Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Beliavsky
Designed by Vadim Kaleshov
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[2]CONTENTS
Page Introduction.................... 15
1
PROBLEMS OF METHOD IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 17
The History of Philosophy---the Development of Philosophical Knowledge............... 19
Dialectical Materialism and Hegel's Philosophy of the
History of Philosophy.............. 41
A Contribution to the Critique of the Latest Pluralistic
Concept of the History of Philosophy....... 62
The Dialectical-Materialist View of the Philosophical
System.................... 83
Philosophy and Everyday Consciousness....... 100
2~DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM AND DIALECTICAL IDEALISM ....................' . 119
Immanuel Kant and 17th-century Philosophical Rationalism .................... 121
Kant's Doctrine of "Things in Themselves" and Noumena 136 The Dialectical Idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte . . . 154
Hegel's Philosophy of the Power of Reason...... 181
The Social Meaning of Hegel's Philosophy......204
Dialectical Materialism and the Hegelian Concept of the
Universality of Practice............ . 221
Lenin on the Hegelian Concept of the Coincidence of
Dialectics, Logic and Epistemology......... 242
Dialectical Materialism, Dialectical Idealism and Contemporary Bourgeois Consciousness (In Lieu of a Conclusion) 261
BIBLIOGRAPHY.................. 276
NAME INDEX................... 280
SUBJECT INDEX................. 283
[3] ~ [4] __ALPHA_LVL1__ INTRODUCTIONThese essays on the history of philosophy deal, above all with methodology. They also examine world outlook, because a Marxist study of the history of philosophy must analyze the relation of dialectical materialism to the philosophy that preceded it.
The Marxist approach to the development of pre-- Marxian philosophy first of all singles out classical German philosophy, one of the theoretical sources of Marxism. Therefore, this book poses a number of important although not yet sufficiently analyzed issues, related to the historical aspect of the emergence and development of dialectical idealism, whose outstanding role as the precursor of dialectical materialism was repeatedly stressed by the founders of Marxism.
This book supplements my monographs Problems of the History of Philosophy (Moscow, 1969; English translation published in 1973, German in 1962 and 1979, and French in 1973) and Major Trends in Philosophy (Moscow, 1971), and discusses issues that were not sufficiently examined in them. Consequently, this book omits the topics which, although very important, were discussed at length in those monographs.
The principal objective of this book is to use the study of certain aspects of methodology and of dialectical idealism to outline the fundamental role the dialectical-- materialist theory of the history of philosophy plays in shaping the world outlook. A comprehensive analysis of that theory is certainly relevant, and its importance transcends the bounds of a purely historical study of philosophy.
As Frederick Engels emphasized, the history of theoretical thinking, and consequently the history of science, are inseparable from the history of philosophy. According to Engels, the rejection of philosophy as "the science of sciences" that is opposed to specific sciences is inseparable 5 from a critical evaluation of the legacy of philosophy, because "the art of working with concepts is not inborn and also is not given with ordinary everyday consciousness but requires real thought, and . . . this thought similarly has a long empirical history, not more and not less than empirical natural science. Only by learning to assimilate the results of the development of philosophy during the past two and a half thousand years will it rid itself on the one hand of any natural philosophy standing apart from it, outside it and above it, and on the other hand also of its own limited method of thought, which was its inheritance from English empiricism." (8; 20)
Theoretical thinking is essentially thinking in concepts, and it develops by perfecting the conceptual scientific system, by creating new concepts and categories. Theoretical thinking operates with concepts that vary greatly in quality. Some concepts register special qualities characteristic of a certain group of objects, the qualities that are grasped by sense perception and singled out by abstract thinking. Others generalize processes and relations perceived only through theoretical thinking. Still others have a strictly heuristic value---that is, they express operations by the perceiving subject and not the qualities of things or the general qualities of objective reality. Such, for example, is the concept of the infinitesimal in mathematics. Another, even more graphic example of a heuristic concept---that is, one discharging an operational function--- is the identification abstraction in logic. This listing of types of concepts is far from complete. However, it is enough to demonstrate the conceptual nature of theoretical thinking and its inevitable links with the history of philosophy and with the creative conceptual effort.
Theoretical thinking is not confined to ready-made concepts. The actual study process develops concepts: it differentiates between them, binds them together, limits and enriches them, unites them into definite systems, coordinates, subordinates, extrapolates, generalizes and develops them, etc. Nor does cognitive theoretical thinking stop here. Research discovers new phenomena, laws and objects of cognition, and it therefore presupposes the formulation of new categories and even new systems of categories (within a specific field of study).
I am speaking here about the development of concepts 6 ---a necessary logical expression of the historical process of the development of knowledge---only because I am trying to define the role of the history of philosophy in the age-old development of theoretical thinking. We know that even the greatest of the pre-Marxian philosophers saw no link between the development of knowledge and the development of the ability to think in concepts. For example, Kant said that the ability to exercise judgment (to make empirical data fit the more general concepts and categories) was an inborn quality, and that no education or training could make up for the absence of that essential trait. Kant's view fitted perfectly in the way his system underestimated the role of the history of science, particularly the history of philosophy. Had Kantian criticism been capable of grasping the heuristic importance of the history of knowledge, Kant would probably have concluded that not only the ability to exercise judgment but also the productive power of the imagination (whose role in cognition he emphasized) could be consciously developed only through a critical and systematic study of the history of science.
While admitting that inborn intellectual abilities do exist, Engels, unlike Kant, accords priority to the study of the history of culture, and particularly to the conscious and scientifically sound study of the history of cognitive thinking, especially the results of the two and a half thousand years of philosophy. Developing this concept in his Dialectics of Nature, Engels stresses that the study of the history of philosophy---the understanding of the experience accumulated in the course of philosophy's development---is truly a school of theoretical thinking. The latter, as he put it, is an "innate quality only as regards natural capacity. This natural capacity must be developed, improved, and for its improvement there is as yet no other means than the study of previous philosophy". (9; 42-43) Naturally, one must not lose sight of the fact that Engels wrote this when natural science was still poorly developed theoretically. Hence his "as yet". The century that has elapsed since the appearance of Anti-Diihring and Dialectics of Nature has witnessed great advances in this field, and they have played an important part in the development of philosophy, and of theoretical thinking in general.
7Engels described the great discoveries of natural science in the mid-19th century (the discovery of the cell and its formation, the law of energy transformation, Darwin's theory of evolution) as revolutionary turning points in the historical shaping of theoretical natural science and as the scientific foundation of dialectical materialism. In this connection Engels formulated the law of the creative development of materialist philosophy: "With each epochmaking discovery even in the sphere of natural science it [materialism] has to change its form; and after history also was subjected to materialistic treatment, a new avenue of development was opened here too." (3; 3, 349) In the early 20th century V. I. Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism offered a profound philosophical analysis of the crisis in the methodology of physics, caused by the revolution in that science. The roots of that crisis were directly related to the great theoretical discoveries that influenced the shaping of the world outlook. That explained why Lenin, while developing Engels' theses about the heuristic role of the history of philosophy (those quoted above), also stressed the heuristic importance of the history of natural science: "The results of natural science are concepts, and ... the art of operating with concepts is not inborn, but is the result of 2,000 years of the development of natural science and philosophy." (10; 38, 262)
Of course, admitting the outstanding heuristic role of the history of natural science does not at all detract from the importance of the history of philosophy as a school of theoretical thinking. On the contrary, underestimating the history of science---and that is still true of some scholars ---combines inexorably with disdain for the history of philosophy. But as a rule, the scientists responsible for important discoveries systematically studied the history of theoretical thinking, both in natural science and in philosophy. The works of Einstein, Heisenberg, Vernadsky and Timiriazev are a case in point.
Like any historical process, the history of science (and philosophy) can be studied by two essentially different but organically interconnected methods: the historical and the logical. The historical method aims to reproduce the process in question in all its general, typical and unique features. The logical method, based on the sum-total of the results in a specific historical study, pursues a different 8 objective: that of revealing the laws that govern the development of the given sum-total of phenomena in a definite historical framework laid down in the study. The latter case is thus a logical reconstruction of the process in question. Karl Marx's Capital is a classic example.
According to Engels, the logical method "is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the historical form and diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history begins must also be the starting point of the train of thought, and its further progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract and theoretically consistent form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is corrected, it is corrected in accordance with laws provided by the actual historical course, since each factor can be examined at the stage of development where it reaches »jts full maturity, its classical form." (6; 225) Since the study of the history of philosophy is regarded essential for developing theoretical thinking, it should not be merely an empirical-historical study but also, and above all, logicaltheoretical, theoretically general, and epistemological. In Engels' words, the point is to understand the results of the development of philosophy over the past two and a half thousand years. Dialectical materialism considers this theoretical summing up of the history of philosophy (and science) as a special task of epistemology, a branch of philosophy studying the development of knowledge taken in its more general form denned in the major philosophical categories.
In his Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin mapped out a program of fundamental epistemological studies based on a theoretical interpretation and generalization of the history of various sciences (the history of the mental development of animals, the history of technology, language, etc.) and the history of knowledge in general. Lenin accorded priority to the task of summing up the historicalphilosophical process aimed at further developing the epistemology of dialectical materialism. (10; 38, 351) Methodologically, that is a point of tremendous importance. It expressly indicates the organic relationship of dialectical materialism to the entire philosophy that preceded it. That relationship has a bearing not only on the origin and shaping of dialectical materialism but also on its problems, content and development. That expains why Lenin, in 9 compiling his notes on Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy and The Science of Logic, singled out several extremely important tenets of philosophy. Failure to see them precludes any comprehensive evaluation of Lenin's stage in the development of Marxist philosophy. It also explains Engels' following assessment of the attitude of Marxist philosophy to the 2,000-year history of idealism: "For it is by no means a matter of simply throwing overboard the entire thought content of those two thousand years, but of criticism of it, of extracting the results---that had been won within a form that was false and idealistic but which was inevitable for its time and for the course of evolution itself---from this transitory form." (9; 198-99)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Each school of philosophy is in some way connected with the previous history of philosophy. It is impossible to understand a particular system of philosophy without studying the history of philosophy as a whole, without critically analyzing the' various philosophical schools, approaches, hypotheses, achievements in all fields, including those that later turn out to be spurious. It is an antinomy of sorts between the whole and its part: understanding a part presupposes knowledge of the whole, but the latter is impossible without knowledge of the parts. 'This dialectical antinomy is solvable, because understanding a part means, to a certain degree, understanding the whole, and knowledge of the whole presupposes a certain knowledge of its constituent parts.
Thus it would be an error to believe that the historical (or, to be more precise, historical-philosophical) way leading to the truth is only relevant inasmuch as the truth has not yet been reached; that once the truth is reached, the way to it can be forgotten. In actual fact, everything is much more complicated because the truth is the process of the development of knowledge, and the arrival at this or that truth reveals the epistemological significance of the road cognition has taken.
Philosophy is essentially a deeply controversial subject. Each point it makes is not only an affirmation but also a negation, both thesis and antithesis. Substantiating the materialist world outlook means rejecting idealism. A correct understanding of the dialectical method, of the basic sense precepts of the dialectical-materialist theory of reflection, of the fundamentals of the materialist 10 interpretation of history, is impossible without negation, that is, without a scientifically sound critical attitude to metaphysical thinking, to agnosticism, the a priori approach, subjectivism, the idealistic interpretation of the life of society, etc. Scientific philosophical criticism is, in the final analysis, positive. Error is regarded as an epistemological phenomenon, and its scientific understanding does not merely ' record the error as such; it presupposes the study of the historically transient necessity of that error, its gnosiological roots, and consequently, of the real content (a correlate of the truth) of the philosophical error. This approach to philosophical analysis---an approach not only legitimate but also obviously necessary to a certain degree---largely eliminates the distinction between study of the problems of dialectical materialism and a Marxist study of the history of philosophy. Engels' Anti-Duhring and Lenin's " Materialism and Empiric-Criticism are good examples.
The nature of criticism depends to a certain degree on the object of criticism. This book examines the relation; of dialectical materialism to the legacy of classical philosf: phy, particularly classical German idealism. The history of Marxism bears out that any critique of the latter creatively assimilates its profound insights. That is what positive dialectical-materialist negation is all about. Lenin described it as follows: "Not empty negation, not futile negation, not sceptical negation, vacillation and doubt is characteristic and essential in dialectics,---which undoubtedly contains the element of negation and indeed as its most important element---no. but negation as a moment of connection, as a moment of development, retaining the positive, i.e., without any vacillations, without any eclecticism." (10; 38, 226)
Each philosophical doctrine is essentially distinguished by its relation to the philosophical legacy. The issues raised by any doctrine are born of definite historical circumstances and are theoretically linked to the issues treated by the philosophy that preceded it. It reviews these issues, interprets them differently, enriches and generally develops them. There is a contradiction in the unity of each philosophical doctrine and the philosophy that preceded it. Apart from relations of historical succession, it also comprises struggle against the doctrines that were its theoretical sources. For example, Spinoza, while directly 11 following Descartes, was also a dedicated opponent of dualism, psychophysical parallelism, the free will concept, deism and other fundamentals of the Cartesian doctrine.
Furthermore, the unity is relative. It is always a definitely oriented unity, its social and philosophical bias accounting for its selectivity. This philosophical selectivity assesses different predecessors differently, and chooses the concepts that fit its principles. For example, Spinoza, unlike other materialist philosophers, turned to the pantheist and rationalist tradition in philosophy, obviously underestimating the importance of philosophical empiricism and empirical natural science.
Because of their distinctive content and social gravitation, philosophical doctrines differ substantially in their ability critically to analyze the results of the preceding development of philosophy. This refutes Hegel's assertion that since the latest philosophical doctrine is the result of everything previous philosophies have achieved until then, it "must then contain the principles of all; it is therefore, when it is a philosophy, the most developed, the richest, and the most concrete". (64; 6, 21) That line of reasoning would mean that since Berkeley and Hume came after Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke and Hobbes, their doctrines were a synthesis of the principles laid down by their predecessors and they built fuller and more developed philosophical systems. Obviously, this was not so. Hegel examined Berkeley and Hume, harshly criticized their subjective idealism and skepticism, and showed how far removed those outstanding philosophers were from any critical assimilation of everything philosophy had accomplished before them. Berkeley and Hume were by their nature incapable of such assimilation; their philosophical leanings, historical choice and relation to the preceding philosophical doctrines were clearly one-sided.
Hegel's error is connected with the fundamentals of absolute idealism which pictures philosophy as developing on two planes. On the one hand, it is an extra-temporal process in the realm of the "absolute idea". Hegel describes the latter as authentic philosophical thinking. In this suprahistorical sphere where actual historical development is replaced by logical succession, by the self-development of the Concept, each successive stage, necessarily includes the preceding logical stages and subordinates them to a 12 new and more meaningful fundamental precept. On the other hand, the actual history of philosophy---which Hegel does not at all ignore---develops on a temporal plane, within the frameworks of essentially different historical ages. And on this plane---and Hegel fully admits and systematically demonstrates that---there is no such one-sided and direct relationship between the preceding and following philosophical systems.
The theoretical interpretation of the actual history of philosophy shows that many outstanding philosophers could not arrive at any positive evaluation of their predecessors' doctrines even though they followed and developed the latter (usually, not even quite consciously). Even Hegel, who unlike other creators of philosophical systems considered his doctrine the result of the preceding history of philosophy, failed to arrive at a correct evaluation of the historical role of materialist philosophy, sensationalist epistemology, natural science and the generally nonphilosophical methods of research that had a tremendous bearing on all the philosophy of the New Age.
The revolution in philosophy brought about by Marxism is often described as a radical break with all the preceding philosophical doctrines.
Such an assessment of the Marxist relation to the philosophical legacy refers only to one aspect of the complex and contradictory historical process of the negation of philosophy in the old sense of the term. True, dialectical materialism differs radically from all other philosophical doctrines, including progressive ones. But it was precisely dialectical materialism that critically assimilated, creatively revised and developed the accomplishments of all the preceding history of philosophy, and this much more than any other philosophical doctrine. An adequate reflection of the Marxist revolution in philosophy is precisely this relation to the preceding philosophy which, free from any sectarian narrow-mindedness, is revolutionary-critical, creative, partisan and scientifically objective.
In his Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin stresses and systematically explains that dialectical idealism is closer to dialectical materialism than metaphysical, antidialectical, materialism. (10; 38, 274) My essays on the history of philosophy, especially those analyzing classical German idealism, explain this extremely important tenet which 13 leads to the conclusion that dialectical materialism (and only dialectical materialism) offers the methodological foundation for a truly scientific history of philosophy.
Kant creatively posed the issue of whether scientific theoretical knowledge is possible. According to Kant, the existence of pure mathematics and pure (that is, theoretical) natural science is an obvious fact because those sciences comprise truly apodictic and universal judgments. Kant believed that the theory of knowledge was to explain how pure mathematics and pure natural science were possible. A still more important and central issue in Critique of Pure Reason, the work Kant considered a fundamental introduction to his philosophical system, poses an even more important problem: how is metaphysics ( philosophy) possible as a definite intellectual occupation? Can metaphysics be a science? What are the conditions and ways of transition from nonscientific philosophizing to philosophy as a true science?
Obviously, the problems that Kant raised and failed to answer in a scientific-philosophical way have also a direct bearing on the history of philosophy as a science. How is the science of the history of philosophy possible? In other words, what are the philosophical requisites of that science? The skeptics would not accept that definition of the problem. They would pose it differently: is the history of philosophy possible as a science at all? Apparently, this formulation also merits attention, because there exist many mutually exclusive philosophical doctrines, each offering its own---whether materialist or idealist, metaphysical or phenomenalistic---interpretation of the history of philosophy. For example, the followers of Henri Bergson have their distinctive view of the history of philosophy which underlies their approach to all philosophical doctrines, they gauge everything by irrational intuitive idealism. A neopositivist historian of philosophy naturally accords priority to representatives of philosophical---- especially idealist---empiricism, agnosticism, etc.
A dialectical-materialist study of the history of philosophy substantiates and uses a radically different, dialectical-materialist approach to philosophical doctrines, their relation to one another, etc. Naturally, to a bourgeois historian of philosophy, the dialectical-materialist view of the history of philosophy would appear biased too, because it 14 rejects the idealist, metaphysical interpretation and eclecticism, often paraded as ``objectively'' taking into consideration all viewpoints, as a synthetic approach, etc. But in fact, this ``bias'' is a consistent scientific approach to the history of philosophy. Obviously, it presupposes uncompromising rejection of any unscientific interpretation. The struggle against idealism which, in the eyes of a bourgeois historian of philosophy who considers himself to be above the ``extreme'' viewpoints, is a fault of dialectical materialism, is a necessary expression of scientific consistency in a study of the history of philosophy. According to Leonid Brezhnev, "There is no room for neutralism or compromise in the struggle between the two ideologies." (11; 89-90)
A dialectical-materialist, partisan approach to idealism, far from impeding scientific assessment of the role played by idealistic philosophy, offers a consistent methodological basis for such assessment. The Holy Family by Marx and Engels is significant in this regard. Here the authors both consistently expose idealist speculations and stress that their outlook is materialist, "which has now been perfected by the work of speculation itself". (1; 4, 125) This means that Marxist philosophy materialistically revises and critically assimilates all the genuine accomplishments of idealist philosophy. Which explains why dialectical materialism, accepted as the theoretical basis for study of the history of philosophy, is the scientifically sound central avenue of research into the history of philosophy. The only scientific philosophical outlook, which the philosophy of the New Age proclaimed as its goal, is dialectical-- materialist. That is borne out not only by the creative development of Marxist philosophy but also by the record of bourgeois philosophy in the 20th century. Contemporary idealist philosophy rejects both dialectical materialism and the very notion of a scientific-philosophical outlook. Actually, all non-Marxist (including contemporary) philosophical doctrines reject the concept of the preceding development of philosophy. An examination of philosophy as it emerges and changes is alien to all non-Marxist philosophical doctrines, for they are not, nor can be, developing systems. They view the past of philosophy as something petrified: it either fully belongs to an irretrievably lost historical era or, on the contrary, is the work of brilliant 15 minds unaffected by the march of time. Both these approaches exclude the past of philosophy from the actual and many-sided social history.
Dialectical materialism, a philosophical theory of development, is itself a developing system of philosophical knowledge and, therefore, though created over a hundred years ago, it remains the philosophy of today. Critically summing up the preceding development of philosophy, dialectical materialism also answers questions posed by today's philosophical doctrines. Marxist philosophy offers theoretical interpretations and scientific solutions not only to its own philosophical problems; its outlook sums up the most important accomplishments in all fields of fundamental research, practical activity, and mankind's historical experience. The fundamental difference of dialectical and historical materialism from all non-Marxist philosophical doctrines, its organic links with i&ll progressive traditions in philosophy, its dedication to the future and uncompromising rejection of anything that defends social oppression and exploitation---all that makes the scientificphilosophical outlook of Marxism the only possible basis for a scientific theory of the history of philosophy.
[16] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ 1 __ALPHA_LVL1__ PROBLEMS OF METHODIt appears, at least at first glance, that the subject of the history of philosophy is definite and clear. Its name speaks for itself. Still, we must not accord too much importance to that, because the subject is not fully revealed. This point becomes obvious if we compare the history of philosophy to that of science or art. For example, the history of mathematics reproduces the progress of that science, where each new accomplishment is rooted in past achievements. It presents the hierarchy of the development of mathematical knowledge, with the historical stages imperatively related to one another. The history of art as a special science reproduces the actual emergence of outstanding works of art which, of course, are not independent of one another. But their interrelationship differs greatly from the historical connections between scientific theories.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Even those opposing the theory of development do not deny that the study of the history of science does have its purpose. As to art, it is a debatable point of methodology. Apparently, the same is true of the history of philosophy. Adherents of idealism among today's historians of philosophy often say that philosophical systems are like great works of art because philosophy is the poetry of concepts. That analogy completely ignores the essential difference between the theoretical precepts of philosophy and images of art. Today, Homer's Iliad is still largely an unattainable model of perfection. But today's reader, while enjoying that great epic, does not argue with Homer over the gods of Ancient Greece, their relations with one another and with mortals, etc. On the other hand, while reading Aristotle or Plato, that same reader inevitably responds to their doctrines, analyzes them and strives to separate the rational in them from what is false or no longer relevant.
Only Shakespeare could write Othello. No one else could __PRINTERS_P_19_COMMENT__ 2* 19 __FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original: have done it. But the picture is different with regard to Plato's or Aristotle's doctrines. Other philosophers would have voiced their ideas, although, of course, differently. In this the history of philosophy is similar to the history of natural science. It is true that discoveries in, say, physics are the work of certain scientists and bear the imprint of their personality. Nevertheless, if those scientists had failed to make them, others would have made those discoveries in due course. Therefore, it is completely wrong to draw a parallel between a historian of philosophy studying the doctrine of Leibniz or Feuerbach and an art historian specializing in Tolstoy or Byron. The, history of philosophy diff era ^fundamentally from the history ~ " "
`` ~~ ~~~
The word ``history'' (the Greek historia) still retains its original meaning of an account, a narration. History as a science emerged precisely as~ an .account of past events (a historian is not an eyewitness) that are of interest for the present.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Hegel stressed the twofold- meaning j)f the word " histp^jry": "In our language, 'the word `history' has both objective and subjective aspects, both as historian rerum gestarum and as the res gestas themselves; it denotes both what happened and the historical nfg.rJ*tiYe_. We must recognize `fETs' conTBma*fion*of both those"'meanings as something more significant than merely an outward coincidence; one must admit that historiography emerges simultaneous-- ly with historical actions and events per se: there exists a common internal basis that generates them." (63; 164) Still, we must admit that in the ancient times the term ``history'' already acquired a broader meaning. For example, Aristotle used the term to denote an accumulation (consequently, a description) of information on actual facts, which he set apart from theory, research and logical inferences.
