Philosophy in the Soviet Union was officially confined to
Marxist–Leninist thinking, which theoretically was the basis of objective and ultimate philosophical truth. During the 1920s and 1930s, other tendencies of
Russian thought
''Russian Mind'' (; French – ''La Pensée Russe'') is a pan-European sociopolitical and cultural magazine, published on a monthly basis both in Russian and in English. The modern edition follows the traditions of the magazine laid down in 1880 ...
were repressed (many philosophers emigrated, others were expelled).
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
enacted a decree in 1931 identifying
dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world c ...
with Marxism–Leninism, making it the official philosophy which would be enforced in all
Communist state
A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the Ideology of the Communist Party of the Soviet U ...
s and, through the
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
, in most
Communist parties
A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the Socioeconomics, socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of ''The Communist Manifesto, The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' ( ...
. Following the traditional use in the
Second International
The Second International (1889–1916) was an organisation of Labour movement, socialist and labour parties, formed on 14 July 1889 at two simultaneous Paris meetings in which delegations from twenty countries participated. The Second Internatio ...
, opponents would be labeled as "
revisionists".
From the beginning of
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
regime, the aim of official Soviet philosophy (which was taught as an obligatory subject for every course), was the theoretical justification of Communist ideas. For this reason, "
Sovietologist
Kremlinology is the study and analysis of the politics and policies of the Soviet Union while Sovietology is the study of politics and policies of both the Soviet Union and former communist states more generally. These two terms were synonymous unt ...
s", among whom the most famous were
Józef Maria Bocheński
Józef Maria Bocheński or Innocentius Bochenski ( Czuszów, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, 30 August 1902 – 8 February 1995, Fribourg, Switzerland) was a Polish Dominican, logician and philosopher.
Biography
Born on 30 August 1902 in ...
, professor of philosophy at the
Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas
A pontifical ( la, pontificale) is a Christian liturgical book containing the liturgies that only a bishop may perform. Among the liturgies are those of the ordinal for the ordination and consecration of deacons, priests, and bishops to Holy ...
and
Gustav Wetter
Gustav, Gustaf or Gustave may refer to:
*Gustav (name), a male given name of Old Swedish origin
Art, entertainment, and media
*Primeval (film), ''Primeval'' (film), a 2007 American horror film
*Gustav (film series), ''Gustav'' (film series), a Hu ...
, have often claimed Soviet philosophy was close to nothing but
dogma
Dogma is a belief or set of beliefs that is accepted by the members of a group without being questioned or doubted. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Roman Catholicism, Judaism, Islam ...
.
Since the 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, it was marked by both philosophical and political struggles, which call into question any monolithic reading.
Evald Vasilevich Ilyenkov was one of the main philosophers of the 1960s, who revisited the 1920s debate between "mechanicists" and "dialecticians" in ''Leninist Dialectics and Metaphysics of Positivism'' (1979). During the 1960s and 1970s
Western philosophies including
analytical philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United St ...
and
logical positivism
Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion of ...
began to make a mark in Soviet thought.
Philosophical and political struggles in the Soviet Union
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world c ...
was initially expounded by
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
and
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ,["Engels"](_blank)
'' Anti-Dühring
''Anti-Dühring'' (german: Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft, "Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science") is a book by Friedrich Engels, first published in German in 1878. It had previously been serialised in the newspaper '' ...
''. It was elaborated by
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
in ''
Materialism and Empirio-criticism
''Materialism and Empirio-criticism'' ( Russian: ''Материализм и эмпириокритицизм, Materializm i empiriokrititsizm'') is a philosophical work by Vladimir Lenin, published in 1909. It was an obligatory subject of study ...
'' (1908) around three axes: the "materialist inversion" of
Hegelian dialectic
Dialectic ( grc-gre, διαλεκτική, ''dialektikḗ''; related to dialogue; german: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to ...
s; the
historicity
Historicity is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status. Historicity deno ...
of ethical principles ordered to
class struggle
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
; and the convergence of "
laws of evolution" in physics (
Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...
