ridicules the idea of a rational reordering of social life as a secular version of the Biblical legend of paradise. - Marxist philosophy is a life-asserting world view, which gives grounds for histoiical' opti- mism, because in the present epoch it has become 1. INEYITABILITY not only possible but also most assuredly necessary OF SCIENTIFIC DEBATE to abolish the antagonistic production relations of capitalism. The idea of social progress aird all- Science, because'its purpose is discovery of the round development of the human personality, unknown, is organically involved in combating proclaimed by the bourgeois Enlightenment, and error, as well as the piejudices and illusions of t-oday condemned by the majority of bourgeois everyd?ry consciousness. Anyone can adopt a pose thinliers as complacency-Marxist and a dangerous delusion, of unshakeable impartiality, wave aside all has gained in teaching a fundamenfal polemics and spend his time spouting platitudes; substintiation and development. The scientific but it is quite impossible for him or anyone else, understanding of social progress evolved by in any field of knowledge, to say something new Marxism is one of the most important proposi- without the spur of passion and partiality. tions of the scientific socialist ideology. The Marx- Polemics, of course, can never be the aim of ist-Leninist philosophy scientifically expresses the scientific inquiry and one can understand the ici- working people's basic interests, the interests of entist who disapproves of them on the ground social progress, takes an active part in the com- that they obstruct calm and thorough research. munist transformation of social relations and is, But polemics or no, there is bound to be contro- therefore, a powerful ideological force. : versy. And the scientist who insists that scientific propositions shbuld be systematically deVeloped rather than polemically expounded in no way eliminates the inner polemical nature of his in- quiry. His statements, assuming them to be original, question the statements of other scien- tisti; his discoveries contradict certain established views or conflict with everyday notions that have no basis in scientific fact. Th-e theory of relativity, 1 "finitude" of all knowledge. This "finitude" of no matter how it is expounded, is bound to be ii knowledge is overcome by its development, but odds with the belief in- the unlimited universality always within historically determined limits. This of the laws of classical mechanics. Thus, the innei means that the ability of cognition to produce polemic of science is only reasserted with all the absolute truths does not do away with the rela- more force by the absence of its outward form. tivity of knowledge at'any stage of its develop- Much though we may desire it, we can never ment. The reflection of reality-in concepts, no- avoid the essential controversy, ihough"prevent we may tions and sensations-is at the same time their discard some of the trimminis that us distortion, which is "removed" at a subsequent from treating the subiect syst'ematicailrr. It -uv stage by ihe development of knowledge, not, of well be asked, then, whether'polemics (in the wid'- coulse, in absolute terms but in the relative sense. est sense of the term),'of which are always to be "'We cannot," Lenin wrote, "imagine, express, found in the history any science, arl not the measure, depict movement, without interrupting necessary form of development of scientific knowl- continuity, without simplifying, coarsening, dis- edge. membering, strangling that which is living. The Lenin's teaching on the epistemolorical roots representa-tion of movement by means of thought of idealism -may also be regirded as in inquiry always makes coarse, kills,-and not only into the _epistemological sources of all (i..., not by means of thought, but also by sense-per- only idealist) error and, what is more, an insepa- ception, and not only of movement, but every rable part of scientific epistemology which reve-als concept. the path from ignorance to know-ledee. and from "And in that lies the essence of dialectics. one level of knowledge to another Ihat is more "And precisely this essence is expressed by the plpfound. The episternology, the theory of knowl- formula:-the unity, identity of opposites."l Agnos- .4S9, gf dialectical mateiialism differs qualita- ticism and intuitionism elevate this one-sidedness, psychological the tively from -the study of cognition, this subjectivity-which are real elements in which considers the individual's capacity to know cognitive process-to the status of absolutes, within certain inevitable limits, r6striciions, etc.. en-dowing them with a fateful omnipotence. But Marxist epistemology studies the development of the histoiy of science gives no grounds for such an knowledge, whose subject, whose creatoi, is not "oversimplified" judgEment, which, incidentally, any one individual but all mankind. For this is also a positive element in the process of cogni- reason it examines not psychological but episte- tion. mological sources of error, erroi that arisei out This process, as Lenin emphasises, is essentially of the very nature of knowledge and its develop- contradictory. It is this that makes cognition ment. possible, but it necessarily entails the possibility In arguing the principle of the unlimited know- of error. From the subiective standpoint, that is to abllity of tbe world, sclentific- epistemology gives a dialectical interpretation of fhe law-goveined r V. L Lenin, Collected. Uorkt Vol. 88, pp. 259-60. 410 4ll critical and implies an awareness of its own say, from the standpoint of the individual knower, incompleteness, limitedness and need for devel- error is something accidental. But if we compre- opment. hend the history of cognition and try to extract The relativists' blurring of the opposition be- the statistical regularity of errors, it becomes tween truth and error is profoundly anti-dialec- obvious that they are inevitable. This means that tical. The dialectical-materialist recognition of the dialectical opposition between truth and error the objectivity of truth rules out the subjectivity unfolds within the sphere of the scientific reflec- inherent in relativism. However, obiective truth tion of the world, and not on its fringe.l "In every is not objective reality, but only its approxi- science," says Engels, "incorrect nJtiors are, in ,, mately true reflection. The limits of the ob-iectivity the last resort, apart fiom errors of obseqvation, of truth are revealed by research, practice, and incorrect notions of correct facts. The latter remain the theoretical analysis of practice. This means even when the former are shown to be false."2 that the true is separated from the untrue, that is It follows then that error, if it arises in the I to say, the opposition between truth and error is process_o,f cognition, also has a certain signifi- I firmly fixed within the framework of a certain cance. Where truth is abstractly, metaphysitally field of research. counterposed to error, truth itself is interpreted Engels says, "Truth and error, like all thought- abstractly and metaphysically, that is to say, concepts which move in polar opposites, have ab- comes near to error. And vice versa, concrete q solute validity only in an extremely limited field. . . analysis of error enables us to detect its moments I and if we attempt to apply it (such a concept- of objective truth. T.O.) as absolutely valid outside that field we This dialectical principle of the relative oppo- really find ourselves altogether beaten: both poles ,i sition between truth and er.or has nothing tb'do of the antithesis become transformed into their with the unprincipled demand for tolera-tion of opposites, truth becomes error and error truth."l error. Truth is irreconcilably opposed to error Developing this and other propositions of Engels, or compromise with error, and tL6 realisation of Lenin stressed that the limits of every absolute this fact is a noble stimulus in any scientific polem- truth are relative, in view of which its opposi- ic. But dialectically understood truth il self- tion to relative truth is also relative. This scien- r tific understanding of the epistemological nature Louis de Broglie writes, "People who are not engaged of truth reveals the source of any genuine scientific in scientific work- quite often im'agine that the sci-en"ces provide us with absolute certainties; such people believe dispute, which is essential not only in cases where that rscientists base their conctrusions on incontrovertible truth is opposed by mistaken views, but also facts and irrefutable arguments and consequently stride where the disputants agree as to the relative truth ahead without any -ofposslbility of error or retrogression. of the propositions under discussion, but regard However, the stat'e scienie in the present, Ifki the history of science in the past, proves- to us that the truths not as permanently stamped coins meant situation is quite different." (Louis de Broglie, Sur les sentiers de la science, Paris, 1960, p. S5l,) r F. Engels, Anti-Diihring, p. lll. 2 F. Engels, Dialectics of Naturi, p. 2i5. 413 412 only for,use but as the process of development I The stating of a fact and its most scrupulous of knowledge, which provides the ground for and minute description does not by any means wide-ranging scientific discussion betwlen people produce an absolute truth, because the fact is only of like mind. a case which has ,to be investigated from the Nor can the relativity of the opposition between I standpoint of its determining conditions, relation- truth and error be removed by practice which, al- ships, and so on. The truth of. a f.act is bound to tlrough it is a criterion of trul[ is also a process, have certain preconditions which, if ignored, make that is, something historically limited,- which it impossible to draw a line between appearance overcomes its limitations but only to a certain and essence. Appearance, as we know, is no less exteht, and not once and for all. It is understand- a f.act than essence. Water boils at 100 degrees able, then, why Lenin came out against the ab- Celsius. This statement may be an absolute truth s.olutising of practice (as of truth)f because such I if we take into consideration all the conditions "ptactice"n applied to the theory of knowledge, in which the given process occurs; but many of is bound to lead to subjectivism of the pragmatic these conditions (th. small amount of heavy variety or to dogmatism: "the criterion of prac- water in ordinary water, for instance) were until tice can never, in the nature of things, eitheicon- recently unknown, while others may well be un- firm or refute any human idea contpletely. This known to this day. Of course, the fact remains criterion too is sufficiently 'indefinite"not t-o allow that water boils at 100qC., but the aforesaid cir- human knowledge to become 'absolute', but at cumstances make it dependent on other facts. We the same time it is sufficiently definite to wage a may state that, depending on an indefinite num- ruthless fight on all varieties of idealism and-ag- ber of circumstances (internal and external), water nosticism."l may boil at various temperatures. It is obvious, So the oversimplified understanding dia- however, the point - of the that boiling of water must be lectical opposition between truth and error, fixed within certain limits, because this process I theory and practice, may lead, on the one hand, I cann-ot, after all, take place under any conditions. to underestimation of objective truth and the The empirical statement implies a concealed epistemological significance of practice, and on interpretation or at-least the possibility of such an the other, to metaphysical perpetuation of the lim- interpretation. We know, for instance, that pure ited significance of any given truth and given, metals produced under laboratory or industrial historically concrete praclice. Lenin constantly conditions possess properties markedly different warned against, the danger from both directioni, from those that they possess in their "impure" and stressed the creative character of scientific form. But pure metals do not exist in nature, al- cogniti_on, with which the objective necessity for though it is their inherent properties that most scienlific dispute is organically connected-as a fully express the specific nature of the given ele- specific form of the development of cognition. ment. Thus, the m_ere citing of facts, the appeal to the obvious confirmed by experience, doei-not 1 V. I. Lenin, Collected Uorhs, Vol. 14, pp. 142-43. always put an end to the argument. 