'V-2^
This polysemantic meaning of the word ``history'' survived for many centuries. Up to the end of the 18th century natural science, which remained a descriptive discipline that collected and classified facts recorded by observation, was called historia naturalis to differentiate it from the history of nations. Theoretical natural science replaced that obviously obsolete term with a more adequate one: natural science. According to Engels, "While natural 20 science up to the end of the last century was predominantly a collecting science, a science of finished things, in our century it is essentially a systematising science, a science of the processes, of the origin and development of these things and of the interconnection which binds all these natural processes into one great whole." (3; 3, 363)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:One pan^d^aw__ajx_snalogy between the histor ophy and the~~Mstory~l5FTiaTuYal science"; the former has also evotwed .from a description merely summing up facts to an orderly sCudy,""1recDmiro``g'"3cience about tbee_m^r" pence-~and^dey.elopaien.t oT~pmIosj)pli.v. But LfiTs*"aiialbgy must not obscure the fact that the history of philosophy differs substantially from the history of natural science.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:The history of philosophy, too, was born as an account of remarkable and even surprising developments in man's intellectual life. For example, Diogenes Laertius believed that philosophers and their doctrines were a wonder. His treatise On the Lives, Doctrines and Maxims of Famous Philosophers can be considered the first study of the history of philosophy. While J?lato|_s_ _or_Aristotle's remarks about the_ views of their pTectecessors"are~oT"greaT;Impor: tance forthe history' yf |)lii speaking, exercises__in'the ms£o?y 5f---phifesep-hyr- As L. "Bfaun aptly TemarksTTTSttr^uiled lo -regard-Iris predecessors as thinkers of the past. In his dialogues, Parmenides, Protagoras and other philosophers participate in the discussion on a par with Socrates, Plato's teacher. True, Aristotle does differ from Plato in this regard. But his examination of the earlier doctrines is fixed on presenting his own system, and he uses biased criticism of other philosophers' theories to prove his own.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:While Diogjn^s_Ija£rtiuLg]treatise is objdcuisJ^_a__mere corrtpilatioji it is based on adeTrrntg"concept of the history of philosophy (although the author hlmsTJrf- ``Is'' TioFTiiBy aware of it): he _attempts_tp__single out and contrast dogmatisjGQ_aind skepticism, in his opinion, the two major philosophical trends.^^*^^ The description of philosophers' theories _-_-_
^^*^^ All skeptic philosophers who followed Diogenes adopted his viewpoint. Even Kant considered it his mission to overcome those major (but, in his opinion, biased) philosophical trends. On the conceptual quality of Diogenes Laertius' treatise see (12).
21 reveals such great discrepancies that it leads to an obvious conclusion: there are as many philosophies as there are philosophers. It follows that the history of philosophy is a history of philosophies; the concept of the history of philosophy as a single process is foreign to Diogenes Laertius. Still, he does admit that all philosophers are unanimous in their pursuit of truth, but none of them can reach it and their paths diverge increasingly. Although Diogenes Laertius was close to Epicureanism, his concept of the history of philosophy is essentially skepticist. __FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:I am convinced that^philosophical skepticism was _the first ever theory of thenistbrv~of philosophy, and its im~ pacF^ls still fell iii tiontemporary non-Marxist philosophy. The startijTP_jTfvmt in tin's theory, ni in-Rl;^^0^^pti"ifrm in gPTV eral, ia_^a negative understanding' nf---pMLosophy---as---an "exercise in wisdom" which can never arrive at. the truth sincS~-pfeflosophy does nol and cannot offer a criterion separating truth from error. In the eye,s of skeptics, what philosophers term truths are merely opinions and beliefs. Hence the skeptics' disdainful charge of dogmatism leveled at any philosophy maintaining that it is true.
Skepticism combines a negative attitude to all philosophies with the conviction that it is the only correct philosophy because it rejects all positive philosophical postulates. Skepticism claims it knows the true worth of any and all philosophies: they cannot be trusted. Therefore, skepticism appears not as a philosophical doctrine about the world and knowledge but as a philosophy of philosophy or a metaphilosophy. This ambiguous attitude toward philosophy is justified by the claim that negating the correctness of any philosophical thesis does not mean accepting its antithesis as correct. According to the skeptics, all philosophers differ in their opinions and refute one another; therefore one must refrain from exercising philosophical judgment. The fact that skepticism is present in the philosophers' arguments and, like other philosophies, refutes its opponents, is simply ignored.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:In its ,aB-aljzsis_jaJL_certain philosophicaljssueSj^^ncient __ Age to an even greater degree) ~ ^ knowledge and thus contributed to a ~"" 22 But the skepticist concept of the history of philosophy was wrong, and shared much of the prejudices of everyday consciousness. Skeptics never raised such fundamentally important issues as: do philosophical doctrines really refute one another? Do differences between them really mean that the issues posed by philosophy are essentially unsolvable? Do the substantial differences and contradictions separating philosophies really rule out significant qualities that are common to them all? Does the contention between philosophies really have no positive significance?
Skeptics never probed the epistemological nature of philosophical error, they never saw its real, although misunderstood, content. But no matter how much philosophers erred, we must credit them with singling out that content. Skeptics knew absolutely nothing about the dialectics of truth and error. Truth (it is not merely a statement of something easily perceived and generally known) and error (of course, if it at least indirectly points to significant and previously unknown facts) are not diametrically opposed, That is why the history of philosophy, even as a history of error, of brilliant error, is of tremendous epistemological importance. And that not only because it outlines, albeit indirectly, the correct way of developing knowledge; the history of philosophy cannot be regarded merely as a history of errors: it is also a history of brilliant, although far from universally accepted, discoveries. The fact that philosophy, as a rule, does not contain precepts shared by all philosophers does not at all rule out the existence of genuinely philosophical precepts. Dismissal of that fact is among the theoretical sources of the concepts holding that the history of philosophy is not development of philosophical knowledge.
The discovery of the law of the transformation of energy provided theoretical and experimental natural science with proof that the fundamental materialist precepts about the unity of motion and matter (self-motion of matter) and the indestructibility of motion were correct. According to Engels, "the unity of all motion in nature is no longer a philosophical assertion, but a natural-scientific fact". (9; 197) On the other hand, "propositions which were advanced in philosophy centuries ago, which often enough have long been disposed of philosophically, are frequently 23 put forward by theorising natural scientists as brand-new wisdom and even become fashionable for a while". (9; 43)
Thus even those philosophical precepts that are fully borne out by special scientific studies do not gain universal acceptance among philosophers. Natural scientists have long since accepted that consciousness is a quality of highly organized matter. But idealists still dispute ( although usually with reservations) that fundamental precept of materialist philosophy.
Despite the fallacy of their negativist interpretation of the history of philosophy, skeptics are acknowledged to have discovered one of its key qualities. Unlike other fields of knowledge, philosophy comprises a great many conflicting trends, doctrines and concepts, and many are mutually exclusive. But the fact that philosophers (at any rate, prominent philosophers) have different opinions of key issues does not mean that philosophical truths are nonexistent. The only obvious thing (and that is the salient feature of the history of philosophy) is that the truths affirmed by some philosophers are denounced as utterly erroneous by their opponents. On the other hand, many philosophical errors are alleged to be basic truths. This sometimes occurs in other theoretical sciences too. But while it happens only occasionally in science, it is the usual thing in philosophy, and may be described as its intellectual climate.
This explains why skeptics, and even philosophers who have nothing in common with skepticism, admit the boundless diversity of conflicting philosophies and regard it as something inherent in philosophical knowledge and as a serious obstacle hampering the eventual arrival at the truth.
In the 18th century, Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, a philosopher who rejected skepticism, examined that typical state of philosophy. In his Treatise on Systems he wrote: "How many systems have already been built? How many more will be built? If only one found at least one that is interpreted more or less uniformly by all of its exponents! But can one rely on systems that undergo thousands of changes while passing through thousands of different hands; on systems that, whimsical and capricious, appear and disappear in the same manner, and are so unreliable that they can be used equally well to both defend and 24 refute?" (44; 21) Unlike the skeptics, Condillac believed it both possible and necessary to overcome the state of philosophy as he described it by creating a system of philosophy based on scientifically verifiable data. Condillac did much to develop sensationalist epistemology. And, although he failed to solve the problem, his work undoubtedly brought the solution closer.
Today, most theoretical studies of the history of philosophy stress the increasing differences among philosophical doctrines. For example, the French historian of philosophy C. J. Ducasse believes that analysis of the existence of so many mutually exclusive philosophies makes it possible to grasp the essence of philosophy. In his words, "when one examines the history of philosophy, one is amazed by the contrast between the trend toward agreement increasingly evident in the natural sciences and the fact that a similar trend is less perceptible, if not completely absent, in philosophy". (46; 272) Unlike philosophers of the irrationalist trend, who insist that philosophy and science are incompatible, Ducasse regards philosophy as a science sui generis. Still, the facts that are the subject of philosophy differ radically from those that are the subject of any other science. In philosophy, facts are propositions, and thus "all the problems of philosophical theory are essentially semantic, but not all semantic problems are necessarily philosophical". (46; 282) Of course, this essentially formalistic interpretation of the nature of philosophy cannot show the way to a scientific solution of philosophical problems.
While study of the history of philosophy is difficult, understanding the history of philosophy as a process of developing philosophical knowledge is even more difficult. Hegel was the first to pose this problem. That, apparently, was why Marx stressed that Hegel was "the first to understand the history -of philosophy as a whole" (4; 29, 549) despite his idealistic interpretation of that discipline.
Above all, Hegel rejected the skeptical view of philosophical doctrines as being totally opposed to one another, a view rooted in ancient skepticism. He applied his dialectical interpretation of difference as comprising essential identity to his comparative analysis of philosophical systems. That was how Hegel viewed differences among philosophical systems, including those that evolved into 25 contradictions. In his words, "the history of philosophy shows, first, that the seemingly different philosophies are merely one philosophy at different stages of its development; second, that particular principles, each underlying one particular system, are merely branches of one and the same whole". (64; 6, 21)
Hegel's dialectics of difference and identity attributes primacy to the latter, since it is interpreted as unity, and unity as identity of opposites. Hegel holds that it is precisely the identity of being and thought that forms the substance of all that exists. Hence his inclination to underestimate the differences among philosophical systems: he regarded them all as consecutive stages in the development of a single philosophy, with its essence unchanged in all time. Refuting the skeptical claim that all philosophies were false, Hegel was rather inclined to recognize the opposite view: that all philosophies were true, albeit only as stages of a single developing philosophy interpreted as a means of the authentic self-expression of the "absolute idea". The latter allegedly gained self-awareness in the course of human history, above all in the course of the development of philosophical knowledge over the ages.
This point of view also means that no system of philosophy considered in isolation from the entire history of philosophy is true. Truth is a process, and this applies first and foremost to philosophical truth as a unity of different and even opposite definitions. Therefore Hegel also opposed the view which, although it rejected skepticism, was equally fallacious because it held that all philosophies were true in their own distinct ways, despite the contradictions that separated them. According to Hegel, recognizing that philosophies are essentially different yet equally true is an assumption that does not merit serious attention no matter how comforting it may appear.
Hegel thus proved that the history of philosophy was development passing from one level of knowledge to the next, higher level and probing increasingly deeper into the nature of things. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, described by Engels as "one of his most brilliant works" (2; 415), Hegel interprets the development of philosophy as motion in spirals, since philosophical issues solved in some way at one level are transformed by the later development of philosophy, acquire new content, 26 and reach a new and higher philosophical level as problems that are yet to be solved; a new approach to these problems leads to conclusions that enrich the philosophical understanding of reality.~^^*^^
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy combine the historical method of presentation that sums up all facts related to philosophical systems and their emergence with the logical method that traces the principal stages and laws in the development of philosophical knowledge. In this he follows his principle of the unity of the historical and the logical. According to this principle, the history of philosophy generally reproduces the logical development of major philosophical categories; the system of categories forms the final stage of philosophical development, the system of absolute idealism. "The development of philosophy in history must correspond to the development of logical philosophy; but there will still be passages in the latter which are absent in historical development." In quoting this postulate of Hegel, Lenin trajisfpjuiisJU-e-H a materialist bjasis and Jrtresses of_jjbjla|aphical concepts---the discovery of that process ~
by conditions that are broader than IKe content of philosophical consciousness: "Here there is a very profound and correct, essentially materialist thought (actual history is the basis, the foundation, the Being, which is followed by consciousness)." (10; 38, 265).
In his Phenomenology of Spirit and especially The Science of Logic Hegel tried to theoretically reproduce the actual history of philosophy as a progressive movement of philosophical knowledge. Everyday consciousness, examined in the beginning of the Phenomenology of Spirit, rises _-_-_
^^*^^ According to Louis de Broglie, the concept of development in spirals fits the history of science too: "One cannot compare the progress of science to circular motion which always returns us to one and the same point; rather, it can be likened to motion in spirals that periodically brings us close to certain past stages, but spirals run forever and they rise." (39, 372). Of course, the spirallike development of cognition is only a comparison illustrating the unity of repetition and uniqueness and the relations of succession in this versatile onward process; no mechanistic model can adequately describe it. Among Marxist-Leninist philosophers, B. V. Bogdanov of the Soviet Union made a special study of that problem (15; 70-79).
27 from immediate sensory verification to the intellectual understanding of natural laws closed to sense perception and, finally, to absolute knowledge, to the understanding of the absolute as the creative basis of all that exists, adequately manifesting itself in human history. This movement of cognition from everyday experience to absolute knowledge parallels the socio-cultural development of man and mankind from the initial (in Hegel's view) master-slave relationship to a legal system that ensures freedom and equality for its citizens in the bourgeois-democratic sense. Thus, Hegel idealistically interprets the history of philosophy as the basis and motive force of all social development.The Science of Logic offers an ontological view of the development of philosophy as an objective, immanent logical process that occurs in the realm of the "absolute idea". Philosophical systems are described as the principal stages, categories of that process, of the emergence of an absolute philosophical system which integrates the principles of all earlier systems, freed from the rigidity of their historical existence and incorporated into the hierarchy of concepts of dialectical logic. This means that each philosophical system contains the idea in a distinct form, i.e. is a limited expression of the "absolute idea". The latter acquires its adequate and everlasting expression only in the system of absolute idealism that sums up the entire process. Philosophical systems "are nothing other than fundamental differences of the idea itself; it is what it is only in them, they are consequently important for it and make up the content of the idea. The content, fully deployed, thus becomes the form". (64; 13, 48)
For all its brilliant insights, materialistically transformed by the founders of Marxism, Hegel's logic of the development of philosophical knowledge is, in the final analysis, invalid since it proceeds from the false assumption of the self-development of philosophy. The absolute spirit which, according to Hegel, is the supreme manifestation of the "absolute idea" is thus the spirit of philosophy, and philosophy, a substantial creative force. Engels opposed precisely this type of concept when he wrote about the development of philosophy in the New Age: "But during this long period from Descartes to Hegel and from Hobbes to Feuerbach, the philosophers were by no means 28 impelled, as they thought they were, solely, by the force of pure reason. On the contrary, what really pushed them forward most was the powerful and ever more rapidly onrushing progress of natural science and industry." (3; 5, 347-48)
Since absolute idealism substantiates philosophical thinking, Hegel ignores the important role of natural science and socio-historical practice in the development of philosophical knowledge. In his view, everything nonphilosophical is a product of philosophy. The contrasting of philosophy to nonphilosophical study and activity is typical of idealist philosophy, and here Hegel's philosophy is an extreme case. For example, Hegel holds that philosophy, as the supreme manifestation of substantial thinking, alienates everything that is not pure thought and thus relies for its content solely on itself. But Hegel's system comprises issues that are the subjects of natural science, anthropology, psychology, civil history, the history of art, etc. Still, all those fields of philosophical study are described as subjects of applied logic. Hegel categorically states that "what any knowledge and any science considers as true and meaningful can only merit that name if it is born of philosophy; other sciences, no matter how much they try to reason without resorting to philosophy, can have neither life nor spirit nor truth without it". (64; 2, 53-54)
Thus, despite its dialectics, Hegel's idealist concept of development offers a one-sided and inadequate interpretation of that complex and variegated process which even mathematics does not interpret as only a logical development of concepts. One has to admit, however, that in Hegel's lifetime no field of scientific knowledge had yet produced any concept of development.
It is not easy, for the researcher to apply the category of development to the history of philosophy. It would be naive to believe that the general theory of development, the essence of materialist dialectics, is directly applicable to each special branch of knowledge, including the history of philosophy. The latter---like biology, geology and the like---calls for a special theory of development based on a dialectical-materialist interpretation of the subject at hand. Darwin's theory is a good example of a special theory of development comprising both the categories that 29 describe development in general and the concepts related only to the given subject. Physics, chemistry, political economy, and sociology study fundamentally different types of development. Marx's Capital presents both a general theory of development and a special theory of socio-economic development.
Features shared by all development processes are the irreversibility of change, its direction within the framework of a specific cycle of changes, qualitative transformations, negation, succession, the emergence and establishment of a new structure, conversion, the unity of repetition (reproduction) and uniqueness, the rise of the new, and renewal. Progress is the highest form of development; it is transition to a higher stage (level) of development that enriches content and improves form. Development is thus the unity of qualitatively different processes, each of them not yet the process of development itself but its necessary constituent element. For example, irreversibility is a concomitant of the functioning of everything living; therefore this process should not be identified with development. Movement and change by themselves are not development, but the latter takes place precisely through movement and change.
Analysis of the history of philosophy makes it possible to single out all those common features typical of development. However, analysis also reveals certain trends that run counter to those listed: abstract negation of the preceding philosophy, return to historically obsolete philosophical doctrines, and struggle of opposites which often rules out mutual transition, interdependence and unity.
A comparison of the history of philosophy with the history of the natural sciences immediately points to the essential difference between them mentioned in the beginning of this essay. The forward motion in the history of the natural sciences is broken very rarely, despite the fact that both continuity and interruption are typical of it. As a rule, scientific accomplishments are not forgotten; the existence of mutually exclusive concepts is a transient (although permanently recurring) feature. The picture is different in philosophy: coexistence and struggle between various schools, doctrines and trends run all through its history. Unlike discussions in other sciences, there is an increasing divergence of opinion in philosophical 30 argument. The contrast between such trends as rationalism and empiricism, rationalism and irrationalism, naturalism and spiritualism, metaphysics and phenomenalism shows that differences between philosophies turn into opposition, which is also typical of the more general and integral forms of the development of philosophical knowledge. Besides, each of the opposite trends tends to become polarized: rational materialism opposes idealist rationalism, idealist empiricism opposes materialist empiricism, etc.
Thus, despite the great variety of philosophies---a fact not to be ignored, though it sometimes is in popular works on the history of philosophy---materialism and idealism are the two major comprehensive and contradictory systems. Their opposition has been brought about by a radical polarization of philosophies. Nevertheless, they are not absolute opposites: their opposition exists (and deepens) within the framework of the general philosophical field of study. That is an important point to stress if only because most idealists regard materialism as a nonphilosophical outlook.
The struggle between materialism and idealism does not rule out relations of succession, but naturally not in the sense that materialists assimilate idealist views and vice versa. Marxist philosophers regard succession as dialectical negation, and its positive character has nothing in common with an eclectic mixture of incompatible views. The attitude of dialectical materialism to classical German philosophy is a very good example of this dialectical succession that works according to the scientific principle of • partisanship in philosophy.
The natural question to ask is why the history of philosophy differs so much from the history of mathematics, physics and other sciences? The answer is that philosophy is both a specific form of study and a specific form of social consciousness---an ideology.
Obviously, the fact that social consciousness reflects social being does not mean that it is a study of social being or the result of such a study. The content of social consciousness is determined by social being, which is an objective social process independent of consciousness. In certain historical, circumstances, social consciousness can become scientific consciousness, i.e. a system of scientific views. The scientific socialist ideology is a case in point: 31 born of a special scientific study, it reflects historically specific social being---the capitalist system; the place of the working class in that system; the interests, needs and emancipation movement of that class.
The scientific socialist ideology differs radically from the spontaneous consciousness of the workers that takes shape in the course of capitalist development. Naturally, both the reflection of social being and the reflection of nature in human consciousness differ greatly from a study that provides a scientific reflection of its objects. This book contains a special essay on the relationship of science (and philosophy) to everyday consciousness shaped by everyday experience. Here, it should be noted that natural science differentiates between reflection of nature through everyday consciousness and data obtained by special studies, although the latter quite often rely on everyday experience.
Science does not merely reflect objective reality, whether environmental or social, in human consciousness; science is the highest form of the theoretical reflection of reality. This dividing line between reflecting consciousness (any consciousness, including religious consciousness, reflects reality) and reflecting theoretical study is also valid in philosophy. Here is an example. The French 18th-century materialism was the scientific and philosophical outlook of its age. The substantiation (albeit in a limited mechanistic form) of the principle of self-movement of matter was among the greatest accomplishments of that philosophy. French materialists advanced the following principle in sociology: man changes as his conditions of life change. Marx and Engels stressed the importance of that principle for the later development of socialist doctrines.
Besides, French materialism is the philosophy of the bourgeois Enlightenment, a bourgeois ideology reflecting the interests, needs, and position of the bourgeoisie fighting feudalism. And this is no doubt connected with its principal philosophical content; all this is its specific expression. But this fact should be viewed as an objective (even spontaneous) reflection of social being in the social consciousness of that historical era, and not as a result of study.
Therefore, reflection as the content of a philosophical theory is expressed in two ways: as a study of specific 32 reality, i.e. as definite subjective activity, and as an objectively determined understanding of social being, the kind of understanding which is not always and not everywhere a cognitive process. Naturally, one should not always absolutely oppose reflecting consciousness to reflecting study. But one must not fall into the other extreme: the content of philosophical doctrines is not to be regarded merely as the result of study, ignoring the objective dependence of social consciousness on social being.
In describing the ideological function of French materialism, Marx and Engels stress that "Holbach's theory is the historically justified philosophical illusion about the bourgeoisie just then developing in France, whose thirst for exploitation could still be regarded as a thirst for the full development of individuals in conditions of intercourse freed from the old feudal fetters." (1; 5, 410) Of course, French materialists were not aware of that social content of their .theory, just as they did not consider themselves ideologists of the bourgeoisie, despite their perfectly conscious hostility to the feudal system and ideology. Marx and Engels demonstrated the historically progressive nature of the ideology of French materialists and wrote: " Liberation from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, i.e., competition, was, of course, for the eighteenth century the only possible way of offering the individuals a new career for freer development. The theoretical proclamation of the consciousness corresponding to this bourgeois practice, of the consciousness of mutual exploitation as the universal mutual relation of all individuals, was. also a bold and open step forward. It was a kind of enlightenment which interpreted the political, patriarchal, religious and sentimental embellishment . .. the embellishment corresponded to the form of exploitation existing at that time and it had been systematised especially by the theoretical writers of the absolute monarchy." (1; 5, 410)
The materialist interpretation of history makes philosophy a unity of a specific form of study and a special form of social consciousness, ideology. Marxism discovered and provided a scientific basis for a sociological dimension of the history of philosophy. This new dimension shows the distinctive way philosophy develops. The materialist understanding of this process underlies the scientific method of its study, which, in turn, serves as the basis for the __PRINTERS_P_33_COMMENT__ 3-01562 33 doctrine of partisanship in philosophy, of philosophy's role in the socio-historical process and the social class roots of philosophical theories.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:The fldpnrf-nf-flTe- history of .philosophy .sliLiUes__the_ deyeZ^Hieffit-jaf^hilosophy. If one considers the above facts, this definition is^myTihing but trivial. Strictly speaking, Marxists are the only ones to accept it, while those opposing Marxism are almost unanimous in their claim that philosophy has a history, but not a history of development. I have already stressed that the development of philosophy is a process of differentiation, divergence, polarization, and struggle between materialism and idealism---a struggle that shapes the prerequisites of the dialectical-materialist view of the world. A scientific history of philosophy does not lose sight of the ideological direction of various doctrines and records the fact that the development of philosophy combines genuine progress with constant reversals leading back to earlier historical stages. This regressive aspect dominates the idealist philosophy of the latter half of the 19th century and the 20th century, where, in the final analysis, each new doctrine revives, and puts a radical construction on, principles that were formulated in the past and later refuted. Of course, this does not mean that bourgeois philosophy today poses no problems worth discussing. The radicalization of old problems reflects the new historical conditions and takes into account the latest scientific achievements; it is therefore a distinct form of the development of philosophy. Opposing any simplistic interpretation of the crisis of contemporary idealism, the prominent Soviet philosopher P. Fedoseyev is perfectly justified in saying that "some bourgeois philosophers work fruitfully in the field of formal logic, developing semiotics (including semantics and pragmatics). It would be unfair to disregard their achievements in that field; one should carefully examine all that is valuable here". (32; 132) Nevertheless, it should be expressly reaffirmed that Marxism was the school that produced an essentially different type of philosophy free from the age-old errors which today's idealist philosophy is incapable of correcting. Marxist philosophy is a developing system organically linked to all scientific knowledge, to historical experience and practice. Marxism has fully overcome the fallacious opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study and practice. Dialectical and 34 historical materialism is a scientific philosophical outlook that not only explains the world but also shows how to transform it.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:.. ... ... ... science
as ^development of philosophyTonenrmsl sliifl; from the procBSiT'of development. imtLr,pnsif|pr of_develOTiEMt" What 'cfoes development of philosophy meanT This question is justified by the fundamental difference of philosophy from other forms of knowledge. It is true that the sciences that here are compared with philosophy differ substantially from one another. Biology differs from mathematics. Social sciences and natural sciences are two distinct fields of knowledge. Still, this essay has shown that philosonhy differs radically from all other sciences, and consequently from anything that they may have in common. Philosophy, including scientific dialectical-- materialist philosophy, holds a place of its own in the system of scientific knowledge. Therefore ^ of, J.h£- dist.inct_way philosophy develops.