), biology (
Darwin
Darwin may refer to:
Common meanings
* Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection
* Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...
) and political economy (Marx). Lenin hence took position between a
historicist
Historicism is an approach to explaining the existence of phenomena, especially social and cultural practices (including ideas and beliefs), by studying their history, that is, by studying the process by which they came about. The term is widely u ...
Marxism (
Labriola Labriola is a surname of Italian origin. Notable people with the surname include:
*Antonio Labriola (1843–1904), Italian Marxist theoretician
*Teresa Labriola (1873–1941), Italian writer, jurist, and feminist
*Arturo Labriola (1873–1959), Ita ...
) and a
determinist
Determinism is a philosophical view, where all events are determined completely by previously existing causes. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping motives and consi ...
Marxism, close to what was later called "
social Darwinism
Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in W ...
" (
Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...
). Lenin's most important philosophical rival was
Alexander Bogdanov
Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and ...
(1873–1928), who tried to synthesize Marxism with the philosophies of
Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mac ...
,
Wilhelm Ostwald
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (; 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, and Svante Arrh ...
, and
Richard Avenarius
Richard Ludwig Heinrich Avenarius (19 November 1843 – 18 August 1896) was a German-Swiss philosopher. He formulated the radical positivist doctrine of "empirical criticism" or empirio-criticism.
Life
Avenarius attended the Nicolaischule in Le ...
(which were harshly criticized in Lenin's ''Materialism and Empiriocriticism''). Bodganov wrote a treatise on "
tectology
Tektology (sometimes transliterated as tectology) is a term used by Alexander Bogdanov to describe a new universal science that consisted of unifying all social, biological and physical sciences by considering them as systems of relationships and ...
" and was one of the founders of
Proletkult
Proletkult ( rus, Пролетку́льт, p=prəlʲɪtˈkulʲt), a portmanteau of the Russian words "proletarskaya kultura" (proletarian culture), was an experimental Soviet artistic institution that arose in conjunction with the Russian Revolut ...
after the First World War.
Following the 1917
October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...
, Soviet philosophy divided itself between "dialecticians" (
Deborin Abram Moiseyevich Deborin (Ioffe) (russian: Абра́м Моисе́евич Дебо́рин Ио́ффе; , Upyna, Kovno Governorate – 8 March 1963) was a Soviet Marxist philosopher and academician of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union ...
) and "
mechanists" (
Bukharin
Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Буха́рин) ( – 15 March 1938) was a Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician, Marxist philosopher and economist and prolific author on revolutionary theory.
...
, who would detail Stalin's thesis upheld in 1924 concerning "
socialism in one country
Socialism in one country was a Soviet state policy to strengthen socialism within the country rather than socialism globally. Given the defeats of the 1917–1923 European communist revolutions, Joseph Stalin and Nikolai Bukharin encouraged the ...
", was not a "mechanist" per se, but was seen as an ally.) The mechanists (
A.K. Timiryasev,
Axelrod Axelrod or Akselrod (variant: Axelrad, meaning "axle wheel") is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Albert Axelrod (1921–2004), American Olympic medalist foil fencer
* Barry Axelrod (born 1946), American sports agent
* Beth Axe ...
,
Skvortsov-Stepanov...), came mostly from scientific backgrounds, claimed that Marxist philosophy found its basis in a causal explanation of Nature. They upheld a
positivist interpretation of Marxism which asserted that Marxist philosophy had to follow the natural sciences. Stepanov thus wrote an article flatly titled "The Dialectical Understanding of Nature is the Mechanistic Understanding". To the contrary, "dialecticians", whose background was Hegelian, insisted that dialectics could not be reduced to simple mechanism. Basing themselves mainly on Engels' ''Anti-Dühring'' and ''
Dialectics of Nature
''Dialectics of Nature'' (german: Dialektik der Natur) is an unfinished 1883 work by Friedrich Engels that applies Marxist ideas – particularly those of dialectical materialism – to nature.