414 415 As we know, the properties of some substances jump are certain non-apparent dependence on from one to the other according to the mo- in a mentary others. Einstein proved that the trajectory of a needs of our argument, we shall remain moving body does not exist by itself (or "in it- entangled in the one-sidedness of metaphysical self"), that is, without relation to the system in thinking; the inter-connection escapes ,r-urrd .r. which the body is moving. Can we not draw epis- become involved in one contridiction after another."l ternological conclusions from this that would be applicable also to other properties and peculiar- In the process of cognition we have constantly ities of phenomena, inasmuch as they condition to single out separate phenomena and subject them one another? to more or less isolated examination- without which The properties and qualities that appear to be we cannot discover what definite qualities inherent a certain object are in reali- and quantities they possess. The ancient philoso- directly in phers ty (like the object itself, incidentally) the result _were not as a rule aware of this epistemo- of the interaction that occurs in the process of logical necessity. They were content to acknowl- th: univ-ersal development, the investigation of which presup- gig. connection and reciprocal'dialectiiil con. poses knowledge the interacting par- ditionality of phenomena, and this of separate (but ties, knowledge of the fact that theie parties are naively dialectical andthereforeunscientific) what they are because of the interaction and not approach.ilsvitably led to the identifying of quali- tatively independently of it, and finally knowledge of the different things and processes,lhat'is to process of interaction itself as a dynamic whole, s?y,-.to error. However, in fhe cognitive act of singling out the separate,-and examining which is partly a precondition and partly a re- this sepa-'aI- sult of the process under investigation. The com- rate thing _in isolation from everything else, though plexity of this objectively occurring process con- it eliminates the errors of [he aicient'dia- lecticians, ceals kinds of possibilities of error that are there lurks the danger of another kind all of error, "realised" in the process of cognition, despite the the metaphysical error-which, as we know, the sciences fact immediate goal and final result is (and philosophy as well) were una- that its ble the truth and only the truth. Engels writes in the to avoid for many cerituiies. Such'errors were Di.alectics of Nature, "The reciprocal action ex- overcome.in the past and are overcome in the pres- ent cludes any absolute primary or absolute second- .only by the dialectical inclusion of the sepa- ra.tefy investigated_phenomenon ary; but is as much a double-sided process in the system' of it iust relationships which from its very nature can be regarded from that have made it what it is, that two different standpoints; to be understood in its is to say, the .given, particular object constiiuting totality it must even be investigated from both an element in a certain system. standpoints one after the o'ther, before the total ..Ttr!, the c-ognitive process must comprise oppo- sirte but. equally results can be arrived If, however, we adhere necessary logical operations, eich at. of which one-sidedly to a single standpoint as the absolute is inevitably one-sided. Oire approach to one in contrast to the other, or if we arbitrarily r F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, pp. 224-25. ,[ 16 27-22 4tv the phenomena under investigation prevails at lative enthusiasm that Wundt attributed to the- one stage of cognition, and at another stage, the oretical natural science is very far removed from other approach. This objective structure of the metaphysical speculation; rather it is the develop- cognitive process, its inevitable contradictoriness, ment of the dialectical mode of thought in a form naturally gives rise not only to errors, but also to peculiar to each_particular science. This tendency polemics between scientists, who are everywhere was noted by Niels Bohr, who pointed out twir found to be defending correct but limited, one- kinds of truths in natural science: "One kind of sided views. truth is made up of such simple and clear state- Natural science outgrows the limits of pre- ments that their opposites are obviously untrue. dominantly empirical'one-sided investigation, ob- The other kind, ttie so-called 'profound truths', servation and description and thus becomes a consists, on the contrary, of such assertions that theory based on scientific abstractions on an eyer th_eir opposites also contain profound truths."l higher level and of ever increasing complexity. T-he corpuscular and wave theories of light are This leads more and more often to clashes between often cited as an example of such mutually exclu- opposing scientific views that seek to embrace con- sive but mutually complementary truths. Physi- stantly expanding fields of research. Directly ob- cists as well as philosophers have appraised such served facts, individual experiments and so on are truths not as unique, but as the expiession of the no longer sufficient to solve the questions raised in objective relationship inherent in natural such theoretical 'discussions. Wilhelm Wundt in his p_rocesses and their cognition on a sufficiently high day noted this tendency for controversial ques- theoretical level: the unity of opposites.2 tions to multiply in the course of the development About a hundred years ago most natural sci- of theoretical natural science. Wundt took the entists were convinced that scientific advance view that physicists, physiologists and sociologists had embarked on the thorny path of speculative 1 N. Bohr, Atomic and Human Knoaledge, thought that was being abandoned by the philos- Moscow,-, 1961, p, 95 (in Rusiian).-Physics 2 ophers. He wrote that the philosophers had be- . It is worth noting N. N. Semyonov's remark that the come extremely reticent and cautious in their at- scientist, in revealing the objective contradictions of titude to metaphysical speculation, whereas the nature, develops the logic of thinhing: "At such moments the theoretical physicist begins to woik as pure physicists, physiologists and en- a logician, sociologists were as a transformer of logic. He works in the sphere of such gaged in speculation for all they were worth. contradictory concepts as interruptedness and uninterrupt- Wundt seems to haye been extremely one-sided edn_ess, ,.interconnection and becoming, time and spaie, and rather sceptical in his appraisal of the broad probability and necessity; for specifi natural scieirtifii purposes he is obliged to modify and develop, to reassess theoretical generalisations which ushered in a new initial Iogical categories. . , - _ . Here the developed and stage in the development of the science of nature; comprehended logic_of historico-philosophical thtught is obviously he was not convinced that on this no luxury,_no supplement to a scientifil educationl but matter prime urgent (N. path natural science was approaching a more pro- .?- of ald necessity" N. Semyonov, "Marxist-Leninist Philosophy and Probiems of Naturai found knowledge of reality. However, the specu- Science" in Kommunist, 1968; No. 10.) 418 419 would gradually put an end to controversy result- mental proposition that is not questioned by some- ing from errors, because these would be overcome one, or a piece of nonsense in which someone not by the progress of the sciences towards more and does not believe. . . ."1 This statement should more exhaustive knowledge of their subject of be taken as an expression of philosophical scep- investigation. These scientists could not conceive ticism; it merely registers a f.act that has not only that developing science would open up new fields epistemological but-class roots, because in the in- of reality with which the existing theories and tellectual almosphere of bourgeois society, infect- concepts would not be in accord (or at least not ed with idealisl and religious prejudice, scien- fully in accord).l "Human thought," Lenin said, tific polemics are constantly being conducted on "goes endlessly deeper from appearance to unscientific lines. progressr contrary essence, from essence of the first order, as it were, To sum up, then, scientific to second order, and so on uithout the oversimplified notions that were held in the to essence of the ground for end,."Z This truth is today becoming the profound last centuryl far from removing the conviction of all scientists thanks to the fact that controversy, has enormously stimulated the devel- modern natural science has testified ad oculos opment of scientific debate, because the range- of that the sciences, while never exhausting their c6ntroversial theoretical questions and debatable subject, constantly expand the theoretical basis of solutions has perceptibly widened. The great source scientific discussions, which are becoming a more of scientific debate is to be found not in error process and more necessary and fruitful form of develop- but in the dialectical movement of the of ment of scientific knowledge. Max Planck con- cognition, which reflects the dialectical contradic- firmed this tendency when he wrote, "Asithasbeen tions of objective reality. Characterising the for time immemoriai in religion and the arts, so it spirit of committed, militant polqmics inherent in pointed "'Marx's system' is is now in science. There is scarcely a single funda- Marxism, Lenin out, of a 'polemical nature', not because it is 'tenden- because provides an exact picture, 1 Max Planck, characterising this tendency in late tious'f but it lgth-century physics, recalled that his teacher Philipp von in theory, of all the contradictions that are Jolly regarded physics "as a highly developed, almost ful- present in reality. For this reason, incidentally, all ly riratuie science'which had now, since the discovery of attempts to master 'Marx's system' without mas- the law of the conservation of energy, achieved its 'polemical nature' are and con- crown, so to speak, and would soon acquire final and tering its will perfect form. O1t course, there might remain a few odd tinuJto be- unsuccessful: the'polemical nature' iorners where something had to be checked or added, of the system is nothing more than a true reflec- a tiny blemish or speck- of dust to be removed, but the tion of the 'polemical nature' of capitalism it- system as a whole was established firmly enough and self."2 What Lenin says in this case about a given t[reoretical physics was obviously approaching the s"tage of perfection that geometry, say, had acquired one hundred years previously" Berlin, (F. Herneck, Albert Einstein, 1 P1anck, Posi.tiaisrnus Aussenaelt, 1963, the only person have M. unil reale S. 56). Von Jolly was not to S.1. such thoughts; was almost the general opinion. Leipzig,1931, it 2 V. I. Lenin, Collected. Uorks, Vol. 4, p. 85. 2 V. I. Lenin, Collected. Worhs, VoI. 38, p. 253. 