For several centuries, unlike knowtetl ge gained from everyday experience, philosophy emerged and existed as theoretical knowledge. This undifferentiated theoretical knowledge contained elements that later transcended the realm of philosophy and became independent fields of knowledge, particular sciences. But science springs from philosophy. That would be true only of some, mostly fundamental, fields of science. Most of today's sciences owe their birth to the development of fundamental science that had already hived off from philosophy, to the increasing social division of labor, scientific and technological progress, socio-economic development, and the like. The break between philosophy and particular sciences changed the place philosophy holds in the system of scientific knowledge. It also changed the subject of philosophical study; it laid the basis for the development of a scientific philosophical outlook. All these processes, combined with the special features of philosophy described above, impart a distinctive^ quality to the development of philosophy. / Study of the history of science shows that the emergence of new sciences implies the discovery of previously unknown laws; therefore the great variety of sciences points to a great variety of substantially different laws. For sciences in general and for philosophy in particular, this __PRINTERS_P_35_COMMENT__ 3* 35 variety of laws poses the question of the unity of diversity as expressed in the concept of universal laws.
The laws discovered in various fields of science determine the essential relationship between phenomena, and their relatively constant and recurring interdependence. The progress of scientific cognition makes it possible to evaluate not only the relationship of simultaneously existing phenomena but also the linkages between current and future processes. Science probes more and more into the process of development and its laws. Thus the subject of dialectical materialism---the more general laws of the development of nature, society and knowledge---is historically shaped as a summing up and conceptualization of the history of scientific knowledge.
Of course, the philosophical approach to the issue of universal laws of development does not at all detract from the importance of the special laws of development studied by astrophysics, geology, biology and other sciences. Marxist philosophy deals with the unity of substantially different laws, their common dialectical nature. This becomes obvious not only during the examination of physical or economic laws but also when the analysis is applied to the more general laws of social development. This must also be remembered when describing the distinctive quality of the more general laws of cognition.
Therefore, even the first attempt at interpreting the phrase "development of philosophy", a simple statement, raises a host of important questions, because the problem is to determine both the specific nature of development in philosophy and the subject of development, i.e. philosophy itself. One should, of course, remember that there exist radically different philosophies. The concept of development should be applied differently to materialism and idealism, the two basic trends in philosophy. Consequently, the old problem "One is not one but many" arises in philosophy too (as a paradox). The diversity of doctrines does not rule out philosophy (albeit relative and contradictory). But this unity should also be viewed as a process of development and especially as its result. Overcoming the approach that contrasts philosophy to nonphilosophical study and to practical activity no doubt helps achieve the unity of philosophical knowledge. Since the splitting up of philosophy into a multitude of mutually 36 exclusive doctrines is brought about by profound socio-economic causes, the transition to classless communist society is bound to be a stage of tremendous importance for the emergence of the unity of philosophical knowledge. Naturally, this will not end argument in philosophy, but it will change its major aspects.
Since Hegel substantializes the spiritual, he sees the history of philosophy as the development of idealism: "Any philosophy is essentially idealism or at least has idealism as its principle, and the question here is only how well it has been developed." (64; 3, 171) In rejecting this idealist distortion of the development of philosophy one should not go to the other extreme. The history of philosophy is not the mere history of materialism.
Materialism and idealism, the two major philosophical trends, are organically linked with various doctrines also subject to radical polarization. As Lenin wrote, both Berkeley and Diderot were followers of Locke's sensationalism, the former in the idealist direction, and the latter in the materialist. Thus the opposition of materialism and idealism is also present in doctrines that cannot be described either as fully idealist or fully materialist.
The main thrust of any study of the history of philosophy is analysis of the struggle between materialism and idealism. Naturally, the character, content and outcome of that struggle are not changeless. For example, according to Engels, ancient materialism "was incapable of clearing up the relation between mind and matter. But the need to get clarity on this question led to the doctrine of a soul separable from the body, then to the assertion of the immortality of this soul, and finally to monotheism. The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism." (8; 165- 66) In the New Age the materialist philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, won an impressive victory over the idealist metaphysical systems of Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche and their followers. But later, classical German idealism revived the rationalist metaphysics of the 17th century. Feuerbach's anthropological materialism negated the idealism of Hegel and his predecessors. Classical German philosophy culminated in the victory of materialism. But Feuerbach's materialism was limited: its negation of idealism was abstract and metaphysical.
Meanwhile, classical German idealism raised real issues, 37 and their solution paved the way to a scientific philosophical outlook.
According to Engels, the progress of natural science and the productive forces contributed to the creation of a scientific philosophy: "Among the materialists this was plain on the surface, but the idealist systems also filled themselves more and more with a materialist content and attempted pantheistically to reconcile the antithesis between mind and matter. Thus, ultimately, the Hegelian system represents merely a materialism idealistically turned upside down in method and content." (3; 3, 348).
Creating a scientific-philosophical system and thus negating philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the term was impossible if based on bourgeois ideology The metaphysical opposition of philosophical thought to nonphilosophical activity (both theoretical and practical), and the ``nonpartisanship'' ascribed to philosophy by the bourgeois consciousness rule out any materialist interpretation of philosophy. The materialism of bourgeois thinkers is inevitably contemplative and undecided. In bourgeois philosophy dialectics can only be idealist.
The brilliance of the founders of Marxism derives above all from the fact that they theoretically grasped and scientifically substantiated the need for proletarian partisanship. From a radically new position, they gave a new, revolutionary critical interpretation of the entire history of philosophy and social development, and created dialectical and historical materialism, thus ushering in a new universal era in the development of philosophy.
Marx said that the human anatomy is the key to the simian. By the same token, since dialectical and historical materialism solves problems that had plagued philosophy earlier, it offers a scientific understanding of its content and significance. For example, dialectical materialism offers a scientific philosophical solution to the problems of innate ideas, of a priori forms of thinking in its doctrine of the development of categories. This doctrine does not merely remove those problems (neopositivism, for example, rejects them out of hand) but reveals their real epistemological content. The foremost task of the Marxist-- Leriinist history of philosophy is to study the historical forms of materialism, the historical forms of dialectics, and to study the categories that provide adequate expression to 38 materialism and dialectics. It is, however, imperative to warn against any simplistic interpretations. Marx's words do not mean that simian development is essentially human development because, in the final analysis, the former led to the emergence of man. Thanks to its inherent specific historicism, the dialectical-materialist interpretation of development rules out teleology. Direction is not a property of development in general, of the process as a whole; each stage of development has its own essential qualities and its own appropriate direction within a historically definite cycle, era, and so on.
Marx opposed those petty-bourgeois socialists who, failing to scientifically substantiate the concept of the socialist reconstruction of society, declared that people had always wanted to establish a socialist system, social justice, equality, and the like. Marx said that "the tendency towards equality belongs to our century. To say now that all former centuries, with entirely different needs, means of production, etc., worked providentially for the realisation of equality is, first of all, to substitute the means and the men of our century for the men and the means of earlier centuries and to misunderstand the historical movement by which the successive generations transformed the results acquired by the generations that preceded them". (1; 6, 173)
Marx's thesis is very important methodologically and should therefore also be applied to the history of philosophy. The reference here is to the principle of historicism and its correct application, which rules against ascribing the tasks of the proletariat to the emancipation movement of former exploited classes who lived under different systems of production relations. It is equally wrong to ascribe qualities belonging solely to dialectical materialism to any prior schools of thought.
Dialectical and historical materialism is the theoretical and methodological basis of a scientific history of philosophy that traces the development of philosophical knowledge and asserts the historical necessity of a scientific philosophical outlook. But it would be an obvious departure from the principle of historicism (and from its concomitant, the principle of the partisanship of philosophy) to assert---as it is sometimes done---that the history of philosophy is the history of dialectical and historical 39 materialism. Applying that formula to the majority of pre-Marxian doctrines---mostly idealist but also scholastic and mystical---would be tantamount to espousing them.
The existentialist history of philosophy is actually the history of existentialist philosophy. The positivist history of philosophy is equally subjective: it slights those thinkers of the past who did not share the empirical and subjectively agnostic views that were close to positivism. Marxist philosophy differs radically from all pre-Marxian and non-Marxist philosophies. The Marxist-Leninist history of philosophy is a scientifically sound, dialectical negation of previous and current concepts of the history of philosophy; it critically treats the problems they pose and the solutions. The more thorough, profound and scientific is the study of the history of philosophy, the more obvious it becomes that a scientific theory of the development of philosophical knowledge is possible exclusively on the basis of dialectical and historical materialism.
[40] __ALPHA_LVL2__ DIALECTICAL MATERIALISMWhat is the attitude of philosophy to the history of philosophy---that is, to its past and to the systematic study of this past? This question did not face Plato and Aristotle, the first philosophers to analyze their predecessors' doctrines in order to substantiate their own views. Later, the history of philosophy was mostly studied by skeptics who held that true philosophy negates itself.
Immanuel Kant saw only two equally fallacious trends in the philosophy that preceded his own: dogmatic metaphysics and its pointless negation, skepticism. The views of Fichte and Schelling on the history of philosophy were, on the whole, equally negative. Manuals on the history of philosophy did appear during their lifetime, but their authors were not prominent philosophers. Hegel was the first to study the history of philosophy as a science, but he put a metaphysical construction on that subject. According to Hegel, the history of philosophy is an authentic form of development, and its theory is of paramount importance for his philosophy. This means that Hegel did not merely study the history of philosophy; he interpreted the history of various philosophies as an inevitable process of philosophical development, with its necessarily interconnected different stages and forms.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:The principle of development that Hegel applied to studying the past of philosophy is__rnnf,er) °rJ[JtiPr``H''Ci"a11y JTiy a* dialodd^ajjiterpretation of the truth. According to Engels, "Truth7Ttie~cognition of whidh is tire business of philosophy, was in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which, /once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth_lay pnw in the pr9eeag~>Qf cognition itself, in the long`T'Listbrical development of science, \VlilcIl'*saounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge." (3; 3, 339)
41This radically changed attitude to the past of philosophy is a critical standpoint that neither admires nor rejects everything about this past. It regards different philosophies not as isolated and independent attempts at studying the history of philosophy but as inherently connected links in the chain of a contradictory development which is "not a harmless process entailing no struggle, like the development of organic life, but hard, unwilling work against one'Sjown self." (63; 1, 152)
In Hegel's view, philosophy can and must be a science in the strict sense of the term. The history of science presupposes a continuity of development, that is, progress. This is also true of the history of philosophy. In.^flrJdng .nnr.ept. of philosophical developmerit.r HRprr)pt.i'-niijty n^t as a simple afcinrmlatinn of knowledge but as a contradictory process which deriveg_jts mbjnentum,.^^11^^'"™ ^Agatioir~`a'nd liuuqi.iim of the negation. Continuity does not mean agreement with the past, acc@ ptance of the past in the present. Hegel reinterprets the concept of tradition and says that it is not "just a housekeeper loyally safeguarding what has been entrusted to her and thus keeping it safe for posterity... Tradition is not an immobile statue: it is alive and it grows the way a powerful stream grows as it moves farther awa'y from its source". (64; 13, 13) Metaphysical reason, which does not accept the unity of opposites, either simply imitates or totally rejects ideological legacy. But ideological legacy is rather conflicting than uniform in significance. It is "the soul of each following generation, its spiritual substance as something familiar, its principles, prejudice and riches; but the generation who has received this legacy reduces it to the material at hand transformed by the spirit". (64; 13, 14)
Metaphysicists believe that the diversity of philosophies rules out their unity. Therefore they, in Hegel's words, see the history of philosophy merely as a "range of opinions, delusions and intellectual games". (64; 13, 44) This superficial view also dominates studies of human history, and the latter "appears at first glance as a succession of random events". (64; 13, 17) But world history is different: it is an inevitable forward movement. That is true to an even greater degree of the history of philosophy. It even appears that Hegel contrasts the development of philosophy 42 to all other historical processes. According to him, "a close examination of history shows us that men's actions are conditioned by their needs, passions, interests, their character and talent; and this in a way that only those needs, passions and interests are the motive forces in this drama, and only they play the leading role". (63; 1, 79) The picture is different in philosophy where, according to Hegel, the passion for truth rules out any interests and passions that are foreign to it.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:The diversity of philosophies, their obvious incompatibility, the struggle of philosophical schools and trends are facts that skeptics use as arguments in their interpretation of the history of philosophy. Hegel interprets them in a totally new way, both dialectical and rationalist-- metaphysical. Diversity if it is significant (and that is the point made in the comparison of philosophical systems) does not exist outside identity; diversity is immajfint i> idofl-Mty Therefore, the diversityf of radically different philosophies presupposes their unity, i.e. their necessary interrelationship. Hegel rejects all discourse on different philosophies as pointless and empty, as bogged down in useless abstract notions, and as being oblivious of the fact that "diversity is a flow._it mus.t_i)y definition, Jje regarded j.s a "moving, developing transient rpnmpnt" (fi^f 13, 47)
The diversity of philosophies is therefore necessary. The movement from the abstract to the specific, the essence of the history of philosophy, comprises conflicting definitions of unity. Each of these definitions is abstract, one-sided and therefore not true; truth is their unity. The development of philosophy is the emergence of the unity of philosophical knowledge which puts an end to the motley and disorderly diversity of philosophical statements. According to Hegel, different philosophies are "necessarily one philosophy that is developing, a revelation of God as He knows Himself. Wherever several philosophies are present simultaneously, they are different aspects of one underlying whole; and because they are one-sided we see one philosophy refuting another." (64; 15, 686)
According to Hegel, the differences among philosophies do not reflect the individual uniqueness of the philosophical genius; that uniqueness rises to grasp the absolute and dissolves in it. Those differences must be interpreted ontologically; they are "fundamental differences of the idea 43 __FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original: itself; it is only in them that it exists . . . Each system exists within one definition but that does not stop here, and differences do not always remain outside one another. The fate of those definitions must come to pass, meaning that they are united and reduced to the level of moments". (64; 13, 48) Hegel views his philosophy as the fate of the absolute that has come to pass, reflected in the various philosophical systems. Absolute idealism is described as the supreme consummation of the history of philosophy which by its nature presupposes not only the beginning but also the "absolute destination". (64; 13, 48) That_^ss£rJJ«B--£i£|ns from^the_jundamental precepts oj Hegel's philosophy: philosophy_2ig^ the self-cognition of the absolute spirit which does not remain incomplete, imperfect since that is incompatible with the notion of the divine.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Almost all philosophers proclaimed their doctrines as the last philosophy meaning their personal accomplishment. Unlike his precursors. Hegel regards the consummation of philosophy as" an ontologicai process: ovfflcoaujs__all "its alleliuled -luiim. "The struggle of final self -consciousness witlT"absolute~"=self -consciousness, which the former regarded as something happening outside it, is now abating. Final self-consciousness has ceased to be final, and thanks to this absolute self-consciousness has acquired the power it has lacked before. This struggle is reflected in the entire previous world history, and especially in the history of philosophy." (64; 15, 689-90)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original: While the Young Hegelians and Feuerbach were correct
in their criticism of Hegel for his acceptance of the finite
nature of the development of philosophy, they failed to
grasp the fact that this stems from the ontology of the ra-~
tionalist-idealist interpretation of history and not merely
from the exaggerated claims of the thinker. They blamed
Hegel for reducing the history of philosophy to the history
of his own philosophy. But Hegel tried to prove that his
philosophy summed up the entire^ history of philosTipb.^
" ms prfjqiecessors claimed that their doctrines were
rnrli&aJly np.w. Hegel onl
tfm ndrrpriHy "TprnrnQfl 4hn r^al pp^T'li nf thr history
of pbilnsQpJiy^and critically summed up its accomplish^
merits. For each new sysierii `bo'il'uws fruiii "the legacyoF
philosophical knowledge, continuing the earlier development
of philosophy. Consequently, "essentially, only the way he
44
develops them" [the preceding systems] belongs to the
creator of a new philosophical system. (64; 14, 181)
While rejecting Hegel's obviously fallacious precept
about the need for the final philosophy to consummate the
history of philosophy, one should not lose sight of the fact
that Hegel's doctrine was really in a way the final
philosophy. That^was precisely what Enggjp nieant- "At. any
with_Iieg^IpEI]^apliy comeiTto
_
of the word]: on tKe
one
__
^most splendid
fashion; and on tneotharhand^hecause, even i
coflgctouslv. he glro'WednSjhe^wav out oj_the
sys_temrO^TTn°rEd~pt)sitlVe knowledge oJL the
342)
- - - --
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Thus Hegel's interpretation of the development of philosophy proceeds from the recognition of the organic link between philosophy and the history of philosophy. That relationship differs greatly from tne one that, say, Exists between the given definite level in the development of natural science and its preceding development. The development of the natural sciences reveals new, previously unknown object of study. Natural science today does not deal with issues that were the order of the day in the 17th or 18th centuries. Those 1'ssuesara.^s a rule, already golvflrj and are tlnignf no intgrpsTTTrfosearchRrs. The situation is different in philosophy where even resolved isjues~lcq-gire a ~new content and aro f1ins "f interest to the researcTTer. Philosophy develops not so much bjT discovering uttW ubjects as by reviving, enriching and critically reviewing problems posed at the dawn of philosophy.~^^*^^ That explains why Hegel wrote that "the study of the history of philosophy is the study of philosophy itself, and that cannot be otherwise". (64; 13, 43)
Hegel does not care which particular philosophy is under consideration; in other words, which philosophical doctrine the study of the history of philosophy leads to. According to Hegel, the answer to that is self-evident because the multitude of philosophies recorded in history is a single, integrated and progressively developing whole. It is an _-_-_
^^*^^ The following specifically historical point Engels made is especially important in this connection: "... the manyfold forms of Greek philosophy contain in embryo, in the nascent state, almost all later modes of outlook on the world." (8; 395)
45 ``organic system, a totality comprising a wealth of stages and moments". (64; 13, 40) Thus Hegel claims to have synthesized in his system this "wealth of stages and moments" which are definitions of the absolute spirit. "The last philosophy is the result of all that precedes it; nothing is lost, all principles are retained." (64; 15, 685)But if Hegel's system is really the result of the study and summing up of the history of philosophy, theoretically that study must proceed from a definite interpretation of philosophy which, to a certain degree, obviously anticipates the outcome of the study. It is equally obvious that this anticipation of the essence of philosophy is not -the result of the given study of the history of philosophy, even though the study confirms it. Thus the question of precedence---whether Hegel's system precedes his study of the history of philosophy or vice versa---oversimplifies the task of the study and makes it impossible.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:It would be naive to believe that Hegel first studied the history of philosophy and then summed it up and thus set forth his system of philosophy. But it is equally naive to believe the opposite: that having created his system of philosophy, Hegel applied its hierarchy of categories to the earlier development of philosophy, that is, interpreted it in accordance with the requirements of his system. We knowjTom Hegel's biography that he acted rtesrjTf)e~tITe~ development of j^« ym and nft, its^ results. Hegel built his system by idealistically interpreting Spinoza's doctrine and relying directly on Kant, Schglling and, especially, l^iclile. it took riegel almost zQ years to build his system, and^^1^^ he iBJJUaLedly turnecL to the hisTory~of philosophy. '11T5 crealioir'of his system 01 philos^ ophy and a critical summing-up of the history of philosophy were aspects of a single process. As to Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, they were written when the system had been completed and underlay the interpretation of the history of philosophy. The latter, like any exposition, differed substantially from the study that preceded it and whose results could not be known in advance. Hegel's dialectical idealism is a brilliant theory of the history of philosophy which, however, distorts that history by reducing it to the history of idealism. Of course, this n-H OPS Tint mean th.nt TT°S»J- . igTimWI ^maj.prjjiljgjn • TIP fought against it. But he largely regarded materialism as 46 __FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original: nonphilosophical everyday consciousness. He interpreted philosophy (that is, idealism) as a negation of materialism, although occasionally he did recognize the historical accomplishments of materialist philosophy. Still, often_Hegel interpreted materialist doctrines as essentially~Uealist. For ``described Water as an infinite concept, as a simple essence of thought". (64; 13, 209) In Hegel's view, the School of Miletus represented the transition from everyday spontaneous materialism to idealism.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:HegeTs_jdealist theory of Heve1npTnpTi|. pnst.nlitog tTin.. dialectioaj^identity of the result of development with its initial stage. The identity of being and tnougnt---the basis' of aljsoiute ideaTTsm seen as the summit »f all philosophy ---must he" revealbd at the initial stage ot that procesg7~ albei^m" an undeveloped idrni. .deterring to ffie conceptfof ffie Substance emerging from the naive views of the early Greek philosophers, Hegel asserts that they proceeded "from the unconscious precept that thought is also being". (64; 13, 126) That speculative assumption underlies the presentation of ancient Greek materialism as unconsciously idealist philosophy. Viewed from this angle, the transition to the doctrines of Socrates and Plato---the emergence of a truly idealist system of views---is merely the realization of what earlier philosophy could not express conceptually. But this pattern of development excludes Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus. Hegel .atta£ksthegrjyy[I2S^ firw.tTir.oc; rlr! n»f T-i'g
Idealism---even dialectical idealism---is incapable of grasping the significance of materialist philosophy. Nevertheless, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy are the most remarkable work in this field, and his theory of philosophical development immediately precedes its scientific, dialectical-materialist interpretation.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Hegel's idealism jg pasgi'm^tphr scientific, but a truly scientific approach is incompatible with idealism. This contradiction entails the opposition of idealist philosophy to actual scientific knowledge, interpreted as an imperfect form of science, while idealism is described as an authentic manifestation of the scientific approach. That refers above all to the natural sciences. Hegel criticizes their historical limitations: their empirical methodology, 47 mechanistic notions and metaphysical reasoning. But a materialist world outlook is what Hegel considers the most unacceptable thing about natural science.
Hegel's cult of science also extolls idealist philosophizing. He believes that the primacy of spirit over matter makes science all-powerful. Ontologically, that assertion is based on the principle of the identity of being and thought, maintaining that philosophy as the thought of thought is not only a science of the absolute but the absolute itself, that is, the extratemporal realm of the divine. Hegel wrote. "But it [the absolute spirit] knows itself as the absolute spirit only in science, and only this knowledge, the spirit, is its true existence." (64; 15, 690)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Thus the deification of thought (as the thought of thought in which form coincides with content and the subject with the object) means the deification of philosophy. Plato described God as a geometrician, a cosmic designer, but Hrgrl'q God i?. a philosopher whose^ speculative activity creates and maintains the world ^everything is born of thought, ~oiiplLlosophicul -tliOHalil. Oi'iH must^^1^^ admit." TToVever, that HegeT usually aV01(15 extreme conclusions: " Philosophy deals only with the brilliance of idea reflected in world history." (63; 4, 938) But in that case philosophy is a human and not divine occupation. Still, even as such--- as historically limited spiritual activity---it is radically contrasted to scientific knowledge per se. Hegel is often a priest (even a high priest), and as such he is not unlike a theologian extolling his ``science'' as the supreme knowledge, with God as its subject and source.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Thus, according to Hegel, philosophy, or the thought of thought, is, on the one hand, the infinite realm of pure reason that forms the substance of the world, and on the other hand, a specifically human, final historical spiritual sphere. The differentiation between ontologrical and_ history icaj._being *M~ philosophy peYmeates HegelV entire doctrine of jhe history "dl pniiosophv^ wMch cannot be grasped if this idealist assumption is notnaken into account. Viewed from this angle, the history of philosophy has two fundamental dimensions. Philosophy is developed directly by philosophers---individuals acting in the historically definite circumstances of a given era, country, nation, etc. Hegel describes this aspect of the history of philosophy as follows: "The history of philosophy is the history of the 48 discovery of thoughts about the absolute, which is its subject." (64; 6, XX) It is the earthly, empirically recorded history, and Hegel calls its agents heroes of reasoning intellect. The philosophical genius is the historically limited personification of the absolute spirit. But, unlike the `` empirical'' history of philosophy, the absolute spirit is a logical succession not of historically limited systems of .. philosophy but of their principles and fundamental categories whose hierarchy forms an extratemporal logical process, the subject of The Science of Logic.
The notion of the second, substantial dimension of the history of philosophy is directly linked to Hegel's panlogism which holds that the logical (reason) is not only a means or form of perceiving the essence of things but also that essence itself. This means that the consciousness of its content (philosophical content) is innate, extratemporal and extraspatial to the absolute (called absolute knowledge, subject substance, God, etc.), since space and time are, according to Hegel, forms of alienated being. Mankind apprehends that absolute identity in the course of its development over the ages. And that is what is called the history of philosophy, since historical development is foreign to the absolute.