History and contents
Engels wrote most ...
'', they maintained that the laws of dialectics could be found in nature. Taking support from the
theory of relativity
The theory of relativity usually encompasses two interrelated theories by Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity, proposed and published in 1905 and 1915, respectively. Special relativity applies to all physical phenomena in ...
and
quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, q ...
, they responded that the mechanists' conception of nature was too restricted and narrow. Deborin, who had been a student of
Georgi Plekhanov
Georgi Valentinovich Plekhanov (; rus, Гео́ргий Валенти́нович Плеха́нов, p=ɡʲɪˈorɡʲɪj vəlʲɪnˈtʲinəvʲɪtɕ plʲɪˈxanəf, a=Ru-Georgi Plekhanov-JermyRei.ogg; – 30 May 1918) was a Russian revoluti ...
, the "father of Russian Marxism", also disagreed with the mechanicists concerning the place of
Baruch Spinoza
Baruch (de) Spinoza (born Bento de Espinosa; later as an author and a correspondent ''Benedictus de Spinoza'', anglicized to ''Benedict de Spinoza''; 24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, b ...
. The latter maintained that he was an idealist metaphysician, while Deborin, following Plekhanov, saw Spinoza as a materialist and a dialectician. Mechanism was finally condemned as undermining dialectical materialism and for vulgar evolutionism at the 1929 meeting of the Second All-Union Conference of Marxist–Leninist Scientific Institutions. Two years later, Stalin settled by fiat the debate between the mechanist and the dialectician tendencies by issuing a decree which identified dialectical materialism as the philosophical basis of Marxism–Leninism. Henceforth, the possibilities for
philosophical research independent of official dogmatics virtually vanished, while
lysenkoism
Lysenkoism (russian: Лысенковщина, Lysenkovshchina, ; uk, лисенківщина, lysenkivščyna, ) was a political campaign led by Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko against genetics and science-based agriculture in the mid-20th ce ...
was enforced in the scientific fields (in 1948,
genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinian friar worki ...
were declared a "
bourgeois pseudoscience
Bourgeois pseudoscience (russian: Буржуазная лженаука) was a term of condemnation in the Soviet Union for certain scientific disciplines that were deemed unacceptable from an ideological point of view due to their incompatibility ...
"). However, this debate between "mechanists" and "dialecticians" would retain importance long after the 1920s.
Otherwise,
David Riazanov
David Riazanov (russian: Дави́д Ряза́нов), born David Borisovich Goldendakh (russian: Дави́д Бори́сович Гольдендах; 10 March 1870 – 21 January 1938), was a Russian revolutionary, historian, bibliographer ...
was named director of the
Marx-Engels Institute, which he had founded, in 1920. He then created the MEGA (''Marx-Engels-Gesamt-Ausgabe''), which was supposed to edit Marx and Engels' complete works. He also published authors authors, such as
Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a prominen ...
,
Feuerbach
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (; 28 July 1804 – 13 September 1872) was a German anthropologist and philosopher, best known for his book '' The Essence of Christianity'', which provided a critique of Christianity that strongly influenced gen ...
or Hegel. Riazanov was however excluded from any political functions in 1921 for defending trade unions' autonomy.
During the Fifth
Comintern
The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...
Congress,
Grigory Zinoviev
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
condemned for "revisionism" the works of
Georg Lukács
Georg may refer to:
* ''Georg'' (film), 1997
*Georg (musical), Estonian musical
* Georg (given name)
* Georg (surname)
* , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker
See also
* George (disambiguation)
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
* ...
, ''History and Class Consciousness'' (1923) and of
Karl Korsch
Karl Korsch (; August 15, 1886 – October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theoretician and political philosopher. Along with György Lukács, Korsch is considered to be one of the major figures responsible for laying the groundwork for Wester ...