42t 420 socio-economic reality is in a certain sense appli- form on their propositions and sets forth new cable to any objective dialectical process, ufto*- demands to those who advance ideas that seek to ing.for the peculiar features inher-ent in antago- restrict or overthrow established scientific propo' nistic capitalist relations, because, as Lenin sa-*id, sitions. Present-day laboratory techniques, exper- "with Marx the dialectics of bourgeois society is iment and observation have extended the horizons only a particular case of dialectics".t of observed phenomena and created new, far But does not the proliferation of scientific con- more favourable conditions for the obiective re- troversies- and,_ hence, differences of opinion in cording and description of facts, the testing of science, show that the field of consensus is con- hypothtses and the theoretical int-erpretation ol stantly diminishing? Any such conclusion would oLserved phenomena. But this development of in- be_ extremely premature because, thanks to scien- tellectualiechniques of observation has not dried tific discoveries, thanks to the fruitfulness of sci- uo the well-sprinEs of scientific debate. On the entific debate and the improvement of methods of contrary, the debite has acquired a form more research, the field of consensus is, in fact, con- befittin!' its real substance. stantly widening. It would be a mistake not to see that the ad- 2. IDEOLOGICAL SOUBCES vances of the sciences and their changed condi- OF PHILOSOPHICAL DEBATE tions of development have wrought a qualitative change in the nature of scientific dibate. The oppo- We have seen that controversy is not peculiar nents of Copernicus and Galileo cited the Bible to philosophy. But what is it that distinguishes or the immediate evidence of the senses. Non- phiiosophicai debate from the challenging of Euclidean geometry was "overthrown" by the ar- bpinioni^At in the specialised sciences? gym-ents of everyday common sense that ippeared first sight tlie opposition between materialism wholly tenable in Euclid. The theory of rela- and idealisri uppeafs'to be wholly determin-ed by tivity was confronted by the traditionil proposi- the diametricaily opposite solutions they offer to tions of classical mechanics, which had been con- the basic nhilosophical question. But if we re- firmed by experiment, a fact that Einstein him- member that maferialism and idealism are not self never sought to disprove. Today such crude simply two mutually exclusive points of view, polemic_s have been to a great -becomeextent discredited. but'the two fundamental world views, and that Scientific ar-gument has more rigorous, con- _ the struggle.-ihe between them make,s gp th-e vital substantiated and self-critical. It is based on more tent of development of philosophy, we see exact analysis and definition of concepts, and that this explanation of the fundamental polari- takes into consideration the relativity a-rd' con- inadequate-. sation of philosophy is obviously - creteness of truth. The mathematical penetration Historicilly speaking, idealism grew out of the of the natural sciences has imposed an eyen stricter religious view oi the world, and it has maintained direct or indirect connection with it through- 1 a V. I. Lenin, Collected. (l)orhs, Vol, 88, p. 361. out the centuries. The history of materialism, on Lqq 423 the. contrary, is con_nected with anti-clerical, anti- idealism on social and economic factors, demands relrgro-us, atheist ideological movements. Would and interests. it -not be more correct assu-me thai tlre opposite It would be equally unscientific to regard the solutions to the -to" basic -substaitiationphilosophiirl qrJior, ,.pr"- struggle between rationalism and irrationalism as sent the theoretical of u philo- only a theoretical argument. The intimate con- sophical,position that in the final analvsis is based nection between the socio-political ideas of the not on theoretical assumptions alonef fir. U"".: bourgeoisie in the 17th and 18th centuries and the geoilie, when it vras a revolutionary class, rationalist faith in reason, in the possibility and read,ily preached- materialist philosophv, which it necessity of remoulding social life on the princi- nrmry.repudrated when it became the ruling, con_ ple of reason, is particularly obvious against the servatiye class. The moralistic criticism of"mate_ background of present-day irrationalist criticism rialism, so characteristic,of established b""[;;1, of the "rationalist Utopias", which lumps Marxism society, the constant condemnation of materiilism with any other theory that treats social progress not only by idealist philosophers, who to a cer_ as based on universal laws. Today's irrationalist tarn €xtent .aT.alyse its theoretical content, but idealism cannot be understood if it is regarded also by the daily bourgeois press that is not'real_ simply the antithesis Iy as of the rationalism of the -concerned with philosophical problems as 17th and l8th centuries, that is to say, outside the such-all this constiiutes i fact 'tiit illumi- context of the social cataclysms of contemporary nates, if not the nature of the theoretical diff;;_ bourgeois society, whose ideologists have to re- enc€s between the main philosophical t;;a;, nounce progressive philosophical traditions simply _at least the social implications of tLis iJ.ologT.ui because they themselves are implacable the oppo-- battle. nents of the heir to these traditions-Marxism. - It is far from the author's intention to reduce Most bourgeois philosophers and historians of the opposition between materialism and- idealism philosophy in the second half of the 19th century to the contradictions between the exploiter and directly or indirectly acknowledge that philosophi- exploited classes, because for many .#iuri", ,.ru_ cal doctrines and controversies are intimately con- terialism and idealism existed in'the framework nected with circumstances independent of philos- of one- ideology, that of the slave-owners or that ophy. Some of them regard these circumstances ot the bourgeoisie, for instance. But this only goes as deforming the immanent development of philo- to show that they perform different social'filnc_ sophical thought, while others, on the contrary, tions at different stages in the development of assume that the struggle of philosophical ideas is one and the same class, or express contiadictions inspired by the social process. The social process, b.etwee-n-the,social groups thit form that ctass. however, is usually only vaguely understood and And if idealism sometimes emerges as the ide_ its interpretation amounts to no more than o,logy of the pro.gressive (and- .,n., r.rol.rti""rryl acknowledging some irrational connection be- classes, even this indicates the ob.iective depeil tween philosophy and the philosopher's "position dence of the historically determineJ ior-l, of in life". Thus, even if it is conceded that the 424 425 sources of philosophical controversy are to be found ences of creative individuality, and philosophical not in thought but in life, life itself is interpreted controversy is thus stripped of its social and his- only psychologically, as the sum total of emotional torical content. The great philosopher is the person experiences independent of and determining the whose temperament is most strikingly expressed. consciousness. Irrationalist mystification concern- James maintained that the content of philo- ing the "position in life" and "historicity" of the sophical doctrines was determined by the "hard" philosopher turns out in practice to be irrecon- or'"soft" nature of the philosopher. httributes of cilably hostile to the materialist and historical the hard human type were empiricism, materi- explanation of the essence and origin of philo- alism, pluralism, pessimism, determinism, scepti- sophical dispute. cism, etc., while to the soft were attributed ration- Social psychology can undoubtedly help us to alism, idealism, indeterminism, and so on. This sort out philosophical arguments, but it dbes not subjectivist classification of the contenders in take us beyond the bounds of the social conscious- philosophical debate sets philosophy in opposition ness, one of the forms of which is philosophy. The to the sciences and to the practical affairs of so- belief that philosophy exists not iidependently of ciety, since the cognitive side of philosophy and other forms of consciousness but in- conjunclion philosophical discussion is completely ignored. with them is extremely relevant when it comes The bourgeois philosopher's approach to the so- to tracing the various subjects of philosophical cial and ideological analysis of the contradictions controversy, but it is obviously not sufficient to between philosophical doctrines amounts to a vir- reveal its source and historically determined pur- tual denial of what he himself professes. Bour- pose and character. To discover this, we must geois philosophers frequently assert that the es- turn from the examination of the social conscious- sence of philosophical debate is freedom of ex- ness to the analysis of social being. The bour- i pression, freedom to make statements that are geois philosophers, however, prefei a different independent of politics, ideology and even sci- p?th. In their efforts to discovei the 'omainspring" 'sl ence. We should, however, remember Hegel's of philosophical debate they focus their attention profound remark on this subject: "When the on the philosophising individual, should on his tempera-- iubject of freedom is under discussion, one ment, psychological make-up, and so on. The always ascertain if it is not private interest that sub.jectivist-irrationalist explanation of the "vi- is being discussed."l Bourgeois philosophy fulfils tality" of the philosophical controversy is par- a quite definite ideological function even when ticularly characteristic of William James, for it proclaims its freedom from ideology and reli- example, who maintained that philosophy is "our gion. It does the same, when it "freely" accepts individual way of just seeing and feeling the to- bourgeois ideological dogmas and religious beliefs, ta! puqlr and pressure of the cosmos".l Philosophi- that is to say, presents them as theoretical con- cal differences of opinion are reduced to difier- clusions from abstract philosophical propositions. I W. James, Pragmatism, p. 4. 426 427 The domination of reactionary social forces in influence people's consciousness in all kinds of the conditions of developed capitalist society wavs. All these competing doctrines, however, inevitably tends to make discussion between bour- p..?or* basically on6 and- the same ideological geois philosophers unscientific and unproductive' iunction, as Lenin pointed out in Materi"ali,sm and We can undeistand Jean Piaget when he says thai Empi.rio-Criticism,-when he stressed the predom' philosophical discussions are "a kind of dialogue inantly idealist character of the contending philo- between the deaf".r But why should this be so? sophical doctrines and their unity in opposing Because of the nature of philosophy? This is what materialism. the neo-positivists and the advocates of the phi- The bourgeois philosophers of today-q-uite often losophy of linguistic analysis contend. But both suggest thai the disputing sides would stand a schools ignore the ideological atmosphere of phi- bettlr chance of achieving understanding and losophical debate in bourgeois society, and unless overcoming their differences if they could agree this is taken into consideration it is impossible to on the meining of certain terms and rules of dis- explain such things as the "Thomist Renais- cussion aopropiiate to their common humanist aim. sance" in some of the capitalist countries, for in- This idei'is, bf .orrr.., Utopian in a world made stance. The zeal of the neo-Thomists in "coordinat- social systems. up- of opposing classes and irg" Aristotle's hylomorphism with the latest In eailier cfiapters I stressed the specific com- scilntific discoveries provides cogent proof of the plexity of philosophical problems, whose solu- decisive influence of the political and religious tion leaves open the possibility of their further ideology of bourgeois society on the development development is new sdientific data and historical of philosophy and philosophical debate. experience are accumulated. But this, of course, Philosophical debate in bourgeois society, is dois not explain the revival of historically obso- inevitably preconditioned by the existence of a lete views, long since disproved conceptions, etc. great variety of philosophical trends and schools. The clashes caused by such views and conceptions Some bourgeois philosophers are reduced to de- cannot be correctly understood without analysing spair by this fact, and bemoan the existing anarchy the ideological sources of the differences in opin- of philosophical systems. Others, on the contrary, ion inherent in a society whose antagonistic class see-this pluralism of philosophical doctrines as the structure makes ideological unity impossible in realisation the principle of philosophical au- (philoso- of principle.