According to Hegel, the history of philosophy examines the historical forms of philosophical knowledge for their absolute prototypes; that is, it sees each historically definite and limited system of philosophy as a reflection of a certain logical defmitiveness of the absolute spirit. " Essentially, the history of philosophy deals not with the past but with the eternal and fully present, and it must be compared in its result not to a gallery of human spiritual errors but rather to a pantheon of divine images." (64; 6, 167-68) That gallery of divine images is the primordial ideal, an imperative that has been established and exists forever and that opposes the temporal history of philosophy with all its inherent human errors which Hegel freely admits. Because of that contrast between the historical and the suprahistorical, Hegel faces issues that would have been pointless in a different philosophical content. For example, he asks, "what is the cause of the fact that philosophy exists in time and has a history"? (64; 13, 45)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original: I_-B£QHDse to show-that to ignore Hegel's ..concept ofthe
dimension of the history of philosophy means to
__PRINTERS_P_49_COMMENT__
4-01562
49
__FIX__ Following paragraph is
smudged or underlined in original:
ignore its major contradictions and oversimplify Hegel's
understanding of the real development of philosophy. This
point is especially important because Hegejjot only divides
and contrasts two aspects of the history of philosophy;
he fS^^1^^ equally iUUmL on reducing those'opposites to
dialectical jdculiiLy. Fui, miuidiuij 10 Hei>el. the task of philoscT
ph^ySzrs" 10 reveal the unity of the transcendental and_the
immanent the divine and the Human, ffie everlasting
and the transient; to see the real as the ideal and vice
versa.
Although it proceeds from essentially theological precepts there are profound dialectical insights in the differentiation between the two major aspects of the history of philosophy. There are two methods in the scientific study of history: the logical-theoretical and the specific-historical, the latter taking into account the distinctive individual features of a given process in a given country, in particular circumstances, and so on. Hegel regards his logic as the logic of the history of philosophy in its ideal, extratemporal form. As to the actual history of philosophy, it is an alienated and distorted reproduction of philosophy's a priori self-development. "The succession of philosophical systems in history is the same as that in the logical arrival of definitions of the idea," Hegel writes, and amplifies: "I assert that if we free major concepts emerging in the history of philosophical systems from everything connected with their outward form, their specific applications, etc., if we take them in their pure form, we will have different stages of the definition of the idea itself in its logical interpretation. On the contrary, if we take logical forward motion in itself, we will find in it the forward motion of historical events in their major moments; but of course, one must be able to notice these pure concepts in the content of the historical form." (64; 13, 43)
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:Applied rationally, the J"^£fll-t.h£ojretical and^trb^^0^^- gpA- p.ifauhiafo-pjfial SeTFTotts of "study are equally necessary and "'"f* go bin*"^^1^^ ^^baJUL But"a genuinely sgantiM appljbatioH_of thegjR mpt.|]oris in studying the history of philosophy is impo°pih1Q within \.\\& tr^mework ot Hegel's philosophy. Hegel subordinates the specific-hisToi`llial'' slllfly of the history of philosophy to the a priori schematic approach of substantiated philosophical thinking. Hence the contradiction between his theory of the history of 50 philosophy and the specific study of the development of philosophy, which often does not fit into the theory.
In contrast to the actual development of philosophy, there is no struggle within the framework of the theory of the history of philosophy that operates with a hierarchy of logical principles and categories. In impersonal absolute reason, all philosophical principles underlying different systems exist only as a definition of the "absolute idea". Here there is no history, nothing appears or disappears. Human history, and consequently the history of philosophy, is different. Here ``extratemporal'' philosophical principles a:i;e historically definite systems of philosophy. Each belongs to, and shares the limitations of its own time, and cannot therefore rise above it.
But if, as Hegel maintains, philosophy deals with something everlasting, how can one reconcile that to the thesis that philosophy is "totally identical with its time"? (64; 13, 69) Hegel ``reconciles'' these mutually exclusive theses as referring to different aspects of the history of philosophy. Yet, precisely this extreme contraposition made to fit Hegel's metaphysical system exposes both theses as fallacious. A historically definite philosophy is not merely identical with its time, and the principles of philosophical systems are not at all extratemporal truths. Systems are indeed transient, br' it does not follow that their principles are forever trut i'he fallacy of the subjective idealist system is the fallacy of its principle, even though a correctly understood subjectivity is the real and substantial definitiveness of the process of cognition. But Hegel opposes historically limited systems of philosophy to their principles, allegedly free from empirical limitations and interpreted as logical definitions of the absolute. Besides, he obviously underestimates the fact that a system is the realization of its principle, and not merely its one-sided, absolute development and exposition.
Philosophies differ substantially, and so do their histories. The doctrines of Democritus, Epicurus, Plato and Aristotle greatly affected the development of philosophy. The same cannot be said of all outstanding philosophical theories. It follows that the overall relation of philosophical doctrines to their times and to future social developments is different too. Some philosophies are revived in later periods, developed and transformed under the impact __PRINTERS_P_51_COMMENT__ 4* 51 of new doctrines; others remain but landmarks of mankind's intellectual history. The thesis about the extratemporal essence of philosophy, leading to the conclusion that all systems of philosophy, viewed in substance, form a chain of images of the absolute, is also wrong because it is incompatible with the self-evident fact that philosophers of different eras are not contemporaries. This simple statement leads to a conclusion that is far from trite: philosophers of each successive era possess a heritage their predecessors could not have had.
__FIX__ Following paragraph is smudged or underlined in original:While correctly stressing the historical limitations placed on each philosophy by its time, Hegel refers to the development of philosophy which, according to his doctrine, is absent from the realm of the impersonal philosophical (absolute) idea. But precisely because he refers to an actual, empirically verifiable process, that truth is exaggerated; it is finally asserted that any philosophy "can therefore satisfy only those interests which are in keeping with its time". (64; 13, 60) But great philosophies retain their significance, influence and, to a certain degree, their topical value for several considerably different eras. Of course, Hegel is well aware of it but, in his view, it is true exclusively of the ideal aspect of the history of philosophy and can refer to its empirical aspect only insofar as it ascends toward the ideal level. The latter is thus the standard, the norm, the imperative, but since it is primordial it is certainly not the imperative as understood by Kant or Fichte. In this strictly speaking purely logical and not historical aspect of self-development "each philosophy existed and still necessarily exists: therefore, none has disappeared but all are retained in philosophy as moments of one whole". (64; 13, 50) HfigaJ-4*-j-ight.jp ^rRssinp' the eternal in^-tbfeJiigtorical development oJLjtiilooophioal knowledge. But he exaggerates and even makes an absolute of that moment, though it is no doubt important in the historical dialectics of truth and error. Besides, Hegel strives to avoid absolutely opposing the logical and the historical because he is aware of the fact that, contrary to the fundamentals of his system, that contraposition is relative. This explains his attempts at interpreting the historical aspect of philosophies not simply as something historically transient but also as something historically eternal. In this connection Hegel offers a specific interpretation of the 52 relation of a philosophy to its time. "While a philosophy, in its content, does not rise above its time, it is still above it in its form because, as thought and knowledge of the substantial spirit of its era, this philosophy makes it its subject". (64; 13, 69) But this differentiation of form and content in philosophy is a deviation from the fundamental thesis of absolute idealism which holds that form and content are identical in philosophy as the thought of thought.
Thus Hegel's distinction between the logical and the historical aspects of the history of philosophy is clearly justified and epistemologically necessary. But he identifies epistemology with ontology; hence the conflicting assessments of his philosophy often given by its students. For example, students of Hegel's views on the history of philosophy usually quote the following very important point: "The latest philosophy is the result of all preceding philosophies; it must then contain the principles of all; it is therefore, when it is a philosophy, the most developed, the richest, and the most concrete." (64; 6, 21) While quoting that precept, students of Hegel seldom think about the way it describes his view of the actual history of philosophy. Since the quotation refers to the latest philosophy, it appears self-evident that it applies to the history of philosophy. But the assertion that each following philosophy is higher than its predecessor fits only the logical order of the definitions of the absolute which, as the "absolute spirit", deploys its logical definitions in time, that is, historically.
Jean Hyppolite, a well-known French student of Hegel's philosophy, refers to that and other similar tenets and accuses Hegel of discrediting great philosophies by treating them as fully surpassed: "The fault of Hegel's history of philosophy, which claims to present philosophies in a logical and chronological order, is that it turns each subsequent philosophy into a superior one comprising the principle of, and surpassing the one that preceded it." (69; 82) In the light of the quotation from Hegel cited above, this evaluation of his concept of the history of philosophy appears convincing. But it clearly underrates the contraposition of the substantial and the historical (the logical and the chronological, according to Jean Hyppolite) aspects of the history of philosophy on which Hegel insists so much, whereas it is clear from his Lectures on the History of Philosophy that he does not follow his own 53 principle in specific studies of the history of philosophy. For example, he does not regard Stoicism, Epicureanism or Skepticism as the summit of ancient philosophy despite the fact that they were its latest stages. He even refers to Epicurus as a thinker who did not rise above the level of sensory concepts. He is equally disdainful of Skepticism, and describes even Stoicism as a decadent reflection of philosophy's crisis.
Hegel does not consider medieval philosophy as surpassing the philosophies that preceded it. Later Scholasticism, in his opinion, lost its distinctly philosophical content, with theology replacing philosophy.
In analyzing the philosophy of the New Age, Hegel is even further from presenting the latest philosophy as a synthesis of all those that preceded it. While praising the metaphysical systems of the 17th century, he criticizes 18th-century philosophers, especially bourgeois Enlighteners, as thinkers who had even fallen short of their predecessors, at least in the specific content of their doctrines. It goes without saying that Hegel does not regard Berkeley and Hume as representing a higher stage of philosophy than the doctrines of Descartes, Leibniz or Spinoza.
If we now turn from Lectures on the History of Philosophy that trace the historical development of philosophical knowledge to The Science of Logic, whose hierarchy of categories leads from the lower to the higher, it becomes obvious which aspect of the history of philosophy Hegel means when saying that each subsequent philosophy is more developed, richer and more concrete (Hegel's logic, of course, does not refer to the particular philosophy but to its fundamental precept, principle and categories).
One must also remember that generally Hegel's concept of the development of philosophy is much richer than the oversimplified version that maintains that each new phenomenon represents a stage of development higher than the previous one. We know that Hegel considered negation a necessary component of development, differentiating between abstract and concrete negation. Both occur in development, but only concrete negation means transition from a lower to a higher stage. Contrary to the simplistic understanding of direct transition from lower to higher, from imperfect to perfect, Hegel describes development as a spiral in which past stages are revived on a new basis.
54Thus the differentiation between the logical and the historical in Hegel's interpretation of the development of philosophy is equally necessary both for criticizing Hegel's idealist errors and for singling out his brilliant dialectical insights. That is the standpoint from which we should view Hegel's concept of the motive forces of the development of philosophy and the sources of the historical definitiveness of its content. If the logical is accepted not only as a specific quality of the cognizing subject but also as the substantial, it is thus accepted as causa sui, as self-- determining. That is Hegel's principal conviction directly referring to philosophy, and the development of the latter is interpreted as a substantial process; "the entire history of philosophy is essentially an inherently necessary forward-moving succession, which is reasonable in itself and is determined ... by its a priori idea. The history of philosophy must prove it by its example." (64; 13, 50) The goal of this logical process, contained in it from the start, is its internal motive force; this means that its result is preordained from the start. The contradiction between the historically limited form of philosophy and its infinite content is the direct motive cause of the development of philosophical knowledge. According to Hegel, the finite is not yet true, and therefore "the inner idea destroys these finite forms" (64; 13, 50)---in other words, it makes the transition from one system of philosophy to another a necessity. Therefore, since the history of philosophy is regarded as a logical-ontological succession of the definitions of the "absolute idea", it is also determined by the latter and is thus immanent-teleological. Everything that happens in the world is, in the final analysis, a manifestation of reason. In Hegel's view, "this great precept...---which is the only thing that makes the history of philosophy so interesting---is nothing other than the belief in Providence, only in a different guise". (64; 13, 49)
All those definitions refer directly to the aspect of the history of philosophy Hegel describes as substance. But the latter does not exist outside the ``empirical'' development of philosophy because it forms its essence. According to Hegel's wellknown definition, philosophy as a historically developing phenomenon is an epoch apprehended by thought; it is "thought and the apprehension of the spirit of the time". (64; 13, 66) Of course, the "spirit of the 55 time" does not exist independently of the "absolute spirit", so that the speculative and the historical definitions of philosophy are not mutually exclusive. Nevertheless, that which specifically describes a particular historical era (and consequently a particular stage in the development of philosophy) is not contained in the general concept of the absolute, in the speculative view of the thought of thought, the self-alienation of the absolute spirit, etc.
Thus, on the one hand, Hegel reduces the motive forces of the history of philosophy to pure thought, while, on the other, he tries to connect the emergence and subsequent development of philosophy to certain history-making social upheavals. Discussing the historical premises that led to the emergence of philosophy, Hegel says they included the division of labor, the rise of ``estates'', that is, the disintegration of the patriarchal clan, the emergence of the human personality independent of the patriarchal way of life, the crisis of spontaneous religious consciousness (see 64; 13, 66-67). But Hegel gives no specific description of historical epochs whose content is expressed by this or that philosophy. Usually, he merely gives a general outline of the "spirit of the time", the intellectual climate, the convictions that dominated this or that historical epoch; and therefore philosophy itself, as a rule, appears as the most important manifestation of the spirit of the time. Hegel's view of the relation of philosophy to social relations as a whole does not provide any definite answer to the question but is rather the question itself.
Hegel is well aware of the fact that since the question is the existence of philosophy in history, philosophy is not the cause of social transformations; the idea of philosophy dependent on those transformations is incompatible with rationalist idealism. "The relationship between philosophy and political history, forms of government, art and religion is not such that they are the roots of philosophy or vice versa; rather they are all rooted in the spirit of the time." (64; 13, 69)
Apparently, Hegel proceeds from the concept of the single, universal absolute spirit, a certain stage of which appears as the spirit of the time, and its diversity is expressed in religion, art, government and, most adequately, in philosophy. The relationship between philosophy and all other forms of social life is that of correlation, parallelism, 56 correspondence in time and, apparently, also of interaction and interpenetration. The basic postulate of Hegel's idealist system rejects the essential differentiation between social consciousness and social being, because both are reduced, in the final analysis, to the thought of thought, the substance-subject, the identity of being and thought.
True, Hegel's philosophy of law draws a firm dividing line between the state and civil society---the sphere of private interests, above all economic ones. But this division has no counterpart in his analysis of the development of philosophy. The actual structure of a class society evaporates in the speculative annihilation of the empirical. All that leads the study of the specific historical content and social role of philosophy away from the already perceptible correct (but, of course, not idealist) way. The final conclusion---absolute idealism does not dare go further than that in its analysis of philosophy's place in the social life of each given historical era---merely recognizes that philosophy and all other forms of the social comprise a single whole, and that the intrinsic composites of that whole form a relationship of necessary correspondence. "A definite kind of philosophy correlates therefore with a definite kind of people among which it exists, with their state system, government, ... their social life." (64; 13, 68) But what determines this correspondence, which is no mere temporal coincidence? Hegel's philosophy answers this question in the most general way: the uniqueness of the absolute spirit. This means that the substantial difference between two historical epochs is predetermined by the logical structure of the absolute spirit, in which each epoch is a necessary step on the way to its self-consciousness.
According to Marx, Hegel turns world history into the history of philosophy. He identifies the specific historical (economic, political, ideological, technological, etc.) development of society with the development of knowledge and self-consciousness; and philosophy is proclaimed the authentic form of the latter. This fully accords with the interpretation of world history as progress in the understanding of freedom. The diversity of human history is reduced to the development of philosophical consciousness. In Hegel's words, "world history is the expression of the divine, absolute process of the spirit in its supreme manifestations; it is an expression of that succession of steps through 57 which it realizes its truth and reaches self-- consciousness ... World history only shows how self-consciousness and the striving for truth gradually awaken in the spirit; there are glimmers of consciousness, it apprehends the main points, and finally it becomes fully conscious." (63; 1, 75)
That one-sided interpretation impoverishes and distorts the diversity of the content of world history.
Idealism has always presented human history above all as the history of intellectual development, as the struggle of reason against error, of good against evil. Although Hegel's doctrine of the objective logic of the history of society to some degree overcomes certain flaws in the idealist interpretation of history, he is obviously a captive of that philosophical-historical precept. But in his analysis of certain systems of philosophy Hegel often convincingly shows their relation to specific features of the given historical epoch. For example, he reveals the historical necessity of, and justification for, bourgeois French Enlightenment. According to Hegel, its anticlericalism and even atheism are an expression of the struggle against the obsolete feudal ways and their mainstay, the Catholic Church. The Revolution of 1789 is seen by him as directly linked to that intellectual movement to which he refers with obvious enthusiasm, despite his well-known hostility to naturalism and especially materialism.
Hegel's The Science of Logic admits only of logical connections between philosophies, but not of the historical relationship recorded by him between philosophy and the social conditions that are independent of it. Still, Hegel needs a sociological assessment of philosophies because, according to his fundamental concept, he recognizes not only the logical self-motion of the philosophizing absolute spirit but also the development of philosophy in history. The latter is, of course, necessary because the absolute cannot be content with mere self-contemplation. And "the deeper the spirit plunges into itself, the more intensive becomes the contraposition, and the broader is the richness directed outside; we must fathom the depth by the degree of the need, the yearning of the spirit with which it directs its search outward to find itself". (64; 15, 684) Thus, without violating the principles of his panlogical system, Hegel combines the logical and the historical as the 58 internal and the external. These contrapositions are dialectical, and the external becomes internal, while their union forms world history and, as its quintessence, the developing phil^ osophical spirit. Naturally, primacy is accorded to the logical; the empirical is reduced to a means by which the spirit becomes conscious of its content.
In his analysis of various aspects of social life, often quite alien to philosophy, Hegel, of course, cannot ignore the fundamental link of philosophy with nonphilosophieal studies and other forms of social consciousness: religion, art, morality. In examining the philosophy of the New Age, he explicitly states: "Without the independent development of the experimental sciences, philosophy would never have risen above the level of the ancients." (64; 15, 283) But this admission does not fit the structure of the system and therefore does not lead to appropriate theoretical conclusions about the motive forces of philosophical development: the historical succession connecting systems of philosophy has no place for the natural or social sciences.
The mechanistic world outlook, directly related to the natural science of the New Age,, was of great importance for the development of philosophy. But Hegel pays little attention to that fact, apparently because he is a critic of the mechanistic approach. His Philosophy of Nature contains many dialectical conclusions drawn from the natural sciences. But since they proceed from materialist precepts, Hegel fails to correctly evaluate their relations to philosophy. He expands the concept of philosophy to the maximum and regards it as an all-encompassing science, comprising the speculatively assimilated natural sciences. Thus he admits, albeit indirectly, the importance of the natural (and social) sciences for the development of philosophy. But that admission is worded so that specific sciences appear to owe their outstanding achievements to philosophy. Hegel puts an extreme construction on the traditional contraposition of philosophy to nonphilosophieal activity (both practical and theoretical), and that inevitably affects his doctrine on the history of philosophy.
Hegel both underrates the importance of specific sciences for the development of philosophical knowledge and, not surprisingly, overestimates the role of religion. Since philosophy is, in his view, essentially idealist, it differs 59 from religion not so much in content as in form. While in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel asserts that philosophy exists only inasmuch as it dissociates itself from religious consciousness, in his Philosophy of Religion he very often slurs over that fundamental difference, so important for idealism too, and even states that " philosophy and religion are identical". His reservations about the dialectical nature of that identity fail to make it plausible.
A point to remember is that Hegel's arguments to prove the identity of the subjects of philosophy and theology are mostly exoteric. And essentially, they even prove the opposite: that philosophy is independent of religion. In Hegel's opinion, religion cannot claim that its subject stands higher than that of philosophy. Philosophy is on the top rung of the hierarchy of knowledge because its supreme subject is the divine. Philosophy is higher than religion because what is the subject of the imagination and emotion (and Hegel thinks little of their cognitive value) in religion is the subject of conceptual knowledge in philosophy. This explains why, in Hegel's lifetime, theologians viewed his contention as an act of arrogance on the part of philosophy, an attempt at usurping the prerogatives of theology.
In creating his theory of the history of philosophy, Hegel's studies form the basis of that subject as a science. That essentially dialectical theory is the theory of the development of philosophical knowledge which, in turn, serves as a basis for Hegel's specific and systematic study of the worldwide history of philosophy. He interprets the development of philosophy as a distinct form of development, radically different from other forms of development in nature and society. The existence and struggle of opposing doctrines is a salient feature of the development of philosophy; according to Hegel, their conflict does not rule out the interrelationship of their content or the inevitable transition from one doctrine to another. The concept of the conflicting unity of the history of philosophy and the dialectical understanding of historical continuity are the greatest accomplishments of Hegel's history of philosophy.
His idealism distorts all the achievements of his philosophy. The idealist interpretation of development distorts that concept and subordinates it to a theological system 60 which largely dismisses tne true motive forces of the development of philosophy and, in the final analysis, reconciles dialectics with the metaphysical interpretation of the history of philosophy. Hegel's metaphysical system offers a one-sided interpretation of the history of philosophy which ignores the study of the development of the materialist outlook; consequently, it ignores the struggle of materialism and idealism, a most important aspect in the development of philosophy. The panlogical concept of the two major dimensions of the history of philosophy, the ontologization of its logical-theoretical interpretation, the reduction of philosophy to the thought of thought elevated to the status of the subject-substance---all that, together with the theological precepts and conclusions of Hegel's philosophy, puts a mystical construction on his history of philosophy and gives rise to contradictions that cannot be solved by absolute idealism, and to conservative (and partly reactionary) ideological conclusions.
Marxist philosophy removed the mystical shroud from Hegel's concept of the history of philosophy; it not only exposed its major flaws but also revealed its outstanding discoveries, accomplishments and insights, whose critical assimilation and development helped create a scientific theory of the history of philosophy.
[61] __ALPHA_LVL2__ A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CRITIQUEDiversity of doctrines has always been, and still is, typical of philosophy. Its significance can be understood correctly and explained scientifically only by studying the distinctive aspects of philosophy, the evolution of its subject and ideological function, the epistemological and class roots of philosophical errors, the place of philosophy in the system of fundamental sciences, and its relationship to art, religion and other forms of the social consciousness. That is the only approach that explains the wide variety of philosophical doctrines not as a merely empirically obvious and scientifically inexplicable fact, but as a phenomenon of the spiritual life of society that is both historically necessary and historically transient.
Today's bourgeois philosophers and historians of philosophy often present the increasing divergence of philosophical doctrines as a unique process rooted in the subjective creativity of outstanding individual philosophers. But the fact that the diversity of philosophical doctrines does not rule out their contradictory unity, and that in the final analysis it is reduced to the fundamental antithesis of materialism and idealism refutes this subjectivist interpretation of the historical process in philosophy.
The development of philosophical knowledge differs radically from the development of physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences, just as philosophy differs from all those sciences both in subject and in methods of research. However, one should not make an absolute of that radical difference, as today's bourgeois philosophers and historians of philosophy usually do. The study of the history of philosophy becomes really effective only when the relation between the history of philosophy and the history of science is understood not merely as a difference but also as a dialectical unity. That is the only methodological approach 62 that truly rules out the opposition of philosophy to theoretical as well as practical nonphilosophical activity. That opposition is typical of the entire pre-Marxian, and, especially, idealist philosophy. Even philosophers of dialectical idealism did not escape it. That opposition is not a subjective opinion advanced by philosophers but an objective feature of the process of differentiation between philosophy and specific sciences. The fact that this opposition, long since devoid of any historical justification, has not only survived but is even more intensively emphasised in today's idealist philosophy, is a graphic illustration of the crisis gripping the latter at present.
To substantiate the need for a scientific philosophy, classical pre-Marxian philosophers tried to prove that the increasing divergence of philosophies was a transient phenomenon. For example, Fichte was convinced that "there is only one single philosophy, just as there is only one mathematics, and as soon as that only possible philosophy is found and recognized, new ones can no longer emerge; and all the previous so-called philosophies would thereafter be regarded only as attempts and preliminary works". (52; 3, 3) Therefore, he regarded his doctrine as " elevating philosophy to the level of a science". Of course, Fichte was wrong in asserting that the creation of a scientific philosophy would end the development of philosophy and, consequently, the debate in philosophy. But his thought that the situation later described as "anarchy of philosophical system" was historically transient came as a brilliant prediction of the scientific solution of the historicalphilosophical problem.
