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Soviet Philosophy : Past and Prospects*

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Soviet Philosophy : Past and Prospects* MARK H. TEETER (Washington, D.C., U.S.A.) SOVIET PHILOSOPHY : PAST AND PROSPECTS* Philosophy as a term and concept remains elusive. While it is widely recognized that the word itself has long since outgrown its ancestry-the ancient Greek philosophia is commonly rendered "love of wisdom"-no broad consensus has been reached (or is likely to be) as to the form and func- tion of philosophy tout courts. One aspect of the continuing disagreement over the nature of the disci- pline may be amply illustrated by two citations. Describing philosophy in 1977 for The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought, British philosopher Anthony Quinton, president-elect of Trinity College, Oxford, called it A term that cannot be uncontroversially defined in a single formula, used to cover a wide variety of intellectual undertakings all of which combine a high degree of generality with more or less exclusive reliance on reasoning rather than observation and experience to justify their claims. ... If a single short formula is insisted on, the least objectionable is that philosophy is thought about thought.2 *This is a revised versionof the introduction to a chapter listing and describing Soviet philosophy institutes compilcd for the Kennan Institute's three-volume report on re- search centers in the USSR in the humanities and social sciences. (The entire report was funded by the U.S. International Communication Agency, with additional grants from the U.S. Department of State and the International Research and Exchanges Board.) Special thanks for advice and comments on the original version of the essay go to an anonymous referee, Professor Il'ia Scrman of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and, in particular, Professor James P. Scanlan of The Ohio State University, formerly a Fellow of the Kennan Institute. The author, of course, bears responsibility for the finished prod- uct and any remainingerrors. 1. See, for example, John Hospers, AnIntroduction to PhilosophicalAnalysis (Engle- wood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), pp. 1-18, and Ian Philip McGreal, Analyzing Philosophical Arguments: An Introduction to Philosophical Method (San Francisco: Chandler, 1967), pp. 1-8, for academic discussions of various meanings of philosophy. 2. Anthony Quinton, "Philosophy," in The Harper Dictionarv of Modern Thought, ed. Alan Bullock and Oliver Stollybrass (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), p. 470. 32 A brief description of the nature of philosophy in its Soviet incarnation, offered in the same year, provides a distinct contrast. Discussing plans for forthcoming philosophical endeavors in the USSR, P. N. Fedoseev-vice- president of the USSR Academy of Sciences and one of the most prominent (official) philosophers in the Soviet Union-noted that In the field of philosophy, research will be directed toward the resolution of a number of tasks connected with the study of the Leninist philosophi- cal heritage, the elaboration and further development of the materialist dialectic as the epistemology, methodology and logic of contemporary science [nauka] and with the development of the reflection theory in connection with the discoveries and data of contemporary science. We must also take into account the growing role of philosophy in the ideological struggle [andj in ideological education [i,ospitaniel in politics and morals. The history of social thought testifies that philosophy has great significance in the formation of a.world view.... In the formation of the communist world view, the philosophy of dia- lectical and historical materialism serves as the ideological and methodo- logical [ideino-metodologicheskaia foundation.3 Whatever else is unclear about philosophy, one thing is certain: Soviet phi- losophy represents itself as fundamentally different from philosophy as per- ceived and practiced in much of the rest of the world. In authoritative de- scriptions, Soviet philosophy emerges as teleological, task-oriented, intimately related to ideology (indeed, in the service of a political movement) and based in science. It is both Weltanschauung (mirovoz?renie) and the universal sci- ence (pseubshchaia nauka), an entity attaining such all-inclusive proportions as to render a perception of philosophy as mere "thought about thought" utterly provincial by comparison. Though there is, in fact, considerable overlap among various Soviet and Western philosophical pursuits (the areas of mutual interest and the similari- ties of approach are, if anything, increasing), an essential contrast remains. Western philosophy-neo-Thomism, existentialism, neo-positivism and so on- entails inquiry; Soviet philosophy directs it. Thus while philosophy in the USSR is not the centralized, monolithic "industry" it was forty years ago, it remains a uniquely Soviet phenomenon, with all the merits and demerits that derive from official Soviet sponsorship. The history of philosophy in the Soviet Union may be divided into pe- riods which, as might be expected, roughly parallel the course of national political developments. The Civil War, the NEP, the Stalin years, de-Sta- 3. P. N. Fedoseev, "XXV s"ezd KPSS i zadachi nauchnykh issledovanii v oblasti obshchestvennykh nauk," Noiaia i noveishaia istoriia, No. I (1977), pp. 13-14. .
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