-may The same ideological themes tonomy, the independence of philosophical thought phers not always be conscious of them, of from external, i.e., political, scientific and ideo- iourse) are strikingly manifest- in the modern logical, factors. In fact, however, this splitting up controversy over alienation, in the various inter- of bourgeois philosophy into various trends qrlite pretations-of the problem of man, in analysis of logically expresses the essence of the capitalist lhe man-society relationship, in interpretations of system, in which competing philosophical doctrines the essence of humanism, and so on. When examining the ideological sources of 1 J. Piaget, Sagesse et illusions de la philosophie, p.28. philosophical contr6versy we should remember, of 428 course, that ideology changes, and that its de- cusses questions of human life, ethics and aes- velopment, like the diversity of historical forms thetics, naturally cannot have recourse to scientific of its existence, acquires specific expression in methods of testing its propositions and such philosophy. This is confirmed by analysis of methods could have only a very limited applica' the philosophical propositions characterising tion. attitudes to certain obvious and unchallenged Inasmuch as beliefs express people's attitudes facts. to certain facts, their appraisal of these facts, they In philosophy, to a f.ar greater extent than in cannot be regarded as descriptions of facts. Such natural science, one has constantly to draw a beliefs may itand diametrically opposed to each distinction between knowledge (in the sense in other and the contest between them will be not so which Leibnitz spoke of truths of fact) and beliefs, much a matter of truth and error as of the ap- which, _of course, may be based on knowledge praisal of human behaviour as correct or incorrect, (scientific beliefs), although knowledge does not ieasonable or unreasonable, moral or immoral. fully account for them. Magellan believed in the Even such an appraisal of contrasting philosophi- existence of a strait connecting the Atlantic and cal beliefs, however, is quite often impossible, par- Pacific oceans. The hypothesis-was confirmed by ticularly if these beliefs reflect different historical his voyage. In theoretical natural science there situations and ate, therefore, not mutually exclu- are many beliefs by which scientists are guided. sive, although they cannot be brought into har- These biliefs are eventually confirmed or,"on the mony. contrary, disproved by scientific discoveries and As an example of such a clash of opinion we experiment, In the latter case the scientist usual- may cite the much discussed philosophical ques- ly abandons such yiews. But it is a different mat- tion of m?n's attitude to his own mortality. Mon- ter in philosophy, where beliefs in .general can- taigne, continuing the traditions of Greek Epi- not be _d-irectly proved or disproved by experi- cureanism and stoicism, argued that man is able ment.l What is more, philosophy, because if dis- to enjoy life only in so far as he constantly - meditates on death and thus overcomes the fear ' f.*-t Uuch -and Wilhelm Ostwald, who were not only of it. scientists b_ut also philosophers, denied the objectiv-e existence of atoms because the physical and chemical proc- Montaigne agrees with Cicero's dictum that to esses physicists philosophise is to prepare oneself for death. "Let studied by and chemists in their day iould o'let be explained without assuming the atomic structure bf mat- us strip it of its mystery," says Montaigne, us ter. Their denial of the existence of atoms, horvever, sprang behold it and grow accustomed to it by thinking not so much from their scientific as from their philosophical of it more often than anything else. Let us be views. Mach reduced everything"while to sensations (itoms cannot be perceived by the senses), Ostwald believed in forever recalling it in our imagination, in all its ene-rgyr to which h9 gqy. precedence over both the physical- aspects. . . . We cannot be sure where death awaits and the psychical. Exptrimental proof of the aiomic us; so let us await everywhere. To think on structure of matter it compelled both scientists to acknowledge He has learned the reality of the atoml but neither of them gave up the-ir death is to think on freedom. who philosophical views, how to die has unlearned slavery. Readiness to 430 481 die liberates us from all servitude and bond- belief with religious faith and deny any essential a.ge."L difference between "f.aith" in the existence of the - Clearly, _these relections of a philosopher of external, objective world and religious faith. This the sceptical school sharply diverge-from medieval mixing of incompatible concepts is supported by religious teaching with its cultivation of the fear various arguments. Some speak of all belief as of death and inevitable retribution in the here- irrational, while others acknowledge that beliefs after for disobedience in the ephemeral present. arise from experience, but interpret experience Montaigne was the forerunner'of the ratiionalist subjectively, that is to say, simply as the totality teaching_that life_ should be lived according to of individual emotions. On this path we encoun- reason. But the classical exponent of rationalist ter such obiectively unfounded concepts as, for ethics was Spinoza who, like Montaigne, contin- example, "religious experience" and obvious fide- ued the traditions of Epicureanism and stoicism, ist attempts to prove the reality of the super- but differed radically from him in his understand- natural on the basis of the individual's "intimate ing of the reasonabll attitude to death. "The free experience". 4?tr," he says, "thinks of nothing so little as of Needless to say, the person who never asks death, and his wisdom lies in thinking not of death himself philosophical questions acknowledges the but of lif.e."2 existence of the external world without giving Comparing these contrasting beliefs, we find it any preliminary thought to the matter. It may be difficult to say which of these t-hinkers is more cor- said that he is convinced of its existence or even rect. Both of them are right in a sense and, at bot- that he believes in its reality as something inde- tom, both are expressing progressive humanist -differentthe pendent of the consciousness, but the safest way beliefs of their time in w:ays. Niels Bohr's of putting it is that he trusts the evidence of his remark, which I cited earlier, on complex truths senses. The human individual exists practically consisting of diametrically opposed stalements, is in a world of things and people that is indepen- fully apflicable here. When^ionsidering a philo- dent of his consciousness. The existence of mate- sophical dispute one must, therefore, separate the rial reality independent of consciousness is con- struggle between truth and error from differences stantly affirmed by daily experience and practical i_n gpinion that express a circumstantially justified activity, whether the individual realises it or not. difference of attitude towards facts, the existence It need not be proved that belief in the existence is not question. -of -which in Thus, diversity of be- of ob.jective reality differs fundamentally from liefs within a given ph,,losophical theme- merely belief in the supernatural, which is directly main- expresses the diversity of actually existing human tained by a certain kind of subjectivism that has attitudes towards generally acknowledged facts. its historical origin in the domination of man by Some bourgeois philosophers tend to identify the spontaneous forces of social development. I That is how matters stand not only with religious ^- M. de Montaigne, Essais, Tome I, Paris, 1962, pp.87- 88. faith but also with numerous bourgeois and petty- 2 Oewres de Spinoza, Tome III, p. 242. bourgeois prejudices. 432 The most varied beliefs and faiths have existed ness of logical thinking by means of logical in philosophy for thousands of years. Some of argument. them are analogous to the beliefs held by natural Thus, philosophical debate, which is fed by the scientists today, that is to say, they are based on ideological struggle, at the same time expresses more or less firmly established facts; others, on the the relative independence of philosophy as a spe- contrary, are not in accord with the facts and cific form of cognition of reality. The chain of may even directly contradict them. But even the logical inferences that finally make up a system of latter type of belief reflects certain facts, certain philosophical beliefs is largely determined by the social needs, interests,.loyalty to historically ob- initial logical assumptions, which cannot be re- solete social relationships, traditions, etc. Conflict- garded merely as the statement of individual facts, ing philosophical beliefs must, therefore, have deep because the universality of philosophical proposi- historical and ideological roots, which are ex- tions makes them proiortionately-less amenable pressed in a vast variety of speculative theories, to confirrytion by individual facts.l since, depending on tradition and conditions, one t Hence the belief typical of most speculative idealist and the same ideological function or historical systems that philosophical propositions which follow logically from certain fundamental assumptions are in trend is formulated in different ways by the var- principle independent of the interests, emotions, subjec- ious contending philosophical doctrines. The neo- tivity of the thinker, just as they are independent of the Thomist principle of the "harmony" of science numerous factual data, which at best can serve to illus- and religion and the completely opposite prin- trate these propositions, but can neither confirm nor refute philosophers protestantism, them. This idealist illusion, based on the oversimplified ciple of inspired by interpretation of the factual foundation of philosophical science religion who insist that and are divided I conclusions, loses sight of the uniqueness of the fundamen- by a bottomless chasm, represent, as I have shown tal facts from which the philosopher proceeds before he 1 above, only various ways of achieving one and begias to deduce thcm from thc theoretical assumptions he has accepted. there were no such thing nature, the same goal-apology for religion. But recogni- If as no idealist would be able to deduce it from the spiritual-There- tion of the radical opposition between science and essence whose existence is his initial assumption. religion may serve not only the fideist purpose of fore, speculative idealist thinking does ploceed from reducing to a minimum the cognitive significance' facts, but tries to present them as the result of some- thing whose elistence it can only assume. Philosophical of science; it may also serve the materialist athe- speculation's illusory independence of the facts which it istic repudiation of religion. This is why the ideo- tries to deduce is wholly analogous to the independence logical conflict acquires in philosophy a specific displayed by the imagination in conjuring with things that form of theoretical discussion of the question in actually exist. But no imagination is capable of creating even one of these things; the image of the fairy-tale-many which everyone taking part in the argument dragorr' with seven heads, belching fire from all its recognises the authority of logic and seeks to fanged jaws, is a mosaic put togelher by the imaginatiori, prove his point instead of merely declaring his but we do not find a single element in [his mosaii that is beliefs. Even exponents alogism are actually invented, that is to say, created out of nothing. the of Similarly speculative idealist (and since !n also religious) compelled to reckon with this imperative doctrines the natural is elevated to the status o-f th6 they try to prove the epistemological weak- supernatural, the transcendental, and so on. 484 485 3. TIIEOBETICAL BOCIIS nation of the specific form of philosophical OF PIIILOSOPHICAL