Unlike classical philosophical authors, today's bourgeois theoreticians of the history of philosophy try to prove that philosophy, like art (and, of course, like religion), by its very nature cannot and must not be a science, and that any attempt at creating a scientific philosophy ignores the unique meaning and significance of that basically unscientific "spiritual mode" of human existence. The Swiss philosopher Andre Mercier said at the 15th World Congress of Philosophy, "Philosophy is not a science... Science is neither a philosophy nor philosophy in general." (87; 25) Theorists like Mercier reject the possibility of a scientific philosophy, regard the wide diversity of philosophies as an authentic expression of the sovereign freedom of 63 philosophical thought, and criticize the classics of pre-Marxian philosophy, charging that their attempts at creating a science of philosophy were quixotic errors of optimistic thinkers who lacked bitter historical experience. Such is the ``proof'' of a viewpoint that actually negates the history of philosophy as a science about the progress of philosophical knowledge, and it negates the very possibility of a scientific philosophical view of the world.
That negativist trend found its conceptual consummation in the studies in the history of philosophy by a number of French, Italian and West German philosophers who call their trend the "philosophy of the history of philosophy". Martial Gueroult is recognized as the leader of that trend. He is the author of numerous studies of Descartes, Leibniz, Fichte, Malebranche, Maimon and of the methodology of the history of philosophy. Gueroult's supporters and followers include Henri Gouhier, Paul Ricoeur, F. Brunner, Franco Lombard! and V. Goldschmidt.
There is nothing surprising about the name "philosophy of the history of philosophy". Both the name and, moreover, the first and the only "philosophy of the history of philosophy" of its kind were created by none other than Hegel, the first to evolve a philosophical theory of the history of philosophy. The theoreticians listed above, however, never mention this fact because their doctrine is directly opposed to Hegel's theory of the development of philosophical knowledge. The point is that Hegel substantiated the principle of the unity---the contradictory unity, of course---of the history of philosophy by demonstrating the fallacy of the opinion dominant during his lifetime that the many mutually negating systems of philosophy had no substantial connection with one another and were not different aspects of the single, though manifold, development of philosophy. In Gueroult's opinion that would negate the very possibility of the history of philosophy as a science. Hegel's history of philosophy he contends, "abolishes the fact it claims to substantiate" (60; 59).
According to Brunner, Hegel's history of philosophy is a "despotic solution of the issue of philosophical diversity" (40; 193) because Hegel rejects the autonomy of philosophical doctrines and describes the history of philosophy as a progressing dialectical removal of the actual diversity of philosophies. Goldschmidt charges Hegel with an 64 imperialist interpretation of the history of philosophy (57 a; 40) because Hegel impinges on the unquestionable sovereignty of philosophical systems and makes them dependent on the historical development of philosophical knowledge, describing each system of philosophy as the selfconsciousness of a historically definite era. For the spokesmen of today's "philosophy of the history of philosophy", as we see, the historical approach to philosophical doctrines is absolutely unacceptable.
According to Lombardi, Hegel tries to read meaning not only into Plato's truth but also into Aristotle's truth; consequently, he presents all thinkers as contributors to the gallery of errors in the temple of human knowledge. But in that case it is perfectly obvious that those thinkers lose their autonomy in order to represent mere special `` moments'' of the concept forming Hegel's doctrine of the idea. Lombardi obviously oversimplifies Hegel's history of philosophy: the latter considered his philosophy the result of the previous history of philosophy, thus maintaining that he continued and completed that history. Hegel was wrong to believe that his system was the end of the development of philosophy; but Lombardi rejects the development of philosophical knowledge altogether, regarding the pluralism of philosophical systems as the only possible form of existence of philosophy. The German historian of philosophy Gottfried Martin also lapses into this error, except that he ascribes the pluralistic interpretation of the history of philosophy to none other than Hegel. According to Martin, "Dialectics recognizes diametrically opposite judgments as equally meaningful, and in this sense it recognizes the diversity of mutually contradictory judgments. From here it is not far to recognizing the diversity of mutually contradictory philosophies. That was what Plato and Hegel did. It is a fact that there are numerous mutually opposite philosophies and that apparently they will always be in conflict. But from a dialectical standpoint, this fact is not a flaw but rather a necessity. It is important for philosophy that there should be many philosophies; philosophy can exist only as a diversity of philosophies." (85; 283) Martin is obviously wrong in his interpretation of Hegel's history of philosophy. It is a long way from admitting the diversity of philosophies to pluralistically interpreting the history of philosophy. And Hegel __PRINTERS_P_65_COMMENT__ 5-01562 65 shared the monistic (dialectical-monistic) approach to the history of philosophy.
The ideological objectives of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" are obvious. Together with the principle of historicism, it rejects historical materialism, presented as a crude sociological concept reducing original works of philosophy to the immediate historical causes of their emergence. The "philosophy of the history of philosophy" opposes this view (wrongly ascribed and totally alien to Marxism) of philosophy (and of any form of social consciousness in general) as a simple consequence of material conditions independent of consciousness by the idealistic principle of philosophy's independence from everything nonphilosophical. That principle rejects the materialist interpretation of history. Brunner arrives at these conclusions when he writes: "While Hegel abolishes the autonomy of philosophies by rechristening them as moments of his own system, Marx goes even further: he destroys philosophy itself by depriving it of its inherent autonomy as philosophy. From the supreme discipline it used to be, philosophy turns into an epiphenomenon of man's life in society." (40; 194) Like other followers of the " philosophy of the history of philosophy", Brunner still thinks in terms of the past. He regards philosophy as a superscience which has every right to ignore ``lower'' scientific knowledge. Naturally, Marxism resolutely rejects that interpretation of philosophy, which has become an obstacle to the effective development of philosophical knowledge.
One must note that the principle of the sovereignty of philosophy is rejected even by idealism if it recognizes philosophy's connection to other forms of spiritual life ( science, art) and its own dependence on religion. Not surprisingly, the Belgian idealistic philosopher Alphonse De Waelhens defines philosophy as "reflection on a nonphilosophical experience" in his article "Philosophy and Nonphilosophy" and stresses the "indelible bond between philosophy and nonphilosophy". (96; 6, 12) But De Waelhens advances a neo-Thomist concept of philosophy that ties it directly to religion.
The theoretical precepts of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" reject the unity of the history of philosophy, the possibility of a scientific philosophy, and the development of philosophy. According to one of its adepts, 66 the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" is "radical idealism". That, of course, is antidialectical idealism that metaphysically interprets a generally accepted fact: the difference of the history of philosophy from the history of mathematics, physics and other sciences. In each of the latter the components form a relatively orderly system. The differences between modern physics and classical mechanics exist within their unity which represents a process subject to a law Niels Bohr described as the principle of appropriateness. Naturally, the principle does not apply to the relationship between philosophies.
The development of each science increases and accumulates truths eventually accepted ,by all its scientists. A new stage in scientific development is a step forward that overcomes the limitations of the preceding stage. It is true that in natural science supporters of the old often fight against the new, even though its correctness has already been borne out by the facts. But the situation in philosophy is incomparably more complex: a new system does not always surpass its predecessor.
Martial Gueroult offers a subjectivist interpretation of all these facts, that call for special epistemological study. He simply declares that the past of science (unlike the past of philosophy) is constantly devalued by its present. Therefore philosophy and science are diametrically opposed, despite the fact that each system of philosophy, like any system of scientific knowledge, searches for the truth. However, the point is that each system of philosophy regards all other systems of philosophy as wrong, while in Gueroult's view, they are all equally legitimate in their claim to the truth. In the history of science, each new achievement is based on, and surpasses, its predecessors. The " philosophy of the history of philosophy" sees this fact as proof of constant devaluation of scientific achievement. For example, Henri Gouhier states that "the only indisputable fact is that the science of today discredits the science of yesterday, while the philosophy of today does not discredit the philosophy of yesterday". (59; 111) According to the Bergsonian Gilbert Maire, philosophy never grows obsolete: "The physics of Aristotle and Descartes are dead, but their philosophies continue to flourish." (81; 19) Maire is not a supporter of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy". But his views largely coincide with those of __PRINTERS_P_67_COMMENT__ 5* 67 that school. The "philosophy of the history of philosophy" expresses the convictions of many bourgeois philosophers, although they may not belong to the relatively small circle of its adherents.
Of course, those assertions run counter to the true history of science. Newton's mechanics is not discredited, and neither are other real accomplishments of the natural sciences. It is a different matter that the scientific accomplishments of the past have been surpassed by newer achievements. By misrepresenting the above and laying biased stress on the fact that many philosophical issues posed in the past are still topical, supporters of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" build an impenetrable wall between philosophy and the sciences. For example, Heinrich Rombach of West Germany who belongs to that school even asserts that "philosophy is not a phenomenon in time. .. It does not develop in a temporal framework, but it itself creates the external framework for all spiritual events . .." (93; 13). The "philosophy of the history of philosophy" thus becomes the theology of philosophy.
By making an absolute of the radical distinction between the history of philosophy and the development of science, Gueroult attempts (of course, by purely speculative reasoning) to answer why the legitimacy of the history of philosophy as a science has always been and still is being questioned. He wants us to believe that this is because criteria and yardsticks borrowed from science and foreign to philosophy have always been applied to it. Philosophy has been likened to science whose greatest values are its latest accomplishments because they surpass preceding achievements. That point of view obviously oversimplifies the development of scientific knowledge, reducing it to a mere accumulation of new results that are higher than past ones. But the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics remain the greatest accomplishments of 20th-century physics, even though they were followed by many other outstanding discoveries. Having oversimplified the development of science, Gueroult contrasts it to philosophy and asserts that its past is equally, if not more, valuable than its present: "Science and its history have two radically distinct objects: the first, scientific truth which is nontemporal; the second, the acquisition of that truth in time. Therefore the history of science can in no way be part of 68 science. Their respective interests are quite different." (60; 49) Yvon Belaval, a scholar who is close to the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" is even more outspoken: "The scientist does not need to know the history of his science to move ahead: he studies the state it is in, he proceeds from it, and he is not interested in the past." (43 ; 25)~^^*^^ According to Gueroult, the picture is totally different in philosophy which always faces its past. Since both ancient and subsequent philosophies retain their significance today, their authors are actually our contemporaries. The opposition of the present and the past, so obvious in the history of science, is described as having little significance in philosophy. "The indivisibility of philosophy and its history," Gueroult emphasizes, "is an essential characteristic of the fact of that history." (60 ; 47) But if philosophy and its history are really indivisible and the millennium separating a doctrine from another is of no consequence, how then is the history of philosophy at all possible as an actual process in time, in radically different social conditions? How does the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" see the transition from one historical era to another? It answers these questions by referring to the numerical increase of philosophical masterpieces. There was no Hegel in Kant's world, but there was Kant in the world of Hegel, and that inevitably affected the latter's philosophy. All this means simply that all outstanding philosophers are not on hand in any era, a fact of paramount importance for the " philosophy of the history of philosophy". But if interpreted fully that fact completely refutes the groundless assertion about the extratemporal essence of each philosophy. In their attempts at salvaging that idealist principle the adherents of the trend in question claim that for readers (or students) of philosophical works, their authors are contemporaries no matter when they actually lived. But that assertion is also groundless.
_-_-_^^*^^ Regrettably, this obvious denigration of the history of science is shared by some historians of the natural sciences. For example, according to Alexandre Koyre, "Copernican or Newtonian astronomy is no longer of interest to anyone, it possesses no value in today's world; that is where the history of science differs from the history of philosophy. And we believe (without discussing in detail how justified that opinion is) that the doctrines of Aristotle and Plato retain their validity today." (59; 111).
69Clearly, to negate the historical facts underlying different philosophies, their content and form, means to question the legitimacy of the history of philosophy as a science. Study of a history of philosophy offering no historical evaluation of different philosophies runs counter to its principal purpose. Still, according to Gueroult, the historicity of a philosophy rules out its eternal value, without which it ceases to be a true philosophy. But a study of the actual history of philosophy shows that philosophies retain their outstanding value after their own era precisely because they are the product of a specific time which helped shape subsequent social development.
In Gueroult's opinion, the proof of the history of philosophy as a science is the same as Kant's famous formula: how is pure mathematics possible? How is pure, i.e., theoretical, natural science possible? Kant began by registering that ``pure'' mathematics and ``pure'' natural science did exist, and then went on to examining their epistemological premises. Following his example, Gueroult maintains: "Consequently, to say that the history of philosophy exists means, strictly speaking, only that there have long existed studies of past philosophies, aimed at reproducing the philosophical consciousness of that moment in its original sense and assuming that the students understand their authors." (60 ; 47) Kant proved the existence of pure mathematics and pure natural science by assuming the existence of a priori forms of sense perception and thought. The subsequent history of mathematics and natural science fully refuted that assumption. Nevertheless, in defending the idealist principle regarding philosophy's independence of history, Gueroult actually repeats the errors of Kant's a priori approach.
Gueroult describes his history of philosophy as `` dianoematics'',~^^*^^ denned as a science "dealing with the conditions in which philosophical works are possible inasmuch as they possess indestructible philosophical value". (60 ; 68) Thus philosophy's alleged independence of history is what makes the history of philosophy at all possible as a science. But how does one explain the very possibility of a _-_-_
^^*^^ In ancient Greek philosophy, dianoia meant meditation, conception, thinking. In Plato's Timaens dianoema stands for meditation. Schopenhauer's Dianoiologie is the science studying the abilities of reason. Gueroult's ``dianoematics'' has a similar meaning.
70 phenomenon that runs counter to the universality of change? Gueroult is aware that the explanation cannot be reduced to the assertion: "If no one [no philosopher] can definitively prove himself right, neither can he definitively refute others." (60 ; 50) That argument, Gueroult holds, will be acceptable to any skeptic who maintains that all philosophies are worthless. But the task is to prove, contrary to the skeptics, that all philosophies---of course, inasmuch as they are original systems---are temporally impregnable spiritual values. "The problem of the possibility of the history of philosophy as a science translates itself (se transpose) into the problem of the possibility of this science's objects, that is, into the transcendental problem of the possibility of philosophies as permanent objects of a possible history; in short, into the problem of the possibility of philosophy as a plurality of philosophies that cannot be reduced to one another or destroyed because they remain eternally valuable for philosophical reflection." (60; 51)Thus, to prove the thesis about the eternal value of each philosophy Gueroult rejects not only the progress of philosophical knowledge but also the fact that one philosophy can solve (or at least pose) the problems another system has failed to solve or pose. Some of Gueroult's followers go even further. According to Brunner, philosophies can coexist without coming into conflict with one another because they are not true or false copies of the real. (40 ; 198) The word ``copy'' is clearly out of place here because Brunner rejects even the possibility of philosophies being true or false. But if philosophies are not studies of objective reality, then what are they? Brunner simply calls them objects of art. (40; 198) Philosophical cognition is thus likened to artistic vision of the world, and philosophical systems, to the works of Pheidias, Raphael, Tchaikovsky, etc. Of course, this ``artistic'' approach to philosophy is not supposed to decide which philosophical precepts are true and which are false. But the solution is too costly: it refuses to recognize the fundamental difference between aesthetic perception of reality and philosophy, the latter not at all the creation of artists. Unlike the poet, the philosopher strives to achieve cognition in concepts, not images. Poets often ascend to great philosophical insights, but philosophers do not produce great poetry. Apparently, that is the reason why Gueroult, although he generally does not 71 oppose likening philosophies to works of art, nevertheless deems it necessary to introduce corrections into that overly straightforward viewpoint.
According to Gueroult, philosophy cannot be viewed in isolation from the yearning for the truth which inspires every true philosopher. That yearning is not simply a subjective state of mind that slurs over the actual but not at all true content of philosophies. The problem is precisely to grasp each philosophy as a distinct realization of that organic yearning for the truth. But if that is so, then clearly philosophies ought to be compared to one another, to the information supplied by the natural and social sciences, and to historical experience or practice, because that is the only way to ascertain how correctly this or that philosophy understands reality. But that is what Gueroult rejects, and he asserts that there exist philosophical truths totally different from, and independent of, scientific truths, and that the former are based on a special kind of reality foreign to science. The subject of philosophy is totally opposed to the subject of all the natural and social sciences taken together. The conclusion is that the philosopher has no need of scientific knowledge and that scientists are incapable of philosophical discoveries. Gueroult needs this contraposition to justify the right he alleges philosophers have to ignore scientific discoveries. Obviously, this ``right'' is deduced from a false premise, that of philosophy being independent of history, including the history of science. According to Gueroult, there exists a basis of philosophical truth and of the yearning for it, and that basis is independent of the philosopher's will (but not of his consciousness). To justify that thesis, he invents the concept of philosophical reality opposed to everyday reality, the subject of science. He interprets the fact that science has long transcended the boundaries of everyday experience to mean that these boundaries are gradually expanding. But that does not bring everyday experience closer to the allegedly suprascientific philosophical reality. The whole thing resembles the claim of theologians that their subject of ``study'' is not of this world.
Thus Gueroult claims that philosophy fences itself off from everyday reality and turns to quite another, in-depth reality. Moreover, only that is philosophy which deals with that reality. The perceptible, tangible everyday reality is 72 subjected to harsh and derogatory philosophical criticism.
Gueroult maintains that the differences among philosophies need no justification in the eyes of everyday reality which is itself questioned by philosophical thought. Thus it is everyday reality and not philosophy that must defend itself before reason. Philosophy discovers in everyday reality (or rather, on the other side of it) its cognizable essence---philosophical reality. The latter, unlike everyday reality, is inseparably linked to free but not random philosophical judgment, because always and everywhere (even among irrationalists) it is based on the rational, and logic is its intellectual tool.
For Gueroult, everyday reality does not stand for the external world that can be perceived through the senses. He expands the concept to cover everything studied and understood by nonphilosophy. The knowledge about that allegedly everyday reality thus coincides with the knowledge based on experience or practice. And this actual knowledge, to which mankind owes so much, without which modern civilization is impossible, is contrasted to the great philosophies, presented as a self-sufficient whole independent of everyday reality, as a closed world of thought determining itself through a priori precepts. Brunner calls that concept monadological realism. Each philosophy is presented as something similar to Leibniz's monad, at least in the sense that it forms a closed realm of the ideal." The philosopher both creates and perceives being, the subject of his reflection. According to Brunner, the realities examined by philosophy are similar to the world of Plato's transcendental ideas which opposes the exoteric world of things perceivable by the senses. Thus, for all their claims about the fundamental equality of all great philosophies, the proponents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" reject materialist doctrines and defend "Plato's line", i.e., idealism. Of course, this does not mean that they adhere to Plato's philosophy. The idealism of today cannot accept Plato's doctrine as created 2,000 years ago. And the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" presents that much-vaunted philosophical reality as a world of intelligible ideas no matter what their ontological status. Incidentally, that interpretation of Plato's philosophy is a salient feature of Husserl's phenomenology.
Plato used myths to explain the fundamentals of his 73 system. Some adherents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" try to do the same. For example, in his article "Myth, History and Mystery", Albert Wagner de Reyna, one of the more consistent followers of that school, maintains, fully in the spirit of Christian theology, that "myth is a word of truth, because it is a word of trust". (97 ; 24) Myth, he asserts, "is true inasmuch as it discovers reality from its point of view". (97 ; 24) This paean to myth has a definite theological connotation. According to this concept, a myth is not even a symbol but a sign of cosmic mystery coming to man as a revelation. The entire meaning coded into a myth is incalculably greater than the one understood or expressed verbally. Therefore, myth " reveals the being, the essence of the transcendental, of ' cosmos' ". (97 ; 23-24) Myth is unavoidable because "it is impossible for man to express his vision in the language of logic or science, in which self-contemplation from the outside is an impossible and absurd venture". (97 ; 25) Myth can be expressed only in metaphors or symbols. It cannot be grasped by reason, its mission is to shift the intellect that trusts it into the transcendental reality which it denotes.
Naturally, not all proponents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" proceed as resolutely from abstract judgments to ``specific'' theological statements. Therefore, in order to fully decode the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" we would do well to return to its allegedly scholarly arguments and to the facts (or at least what appear to be facts) that it cites.
According to Gueroult and his supporters, the history of philosophy must employ a strictly scientific method. But this much publicized demand for a scientific approach is in actual fact made for the sake of appearances, because it absolutely rules out the evaluation of the method applied by how it reflects objective reality and the corresponding objective truth. In this connection, Paul Ricoeur's definition of scientific objectivity is significant: "Here we must understand objectivity in its strictly epistemological sense: that which has been dveloped by methodical thinking, arranged in an orderly way, is understood and can be understandable to others is objective. That is true of physical and biological disciplines; that is also true of history." (92; 26) This reduction of the objectivity of a study 74 to technical requirements, although they are no doubt necessary, leads Ricoeur to the conclusion that the historical (and above all, historical-philosophical) study is subjective despite its epistemological objectivity. But that is "scientific subjectivity", not to be confused with "ill-- intentioned subjectivity"---in other words, with bad faith or incompetence.
The subjective aspect of research cannot be ignored. But recognizing or denying the subjective approach by the scholar is not the point; the important thing is to see the way leading to the objective truth, to its criterion---in other words, to have a materialist understanding of the subjective aspect of cognition and human subjectivity in general. That is precisely what the adherents of the " philosophy of the history of philosophy" lack, and that leads them to a subjective approach to the history of philosophy, despite their strict observance of the requirements of " epistemological objectivity". The principle of subjectivity--- that is the principle of personal brilliance---is the key concept in the "philosophy of the history of philosophy". The true content of each philosophy is its expression of the unique creativity of the philosophizing individual, a means of self-assertion. For example, Henri Gouhier maintains, "In our view, no ism gives rise to another ism. Had Baruch died as a child, there would have been no Spinozism." (59; 20)
Actually, the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" merely rehashes old idealist ideas. In the 1920s William James claimed that "you, ladies and gentlemen, have a philosophy, each and all of you". (71 ; 3) He reduced the struggle between materialism and idealism, rationalism and empiricism, and all other differences among philosophers to the incompatibility of temperaments. This view which obviously originated in Schopenhauer's doctrine, later led to the existentialist concept of philosophy as a purely subjective vision of the real.
Needless to say, continuity in philosophy does not mean that each philosophy gives birth to a successor. But Gouhier proceeds from this elementary (at least for a Marxist) fact to conclude, quite illogically, that the content of different philosophies merely reproduces the creative personality of their authors. He forgets that personal creativity is not only a feature of philosophy or art but also 75 of science and other spheres of human activity. That Einstein created the theory of relativity was no accident. But that in itself did not affect the content of his theory to any substantial degree, for it is a system of objective truths.
Naturally, Gouhier and other exponents of the subjective interpretation of philosophy cannot accept this because they oppose philosophy to science and the history of philosophy to the history of science. Gouhier flatly refuses to differentiate between the subjective and the objective, the personal and the social in different philosophies. That is why he denies the obvious fact that Spinoza's materialistic pantheism develops ideas which took an entire historical era to shape. According to Gouhier, "Cartesianism, Malebranchism, Comtism and Bergsonism refer us to the thoughts of Rene Descartes, Nicolas de Malebranche, Auguste Comte and Henri Bergson." (59; 20) He thinks he is merely stating obvious facts that prove philosophy is a completely individual way of conceptual thinking. But such statements deliberately proceed from the groundless assumption that Descartes, Malebranche, Comte and Bergson worked in a social vacuum, that their philosophies expressed no real socio-historical needs, and that they did not assimilate the historical experience or scientific achievements of their time. But Bergson's doctrine of "creative evolution" was an irrational interpretation of Darwin's evolution theory and an attack on Einstein's theory of relativity.
The subjectivist interpretation of the history of philosophy is rooted in the subjectivist interpretation of the "philosophical reality" discussed above. Philosophies are said to be essentially not comparable, since each allegedly studies its own world. According to Gouhier, " Differences of opinion between philosophers are not accidental: they are at the source of all philosophy. Different philosophies exist because the philosophers' field of vision does not cover one and the same world; the differences among philosophers precede their philosophies: there is no agreement in their thoughts because they do not proceed from the same data." (59 ; 42) A closer examination will show that according to the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" philosophers themselves create the philosophical reality used to substantiate the pluralistic concept of the history of philosophy; in other words, that reality is a philosophical construction, How can one then explain the 76 eternal and therefore intersubjective significance ascribed to philosophies? That question remains unanswered.
Adherents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" make no scientific analysis of the concept of subjectivity. Neither do they differentiate between subjectivity and subjectivism. They completely ignore the fact that subjectivity, as the actual difference of one human subject from another, has an objective content. According to Lenin, "There is a difference between the subjective and the objective, BUT IT, TOO, HAS ITS LIMITS." (10; 38, 98) As to Gouhier, he bestows a sort of ontological status on the subjectivity of the philosopher: subjectivity is the source of the philosopher's personal universe.