, ''Marxism and Philosophy''. ''History and Class Consciousness'' was disavowed by its author, who made his
self-criticism
Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...
for political reasons (he thought that, for a revolutionary, being part of the party was the priority). It became however a leading source of
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning East ...
, starting with the
Frankfurt School
The Frankfurt School (german: Frankfurter Schule) is a school of social theory and critical philosophy associated with the Institute for Social Research, at Goethe University Frankfurt in 1929. Founded in the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), du ...
, and even influenced
Heidegger
Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centu ...
's ''
Sein und Zeit
''Being and Time'' (german: Sein und Zeit) is the 1927 ''magnum opus'' of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and a key document of existentialism. ''Being and Time'' had a notable impact on subsequent philosophy, literary theory and many other f ...
'' (1927). Lukács then went to Moscow in the beginnings of the 1930s where he would continue his philosophical studies, and returned to Hungary after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
. He then took part to
Imre Nagy
Imre Nagy (; 7 June 1896 – 16 June 1958) was a Hungarian communist politician who served as Chairman of the Council of Ministers (''de facto'' Prime Minister) of the Hungarian People's Republic from 1953 to 1955. In 1956 Nagy became leader ...
's
government in 1956, and was closely watched afterwards.
Lev Vygotsky
Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (russian: Лев Семёнович Выго́тский, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; be, Леў Сямёнавіч Выго́цкі, p=vɨˈɡotskʲɪj; – June 11, 1934) was a Soviet psychologist, known for his work on psy ...
's (1896–1934) studies in
developmental psychology, which opposed themselves to
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov ( rus, Ива́н Петро́вич Па́влов, , p=ɪˈvan pʲɪˈtrovʲɪtɕ ˈpavləf, a=Ru-Ivan_Petrovich_Pavlov.ogg; 27 February 1936), was a Russian and Soviet experimental neurologist, psychologist and physiol ...
's works, would be expanded in the
activity theory
Activity theory (AT; russian: link=no, Теория деятельности) is an umbrella term for a line of eclectic social-sciences theories and research with its roots in the Soviet psychological activity theory pioneered by Sergei Rubinst ...
developed by
Alexei Nikolaevich Leont'ev
Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev ( rus, Алексе́й Никола́евич Лео́нтьев, p=lʲɪˈonʲtʲjɪf; February 18, 1903 – January 21, 1979), was a Soviet developmental psychologist and philosopher and the founder of activity th ...
,
Pyotr Zinchenko
Petr Ivanovich Zinchenko (Russian: Пётр Иванович Зинченко) (12 July 1903 – 17 February 1969) was a Soviet developmental psychologist, a student of Lev Vygotsky and Alexei Leontiev and himself one of the major representativ ...
(a member of
Kharkov School of Psychology
{{Use dmy dates, date=October 2015
The Kharkov school of psychology (''Харьковская психологическая школа'') is a tradition of developmental psychological research conducted in the paradigm of Lev Vygotsky's "sociocult ...
), and
Alexander Luria
Alexander Romanovich Luria (russian: Алекса́ндр Рома́нович Лу́рия, p=ˈlurʲɪjə; 16 July 1902 – 14 August 1977) was a Soviet neuropsychologist, often credited as a father of modern neuropsychology. He develop ...
, a
neuropsychologist
Neuropsychology is a branch of psychology concerned with how a person's cognition and behavior are related to the brain and the rest of the nervous system. Professionals in this branch of psychology often focus on how injuries or illnesses of t ...
who developed the first
lie detector
A polygraph, often incorrectly referred to as a lie detector test, is a device or procedure that measures and records several physiological indicators such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity while a person is asked an ...
.
After the 20th Congress of the CPSU
Nevertheless, the conditions for creative philosophical work began to emerge in the mid-1950s, after the
20th Congress of the CPSU
The 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was held during the period 14–25 February 1956. It is known especially for General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev's "On the Pe ...
in 1956, albeit only on the 'outskirts' of philosophy: the philosophy of the natural
science
Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...