DEBATE knowledge. The special nature of philosophical problems, as we have seen, shows itself primarily the As we have seen in the previous chapter, in infinite range philosophical categories, these philosophy's ideological function does not comprise of being qualitatively concepts, its whole content, just as does not express the .different from which it the philosopher generalis- difference between philosophy and other forms of consciously creates by ing empirical data. This special feature philo- social consciousness. Hence the need to examine of sophical categories, as the theoretical roots of philosophical debate. Such which Kant interpreted evidence their pri.ori, nature, debate is inevitable bbcause of the existence of of a shows that the I philosophical cbnflicting philosophical trends, systems and con- subject of inquiry is the specific (nature, ceptions. But this divergence of philosophical optimum society, man, cognition, moral- ity, etc.). It is the study of such unlimited, infi- doctrines is a product of the development a of nitely rich and varied complexes phenomena society divided into antagonistic classes and cannot of be regarded as a specific, everlasting peculiarity that makes it necessary to apply philosophical categories of the philosophical form of cognition. Viewed as a special kind of concept whose from this standpoint, the struggle between mate- definition is not based, directly at any rate, on the the rialism and idealism is not, course, an eternal .generalisation of empirical data available of to the scientist.t This gives law of philosophical development. So to define is what rise to such ths epistemological nature of philosophical debate I there is no need consider extreme forms, The concept of category is sometimes used extremely to its loosely, i.e., is interpreted simply as the most general that is to say, the struggle between the main trends cgncept in the framework of a given field of knowledge. in philosophy. Philosophical debate may take Thus we sometimes speak of the categories of classiCal place within the framework of one and the same mechanics as mass, density, impenetrability, speed, pressure, school, between its adherents. Theoreti- work, etc. But in this case, is not the dividihs line different bttween category and general concept eroded? General cally it would be quite appropriate to abstract categories, since they indicate universally observable facts, the question not only from the conflict between evoke no doubts as to the reality of the content with which schools but also from the contradictions within they are associated. Philosophical categories such as these schools exa- substance, essence, necessity, and chance, for example, in order to narrow down our are quite a different matter. Epistemologiially, from ihe mination of the epistemological roots of philo- standpoint of the theory of knowledge, there may obviously sophical controversy to its most elementary and be doubt as to the physical reality of the content attribut- consequently inevitable form, a form independent ed ,to them, iust as there may be a possibility of mutually exclusive basic social contrasts. approach definitions or interpretations of these catego- of any Only this ries_. What is more, philosophical categories, unlike gin- if, of course, it is workable, will show to what eral concepts employed in other sciences, are usually ior- extent polemics is related to the essence of phi- related with other philosophical categories, and this losophy itself and constitutes an inherent mode r-elationship usually contains an elemenf of negation in dialectical of its existence. Thus, we return to our exami- the sense: necessity-chance, necesiity-pos- 436 437 questions as: Is there any other necessity besides The dispute regarding universals is only -one logical necessity? Is there unity in all that exists? of the aspicts of-the pioblem that_arises when Does the category of possibility relate to any- we considtr any specific optimum. Other aspects thing that really exists, or does it express only the of this problem are related to the knowability of relationship of the human consciousness to some this optimal but specific universality, the premises processes? We have taken only a few philosoph- for such knowledge being formulated in different ical questions to illustrate our point, questions ways by the advocates of empiricism, of a priori which arise in connection with the definition and reasoning, of conventionalism, by the meta- application of philosophical categories, many of physicists, who believe it possible to go beyond which were known in ancient times, that is, were lhe bounds of all conceivable experience, by the used by philosophers in the days when they obvi- advocates of phenomenalism, philosophical scepti- ously could not have given a scientific analysis of cism, and so on. Thus, philosophical debate has not their content or provided sound reasons for their only epistemological roots, like any other scien- application. tific discipline, but also its own special epistemo- The study of specific forms of universality, logical sources. This is also obvious in cases when which presumes a notion of the world as a whole ph-ilosophy has to deal with questions that extend or a conception of what in the world constitutes into the field of other, specialised sciences, the a special kind of wholeness, naturally gives rise questions- of infinity, for example. to questions regarding the objective reality of A specialised science, thanks to the restriction what the categories denote. The old argument be- of its field of inquiry, a restriction incompatible tween the nominalists and realists is still going on with the philosophical form of cognition, may in a modified form in present-day philosophy, investigate this or any other problem in accor- inasmuch as the problem of the general, the dance with its specialised goal. Philosophy by its particular and the unique is constantly regenerat- very nature cannot confine itself to such a reward- ed both by the development of science and by ing'and "modest" task. However, it is iust because that of social life, in which every individual con- infinfty is infinity that it can be known only siders the unique, the particular and the universal through the finite, which, though not infinite, not so much a logical as a human problem. implies the infinite and is consequently in a certain respect infinite itself. sibility, freedom-necessity, essence-phenomenon, essence- By knowing the finite we know the infinite, but appearance, possibility-reality, being-non-being, etc. always in a limited, finite form. "Itrfinity i,s a Thus, the nature of philosophical categories, the content Engels wrote, "and is full of con- which they express, contains- the epistemological basis for contradiction," philosophical debate. Attempts to create new categories tradictions. From the outset it is a contradiction by imparting a special meaning to the already current that an infinity is composed of nothing but finites, categories or concepts ("being"- in its neo-Thomist inter- and yet this is the case. The limitedness of the pretition, "existence" in existentialist philosophy) leads no less to contradictions than strengthen the' tendencies that engender philosophical material world debate. its unlimitedness, and every attempt to get over 438 439 these contradictions leads, as we have seen, to new sequently, both the objective dialectics of reality and worse contradictions. It is just because infinity and the subjective dialectics of the process of is a contradiction that it is an infinite process, cognition contain the epistemological source of unrolling -endlessly in time and in spaie. The philosophical debate. removal of the contradiction would be the end of The epistemological sources of philosophical infinity."l Fut do-es .not what Engels has to say debate, inasmuch as they are inseparable from the about infinity lpply in some measrire (hard to say nature of. any cognition (therefore, not only the w^haJ).to any philosophic_al problem, to the subieit philosophical), are intransient in character. But of philosophy in general? it would be wrong to confine ourselves to drawing The contradiction of infinity constitutes the a distinction between the transient and intran- objective source of the contradictions inherent in sient sources of philosophical debate. Obviously, the specific form of cognition which takes the the epistemological possibilities of such controver- multiformity of the infinite or infinite multiformity sy, implied in the very nature of philosophical as its subject of inquiry. Kant, who was weil abstractions, are substantially modified by histor- aware associa[ed of ^this, the analysis of the prob- ical conditions and the development of philos- lem of-infinity with the antinomiei of pure reason, ophy itself. i.e., what he considered to be the inioluble con- For thousands of years philosophy was unable tradictions into which philosophy, considered as to find itself, that is to say, unable to define its "pure reason", was bound to lail. Lenin in his subject-matter and become a specific, philosoph- notes on Hegel's Science of Logic stressed the ical science. It acquired a real possibility of narrowness of Kant's sfandpoint, particularly in self-determination when the numerous specialised the sense that Kant had uniusiifia-blv limited the sciences had shared out among themselves nature sphere of antinomy: "Kant has four"'antinomies'. and also many spheres of human life. Thanks to In fact euery^copc-ept, every category is similarly the segregation that has taken place between phi- antinomous."2 Dialectical materialism, in contrasi losophy and the specialised sciences, philosophy's to Kant's agnosticism, does not recognise any status in the system of scientific knowledge has antinomies as insoluble in principle. eontradic- changed. Although the speculative idealist doc- tions are resolved both in objective reality itself trines still strive, independently of the specialised (i-n the process of developmeirt and the siruggle sciences, to establish the basic tenets of all sci- of opposites) aqd in theoietical cognition, w[Ich entific knowledge, they have been unable to ignore dialectically reflects this process. But the theoreti- their discoveries and the methods by which they cal resolution of contradictions presupposes a were achieved. While still claiming the position certain level of knowledge of the given process, of the science of sciences, which draws its princi- which is not, of course, always availabl6. Con- ples from pure reason, idealist natural philosophy (this is particularly obvious in the case of Schel- 1 F. Engels, Anti-Diihrins. pp. 66-67. ling) is, in fact, inspired by the outstanding dis- 2 V, I. Lenin, Collected rboiit, Vol. 88, p. l16. coveries of natural science and despite the phi- 440 441 l_osopher's own subjective belief is in some way Philosophy's change of status in the system,of dependent on them. scientific kn6wledge offers, on the one hand, the Hegel, who declared that the philosophy of possibility of doing away with arbitrary specula- nature should not be based on natural sti6nce, 'tion and'taking a"firm itand on the dita-of the because the "mode of exposition employed in specialised sciences, but, on the other hand, philos- physics does not satisfy the demandr oi th. .or- ophy runs the risk of absorbing the errors that cept",l which develops out of itself the definitions the specialised sciences themselves are unable to of external nature, at the same time opposed the avoid. The mechanistic narrowness of the mate- arbitrary constructions of natural philosophy, of rialism of the 17th and 18th centuries undoubtedly which, as we know, tJrere were a good many in resulted from the achievements of classical me- his,own-philosophical system. "The philosophical chanics and its own limitations, which are manifest, mode of exposition," he wrote, "is not a matter { for instance, in Newton's understanding of space of whim, a capricious desire to walk on one's head and time, Laplas's conception of determinism, etc. for a change after walking for so long on one's And because philosophy does not simply borrow feet. ..,."2 What Hegel con"sidered to bd arbitrary from the specialised sciences individual general natural philosophical constructions were theoreti- propositions, but interprets them on the wider cal propositions that did not agree with the plane of the world view, this too leaves room for philosophical principles of his system. And yet if errors that natural science avoids because it does we analyse from the standpoint of these not quite not engage in the philosophical interpretation of consistent statements of Hegel's his own natural these propositions. The same mechanistic mate- philosophical errors, it turns out that some of them rialism in its teaching on nature and society (the majority, in fact) spring from his speculative inevitably goes farther than classical mechanics, idealist system, while the others-surprising though which virtually stops at the investigation of me- it may seem-arise from the limited natural sci- chanical processes. entific notions of his time, which had been Thus, the segregation of philosophy from the uncritically accepted by this profound critic of specialised sciences, while creating a firm basis empiricism.s for the development of scientific philosophical theory, does not rule out errors conditioned by G. W. F. Hegel, Siirntliche U)erhe, Bd. 9, S. 44. 