According to Ricoeur, true subjectivity in an outstanding philosopher makes his doctrine a free work of his genius, a work completely independent of other, also brilliant, philosophical works. The study of the history of philosophy is therefore called upon to provide a maximum `` singularization'' of each philosophy---that is, to establish its uniqueness. That would prevent it from being included in some specific trend of philosophical thought. According to that theory, the concepts of materialism, idealism, rationalism, irrationalism, etc. are merely artificial categories obscuring the uniqueness of each philosophy, and that uniqueness makes it impossible to classify them. This approach makes an absolute of the moments of interruption, relative independence and uniqueness in the history of philosophy. But each of these moments is organically linked to its opposite: discreteness necessarily implies continuity, independence presupposes dependence, and uniqueness---succession. By making an absolute of the essentially irrationalist notion about the total incompatibility of great philosophies, Ricoeur even denies that many of them have to do with the same problems. As he sees it, recognition of even a relative unity of philosophical problems throughout the long history of philosophy is bound to lead to skepticism, a doctrine he rejects. "The history of philosophy is, frankly speaking, a lesson of skepticism if it is seen as a series of various solutions to immutable problems called eternal (freedom, reason, reality, soul, God, etc.)." (92 ; 57) But apparently he does not understand that rejection of continuity in the history of philosophy also leads to skepticism: the latter maintains that philosophers can neither 77 learn from their predecessors nor teach their successors. Ricoeur himself is rather close to philosophical skepticism (although he rejects it) precisely because he, like the skeptics, essentially denies that philosophical problems can be inherited.
In the past, historians of philosophy usually said that all philosophers had always posed and tried to solve the same ``eternal'' issues. The history of philosophy was likened to a closed cycle of ideas and unsolvable problems. Unlike that traditional concept already exposed as fallacious by Hegel, the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" denies that the philosophical problems treated by different philosophies have anything in common. How to explain this leap from one metaphysical extreme to the other, from the typology of philosophical problems to their `` singularization'', or, as Italian existentialist Nicola Abbagnano puts it, their ``individualization''? The answer may be gleaned from what we have just discussed. The " philosophy of the history of philosophy" attacks the idea of a scientific philosophy, while its defense was a progressive feature of pre-Marxian philosophy. For the school in question (and for most of today's bourgeois philosophies) philosophy and scientific approach are incompatible. Hence the struggle against ``scientism'' in which there surfaces a most contradictory combination of criticism of some negative consequences of one-sided scientific specialization and rejection of the significance of science as a world outlook in general. Therefore, the opposition of today's bourgeois philosophy to Marxism is expressed in a rejection of the concept of scientific philosophy, scientific world outlook---just as the bourgeois refusal to accept the inevitability of socialism is expressed in a negativist rejection of historical necessity in general.
Ricoeur goes beyond the mere rejection of historical continuity in philosophical problems. He attacks any solution of these problems, claiming that this is not the function of philosophy: philosophy only poses questions, it should not answer them. Therefore, the uniqueness, the genius of a philosopher cannot be in essence expressed in answering the questions posed by his predecessors. His genius is in the fact that he poses problems in a new way, and the answers come from less significant and essentially nonphilosophical individuals.
78It is true that correct posing of a problem is very important in philosophy. Everybody knows the importance of posing such problems as the unity of the world, substance, self-motion of matter, criteria of the truth, and so on. To a considerable degree, philosophy's distinctive nature stems from the fact that it advances new issues left unnoticed in the past and for whose solution the requisite scientific information is often lacking. It is therefore clear that the way philosophical problems are posed develops cognition. If the important thing here is not the answer, then at any rate it is the suggestion of possible ways of arriving at it. But philosophy not only poses questions, it answers them too. It is a different matter that, as seen from the history of philosophy, those answers were very often unscientific. Still, that does not mean they should be underrated. If there is a grain of truth in an answer, that, too, is progress. Philosophical problems differ radically from the specific issues of any special science because their solution calls for different types of information supplied by science, practice and historical experience, and therefore cannot be the result of a specific experiment or demonstration based on limited data and equally limited theoretical premises.
The "philosophy of the history of philosophy" does not merely deny the possibility and necessity of a scientific philosophy. It extolls the unscientific approach (that of idealism, of course) as the highest form of theoretical insight into the nature of things. This cult of the deliberately unscientific, presented as an authentic expression of theoretical reason, is an idealist attempt to debase science, the highest form of theoretical cognition.
Gueroult charges Kant with having tried to assess the value of metaphysics (philosophy) by its capacity for becoming a science. Gueroult is convinced that despite their unscientific nature, all metaphysical systems possess everlasting, value. He preaches the following: that which imparts everlasting intellectual value to a philosophy does not depend on its correct judgments but on the "fullness of being" individually expressed in it.
According to Wilhelm Dilthey, one of the founders of the German "philosophy of life", the history of philosophy expresses the substantiality and irrationality of human life. Its impulsive, sensitive and spontaneous nature is incompatible with the orderly succession and regularity 79 typical of lifeless entities. Therefore, Dilthey holds, the history of philosophy can only be understood as anarchy of philosophies; each philosophy intellectually reproduces the spirit of life inevitable in any given historical era and cannot be described as true or false: like life, it simply is. Although the adherents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" dispute Dilthey's ``historicism'' and typology of world outlooks, they too try to substantiate a pluralistic concept of the history of philosophy, rejecting Brunner's "fiction of progress" and maintaining that the notion of development cannot be applied to the history of philosophy at all.
Professing to support more profound analysis of the history of philosophy and thereby single out the distinctive quality of philosophy as a form of cognition and of mankind's spiritual life, Gueroult and his followers question the significance of philosophy and reject the ideal of scientificphilosophical knowledge, an ideal it took the entire history of philosophy to shape. But the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" is seen as a perfect science rising above the biased approach of the authors of philosophies who are incapable of objectively evaluating all other philosophies. According to Brunner, "the object of a historical study must remain an object, and that quality is guaranteed by the impartiality of the historian. The strictness of the method demands that philosophies be examined as external things quietly viewed by the historian." (40 ; 184-85) Thus the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" has a unique place in the history of philosophy. It is allegedly a nonpartisan, disinterested judge. According to Brunner, a historian of philosophy must neither support nor oppose the system of views he studies. A liking for a particular philosophy makes a historian of philosophy disregard the difficulties that philosophy is unable to overcome and deprives him of the critical approach to the subject, so important in a scholar. Viewed from that standpoint, adherence to a particular doctrine means an uncritical approach to that doctrine and a biased attitude to all others. In this connection Brunner quotes Edmond Scherer, a mid19th century historian of philosophy who said: "To understand a philosophy we must be alien to it and able, as it were, to regard it from the outside." (40 ; 185)
Nobody questions the fact that a scholar who is guided 80 by his personal likes, tastes and interests instead of scientific objectivity is very far from being a true researcher. But the point here is scientific good faith which does not at all rule out partisanship in philosophy. A philosopher (or historian of philosophy) cannot be partisan or `` nonpartisan'' by choice. Partisanship in science---and in philosophy---is not a personal but a social position and must naturally be free from any subjective preferences.
Partisanship in philosophy means, above all, a definite and consistent philosophical position of principle. A consistent differentiation and contrasting of major philosophies is thus a necessary expression of partisanship in philosophy. Lenin describes it as a position of principle incompatible with eclecticism and stresses that "this refusal to recognize the hybrid projects for reconciling materialism and idealism constitutes the great merit of Marx, who moved forward along a sharply-defined philosophical road." (10; 14, 337-38) Obviously, such partisanship conforms to, and even essentially coincides with, the requirements of scientific objectivity.
Exponents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" rightly stress that a historian of philosophy must be a historian in the strictly scientific sense of the term. But a historian of philosophy is inevitably a philosopher. Then how is one to interpret the fundamental precept of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" that the historian of philosophy is outside past and present philosophies? The historian of philosophy is supposed to place himself above all philosophies no matter how meaningful they may be. But he is a historian of philosophy precisely because he is not outside philosophy. Admitting this obvious truth, adherents of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" talk about the inevitable antinomy of the history of philosophy, and in the final analysis plunge into total confusion.
Attempting to iron matters out, the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" says that rejection of any adherence to philosophies that are being studied does not rule out a philosophical position for the historian of philosophy. He is less a philosopher than a metaphilosopher. His philosophical position is the "philosophy of the history of philosophy", or the philosophy of philosophy, or the philosophical theory of the history of philosophy.
__PRINTERS_P_81_COMMENT__ 6-01562 81Tims a critical analysis of the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" points to the conclusion that it is an idealist interpretation of the history of philosophy. The much-vaunted nonpartisanship is, not surprisingly, revealed as pseudo-nonpartisanship---in other words, disguised bourgeois partisanship. And that partisanship is indeed incompatible with scientific objectivity. We have seen that the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" has a definite ideological function. The pluralistic interpretation of the history of philosophy is also an attempt at substantiating pluralism in social development in general. That ideological conclusion, contrasted to the doctrine about the inevitable transition from capitalism to socialism, is more than just implicitly present in the "philosophy of the history of philosophy". Martial Gueroult spoke of it at the 14th World Congress of Philosophy in 1968.~^^*^^
For all its suprahistorical claims, the contemporary bourgeois "philosophy of the history of philosophy" is a historically definite subjectivist expression of the current state of affairs in idealist philosophy gravitating to irrationalism. Justification of the anarchy of philosophies is a salient feature of contemporary bourgeois philosophy. Not surprisingly, exponents of the school in question consider both the pluralism of philosophy and the existence of any number of "philosophies of the history of philosophy" fully justified.
The crisis of bourgeois philosophy, the ideological confusion, the absence of the passion for the truth that had imbued the great philosophies of the past, the pseudodemocratic protest against ``standardization'' of philosophy ascribed to dialectical materialism, the opposition of philosophy to scientific knowledge, the irrationalist concept of a distinct everlasting value of philosophies that is independent of their correctness or scientific worth---all that illustrates the degeneration of bourgeois philosophy. Although the "philosophy of the history of philosophy" raises important and topical issues, its approach and answers only disguise the crisis of bourgeois philosophy, extolled as a normal state of affairs fully consistent with the very nature of philosophical knowledge.
_-_-_^^*^^ His report is critically analyzed in the article "Postulates of the Irrationalist History of Philosophy". (31)
82 __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE DIALECTICAL-MATERIALIST VIEW Marxism is the system of
Marx's views and teachings.
V. I. Lenin
I have already noted that the scientific-philosophical world outlook of Marxism negates philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the term; that is, it negates any attempt at creating a complete system of philosophical knowledge, exhaustively covering its subject and independent of all the subsequent development of cognition and social life. It is a specific, dialectical-materialist negation typical of the revolution in philosophy Marx and Engels brought about by creating dialectical and historical materialism, a system of philosophy fundamentally different from all philosophies of the past.
In his critique of bourgeois and revisionist attempts at playing off one precept or component part of Marxism against another, Lenin always stressed that Marxism was a single, integral scientific system. This very important point is also true of Marxist philosophy, but neither its bourgeois critics nor even some (although admittedly inconsistent) Marxists understand it. Suffice it to recall that in the early 20th century the Marxist attitude to philosophy was still interpreted as clearly negative. For example, Karl Kautsky said: "By that [Marxism] I understand not a philosophy but an empirical science, a distinct view of society." (74; 2, 452)^^*^^ That peculiar ``understanding'' of the philosophical fundamentals of Marxism is important to remember because today it has been revived by the theorists _-_-_
^^*^^ Kautsky's rejection of the fact that Marxist philosophy exists is an empirical ``statement''. Therefore he has nothing against ``linking'' Marxism to bourgeois philosophies. He himself tries to interpret the materialist view of history in the spirit of positivism. Asked by a Social Democrat whether Marxism could be linked" to Machism, Kautsky replied: "This doctrine is, of course, incompatible with idealist philosophy, but not with Mach's theory of cognition." (74; 2, 452). This proves that Kautsky overlooked the obvious fact that Mach was an idealist.
__PRINTERS_P_83_COMMENT__ 6* 83 of the Frankfurt School of Social Studies who claim to offer an authentic interpretation (or, in their own word, `` reconstruction'') of Marx's doctrine. For example, Herbert Marcuse, a man of considerable stature in the eyes of today's petty-bourgeois intellectuals, echoes Kautsky in asserting that Marxism "is an economic, not a philosophical system". (82; 103) And here is what Marcuse thinks of the works Marx wrote while only beginning to elaborate his doctrine---a time when the philosophical aspects of Marxism were of paramount importance: "Even Marx's early writings are not philosophical. They express the negation of philosophy, though they still do so in philosophical language." (83; 258)Some critics of Marxism (for example, Jean Hyppolite and Jean-Yves Calvez) interpret it as only philosophical, ignoring Marxist political economy and scientific socialism as doctrines essentially different from philosophy. Others refuse to accept that Marxist philosophy exists, citing the fact that Marxism rejects traditional philosophies and philosophy in general in the old sense of the term. But the opponents of Marxism ignore the dialectics of that negation. A critique of that antiscientific interpretation of Marxism and the need to grasp the Marxist approach to past philosophy raise the following questions: what is the Marxist negation of traditional philosophies? What is the Marxist view of philosophy as a system?
The Marxist negation of traditional philosophies rejects the fact that they all oppose philosophy to nonphilosophical (and especially practical) activity and nonphilosophical study. To avoid the error of oversimplification, we must remember that this opposition, typical, first and foremost, of rationalist philosophies and to a certain degree criticized by pre-Marxian materialists and by empiricists, records obvious differences between the philosophical and the nonphilosophical. Admittedly, those are substantial, but authors of philosophical systems made an absolute of them and ruled out the moment of identity inherent in specific difference. But distinction and identity form a dialectical unity, and they are both important as aspects of that correlation. To cite the example quoted in Engels' letter to Conrad Schmidt, the substantiality of the difference between man and woman implies their substantial identity. But the difference between an apple tree and the moon, for 84 all its ovious and many-sided nature, is a meaningless statement if it does not demonstrate any substantial identity. This does not mean that the term ``opposition'' is alien to dialectical materialism. On the contrary, the point is to understand it dialectically and reject its antidialectical interpretation which is usually totally negative. Essentially, that is a specific expression of the more general fundamental distinction between specific and abstract negation.
Opposition of the philosophical to the nonphilosophical in pre-Marxian philosophy was to a certain degree justified by historical considerations, although it was exaggerated out of all proportion. But it was already an anachronism in the 19th century. On the one hand, philosophy realized that it could no longer be a passive observer of social upheavals. On the other, the great scientific discoveries proved ad oculns that nonphilosophical studies are of great importance for philosophy. Philosophical reason began to realize that it did not rise above the unreasonable empirical reality as pure, sovereign and self-assessing thought. The illusion of philosophy's independence of everything nonphilosophical was shattered. "Philosophers," Marx wrote in his early works, "do not spring up like mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of their time, of their nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible juices flow in the ideas of philosophy. The same spirit that constructs railways with the hands of workers, constructs philosophical systems in the brains of philosophers." (1; 1, 195)
Opposing the philosophical disdain of nonphilosophical reality, Marxism reveals the historical prospects of philosophy's creative development through its union with nonphilosophical theory and the practical political struggle against everything philosophy condemned only speculatively, if at all. As Marx said, "Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it." (1; 3, 142) Marx condemns the speculative attitude to mankind's real problems on the part of a self-sufficient and self-satisfied philosophy. He rejects Utopian reflections on the future of mankind and uses his criticism of capitalist reality to search for a way to the future based on laws and history. Marx does not regard his criticism of reality as a force independent of reality. On the contrary, he 85 connects that criticism with the already emerging liberation struggle of the proletariat in bourgeois society. Denning the scientific significance of that partisan position, Marx says: "In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world's own principles." (1; 3, 144)
Those theses of Marx make it easier to fully grasp his last thesis on Feuerbach: philosophers only tried to explain the world in various ways whereas the task is to change it. To counter the many non-Marxist interpretations of that thesis one should stress the following: Marx does not at all reject the need for a philosophical explanation of the world. He is against reducing the mission of philosophy to the interpretation of that which exists because such self-- restriction opposes philosophy to the struggle for a radical transformation of reality. Thus the true meaning of this thesis is a categorical imperative: to make philosophy a theoretical substantiation of the need for the revolutionary transformation of the world.
Once again, the second major aspect of the Marxist negation of traditional philosophies is rejection of the opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study of reality. It is clear from the history of science that such study is never completed, its results reflect reality only approximately. Still, pre-Marxian philosophy believed its mission was to create a system of final knowledge independent of the subsequent development of cognition. It is perfectly obvious that philosophy borrowed that ideal of absolute knowledge, usually opposed to natural science and history, from, paradoxically enough, science itself---meaning, of course, not science in general but its historically definite form. For over 1,500 years both philosophers and nonphilosophical scientists regarded Euclid's geometry as a totally complete system of axioms absolutely independent of experience and requiring no further development. Nobody ever stopped to think that geometrical axioms reflected actual relationships only approximately. Nobody dared even assume that a different geometry might exist. One should, of course, remember that the level of cognition achieved was made an absolute also in formal logic which was believed to have essentially exhausted its subject. But formal logic was a part of philosophy---the part which, unlike others, 86 was usually never questioned. This explains why philosophers readily likened philosophical knowledge in general to that part of it which appeared already complete.
Thus philosophical systems directly expressed the opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study. Descartes tried to deduce the entire system of possible philosophical knowledge from cogito. Spinoza built his system more geometrico. Kant was right in showing that cogito was not a fundamental without premises because it implicitly presupposed "an awareness of the existence of other things outside myself". (73; 3, 201) Kant contrasted Spinoza's axiomatic method to the thesis he himself proved: axioms and definitions in the mathematical sense of the term are impossible in philosophy. But he still tried to build a system of pure reason as a system of complete and absolute knowledge. Sharing the illusions of his predecessors, he wrote about his philosophy: "This system is unalterable, and I hope it will remain so forever." (73; 3, 29) He expected to hand his system over to posterity "as capital not to be increased further." (73; 5, 22)
Fichte rejected Kant's dualism and returned to cogito. But he saw the latter not simply as an axiom but as activity through which the Ego regarded itself and the nonEgo, the object of its activity. Therefore Fichte viewed the deductions of the system's major categories also as creative activity by the absolute Ego, as its self-development.
Like Kant, Fichte believed his system to exhaust the subject of philosophical study---in other words, he thought his system was the system of all possible philosophical truths. Schelling labored under the same illusion---but with regard to his own system, of course. According to Schelling, absolute autonomy is an attributive characteristic of the true philosophical system which "answers for itself and conforms within itself". (95; 25)
Hegel made a brilliant attempt at building a system of dialectical idealism on the basis of a dialectical concept of development. He was right in stressing that it was precisely systems that had proven transient elements in past philosophies, because systems had been built by making an absolute of principles true only within certain bounds, outside which they are subject to dialectical negation. According to Hegel, philosophy is the self-consciousness of a definite historical era which is a necessary step in the self-- 87 development of the "absolute spirit". Viewed from this angle, the transition to a new historical era also means the emergence of a new philosophy. But the philosophy of past eras is not simply forgotten. Freed from their historical limitations, the principles of past philosophies retain their significance for the entire subsequent development of philosophy. Therefore the negation of the preceding stage in philosophical development (we should remember, naturally, that Hegel refers mostly to the development of idealism) is also the assimilation of what has been accomplished and movement toward a new and higher stage of philosophical cognition. Truth is a process; it is knowledge in development, progressing from one definition to another, more specific definition, thus forming the developing system of categorial definitions. According to Hegel, "the true form in which truth exists can only be its scientific system". (64; 2, 6) Hegel thus arrives at a new concept of philosophical system; he rejects characteristics which his predecessors accepted as constituents.
Hegel also tries to overcome the conviction that a philosophical system is deduced from an initial postulate. The system of categories in Hegel's The Science of Logic is not simply a result of deduction; rather, deduction is regarded as a means of reproducing the objective process of development, interpreted as the self-development of the substantial spirit which becomes the subject-substance. Therefore, according to Hegel, the final result of a philosophical system is its beginning which, however, has completed its development, deployment and realization. It follows that all the previous philosophies must be regarded as moments of the system of true philosophy taking shape in history. "Thus philosophy," Hegel asserts, "is in development, and so is the history of philosophy." (64; 13, 42) This understanding of philosophy (and the history of philosophy) as a developing system is Hegel's outstanding contribution to the development of philosophical knowledge.
Nevertheless, Hegel does not break with the tradition he so rightly criticizes, refusing to apply the concept of a developing system to his own philosophy. Hegel justified this conflict with his own principles by asserting that his historical era is the final stage in the philosophical development of mankind. Hegel's idealism theoretically predetermined the contradiction between his dialectical method and 88 metaphysical system; this contradiction entails a restricted retrospective interpretation of the development of philosophy. For, according to Hegel, philosophy is the self-- consciousness of the divine absolute, and its temporal development merely reflects that which is always within it. The "absolute idea" comprehends itself through the intellectual activity of mankind in the course of world history, and development ceases as a result. Thus the history of philosophy, just as the philosophy of history, is a game the divine being plays with humans, the game Hegel mischievously calls the guile of world reason.
Working on his system as an encyclopedia of philosophical sciences, Hegel inevitably comes to oppose natural philosophy to natural science, the philosophy of history to the science of history, the philosophy of law to law as a science, etc. Hegel's speculative system is realized by making an absolute of the achieved level of scientific knowledge, with its inevitable gaps. But philosophy refuses to accept blank spaces on the map of the universe, it fills them out by natural-philosophical or philosophical-historical speculation.
Contrary to Hegel's expectations, his doctrine proves the fallacy of any metaphysical system-building, that is, of any claims to a system of complete philosophical knowledge. As Engels says, "Systematics impossible after Hegel. The world clearly constitutes a single system, i.e., a coherent whole, but the knowledge of this system presupposes a knowledge of all nature and history, which man will never attain. Hence he who makes systems must fill in the countless gaps with figments of his own imagination..." (8; 400-01) In this case systematics is a metaphysical philosophical system claiming exhaustive knowledge of the world as a whole. While rejecting these systems as Utopian, Engels also emphasizes that "the world clearly constitutes a single system", thus revealing the real ontological content of the concept of a system in philosophy. Viewed from this angle, the concept cannot be reduced to rationally grouping, classifying and making a system of knowledge. The proposition that the world is a single integral whole, a system, is not merely a statement, it is rather a philosophical generalization based on the cognition of qualitatively different fragments of the universe. This generalization is justified only if it does not contradict new knowledge.
89The concept of the world as a system develops, changes and accepts corrections; that is why it contains no dogmatic precepts. In other words, to recognize the world as a single system means to recognize the fact that cognition of the world system will never be completed. This incompleteness is both quantitative and qualitative because it also applies to separate fragments. That is exactly why not only in metaphysics and natural philosophy but also in the natural and social sciences it is impossible to present the (historically limited) knowledge achieved as a complete system of final truths. One must note that already in the 18th century the more advanced scientists contrasted systematic experimental study to the absolute character of their contemporary philosophical systems. For example, Jean Le Rond D'Alembert, a prominent ally of 18th-- century French materialists, believed that a physicist must possess the "spirit of the system" (I'esprit de systeme), but that he must not succumb to the temptation of building philosophical systems that ignore facts which do not fit them and that lead to conclusions which do not follow from a theoretical analysis of the facts. Lavoisier was fully aware of the importance of the systematic method in natural science, and he himself was working on a system of elements. Nevertheless he held that the "spirit of the system is dangerous for the physical sciences" because it obscures study, instead of throwing light on its objects. (54; 708)
Negation of any dogmatic absolute of some system of interrelated philosophical precepts does not place in question the possibility or necessity of the systematic unity of philosophical knowledge. Philosophical systems are not born of the claims of outstanding philosophers. They are the inevitable result of the process of cognition. Like any knowledge in general, philosophical knowledge is limited by at least the level of its own development. But this limitation is removed by subsequent development which, of course, is not free of limitations either. According to Engels, a philosophical system "springs from an imperishable desire of the human mind---the desire to overcome all contradictions". (3; ///, 342) But resolving all contradictions is as impossible as expressing infinity in figures. Still, this consideration does not impose any limits on the systematic development of philosophical knowledge. As soon as this 90 law is recognized, philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the word comes to an end. Hegel's system completes the philosophical development that preceded it, pointing---- albeit unconsciously---the way "out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world". (3; ///, 342)
Thus Engels contrasts the concept of systematic cognition to the metaphysical concept of the philosophical (and scientific) system. The former does not merely group--- rationally, methodically (or even methodologically, epistemologically)---the available knowledge, but cognizes the systems nature inherent in all objects of both natural scientific and philosophical cognition. Naturally, systems cognition and building a system (not only in philosophy but also in any specific science) are entirely different things. But if the object of cognition is a qualitatively definite system, the study is aimed at grasping that system. In that case the development of the system of knowledge is the progressive cognition of a certain system of phenomena. This system of knowledge is synonymous with science in the modern sense of the word.