(
B. Kedrov,
I. Frolov
I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet.
I or i may also refer to:
Language
* I (pronoun), the first-person singular subject pronoun in English
* I (Cyrillic), a letter used in almost all ancient and modern Cyrillic alphabets
* ı, dotless ...
), theory of perception and
gnoseology
Gnosiology ("study of knowledge") is "the philosophy of knowledge and cognition". In Soviet and post-Soviet philosophy, the word is often used as a synonym for epistemology. The term is also currently used in regard to Eastern Christianity.
Etymo ...
(
P. Kopnin,
V. Lektorsky
''V.'' is the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo- bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Who ...
,
M. Mamardashvili,
E. Ilyenkov), the history of philosophy (
V. Asmus,
A. Losev,
I. Narski
I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet.
I or i may also refer to:
Language
* I (pronoun), the first-person singular subject pronoun in English
* I (Cyrillic), a letter used in almost all ancient and modern Cyrillic alphabets
* ı, dotless ...
), ethics (
O. Dobronitski
O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet.
O may also refer to:
Letters
* Օ օ, (Unicode: U+0555, U+0585) a letter in the Armenian alphabet
* Ο ο, Omicron, (Greek), a letter in the Greek alphabet
* O (Cyrillic), a letter of ...
),
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, Epistemology, knowledge, Ethics, values, Philosophy of ...
(
M. Kagan
( ; ; pl. ; ; 1512, from Middle French , literally "my lord") is an honorific title that was used to refer to or address the eldest living brother of the king in the French royal court. It has now become the customary French title of respe ...
,
L. Stolovitsh),
logics
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises i ...
(
G. Shchedrovitsky,
A. Zinovyev) and
semiotics
Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes (semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something, ...
and system theories (
J. Lotman, who set up the
Sign Systems Studies
''Sign Systems Studies'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal on semiotics edited at the Department of Semiotics of the University of Tartu and published by the University of Tartu Press. It is the oldest periodical in the field. It was initially ...
journal, the oldest semiotics periodical;
V. Sadovsky
''V.'' is the debut novel of Thomas Pynchon, published in 1963. It describes the exploits of a discharged U.S. Navy sailor named Benny Profane, his reconnection in New York with a group of pseudo-bohemian artists and hangers-on known as the Whol ...
). The works of the young Marx, such as the ''
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
The ''Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844'' (german: Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844), also referred to as the ''Paris Manuscripts'' (') or as the ''1844 Manuscripts'', are a series of notes written between Apri ...
'', which had been first published in 1932 but suppressed under Stalin because of its incomplete break with
German Idealism
German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was closely linked both with Romanticism and the revolutionary ...
, also started being discussed.
Others
1)
Vasily Nalimov
Vasiliy Vasilievich Nalimov (Васи́лий Васи́льевич Нали́мов; 4 November 1910 – 19 January 1997) was a Russian philosopher and humanist and wrote on Transpersonal Psychology. His main areas of research were the philosoph ...
(1910-1997) was interested mainly in the philosophy of probability and its biological, mathematical, and linguistic manifestations. He also studied the roles of
gnosticism
Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Judaism, Jewish and Early Christianity, early Christian sects. These ...
and
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
in science. Nalimov is usually credited with proposing the concept of
citation index
A citation index is a kind of bibliographic index, an index of citations between publications, allowing the user to easily establish which later documents cite which earlier documents. A form of citation index is first found in 12th-century Hebr ...
.
2) The so-called "communist morality" was an important part of Soviet Union philosophy. According to Lenin and Stalin, morality should be subordinated to the ideology of proletarian revolution. Denying the validity of religion-based morality, they wrote: what is useful to us (the Soviet people) is moral, what is harmful to us is immoral. Morality is a weapon in class struggle. Party and Komsomol members were drilled to accept that position, and to act accordingly.