12 philoiophy's change of status in the system oi Ibid. scientific knowledge. Although these errors are 3^This has been pointed out in Soviet historico-philo- sophical studies, particularly in the third volume of the rooted in the specific nature of philosophical llslory of Philosophy, published in 1943: "Reading his knowledge, in the universal character of philo- Philosophy of Nature, one sees how often he wai led sophical generalisations, they are by no means astray by bad empiricists. Thus, when defending the conversion of water into air and vice versa and allowing the formation of rain out of dry air. he relied on the and hydrogen, but that the latter can be formed only empirical observation of Lichtenberg and others. When through electrification, Hegel was relying on the observa- he maintained that water does not decompose into oxygen tions of the Munich physicist Richter, and so on." 442 448 insuperable. Materialist dialectics, employed as polemics being what it is, eloquence, rlot the method philosophical nature of of generhlisatiion of the reason, was bound to emerge victorious. "The discoveries the specialised of sciences, makes it victorv is not eained bv the men at arms, who possible to avoid absolJrtising.these discoveries by 'the by the revealing *urug. the pike and sword; but their true philosoihical sisnificance. dlrummers and musicians of the Engels's philosophiial trumlieters, geniralisation of the dis- &fmy."1 coveries of natural science in the mid-1gth century Hume evidently assumed that he himself was and. Lenin's analysis of the crisis physiis in 'exam- not polemicising with anyone but merely 4jspos- at the turn of the century are classical ing worthlesi arguments while expounding a ples of of scientific development of philosophical con- view that coincided with experience and common cepts on the basis of the achieviments-of natural sense. Naturally, this belief was an illusion,- which science.- One- must, sf course, have a profound I sourie, however, in the difference knowledge the had its of natural sciences and bL able to (characteristic activity as well as apply materialist of all scientific dialectics creatively in order to philosophy) between the process of research, which produce philosophical a generalisation of their polemical, and the set- achievements. is critical and essentially The mistakes made by some Marx- ting forth of results, which need- not necessarily ist philosophers in their philosophicil appraisal of in form. This distinction, the be polemical, at any rate discoveries of biology, phyiics and Lther sci- into contradiction, was ences which often builds up a bear out this view. by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Th.. ou_tstanding iustified . exponents of pre-Marxist phi- lnveighing against "uncritical" dogmatism and losophy not as did -a rule appreiiate the posiiive contrlstirig it" to "critical philosophi", he never- significance of philosophical- debate. Nedrly all must of them theless miintained that iti expositions of contraited pfiilosophical study to po- necessity certain extent dogmatic in lemics, which !e to a they regirded is an utterly fruitiess character. occupatron. Although Like Hume, Kant disapproved of polemics, he himself carried on a polemic believing that at best the contestants would defend against th_e_ natural scientific understanding of unprovable theories. for instance, causality, equally lSome, Hume maintained that all polemici'are maintain there is no God, others that He fruitles.:. Th-is would paradoxical attitude can scarcely theoretical reason is not capable of be attributed exists. But since to Hume's-scepticism.-More likely it deciding questions that go beyond the limits of was nurtured by what he knew of the medieval possiblJ "ther-e is no such thing as real disputes experience, of the schoolmen, who parried one an- polemics in the sphere of pure reason. Both sides other's arguments quotationJfrom with the Scrip- hitt ttre air and fight their own shadows, because l.rr"rt. Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. Observing they have gone beyond the bounds of nature, that there were no questions that could not becomE the subject_of dispule and be contested by oppos-- 1 ing sides, Hume drew the conclusion D. Hume, A 'freatise on Human Nature, Vol. I, that, the London, 1874, p.306. 444 445 where there is nothing for their dogmatic devices put end the dispute by to grasp sceptics) hoped to an to and-hold on 1o."1 But whil-e condemning creitin$ a philosophical system that would be jire nolemical application of pure ,"r* to ques- tions ,,practical'rea_ universally iccepte-d, like Euclid's geometry. The that can be solved onl!, by mathematical knowledge, as a form of son", ideal of that is to say, by the a'biori'*oruf consci- knowledge allegedly ruling out all disagree' o-usness, Kant tirelessly polemicises with his prC_ q ment, was the ideal not only of the rationalists. decessors, the creatori bf ttre rationaiist been shared by the empirical physical -.tu_ It must also have s_ystems of the lTth century, the material- philosophers, although they were not aware of it. ist sensualisls, the scepticism of U,iiri, und so on. It was on the assumption that there must be some .r,ven when Kant does'not actually name his op_ 4 immune controversy that ponents, I kind of knowledge to in argulng his conception of ,pu"" uid Ir they sought out the causes of error. time, I the possibility of syntheiic a Bri,ori judge- In his teaching on idols Bacon poses the ques- ments, the specific nature of categorial syritheiis, tion of the anthropological causes of error, which etc., he con-stantly crosses . - swords with' variouj inseparable from human nature. philosophlcal in his view are . doctrines which have arrived at Knowledge these causes, he believed, would ia olIIerent of concluslons. some measure help us to avoid the snares of This failure to appreciate the positive role of 1 He never gave up hope that with polemics misapprehension. in the develo-pment of philosophy seems the help of scientifically elaborated empiricism he to have been due to the fact thit even th. *osi put not the phrase-spinning outstanding would an end only to exponents of pre-Marxist philosoply of the schoolmen, but to all serious disagreement made no distinction betwe6n historicallv transient in general, because practical successes ("inven- causes..and the epistemological, intransiint sources l help to distinguish truth philosophical tioni") would always of controversy. They all saw the error.-Philosophical debate struck him as the fact philosophical from of controverry u, the Achilles,s occupation of learned ignoramuses and such heel philosophy, futile ot and each of them (unlike the indeed were the philosophical debates that Bacon rebelled against.-A zealous advocate of "natural Immanuel _ -t Kants siimtliche ,U)erhe in sechs Bdnden, philosophy-', which he imagjned was constantly Bd. 3, S. 578. It should be nored, howev;;, ;h;i K;ni ;;; scorned because people preferred castles in the convinced of the inevitability of dispute between ohilosoohv- air to something of real use, Bacon was of course on, the one hand, and theoiogy u"i 5"risf."airi;;;";ii;.,legislation from realising that empiricism, it kept other, srnce the latter were based not on the of far if Jea!o-n", but on government instructions iKin? naturaliv strictly to its own rules of inductive reasoning, had in mind the feudal alJhorities, which, he implies, werl suffered from its own illusions and some extremely iT:MbJ. of being guided"by.the_prin_ciplis il;;;;r;"+ wild notions connected with them. Hence rn the of the Faculties, "i .Dispu-te _ thai is, in his century was free essay, elucidating the relation_ship of the phiiosophical The rationalism of the 17th the faculties of the illusions of philosophical and natural sci- '-lhef.Xculty,.to of theology and law,-Kant ivrote, drspute,can have no end and the philosophical facultv entific empiricism. But it was subiect to other must always be prepared to face it.,' (Ibid., nana l, S. 57g.) illusions, which arose out of its one-sided inter- 446 447 I pretation of mathematics and abstract notion of cal grounds with logical pirounds, and causality reason and- the logical process in general. Ration- with logical necessity. In other words, the ration- alism tried to find a special kind of intellectual alist interpretation of mathematical method gave sphere the very nature bf which would be incom- rise to a kind of mistake that is basically impos- patible with error. But there is no such sphere of sible in mathematics, where logical inference is unconditional truth and any human ability is not in itself regarded as description of objective liable to err. Nor is prattical activity-'free reality and becomes such only in so far as it is of .error, including experimental work and sci- empirically interpreted.l entific research in general. This does not mean, of Thomas Hobbes, who like the rationalists saw course, that error id something that cannot be the way of finally overcoming philosophical error overcome. In principle any erroi-can be overcome, and dispute in the formulation of preciss and strict but-.the ability to err is inseparable-it from the definitions, asserted, as had Bacon before him, to know, and as such cannot be got that one the chief sources of all error is the rid+jlit"y of of. polysemy of words and verbal expressions. The advance of knowledge undoubtedly tends "Wherefore, as men owe all their true ratiocina- eradicate -(of to systemic error idealism or reli- the understanding of speech; so also gion, tion to right for example),- but even'this is possible only they owe their errors to the misunderstanding of in certain historical conditions whicli do not de- the same."2 There are words that mean nothing, pend on cognition and consciousness. But even if although they may appear to signify things that the advance of knowledge were able to overcome really exist. Words and their combinations pos- any error, it still would not eliminate its episte- sess certain qualities that are always being taken mological source. And expansion of the sphJr= of cognition- also entails a widening of the sphere I Modern mathematics shows that the mathematical of possible error regarding thing"s that hav^e not axioms that the rationalists took as self-evident absolute yet been investigated. truths are nothing of the kind. "Clearly the correspondence between axioms and the objects of reality," P. S. Novikov The rationalists took as their absolute criterion points out, "must always be approximate. If, for instance, of truth such clarity as would leave no room for we ask the question, 'Does real physical space correspond doubt. But what is the criterion of such claritv? to the axioms of Euclid's geometry?' we must first give not even pose physical definitions of the geometrical terms used in !h9f {ja this question. The fetish these axioms, such as 'point', 'straight 'plane', of intellectual line', intuition and iti allesedlv inherent l and so on. In other words, we must indicate the pliysical infallibility engendered the belief ihat'one could circumstances to which these terms correspond. The axioms ulylyr- e-qd a philosophical dispute once and for will then become physical statements which can be tested experimentally. After such testing we shall to all if, following the example mathematics, be able of one j guarantee the truth of assertions the procee{led our as far as from self-eyident truths and developed precision of our measuring instruments permits." (P. S. the inferences from them according to strict lolic. Novikov, Elements of Mathematical Logic, Moscow, 1959, The attempt to p. 13 [in Russian].) apply the mathema"tical methoj in 2 philosophy led the rationalists The English Uorhs of Thomas Hobbes of Malmes- to identify empiri- bury,Yol. l, London, 1839, p. 36. 