Hegel contrasts science to the gathering of information. He sees the scientific quality, truth and the systems approach as concepts of one category. "There can be nothing scientific about philosophizing without a system,'^^1^^'' he says. (64; 6, 22) Therefore, here his understanding of philosophy as a science opposed to the traditional "passion for the truth" coincides with the concept of a dialectically understood philosophical system. The latter, once again, is a developing system of philosophical knowledge.
According to Hegel, the next major characteristic of a true philosophical system is the unity of its component principles. This unity is only possible inasmuch as it rules out the making of an absolute out of special, particular principles and consequently opposing them to one another. Apparently, that is what he means by the following thesis: "A philosophy based on a limited principle distinct from others is falsely understood as a system: in actual fact, the principle of true philosophy is that it comprises all particular principles. (64; 6, 22-23) Contrary to what its critics believe, this thesis does not justify philosophical eclecticism. It refers to the dialectical negation of all particular principles from the standpoint of the universal principle---in Hegel's view? the fundamental idealist precept of 91 his monistic system. Working on an idealist system, Hegel proves that the incompatibility of various idealist doctrines stems from treating special, particular idealist precepts as absolutes. He tries to synthesize idealist doctrines in the belief that the dialectical negation of their special principles turns them into compatible elements of the true philosophical system.
Hegel has summed up the history of idealist philosophy. But because of its idealist content, his system contradicts the dialectical concept of development. The "absolute spirit" demands that philosophical development be totally completed. Despite all dialectical reservations, the principle of identity of being and thought reduces being to the ontologically interpreted thought and thus rules out the epistemological principle of reflection. Knowledge appears as identical with being; the system of knowledge is interpreted as a system of being that deploys itself and comprehends its definitions. Hegel essentially ignores the subjective human character of cognition and consequently, the contradictions between each system of knowledge and its subject, the latter as a system independent of cognition. The resolution of these contradictions and the emergence of new ones are a very important aspect in the development of cognition, and that fact also escapes Hegel. But the reflection of reality, the distortion of its image and the overcoming (within limits, of course) of that distortion are important points in the dialectics of cognition, the dialectics of truth and error.
Lenin stresses that the image of reality which is being cognized is distorted not only in judgments, speculative conclusions and theories. The distortion of the object of study is rooted in the basic acts of cognition, in the very ability to cognize which is also the ability to err---because there is, of course, no special ability to err. (10; 38, 260) Overcoming that distorted reflection of reality and arriving at an adequate reflection of the object is a complex dialectical process. Hegel's system has no place for it, because cognizing reason is idealistically interpreted as a substance that has become the subject, the absolute that possesses all possible knowledge.
Since Hegel's philosophy rejects the epistemological principle of reflection, it lacks a clear definition of the issue relating to the attitude of the systems of knowledge to 92 actual objects of study, which ai*e also systems. The concept of a system as an integral complex determining its components and itself determined by their interaction was first formulated by Marx in his study of the capitalist system of production relations. The significance of the preMarxian concepts of the system was quite limited and heuristic because they proceeded from the assumption that there existed immutable elements (similar to Democritus' atoms). The study of a system was understood as an analysis of all possible combinations of immutable components. The whole was reduced to its component parts which determined it. Changes in the position of components--- that is, structural changes---did not impart any new quality to them.
The number of elements comprising each given system (or, more precisely, whole) was also regarded as immutable, established once and for all. The system itself was therefore considered balanced; the notion of a system in development appeared incompatible with the concept of a system. The question of a system's origins was raised only occasionally---for example, by Kant (with reference to the solar system).
Marx studies the laws of the development of the capitalist system in a totally different way. He examines the structural elements of bourgeois society as fundamentally different from the economic elements of the feudal system of production, despite the fact that the market economy, monetary commercial capital, profits, interest rates, rent and the like existed under feudalism too. For example, Marx describes commodity as an economic cell of the capitalist sytsem and not otherwise.
Marx specially studies the expanded reproduction of the capitalist system, the transformation of its components, the resultant new qualitative characteristics of the capitalist system, new trends and contradictions, the concentration and centralization of capital---in other words, all the processes which determined, as proven later by Lenin, the evolution of the system of free capitalist competition into the system of monopoly capitalism, and subsequently statemonopoly capitalism. A continuation of Marx's economic studies, Lenin's theory of monopoly capitalism completes the substantiation of the historical inevitability of the transition from the system of capitalist socialization to the 93 socialist social system. According to Lenin, "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state-- capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." (10; 25, 362) The history of the emergence and development of the socialist system has fully borne out that brilliant conclusion. Its predictive value is difficult to overestimate.
The Marxist-Leninist economic analysis of capitalism is an exapmle of the systems approach which specifies, deepens and substantiates the dialectical-materialist theory of development. That is precisely what distinguishes it from the systems concepts which dominate today's bourgeois sociology and usually negate the principle of development.
The concept of system has now acquired universal significance. The systems approach is effectively applied to linguistics, biology, mathematics, mineralogy, logic, etc. The multitude of substantially different systems makes it increasingly difficult to offer a single comprehensive definition of the concept of system. Apparently, here we must also follow Marx's instructions and regard a specific definition (in this case, of a system) as a unity of different, more or less abstract definitions. Thus the very definition of the system becomes a system too. We must proceed from this methodological position in discussing the issue of philosophical systems as well.
If the concept of system has universal significance, it must be applicable to all philosophies. They are all systems, irrespective of the intentions of their authors or the ways they are set forth. Viewed from this angle, Kierkegaard's, Nietzsche's or Gabriel Marcel's rejection of philosophical systems appears only as a subjective aspect of the issue which must not be confused with the objective, systematic content of their doctrines, no matter how they were set forth (as aphorisms, diary entries, etc.).
Marxist philosophy was molded in the struggle against the metaphysical system-building which is inspired by the ideal of absolute knowledge, alien to the theory of development. Engels' Anti-Dtihring is a graphic example of the Marxist struggle against that metaphysical tradition which dominated previous philosophy. But later Marxism also opposed the antidialectical, wholesale negation of the 94 systematic nature of philosophy. That negation is typical both of irrationalism and of most neopositivists who regard philosophy not as a theory but only as a method for analyzing statements. In Lenin's words, "Marxism is the system of Marx's views and teachings." (10; 21, 50) I repeat that both Marxism as a whole and each of its component parts is a system. The development of Marxism is a graphic illustration of a developing system.
Thus the Marxist negation of traditional philosophical systems and philosophy in general in the old sense of the word substantiates a philosophical system of a new type. Marx and Engels created a dialectical-materialist philosophical system. As the Soviet philosopher F. V. Konstantinov rightly observes, their doctrine is "infinitely far from those philosophical and sociological systems which were built as systems of final and ultimate truths, that is, which claimed to have definitively solved all issues, whether there were enough facts for that or not". (26; 45) The understanding of a philosophical system as a system of both qualitatively and quantitatively immutable categories found its consummation in Kant's table of categories. He interpreted the latter as eternal and immutable structural forms of thinking. That divorced them from the development of knowledge and thus turned them into purely subjective forms of knowledge with no objective content. Kant's a priori approach was an inevitable logical conclusion from that antidialictical, formalistic understanding of categories. But the categories of logic to which he referred---just as philosophical and general scientific categories---are meaningful forms of knowledge: they comprise certain knowledge about reality which historically develops, becomes more comprehensive and reflects objective reality more adequately. Suffice it to point to the development of the category of causality which has clearly shown its meaningful character. Naturally, meaningful philosophical categories are concepts that are neither artificial nor academic distinctions.
Hegel's The Science of Logic justly raises the question about a system of developing categories. But his panlogism oversimplifies and distorts the development of categories, divorcing this process from the entire nonphilosophical development. Objective truths recorded in philosophical categories are obtained by the study of the entire diversity 95 of facts and not by the immanent self-development of understanding. Philosophical categories are historical stages in the development of cognition, they sum up in their own way the history of cognition. Like the categories of particular sciences (for example, the notion of mass in mechanics or of element in chemistry), philosophical categories approximately reflect objective reality.
Hegel was right in criticizing the authors of 17th-- century metaphysical systems for arbitrarily ascribing to being its fundamental, ontological definitions. Hegel argued that those definitions must be logically deduced as definitions of immanently developing being. Despite its dialectical approach, that position failed to lead Hegel to the historical understanding of the ontological. But epistemological historicism is necessary for a correct understanding of any knowledge (including the knowledge of the ontological definitions of being) as comprising a dual attitude: to the object of cognition and to the preceding level of cognition. In other words, cognition of an object both expresses a definite level in the development of cognition and is, to a certain degree, determined by the latter. That which cannot be cognized at one level of cognition becomes cognizable at a different historical stage. That is why all ontological definitions of objective reality should also be seen as limited by the level of knowledge attained, and therefore subject to change, correction, etc. Thus Marxist philosophy epistemologically interprets ontology and any knowledge at all, thus preventing it from becoming dogma and stimulating its further development.
Marxist philosophy rejects both epistemological skepticism and the illusion that, unlike particular sciences, philosophy offers more authentic knowledge of reality. Since scientific philosophy proceeds from scientific data, it obviously cannot claim to possess some special knowledge that differs radically from scientific knowledge. It follows that scientific philosophy, like science in general, is a study, and its results reflect reality only approximately. Of course, one must remember that a philosophical study deals with those forms of universality, integrity and unity which particular sciences divide into parts, into limited fields of study. Thus those forms become more accessible to cognition. But the universalities, integrities and unities studied by philosophy are not abstract but concrete, divided 96 by particular sciences and united by philosophy. This means that philosophy strives to grasp the unity of qualitatively definite fragments of those system realities (nature, society, man, cognition, etc.) which, divided, are studied by individual sciences.
All those reflections about the dialectical-materialist understanding of philosophy as a system can be illustrated by an example borrowed from Engels. In his Dialectics oj Nature he summed up the discussion of the infinite and its cognition and wrote: "The infinite is just as much knowable as unknowable." (9; 235) Does that mean that philosophy is fated to remain halfway on the road to the truth? Exponents of Nicolai Hartmann's "new ontology" and many other bourgeois philosophers say yes. But the meaning of that quotation from Engels is totally different. First, it refers to the inexhaustibility of the infinite: everything that remains unknown in it is also infinite. Second, Engels sees the cognition of both the finite and the infinite as an essentially single process. According to him, "All real, exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory." (9; 234)
The unity between the cognition of the particular, transitory, and finite and that of the universal, eternal, and infinite can be found both in each particular science and in philosophy, since the latter is the most common form of the theoretical integration of knowledge, a specific summing-up of the history of cognition. That determines the historical boundaries of the scientific-philosophical system of knowledge. Since those boundaries are cognized and overcome by generalizing new scientific data and new historical experience, philosophy develops and rises to a new, higher level of knowledge. Smug complacency is alien to that forward movement; philosophy is forever on the go.
Thus Marxist philosophy rejects any claim of absolute knowledge, but it differentiates between the latter and absolute truths---specific knowledge which can deal not only with the unique and particular but also with the universal. The specific is the unity of different definitions. Absolute truth is specific truth, or unity of relative truths. According to Lenin, "Each step in the development of science __PRINTERS_P_97_COMMENT__ 7-01562 97 adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge." (10; 14, 135)
Relative truth is objective; therefore, to a certain degree (to be determined) it is also absolute truth. That explains why, for all its inevitable errors, the history of cognition is also the cognition of the absolute. But, according to Engels, "The infinity of the thought which knows the absolute is composed of an infinite number of finite human minds, working side by side and successively at this infinite knowledge, committing practical and theoretical blunders, setting out from erroneous, one-sided, and false premises, pursuing false, tortuous, and uncertain paths, and often not even finding what is right when they run their noses against it." (9; 234) Still, despite the relative, contradictory and incomplete nature of any knowledge, cognition of the absolute is an actual process. To quote Engels again, "All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and hence essentially absolute." (9; 234) In developing philosophy as a scientific-philosophical system of seeing the world, Marxism admits the qualitative change in the place that philosophy occupies in the system of philosophical knowledge. In this connection bourgeois philosophers bemoan philosophy's fate, claiming that its role is constantly declining. But it is only the role of idealist philosophy that is being eroded. The part Marxist-Leninist philosophy plays in the system of developing scientific knowledge is growing, and it increasingly relies on joint research by philosophers who share the same views. The forms of scientific cooperation in philosophy are essentially similar to those of research in modern science. Such a philosophy is an open system---open, naturally, to real and not alleged philosophical accomplishments.
Philosophical generalizations of the world outlook and methodology stimulate integration of scientific knowledge in today's democratic commonwealth of the sciences. Philosophy assimilates the achievements of the natural and social sciences. Particular sciences assimilate the results of philosophical development. Philosophical problems arise in almost every field of fundamental scientific research. Essentially new problems concerning both special scientific issues and those of philosophy, and the view of the world 98 emerge in the borderline areas separating philosophy from particular sciences. Scientific philosophy becomes social consciousness not only in content but also in the way it functions. Could it be that the future holds an even greater recognition of philosophy as a science, as a developing system of knowledge about science and the view of the world?
__PRINTERS_P_99_COMMENT__ 7* [99] __ALPHA_LVL0__ The End. [END] Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1982/DMHP286/20100608/199.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.06.12) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ __ALPHA_LVL2__ PHILOSOPHY AND EVERYDAYThe traditional, age-old concept of philosophy is directly associated with the opposition of philosophical reflection to ``unthinking'', everyday consciousness. The latter is described as something possessed by all, including ignorant people. No doubt, a critical attitude to everyday consciousness and its basis, everyday experience, is both necessary and justified. But the history of philosophy shows that traditional philosophical criticism of everyday consciousness (and everyday experience) usually fails to understand the necessary organic connection of philosophy (and science) to these phenomena of everyday social developments. The correlation "philosophy---everyday experience" can only be correctly understood as a unity of opposites comprising not only opposition but also the moment of identity.
The sentence repeatedly passed by speculative idealist philosophy on the materialist understanding of the world was usually the following: materialism is not philosophy but everyday consciousness which, lacking intellectual culture, uncritically approaches its own premises and does not even suspect the need for a critical analysis of sense impressions and of its own confidence in their correctness. Since everyday consciousness is not a speculative myth but something actually existing, we should examine the true attitude of materialism and idealism to that form of reflection of the objective world. Everyday consciousness can be studied by sociology, history, social pshychology, ethnography and other sciences. But here we shall deal with the epistemological and historical-philosophical aspects of the issue.
Historical materialism differentiates between social and individual consciousness. Individual consciousness, is, of course, also social. But unlike art, morals, religion and other forms of social consciousness, it is the immediate
100consciousness of individuals. According to Engels, thought exists "only as the individual thought of many milliards of past, present and future men". (8; 105) The same is true of everyday consciousness too: that form of social consciousness does not directly depend on the purposeful and planned cognitive activity of men. The shaping of everyday consciousness (and of everyday experience, its basis) is mostly a spontaneous process, and its necessary elements include involuntary memory. A large part of everyday experience is acquired" unnoticed, simply because a man lives, comes in contact with other individuals, reacts to his environment, to developments in his personal life and society, without realizing what has left an imprint on his consciousness and become part of his personal experience.
Everyday consciousness is a multi-layered, complex and contradictory entity composed of a multitude of perceptions, emotions and concepts that are generated and continuously reproduced by the relatively constant and familiar conditions surrounding individuals. The diversity, historical transformation and development of those conditions are echoed in the historically developing diversity of everyday experience and everyday consciousness, its concomitant, through which this experience is perceived, interpreted and applied in knowledge and practical activity. We encounter concepts of everyday consciousness everywhere. They are, first and foremost, empirical notions consisting partly of relative truths and partly of illusions and errors: water boils at 100° C; gold does not rust; the sun rises in the morning and sets in the evening; money in a savings bank pays interest. Proverbs are classic expressions of everyday consciousness, polished to perfection by the ages; they are the quintessence of popular wisdom ("life is not a bed of roses"), the class instinct of the oppressed and exploited ("satiety can't feel for"), popular fears and hopes.
In his economic and historical studies Marx has shown that unscientific political economy records and theoretically substantiates everyday concepts of the bourgeoisie: land produces rent; capital, profit; and labor, merely wages. Marx has exposed the unscientific essence of those concepts, elevated by crude political economy to the status of theoretical dogma, and proved that only live labor produces value, surplus value and its modifications. At the
101same time, he has also explained that the false formula of unscientific political economists reflects a certain type of reality, since the owner of capital does make profit, the landowner does receive rent, and the working man is paid wages for his labor. In this case everyday bourgeois consciousness superficially reflects capitalist production relations. It reflects the appearances generated by typically capitalist ways of redistributing the surplus value produced by the proletariat among various groups of capitalists. . As Marx pointed out, petty-bourgeois ideology theoretically sums up the everyday notions of the petty bourgeoisie. In other words, for all its theoretical guise, it does not rise above class prejudices. Although the education and personal status of its ideologists may be infinitely better than those of the petty bourgeoisie, they still represent that class because "in their minds they do not get beyond the limits which the latter do not get beyond in life, they are consequently driven, theoretically, to the same problems and solutions to which material interest and social position drive the latter in practice." (1; 11, 130-31) Unlike petty-bourgeois ideology, scientific socialist ideology overcomes the spontaneous, trade-unionist everyday consciousness of the workers, bringing into it the realization of the need for revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie and the destruction of the capitalist mode of production. This is how Engels outlines the fundamental difference between everyday notions and scientific concepts: "For everyday purposes we know and can say, e.g., whether an animal is alive or not. But, upon closer inquiry, we find that this is, in many cases, a very complex question." (8; 32) The contradiction between a scientific understanding of reality and its reflection in the notions of everyday experience is inevitably a paradox if perceived from the standpoint of everyday consciousness. According to Marx, "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive appearance of things." (1; 2, 54) Today, Gaston Bachelard, a prominent French philosopher, analyzes the major characteristics of 20th-century natural science and arrives at the same conclusion Marx made in his socio-economic studies over 100 years ago: "Any new truth is born despite the obvious, any new experience arises despite direct experience." (36; 7)
102Aside from its empirical and ideological content, another prominent feature of everyday consciousness is its religious aspect, especially important in antagonistic society. Unlike theological pseudoscience, religious consciousness is also everyday, although both theologians and idealist philosophers refuse to accept it as such. Self-alienation, the division of the world into the imaginary and the real have been noted by Marx as features of the religious reflection of reality, and they are expressed in the contradictory nature of everyday consciousness which combines empirical experience with fantastic religious notions. In their practical everyday activity, believers almost always act the way unbelievers do: they disregard the religious interpretation of the transcendental origin of any existing thing, they are guided by empirically established causes, effects, etc. But that spontaneous irreligious trend (borne out by conscious activity and knowledge) constantly runs into the traditional religious notions which are introduced into men's minds not only through antagonistic social relations but also through upbringing and education. This dichotomy forces the believer to judge things and his own life from two diametrically opposed and even mutually exclusive standpoints. Naturally, he can neither reconcile his religious feeling to his own irreligious approach, nor overcome the doubts whose deep social roots he does not understand.
It follows that everyday consciousness cannot be reduced only to everyday experience, its factual basis. It faces both the real, ``this'' world and the nonexistent ``other'' world. Therefore it is wrong to identify everyday consciousness with common sense, although the latter is undoubtedly a vital component of the former.
Since everyday consciousness remains itself---that is, does not rise to a scientific interpretation of the world---it is incapable of critically analyzing its own content in which realistic and irrational notions collide, overlap and blend together. Irrational notions can be not only religious but simply unscientific or antiscientinc. That is why sound common sense is often far from really sound.
In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel speaks ironically about Dietrich Tiedemann's claim (made in his Spirit of Speculative Philosophy) that Gorgias goes farther than a mati of common sense. Hegel remarks that
103every philosopher "goes farther than common sense because what is usually called common sense is not philosophy, and is often much less sound than the latter. Common sense comprises the way of thinking, maxims and prejudices of its time .. . and it is absolutely unaware of the intellectual definitions of its time guiding it." (64; 14, 36) Lenin quotes this remark in his notes on Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy and follows it with "common sense=the prejudices of its time". (10; 38, 273) This formula should be interpreted rather as a summary of Hegel's thesis and recognition of its relative correctness than as Lenin's own evaluation of common sense. It is clear from numerous remarks made by Lenin that he resolutely rejected one-sided evaluations of everyday consciousness. For example, while noting that "common sense" regards the latest discoveries in physics as outlandish (10; 14, 261), Lenin condemns Hegel's attempts at removing the rational content from notions based on everyday experience which not only gives rise to but also daily checks, corrects and confirms those notions. When Hegel declares that Epicurus' recognition of the correctness of "perceived being" "does not at all rise above the viewpoint of everyday common sense", Lenin says that critical remark distorts the essence of materialism: " Disagreement with 'common sense' is the foul quirk of an idealist." (10; 38, 291)
The need to distinguish between scientific, philosophical ,and everyday concepts was already recognized in ancient Greece: Democritus demanded that a distinction be made between that which is true and that which exists only in opinion. Francis Bacon's doctrine of idols also contains criticism of everyday consciousness and, which is equally important, everyday language. However, his criticism does not negate the cognitive value of everyday consciousness but tries to purify it, correct its concepts, take account of the truth it contains, and go further. In creatively developing the materialist tradition, dialectical materialism has proved that the contradiction between theoretical knowledge and direct sensory data does not in the least undermine the significance of the latter. Consequently, it does not refute the sensationalist thesis about the sensory origins of abstract ideas. Usually, this dialectical contradiction between the rational and the sensuous is incompre-
104hensible to everyday consciousness because it persists in recognizing only that which can be verified by the senses. That is why the concepts and norms of common sense, which reflect certain aspects of reality more or less adequately, cannot guide a scientific study: the latter's field is immeasurably greater and more significant than that with which everyday consciousness deals and which inevitably limits its competence. A conflict between scientific concepts and common sense does not refute the former: only science and practice can refute or confirm them. Hence this quotation from Engels: "Sound common sense, respectable fellow that he is in the homely realm of his own four walls, has very wonderful adventures directly he ventures out into the wide world of research." (8; 31)
We all remember how common sense argued against the heliocentric system, non-Euclidian geometry and the theory of relativity. But it was not only everyday consciousness but also the conservative contemporaries of Copernicus, Lobachevsky and Einstein in the academic world who persisted in their refusal to recognize Earth's revolutions around the Sun or the seemingly paradoxical theories of Lobachevsky and Einstein. Conservative scientists did not rise above everyday common sense, maintaining that "it is impossible because it cannot be''.
But in contrasting everyday and scientific consciousness we should not ignore the diversity of everyday consciousness which accumulates not only familiar notions within the environment immediately surrrounding men but also their versatile experience, especially that gained in production activities. That experience serves as a basis for scientific conclusions too. For example, according to Professor Kolmogorov, a noted Soviet scientist, Euclid's geometrical axioms reflect facts deduced from everyday experience: "In the final analysis, confidence in the correctness of axioms is always of experimental origin. If the experience underlying this confidence is a case of pre-scientific experience shared by all mankind and turned into a spontaneous conviction that does not cite any specific observation as proof, then we are dealing with an obvious truth. The axioms of elementary geometry are a case in point." (25; 394) Euclid himself described axioms as everyday notions.
105Man had learned to raise crops, build houses and smelt metals long before science began to study these production processes. Agronomy, construction engineering and metallurgy all paid due account to everyday production experience, that is, to the everyday notions which guided man in their work. As to prejudice, it is not confined exclusively to everyday consciousness: the history of science shows that it is common in scientific (or pseudoscientific) theories.
Hegel, who thoroughly examined the opposition of the dialectical and metaphysical modes of thinking, fully identified everyday (in his own words, reasoning) consciousness with the metaphysical view of the world. Describing the objections of everyday consciousness to the doctrines of ancient Greek Sophists as "the cry of common sense which knows no other way to help itself" (64; 14, 7), Hegel maintained that everyday reason would inevitably lapse into sophistry because it treated the truths and maxims it was guided by as absolutes.
Hegel correctly identified the typical features of a definite historical form of everyday consciousness, but he made the same mistake (which he himself exposed) believing that the metaphysical limitations of everyday consciousness were something extrahistorical and insurmountable. That negative assessment of everyday consciousness stemmed from the rationalist-idealist nature of Hegel's philosophy which claimed that the outside world perceived through the senses is only an appearance (albeit objective), and that it is the only realm of everyday consciousness. Philosophy, Hegel claimed, differs from everyday consciousness in that it regards only as a phenomenon that which everyday consciousness presents as existing.