Publications and propaganda
The USSR published voluminous materials to disseminate its philosophical ideals and justifications. These took the form of academic or professional journals or notes in the pattern of peer-reviewed material. For example, the book below challenges the idea of a medical
deontology
In moral philosophy, deontological ethics or deontology (from Greek: + ) is the normative ethical theory that the morality of an action should be based on whether that action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules and principles, ...
, or ethics based on moral rules, versus ethics based on
utilitarian
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
Although different varieties of utilitarianism admit different charact ...
rules decided on the best outcome for the greatest number of people.
Image:USSR_medical_deontology_conference_report_cover.png
See also
*
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science, history, and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxist dialectics, as a materialist philosophy, emphasizes the importance of real-world c ...
*
Dialectical Logic
Dialectical logic is the system of laws of thought, developed within the Hegelian and Marxist traditions, which seeks to supplement or replace the laws of formal logic. The precise nature of the relation between dialectical and formal logic was hot ...
*
Fundamentals of Marxism Leninism
Fundamental may refer to:
* Foundation of reality
* Fundamental frequency, as in music or phonetics, often referred to as simply a "fundamental"
* Fundamentalism, the belief in, and usually the strict adherence to, the simple or "fundamental" idea ...
*
Historical Materialism
Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
*
Marxist sociology
Marxist sociology refers to the application of Marxist perspective within the study of sociology.Johnson, Allan G. 2000. "Marxist sociology." Pp. 183–84 in '. Wiley-Blackwell. . Marxism itself can be recognized as both a political philosoph ...
*
Marxist philosophy
Marxist philosophy or Marxist theory are works in philosophy that are strongly influenced by Karl Marx's materialist approach to theory, or works written by Marxists. Marxist philosophy may be broadly divided into Western Marxism, which drew ...
*
Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy is a collective name for the philosophical heritage of Russian thinkers.
Historiography
In historiography, there is no consensus regarding the origins of Russian philosophy, its periodization and its cultural significance. The ...
*
Activity theory
Activity theory (AT; russian: link=no, Теория деятельности) is an umbrella term for a line of eclectic social-sciences theories and research with its roots in the Soviet psychological activity theory pioneered by Sergei Rubinst ...
*
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning East ...
Sources
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*
*
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V.A. Bazhanov. Philosophy in Post-Soviet Russia (1992 - 1997): Background, Present State, and Prospects // Studies in East European Thought, 1999, vol. 15, N 4, pp. 1–23.
External links
Excerptsfrom ''Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy, From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov'' (1991), David Bakhurst
*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20060219063024/http://www.bl.uk/collections/wider/russwomen/russwomenrel.html Russian and Soviet Women's Studies - Religion and Philosophybr>
Gallery of Russian Thinkersedited by Dmitry Olshansky
*
*
*{{cite book
, last = Spirkin
, first = Alexander
, author-link = Alexander Spirkin
, others = translated from the Russian by Sergei Syrovatkin
, title = Fundamentals of Philosophy
, url = http://su-ltd.mylivepage.ru/file/2715/6528_Spirkin_Al.-Fundamentals_of_Philosophy.pdf
, access-date = 2011-01-20
, year = 1990
, publisher =
Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet publisher founded in 1931.
Publishing program
Progress Publishers published books in a variety of languages: Russian, English, and many other European and Asian languages. They issued many scientific ...
, location =
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, isbn = 5-01-002582-5
, postscript = A popular Soviet textbook on dialectical and historical materialism; first published in Russian, as "Основы философии"
, url-status = dead
, archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120306000621/http://su-ltd.mylivepage.ru/file/2715/6528_Spirkin_Al.-Fundamentals_of_Philosophy.pdf
, archive-date = 2012-03-06
Education in the Soviet Union
Science and technology in the Soviet Union
20th-century philosophy
Russian philosophy