448 449 as the qualities of things themselves. It is this, ac_ any real meaning. They reflect the objec- cording Hobbes, th"at without -to creates ihe- probl.m of tively existing general and universal, the actual universals. And finally, .u.r, ttiins; f,orr.r, ..r_ tain.qualities that aie sometim.r"-uit.iUrt.J unity within diversity; essence, law, necessity, and io so Consequently, even the difficulties that we words and verbal expressions. on. Havi"g discussed encounter in quest of knowledge lie not only in the various forms of inlcorrect fi;bU., d;;;; a conclusion which "r"s., words, notions, concepts and ideas of things, but makes hi*'i;-;-sense the in the things themselves, in their real diversity, folerunner, of th,e pres."t-d"y philorJphy oi fi"_ gurstrc analysrs.: "'I'o contradictoriness and changeability. The fact conclude, the lighi of human that the knower may err should not be allowed mlnds^ls persplcuous words, but by exact defini_ trons hrst snuffed, to overshadow the objective foundations of and purged frbm ambiguity; error. reason is the -pace,. increise"o f. science. the" ual'. and the benefit of mankind, Whereas the great pre-Marxist philosophers the end. And, on tlii tried to put an end to philosophical controversy metaphors, and senseless and u*bigrro,rs -:9^1t._ury,words, are like ignes "upon by establishing certain fundamental and uncon- fatui; and reasoning ditional truths and evolving a scientific method of wandering among innumerable 11.,*,y absu?difi es ; inquiry, the bourgeois philosophy of the late tgth and th-err end, contention and sedition, or con- tempt."t century and the 20th century, realising that the metaphysical pretensions of their predecessors to Hobbes's,analysis of the causes ,- of error develops absolute knowledge were illusory, at the same time bo-th the rationalist and the empirical criticism Lf scholastic quibbling ou", rejected even the historically tested path towards *ordlr. Tf,is is its his_ objective truth that the positive sciences are fol- toncal signihcance, a significance -written. that outlives the lowing. The philosophical analysis of the achieve- 3ge -in which it w-as The speculative idealist systems of later ments of natural science made by positivism times, aitririit th;;gh was based on an agnostic, subjectivist interpreta- they are from the doctrines of the schoolmen, al-so tion of the fact of knowledge. created concepts concerning things that hia-'no Denial of the rationalist conception of knowl- exlstence rn or attributed these .r-eality to things edge above experience was transformed into a sub- (and thr world in geteral) qualities possessed oniy by the human iectivist revision of the concept of truth. This was mind. But the weak spbt in Hobbes;s particularly striking in pragmatism, which pro- conception is his nominalist intirpretation of concepts, which- claimed its goal as the final overcoming of philo- is historically conneitea wiif, tt. sophical "The pragmatic empiricism of the new controversy. method," age.-The reform ;;t; wrote "is primarily of that^he proposes is obvidusly "f William James, a method Utopian, since sci_ settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise entrhc concepts are not merely collective nouns might be interminable."L The essence of this meth- od, as we know, may be reduced to the dictum t^The_ English (Dorks ol Thomas Malmesbury, Vol. S, pp. 36-37. r W. James, Pragmatism, p, 45. 450. 451 that "truth is one species of good"t, in view of intuitionism, radically renovating opposed philo- which a1y idea is tiue that helps the individual them from their ex- to coordinate his new sophical trends and liberating experienie with his store clusive claims, could hope io bring about their of old beliefs and ma-kes -"It thus it easier for him to complete reconciliation. is a fact," Lossky attain ,his chosen goal, by "linking things satis- factorily, *rof., "that intuitionism, by removing- the-premise working-secureiy, simpl"ifyingi saaing trendi one-sided, while not labour".2 that makes the old exactly solving important controversial issues in Whereas the opponents of orthodox scholastics inother of the opposing sides, advanced the principle favoui of onJor of the duality-from of truth, that goes even deeper and, actually- removes the very i_s,. {he independence of ,knowledge religious for showing that it comes from faith, declared [round diipute, James all ideas t-o be true if"they irisunderstandiirg, and that-the disputing-parties coulrl 'get u,s along, so to speak", satisfy our one-sidedness were partly right and needs. Even the argument in their conc6rning utilityi since oartlv wronE."1 it was made the criterion of truth, was d-eclarecl ' noiing characteristic tendency meaningless because Leiin,'bourge"ois the tq only the individual could modern philosophy to "eleva-te" itself make up his own mind about what was good for above the op"position between materialism and him. and religion, characterised this give idealism, sciince .James,admittedly,-tried to the principle of tendency as a modernisedJorm of the struggle of utility, which he believed would ov6.co*i the materialism. Revealing- the scholastic conception idealism against -Pro- of truth in itself, an inter- found sociil roots of this reactionary philosophical subjec_tive meaning, and argued that iome ideas flag of philo- actually 'jyg.k" movement masquerading under the for everybody. These were pri- sophical neutrality, Lenin proved that the strug- marily religious notions, ifter'which came id'eas materialism ind idealism, between that had a minimal effect El. between in chansins"pragmatic habitual icience and religion, could not become obsolete and established beliefs. In short, tle idealiit and religious interpretation of conception truth was while the of extremely conseivative the world continued to exist. both in its scientific and socio-poiitical aspects. are not eternal. The This But idealism and religion epistemological conservatism- was proclaimed of history has laid bare the sole materialist understanding means of abolishing all fundamental social and economiC roots of these alienated disagreement philosophy. the in The real purpose of forms of social consciousness and proved their it all was to establish a definite religious and this mean politically historically transient nature. But does coloured form of idealism as a-universal socio-historical develop- philosophical that at a iertain stage in convention. ment philosophical controversy will come to an In Russia the claim philosophical to end all dis- end? Of couise, not. The history of philosophy pute was made by N. Lossky, wh-o wrote that only W. op. cit., p. 75. -f J,o*.s, I Substantiation Intuitioniszz, St. Peters- 2 Ibid., p. 58. N. Lossky, of burg, 1908, pp. SS7-SS (in Russian). 452 458 shows that the forms and character of philosophi- than the idea its (and of science. Nothing will halt cal scientific) controversy change'historical- victorious march."l ly, a fact that is conditioned both 6v socio_eco- Lenin showed how idealism may change its nomic causes and by the development of t noruf_ form in ways unsuspected by the layman. Ideal- edge. ism, he said, is "disowning" idealism. Today there The abstract study of the_-nature of philosophi- is scarcely a single influential idealist doctrine that cal controversy is_ profoundly anti-hisforiJ,'be- has not come out "against" idealism. The history cause it ignores the ideological function of'phi_ of the "realist" doctrines of the 20th century (neo- losophy, the chan.ge of its status in the system of realism, critical realism, N. Hartmann's "new scientific knowledg.e,' the- development'of phi_'We ontology", etc.) are particularly indicative in this -losophy -and of philosophical argumentation. respect. Scientific analysis this notable histor- have of only to. compare the philosophical disputes ical symptom shows that what is called idealism _of various historical epochs (ancient timesl the in contemporary bourgeois philosophy mainly Middle is Ages, the New'Age, tt* piir""t dav) to the rationalist type of idealism or openly subjec- see that even in condition-s'of an'tagonirti. tius tive idealist philosophising. But why in that case society. the theoretical substantiatio'n of philo- does present-day idealism "disown" all idealiSm? sgtrhical propositio_ns is steadily a.r.topi"g-;"t Why is this change the idealism pre- that_ in form of views which are not even indirectly sented as its final defeat? The point is that ideal- confirmed by the specialised sciences, practice or ism has been discredited by modern natural sci- hlstorrcal experience, are gradually overcome. Of ence and socio-historical experience. But it con- cours-e, in antagonistic clais society this tendencv tinues to exist not only as a result of its theoreti- usually-assumes q hidden form, but it can be re'_ cal errors, but because the socio-economic base vealed 'even and by scientific analysis of the most re- correqponding ideological atmosphere that feeds actionary philosophical doctrines. What is it, for it still exist. instance, that makes most of today,s idealist phi_ Today there are real historical prospects of a losophers assert that their philoiophv does'not fundar-nental change in the character of philo- contradict natural science? Biidentlv tLe fact that sophical debate which in a world that has put an even idealists are today obliged to reckon with the rules of theoretical-discusiion that have been _ r E. Husserl, "Philosophy as an Exact Science", in evolved by modern science. Zogos, l9ll, Book I, p. 8- (in Russian). This statement of Edmund Husserl, whose philosoohv is obvious- Husserl's cannot be aicepted, of course, without allowing ly aimed against what r"guidr ,,naive" for the fact that he is- constantly at war with natura'i hi as s-cien-ce, which in- "can gatural science, had his belief never, anywhere provide to admit that the creation of the {oundation for philosophy" (Ibid., p. ll). Iiut we "rigorous._science-" is the ideal of philr;;phic;i would stress something else. The discoveries of the natural inquiry. "[t may be," he wrote, "that^in the whole sciences and mathematics substantiate the concept of life of modern scien-tific knowledge and the criteria of scientificalitf with times there is no idea more which even idealist philosophy powerful, more irrestrainable, is forced to reckon, no more all-conq".;i"t matter how opposed it may be to these sciences. 454 455 end to the domination of the spontaneous forces CONCLUSION of social development over man becomes scien- tific philosophical discussion, whose real basis is the creative development of the dialectical-ma- terialist world view. In this form. philosophical debate is no longer an ideological struggle, b6cause its nece-ssary foundation will be the ideological unity of all mankind, consciously creating its:own history on the basis of communisticalfu trans- formed social relations. Such controversy is ana- l-ogous to the scientific discussion necessitated by th. development of science. I say analogoui because the subf ect-matter of scientific philosophy and its method of inquiry rule out the possibility of the exact and often complete solution that is the peculiar advantage of the specialised sciences. The reader who has followed the general argu- In becoming scientific, philosophy rejects on ment of this book attentively will have noticed, principle what can only be regarded in our day of course, that its central idea is that the plural- as the simple-minded claim to be a system of ab- ism of philosophical doctrines is historically tran- solute truths for all time. But scientific philosophy sient. The empirically observable multiplicity of rejects equally strongly the relativist conception incompatible philosophies has always been the that no truth is an absolute truth in the final in- point of departure for the sceptical denial of phi- stance. Such an assertion is just as dogmatic as losophy's ability to arrive at any objective truth. its opposite, since it attributes to itself the same This, too, is the basis of the modern positivist de- absolute truth that it so vehemently denies. The nial of the scientific philosophical world view. creative, dialectical-materialist character of The 20th-century philosopher, says Hans Rei- Marxist philosophy, its organic unity with scientific chenbach, should have the courage to acknowledge knowledge and social practice, opens up bound- the obvious fact that "philosophy has been unable less prospects for fruitful scientific discussion be- to develop a common doctrine that could be tween people of like mind. Its major goals are to taught to students with the general consent of all develop philosophical knowledge, to elaborate the those who teach philosophy. Those among us who methodological problems of science, the theo- have taught one of the sciences will know what it retical foundation of men's conscious, free practi- means to teach on a common ground. The sciences cal activity, and to enrich their spiritual life, have developed a general body of knowledge, which is, of course, not merely a means but the carried by universal recognition, and he who goal of humanity, when it has forever abolished teaches a science does so with the proud feeling of social inequality and its manifold consequences. introducing his students into a realm of well- established truth. must the philosopher goes saying that 'lristorico-philo- relounce .Why- It without the teaching of established iruth?t,i science is impossible without of Reichenbach's sophi&l -criticism . - poin[ would le unairsti"aafte philosophical errors, tL. or,.t.ott ing of which will rf he -helo were attacking the idealist speculations so to-establish the truth. But it is not this truism characteristic of bouigeois philosophy from the po- thai Reichenbach has in mind. His idea is that the sitions of science. But he is'speakiirg'of ptiitoroitiy i3 only knowledge we may gain from historico- seneral. Any philosoply; iq hiJ vieiv, ign6..'s phiiosophical science is knowledge of the mistakes the truths that science has firmly established. ihrt philorophers have constantiy-derive made'.In other Without making any distinction betwien mate- from the rialism words, the bnly truth we can and idealisnU without distinguishing the historv of ohiloiophv is that error is error. When present-day {orm of materialism from pr&ious pleniy and recognised them materialist we have sebn of errors doctrines, Reichenbach asseits that as such, we sirall kt ow a.t equivalent amount of philosophers, unlike scientists, merelr,- stat; th;i, the opinion of a noted neo- own ,,hnagine truth. Here we have or -other people's opinions. a sci_ positivist, one of the founders of the subjective entist who were to teach electronics in the form isnostic "philosophy of science", which is pro- of report ,? on.views of different physicists, ,r.ve. cLimed scientific mii"tv because it claims to liave telling his students what are governing -the-laws divorced itself from all previous philosophical electrons. The idea appears ridiculous.',2 iio philosl ideas, although in fact it ievives the conception ophy is either irresponsible argument about mat_ of Hume. ters_concerning which there are firmly established Reichenbach's statements are essentially 'no truths, or else is meaningless it pontification aboui different from those of his predecessors-the Po- something that cannot bet the subiect of knowled_ sitivists of the 19th century. John Lewis was writ' ge. This is the standpoint from wh"ich Reichenbach ing very much the same kind of thing at th-e begin- a-ppraises the historico-philosophical process and its niig of the century. Philosopher-s not-olly made ch,aracteristic divergenie of philosopt i.ut a""iri".r, but repeated the mistakes of their pre- wtuch misfakes, he sees as immanently inherent in phi- decessors of which they were already aware, and losophy: "If philosophers havt prod"iii i their new point of departure could-not save rnany SIiit even contradicting systems, all-except one must them from philosophical misadventure. Such was be wrong,; and it is even probable that all are sad fate of pliilosophy, according to Lewis, wrong. the The history of philbsophy should tfieii- who evidentty failed to see that the fatalism he fore include a histoiy of fhe erro-rs bf philosophers; had rejected- as a speculative religio'rs notion in uncovering the sources of error historicil re- should not be applied either to the historico' search will contribute to truth."3 ohilosonhical process. ' G. Welis was neither a philosopher nor a n..frenbach, Modern philosophy of Science, Lon- H. don,, lft. 1959, p. 136. historian of philosophy, but the question that in- 2 Ibid. he de- 3 terests us appeared so clear to him that lbid. clared without more ado: "The student of philoso- 458 459 doing nfrr or whatever pompous name is paper grven- lgr.qllr' on The Need lar Different Uersions in to this Btale resurrection pie, is introduced Marxist Philosophy to, he maintains that the diver- a iumble. _9f incompatible id;a;; mixture of sity and multiformity Drts ; of mankind's historical prac- trom drtterent jig_saw puzzles; incoherence tical experience finds its philosophi- as wisdom."l The jirdlgemenf expression in ,pp"ir, *-.*-fr"i cal theory. This goes without saying. is but various But it lrgsty, o"thei fragm.,itl-frrlm his book incomprehensible why one should conclude from Y ou. C an' t B e T o o C ar e f ul,'"sc;;; tlal-outstandine besides his this statement that there is a need for different, traditional English empiricisil-iiris i.e.,, presumably numanrst contradictory, versions of the writer had uncritically accepted the neol philosophy of Marxism. Vranitsky writes: "In g::it,^"]ll,l*trine, which struck him" as a simple the- present, historical situations change radi- nnal solutron to unnecessarily .too, confused- and corn_ cally, resulting in important shifts posing pli_cate-d pJrilosophical ---- in the probleirs:- o-f.historica-l problems and tasks. If philosophy (in In the late fifties,.Jean-Frangois Revel brought this case Marxist philosophy) cannot reacf like a out a book called U)hat Are piilosoft,irs yor?\ts sensitive barometer pretentious.opinions to these shifts, it becomes his- t9 ai* e*presriy ui a._ torically insignificant."r This, too, stroyrng p.hilosophy. leym is beyond dis. Here is one taken aimost at pute. But rvhy does it follow from this fact, which greatest pie-ce of hypocrisy of the is well worth remembering, that alongside ITdp*,people who ,"'I'he dialec- make philosophy theii profesiion to_ tical and historical materialism there'should exist day rs pretend to that philosophy ixists.,,2 Such other Marxist (or rather, quasi-Marxist) philos- eSlggerated views scarcely need iefuting. Ess;: ophies? .To this question Vranitsky's theset give tially they have already b..n J.;i;;ii[ in this absolutely no answer. book and we recall them here only to stress once It is quite clear (not only from the theses, but more in conclusion _ the utmost i*poriar.. of the from other works of Vranitsky's) that the theo- problem of a scientific philosophy,'u prolf.- tfrii retical premise for the idea that different versions Marxism has solved because it ir,as Juoirr.a ,r.r, of Jvlarxist philosophy a philosophy are needed lies in the be- and is creativel/ ai".iopi"g-it. lief that Marxism (like all philosophy in general) , ln re-cent years some philosophers who c"onsider cannot and should'not be'scientific. tlremselves Th"us, th; Marxists, (an not shared by historically. transient opposition of philosophy to uf), have .opinion .prop^o1e_d that there should be varioul the specialised sciencei'is exalted phrlosophies_of ur u, 6teinal Marxism. At the recent XIV I;_ law of the development of philosophical thinking. 1.1ll,iglu.t Philosophical Congres-s f. VraniUf.y The specific natu-re of phiiosophy is absolutiset, devoted his speech to this subject. In his publishei despite the fact (which [ !,ope f t lrre proved) thai there is not a single peculiarity of the philosbphi- cal form of cogn-ition that is not to sime extent jF, G. Wells, You Can,t Be Too Careful, London, 1912, p. 266. _,.J.-F. Revel, Pourquoi, d.es phi.losophes?, paris, 1957, 1 Ahten des Internationalen philo- p. 149. XIa. Rongresses fiir sophie,Bd,. I, Wien, 1968, S. tg9-40. 460 461 inherent in scientific thought in seneral. There be no such thing as philosophical science. While cannot be different (scientific) ve.si"ons of the sci- political revisionism tries to blurr the difference entific nlr{-osophical world view, just as there can- between the socialist and capitalist systems, philo- not be different versions of any-scientific theory, sophical revisionism argues the notion that there if,, of course, the word "version'" refers to the 16- is no valid distinction sult between Marxist and bour- of the inquiry and not merely to the foim in geois- philosophy; even the term "bourgeois phi- which it stated. is 9ur- opponenls cannot agree losophy" is quite often ruled out of order. Such is with this. But what in that-case should Marx'ism t'e logic of ideological struggle. In the Central be? Art? Ng, t\.y rep1y, i_! must be simply phi- Committee's report the losophy to 24th Congress of the and. nothing-else. But in the preient-age CPSU, Leonid Brezhnev said: "The the adequate itruggle be- only form of theoretical truthls tween the forces of capitalism on science and socialism and scientific research. The implication, the world scene and the attempts then, of revisionists of is.that philosophy should not seek bbjective all hues emasculate truth, that to the revolutionary teaching is.to sal truth which is indep6ndent and distort the practice of socialist commu- of the investigator's and own consciousness?'But in nist construction require that we continue to pay that case philosophy is not theoretical knowledge. undivided attention to the problems and creativi: It-c-an be nothing but consciousness, conscrousness development of theory."l without knowledse. Historico-philosophical science by theoretical We see that tfre existentialists and other expo- research into the facts reconstructs the complex nents of contemporary_idealist philosophy ur. Ta, and contradictory process more of the formation of consistent than P. Vrani[sky, because they scientific philosophical knowledge, to the attain- do not to. prese-nt try their unscieritific conception ment of which the most outstanding thinkers of of the pluralism philosophical of doctrines a^s the the past devoted unremitting intellictual effort. th-e_oretical premiss for the creative deveiopmer,t This reconstruction of Marxism. of the altual road travelled by philosophy is an essential condition for its The need for the creative development of further development. Marxist philosophy is absolutely obvioirs. But it is equally obvious that this development cannot take place along the well-worn paths of contem- polary idealist philosophy. .. Contemporary bourfeois sociologists, seeking to discredit the Marxist teaching on'the'inevitaB'ili- ty of the communist transforination of social re- lation_s, argue. that no such thing as ob.iective his- torical necessity exists in -gengral. Contemporary bourgeois philosophers figlit dialectical arra his'- torical materialism with the thesis that there can t 24th Congress of the CPSU, Moscow, 1971, p. 123. 462 REQUEST TO READERS Piogress Publishers would be glad to have your opinion of this book, its translation and design and any suggestions you may have for future publications. Please send your comments to 21, Zubovsky Boulevard, Moscow, USSR.