A specific historical analysis of everyday consciousness leads to a conclusion that was totally alien to Hegel's philosophy despite its historicism: the metaphysical features of everyday consciousness were products of the same age that gave rise to metaphysical thinking in science. *
* Engels pointed to the metaphysical limitations of everyday bourgeois common sense: "The jaded cart-horse of the commonplace bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the ditch separating substance from appearance, and cause from effect; but one should not ride cart-horses if one intends to go coursing over the very rough ground of abstract reasoning". (6; 223)
106There is no absolute opposition between everyday and not everyday (scieatific, philosophical) consciousness. Everyday consciousness does not exist in isolation, and today it is not so commonplace as it was 100 years ago. It evolves, but it does not disappear. To a certain degree, it becomes more intellectual because it is affected by culture and education, and scientific concepts find their way into it; and still it remains everyday and commonplace. The same applies to commonplace, everyday experience which is limited compared to the special experience of science. Everyday consciousness assimilates experience, knowledge, ideas and certain scientific concepts; but it is not independent in assessing their cognitive value. People use them as stereotypes of sorts for picking their way in the sphere of their everyday, nonprofessional occupations and interests.
Today, men have the telephone, the radio, the television set, the automobile, the cinema and other achievements of science and technology at their disposal, but they usually have a rather vague notion of the scientific laws underlying the operation of those devices. The individual is content to know their purpose, to be able to use and enjoy them, and to know where to apply should they malfunction. And it is impossible and even useless for him to understand everything that is clear to physicists, mechanics, electrical and radio engineers and other specialists. But because of specialization, scientists themselves are quite vague about those accomplishments of science and technology which they use but which are not connected more or less directly with their own fields. So here, too, there is no absolute opposition between everyday and scientific consciousness. Nowadays, there are no people whose consciousness is either purely scientific or purely everyday. Both those forms of human consciousness are inseparable.
Thus the Marxist understanding of everyday consciousness is based on the admission of diversity in man's relationship with objective reality, both natural and social. As an agent discovering the infinity of the universe, learning and mastering its laws, creating "the second environment" and thus shaping himself, man shapes and develops his scientific consciousness. But as someone merely finding his way in his immediate environment and adapting to it by using tried and tested methods, man is a creature of
107everyday consciousness which combines reason and prejudice, real knowledge and illusion in the most unexpected and contradictory ways.
Since everyday consciousness remains based on everyday experience, it is empirical and thus undoubtedly hostile to idealism, a fact reflected in the speculative-idealist criticism of it. Still, once again, it is not always based exclusively on everyday experience and practice. As we see from ancient philosophy (which emerged before science and interpreted everyday experience), everyday consciousness comprises prototypes of both materialist and idealist views. In that sense, idealism, as well as materialism, relies on concepts of everyday consciousness. And materialists, as well as idealists, argue with it.
Materialism relies on "naive realism" of everyday consciousness; idealism, on its subjectivist notions. Materialism criticizes everyday consciousness from the left; idealism, from the right. Materialism argues against the prejudice of everyday consciousness; idealism (usually but not always), against common sense. A classic example of the latter is Tertullian's claim that religious faith must not fear the absurd which common sense rejects. But the history of Christianity and related philosophies proves that Christian theology and the idealist philosophies which support it try to reach their goal both by criticizing common sense (Protestantism, Protestant neo-orthodoxy) and by appealing to everyday reason (Catholicism, neo-Thomism).
Thomas Aquinas, who proclaimed the harmony of religion and reason, tried to prove that the latter, proceeding from facts of everyday experience, logically and inevitably concludes that God exists. For example, an object moves because motion has been imparted to it. Hence, according to Thomas Aquinas, the logical conclusion that a moving object is impossible without something moving it. But if the mover is itself in motion, it is also a moving object, that is, it has its own mover. This chain cannot be endless because in that case no motion could have a beginning in time. Therefore there must exist something that imparts motion while being itself motionless, i.e., the first cause.
Thomas Aquinas and his medieval followers supported their appeal to reason as something indisputable by putting a mystical construction on that human ability which
108they proclaimed to be identical for all men, irrespective of the conditions they lived in and the knowledge they possessed---that is, something innate, bestowed on the human soul from above. For example, the 16th-century Thomist Dictionary of Philosophical Sciences asserted that common sense "is exactly the same in all men and in all ages; it neither advances nor retreats. It is, as it were, reason in its primordial state (I'etat brut), reason without reflection and without science." (75; 971) Obviously, such raison a I'etat brut, ``untainted'' by reflection or education, readily admits that the existence of God is logically demonstrable. This explains why modern Thomists fully share the views of their medieval forerunners about immutability of everyday experience (allegedly stemming from immutability of human nature). Viewed from that angle, philosophy corresponds to its concent---that is, operates as authentic philosophical knowledge---only when it is connected solely to everyday experience, interpreting its content. In that case philosophy is independent of science, which can neither refute nor confirm fundamentals of philosophy because science deals with special---that is, scientific---experience. In the neo-Thomist view, all philosophers are contemporaries because they all interpret everyday experience which is unchanging and common to everyone. That experience contains neither affirmation nor negation, is neither true nor false, but a totality of immediate experiences of reality and one's own life. The neo-Thomist apologia of everyday consciousness and experience---just as the attempt to prove the independence of their basic content of time and space, of science and special scientific experience---is aimed at acquitting the theological philosophy of Thomas Aquinas: he is treated as our contemporary on the grounds that everyday experience cannot become obsolete. According to neo-Thomists, Thomism flows directly from the pure source of common sense, untainted by speculation; and because of its essential immutability, common sense must be understood as the extrahistorical spiritual human faculty bestowed on us from above. Rejecting the Thomist view of some neutral and mute everyday experience which is the only thing philosophy is supposed to study, Gaston Bachelard aptly remarks: "After the age-old dialogue between the world and the spirit, one can no longer talk about mute experience." (36; 8)
109In the 18th century, French materialists spared no effort in exposing the attempts of Catholic theologians and philosophers at using the authority of common sense to justify their fantastic religious notions. Holbach asserted that man can reason soundly only when he is healthy, "when his soul is neither troubled by fear nor changed by illness nor disturbed by passions". (77; 138) Sound reason, he maintained, cannot reconcile itself to religion which "demands that we firmly believe in things that are not evident and in propositions that are either barely probable or greatly contrary to reason". (76; 142)
Whereas French materialists proved that religion was incompatible with reason, the Scottish "philosophy of common sense" saw its principal mission in proving the opposite. Thomas Reid, the foremost proponent of that school, maintained in his Enquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764) that the admission of the existence of the outside world cannot be based on the evidence supplied by sensory organs because that evidence is only valuable inasmuch as it commands credence. Common sense is the original ability to believe which precedes sense perception and reflection and leads to the admission of both the external world and God. Thus a lack of faith in God is as contrary to reason as the refusal to believe that the objects reported by the senses are real. Therefore, according to Reid, rejecting religious faith is tantamount to refusing to believe that the outside world is real.
Thus, historically, both materialism and idealism have claimed to represent common sense. And although because of its organic contradictions everyday consciousness obviously sustains opposite philosophies, the everyday experience it reflects---the experience shared by all mankind, and constantly enriched and confirmed by social practice--- contradicts idealism and serves as one of the starting points of the materialist world view. Lenin repeatedly stressed that very important aspect of the issue of the relationship between everyday consciousness and philosophy. He criticized those idealists who tried to use the "naive realism" of everyday consciousness to substantiate their antimaterialist concepts. One of those was George Berkeley, a subjective idealist who said, "I endeavour to vindicate common sense." (37; 102) This assertion, at
110first glance a complete paradox since it is made within the framework of a subjective-idealist system, becomes clear if we recall that Berkeley idealistically interpreted empiricism based on everyday experience. Today, idealist empiricism often proclaims its dedication to ordinary common sense. For example, in substantiating his subjectivistagnostic epistemology, Karl Popper proclaims: "I was always a commonsense philosopher, and a commonsense realist. .. I was thoroughly opposed to every idealism, positivism, or even neutralism in philosophy." (90; 322-23) Typically, the pseudonegation of idealism by today's bourgeois idealist philosophers is presented as agreement with everyday experience. This is indirect proof of the fact that the main content of everyday experience is largely in favor of materialism. In his monograph on Charles Peirce, the Soviet philosopher Yu. K. Melvil notes that this founder of American pragmatism described his doctrine as a philosophy of "critical common sense". Common sense is presented as comprising ideas and beliefs that are "the result of human experience handed down from generation to generation". (29; 382)
Lenin criticized the Machist attempts to portray subjectivist-idealist empiricism as the viewpoint of unbiased everyday consciousness which allegedly knows only sensations and their complexes and refuses to recognize anything different, that which cannot be sensed. "The reference to 'naive realism', supposedly defended by this philosophy, is sophistry of the cheapest kind," Lenin wrote. "The 'naive realism' of any healthy person who has not been an inmate of a lunatic asylum or a pupil of the idealist philosophers consists in the view that things, the environment, the world, exist independently of our sensation, of our consciousness, of our self and of man in general. .. Materialism deliberately makes the `naive' belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge." * (10; 14, 69-70)
* In his Philosophical Notebooks Lenin stresses that forms of logic are organically linked to everyday practice: "Man's practice, repeating itself a thousand million times, becomes consolidated in man's consciousness by figures of logic. Precisely (and only) on account of this thousand-million-fold repetition, these figures have the stability of a prejudice, an axiomatic character." (10; 38, 217).
Ill
Even in its undeveloped form, materialism goes much further than naive realism and critically analyzes both the prejudices and the empirical content of everyday consciousness. In its more advanced modern form, materialism studies the dialectics of the active reflection-- knowledge, reflection-study of objective reality, correcting the naive idea about the direct reflection of the outside world by sense perception, about the identity of the image with the object reflected in it. This viewpoint dialectically negates naive realism but retains and develops the truth it contains. It follows that the precepts of materialist, and especially dialectical-materialist philosophy do not merely transcend the bounds of everyday consciousness and its empirical notions, but also contradict the latter. Everyday consciousness, inasmuch as it is not permeated with the relevant scentific concepts, is incapable of grasping the self-propulsion of matter, the unity of mutually determining and mutually exclusive opposites, etc. That is not explained by the metaphysical (as asserted by Hegel) nature of everyday consciousness but simply by the fact that the content of dialectical thinking is too versatile to fit into the framework of the limited everyday experience of individuals.
Usually, today's positivism, which differs from Machism in its rejection of the empirical origin of mathematical and logical precepts, does not ally itself with "naive realism" but instead dismisses it as an unscientific view of the world. Trying to overcome the spontaneous materialist notions of common sense, neopositivists almost invariably accuse it of a theological bias. They refuse in principle to distinguish between reason and prejudice or to analyze the contradictions of everyday consciousness. For example, Philipp Frank wants the philosophical terms that mark the distinction between materialism and idealism to be banished from the philosophical vocabulary because the concepts those terms denote are historically rooted in notions of everyday consciousness. In his Philosophy of Science he maintains: "Expressions like `matter', `mind', 'cause and effect', and similar ones are today merely commonsense terms, and have no place in strictly scientific discourse." (55; 45-6) That same book also holds that "the central problem in the philosophy of science is how we get from commonsense statements to general scientific
112principles". (55; 2) This thesis correctly identifies an important epistemological problem, which, however, neopositivism is unable to solve because it totally opposes science to everyday experience. According to neopositivism, since science recognizes the existence of matter, consciousness and determinism, it remains on the level of everyday consciousness and its language. That claim subjectively distorts the accomplishments of science which has discovered nonsubstantial forms of matter, revealed the complex physiological mechanism of psychological actions, and abandoned the mechanistic concepts of determinism. Those discoveries and related theoretical conclusions do not at all imply that a scientist operating with the concept of `` matter'' is at the same level as a housewife.
Proclaiming his opposition to the identity of scientific and everyday language, Frank is essentially trying to get rid of matter, a task long laid down by George Berkeley. According to the latter, "The only thing whose existence we deny, is that which philosophers call matter or corporeal substance." (37; 2, 55) But apparently Frank is more consistent than Berkeley because he denies the existence of both consciousness (he contrasts it to matter) and causality, the categories directly related to the key philosophical issue: about the causal relationship of matter and consciousness.
In the final analysis, the neopositivist "revolution in philosophy" rejects all past philosophy with its age-old issues. The latter are presented as a disorderly multitude of unverifiable and undemonstrable views, unable to rise above everyday consciousness and naively probing questions that cannot be answered because they are phantoms devoid of real content. That is precisely the meaning of Wittgenstein's pronouncement asserting that what cannot be discussed should not be spoken about. * This means that people without a proper (in the ``modern'', neopositivist sense of the word) philosophical education argue about whether the world is finite or infinite, knowable or unknowable, etc. Meanwhile, the philosopher (neopositivist) is silent: those issues cannot be answered because they are
* In this Wittgenstein obviously echoes Nietzsche's "Sometimes, as the saying hints, one can only stay a philosopher if one keeps silent." (89; 2, 14). That is not the only case of positivist scientism putting its own construction on irrationalist theses.
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pseudoissues. But, presenting the age-old philosophical consciousness as everyday, neopositivists fail to notice that their renunciation of the so-called metaphysics--- meaning the problems belonging to philosophy proper---is rather similar to ordinary common sense which dismisses philosophical issues and regards their discussion as empty talk unworthy of serious people.
Everyday consciousness appears idyllic, serene and perhaps even carefree if viewed in the epistemological aspect--- that is, as empirical self-consciousness, the comprehension of the outer environment, reasonably arguing that the jself is the self and therefore the self is not a cloud, a rock, a donkey, etc. But viewed from another angle, as a totality of everyday experiences---that is, all the joys and sorrows, hopes and disappointments that comprise everyday life---that everyday consciousness appears continuously turbulent. Scientific and philosophical consciousness appear as something similar to the ancient Greek ataraxia in comparison. This aspect of everyday consciousness, previously studied by the philosophical doctrines of affects (both by materialists and idealists), has now been almost totally annexed by existentialism. The latter revives in its own way the opposition of philosophy to the so-called positive sciences and regards them as practical, utilitarian, pragmatic and therefore unable to probe the being of that which exists, that is, not rising above everyday consciousness.
Existentialism opposes the natural scientific descriptions of objective reality with a hermeneutic description of man's being, defined as worry, fear, being-in-the-world, freedom, etc. Essentially, it is the emotion that fills the everyday existence of individuals. Existentialism interprets those emotions in the spirit of Husserl's phenomenology, divorces them from the empirical source and declares to be existential, that is, a priori inherent to man's selfness. In that connection, Heidegger and Sartre, following Kierkegaard, draw an essential dividing line between fear (Furcht, la peur), generated by external empirical causes and allegedly insignificant as far as ``existence'' is concerned, and anguish (Angst, I'angoisse), caused by the ``existence'' itself and therefore insurmountable. An existentialist regards existential consciousness as cleansed of its everyday aspect, of philistine conformism, because it
114experiences fear not of a definite, substantial danger, but of the very existence, perceived as dangerous, fragile, unstable---in other words, because the existence is afraid of itself.
Existentialists castigate the ``vulgar'' (everyday) fear of death, a fear based on perfectly real empirical causes, and contrast it to the existential fear of the ultimate possibility, the possibility not to be, which, in their view, has no connection with the everyday existence of individuals among other individuals who live and die. Those who temporarily stay alive thus acquire a perfectly empirical notion first of others' mortality and then of their own.
All existentialism argues furiously against everyday existence, presented as faceless, illusory and meaningless, against everyday, spontaneously materialist consciousness, allegedly reflecting not reality but pseudoreal ordinariness. An existentialist describes everyday consciousness as alienated (although that can only be true of some of its aspects), claiming that only the existentialist self-consciousness of existence, renouncing everything mundane, overcomes alienation. But the "ontological solitude" of the existential self-consciousness mystically reflects the actual alienation of the personality in bourgeois society; essentially, existential consciousness is refined everyday consciousness.
Existentialism criticizes everyday consciousness as allegedly incompatible with the grasping of the substance of being. According to Heidegger, philosophy violates itself when it reckons with objections voiced by common sense, because the latter cannot see that to which it objects. Philosophy, Heidegger writes, "cannot refute ordinary common sense because it is deaf to its language". (65; 6) But existentialism itself, while fighting the mundane (and to a certain degree really exposing the depersonalizing influence of bourgeois relations), limits philosophical problems to a detailed description of everyday consciousness, emotions and concepts. Although Husserl's subjectivistidealist phenomenology does distil them, yet for all its criticism, existentialism is not much interested in all that lies beyond the everyday consciousness and the ordinary (and negatively interpreted) emotions it criticizes so harshly. It sees nothing worth noting in everyday life, especially in social intercourse because its
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misanthropic interpretation of existence offers no place for things like work, love or knowledge. * Existentialist philosophy borrows even its theory of ``extreme'' (critical) situations, which elevate man above prosaic everyday life, from everyday notions of impending death, irredeemable sin, etc. Paradoxically, a philosophy claiming to oppose quite uncompromisingly everything ordinary is incapable, due to its extreme individualist limitations, of extricating itself from the quagmire of everyday bourgeois routine.
Unlike existentialism, Marxist philosophy critically analyzes everyday existence and the relevant everyday concepts and emotions as historically definite social phenomena which do not remain unchanged throughout history but are changed in the course of the communist transformation of society. Medieval scholasticism maintained that common sense is the awareness of certain fundamental principles, independent of the time and place and identical with all people; but today there is no longer any need to prove that common sense and everyday consciousness as a whole, reflect the social environment and change together with it.
Indeed, from the point of view of both mundane common sense and science and philosophy (materialist philosophy, too) in, say, the 18th or early 19th centuries, the very idea of a cubic centimeter of substance containing a huge amount of energy was not only absurd but also extremely mystical, and making no distinction between the supernatural (unreal) and the natural (really existing or possible).
Today, both science and philosophy are very cautious in their interpretation of the notion ``impossible''. Meanwhile, everyday consciousness has grown used to the miracles worked by man's intellect and can hardly be shaken by scientific and technological breakthroughs. It has not yet lost its sense of wonder, but it firmly believes that there are no miracles---at least not in the field of science and technology.
* Here I do not refer to the ``optimistic'' version of existentialism (Abbagnano, Bolnpw and others) which tries (albeit in vain) to overcome the pessimistic interpretation of positive emotions (joys of family life, holidays, customs, etc.) typical of ``classical'' existentialism, because the truly positive, significant and genuine content of life is basically incompatible with the existentialist approach to the world. The Soviet philosopher A. S. Bogomolov has substantially and scientifically analyzed that latest type of existentialism.
116Everyday religious consciousness has also changed (where it has at all survived). In all probability, no one believes any more that God created the world in six days, if only because it is common knowledge that days (and nights) came into being after Earth had taken shape and begun to rotate on its axis. This explains the genuine despair of Berdayev who said that most people, including Christians, had turned materialist because they believed only in the material power---military or economic---and not in the power of the spirit. The Protestant Church has reconciled itself to this situation and no longer requires its adherents to accept all the dogmata: it is enough to believe that God and Jesus Christ His son exist.
In his The Condition of the Working-Class in England Engels offered the following description of the life and spiritual development of British workers on the eve of the industrial revolution: "They could rarely read and far more rarely write; went regularly to church, never talked politics, never conspired, never thought, delighted in physical exercises, listened with inherited reverence when the Bible was read, and were, in their unquestioning humility, exceedingly well-disposed towards the 'superior classes'... They were comfortable in their silent vegetation, and but for the industrial revolution they would never have emerged from this existence, which cosily romantic as it was, was nevertheless not worthy of human beings." (1; 4, 309) There is no need to describe here the tremendous changes in the consciousness of all the working people brought about by subsequent developments which led to the establishment of the new, socialist system first in the USSR and then in many other countries. The victory of socialism radically changed everyday consciousness. In capitalist countries, too, mass consciousness has changed greatly. As Jacque Maritain, a prominent Catholic philosopher, remarked, "Nobody wants to die for capitalism any more---- neither in Asia, nor in Africa nor in Europe." (84; 124) This admission by an opponent of Marxism is evidence that there is increasing realization among the exploited masses that only destruction of capitalism can bring about their social emancipation.
I do not propose here to analyze the impact of socioeconomic, scientific and technological progress on everyday consciousness. I would only note the major aspects of that
117historical process: it supplants irrational notions and other groundless beliefs in everyday consciousness and brings everyday and scientific consciousness closer together which, however, does not cancel out their substantial difference. Everyday consciousness becomes increasingly rational, moral, discriminating, esthetically demanding, independent and critical. It no longer merely adapts to the existing conditions but plays an ever more active part in man's creative activity. All that greatly changes the relationships between philosophy and everyday consciousness and experience. The latter is an integral part of social practice, which underlies all forms of knowledge.
[118] __NUMERIC_LVL1__ 2 __ALPHA_LVL1__ DIALECTICAL MATERIALISMImmanuel Kant, the father of classical German philosophy, both followed and criticized 17th-century rationalism. Like philosophical empiricism, philosophical rationalism is the bourgeois self-consciousness of the era of emergent capitalist mode of production. Its distinctly antifeudal character is evident in the rationalist conviction that the " natural light of reason" (lumen naturale) is innate to every human being irrespective of his intellectual abilities or education. According to Descartes, "the ability to reason and to distinguish truth from error---which is usually called common sense or reason---is naturally equal in all men". (45; 27) The thesis is not merely a theoretical conviction but an ideological declaration of the antifeudal, bourgeois revolutionary movement.
Rationalists were intransigent in their opposition to scholasticism, although the latter, unlike medieval mysticism, also appealed to reason and logic. They exposed the fallacy of scholastic dogma which maintained that theology was on top of the hierarchical ladder of knowledge, science was at the bottom, and philosophy in between. Rationalism proclaimed science to be the highest form of theoretical knowledge, and reason, the highest scientific authority. Turning to the "great book of the world"---that is, to nature---Descartes considered it a matter of paramount importance to create a philosophy that would help in harnessing the elemental forces of nature.
The rationalist struggle against scholastic philosophizing spread far beyond the bounds of the specific historical situation which generated, shaped and inspired it. It was a struggle against all that was uncritically taken for granted ---that is, against dogmatic thinking which ignored the
121need for analyzing, checking and substantiating its assertions, assumptions and precepts/^^5^^'
Like rationalists, Kant regarded the critique of dogmatism as the foremost task of philosophy. In his words, "Our age is truly an age of critique to which everything must bow. Religion, because of its holiness, and law, because of its greatness, want to be outside the realm of that critique. But in that case they understandably rouse suspicion and can no longer count on the genuine respect with which reason treats only something that can withstand its free and open trial." (73; 3, 7) In demanding a consistent and sweeping critical analysis, Kant went much further than 17th-century rationalists because he stressed the need for a critical analysis of reason itself too.
Rationalists maintained that bourgeois transformations were necessary because social institutions were to be changed to conform to rational human nature, to the requirements of universal reason. This identification of bourgeois transformations with the realization of the ideals of reason was the uncritical aspect of the rationalist concept of reason, which was pictured as an absolute and autonomous ability to comprehend, evaluate, judge and establish norms, an ability independent of both sense perception and social conditions. In the rationalist view, reason never errs. According to Descartes, error is rooted in the will which is guilty of wishful thinking. Spinoza and Leibniz thought it was rooted in sense perception which was allegedly vague by its very nature and led to wrong conclusions if treated as a basis of speculation.
Rationalists arrived at the concept of pure reason---that is, of thought independent of sense perception and, in their opinion, able to overcome the inevitable limitations of sensory data. The importance of the latter was clearly underrated. Kant accepted the concept of pure reason but rejected its rationalist interpretation. It his view, reason's claim to supraexperimental knowledge outside experience was
* One must admit in this connection that the cult of reason (in the comprehensive sense of the term) permeated not only rationalism but all ideologies of progressive 17th-century bourgeoisie, including philosophical empiricism. Locke wrote: "Reason must be our last judge and guide in everything." (78; 295). However, this does not mean that the rationalist and the empiricist concepts of reason were identical.
122among man's greatest theoretical errors. Kant revised the rationalist doctrine of the causes of error, proving that sense perception, affect, could not deceive us because it was not a judgment. It is the mind and reason that are guilty of error---and not because they proceed from experience but because they try to draw conclusions independently of experience, thus depriving themselves of their only basis.
The rationalist cult of reason (and the concept of pure thought as its concomitant) was a one-sided (and often leading to idealistic conclusions) interpretation of the mathematical form of knowledge, which rationalists considered a priori, based on the purely logical deduction of certain theses from axioms. Rationalists were convinced that philosophy could be constructed as a mathematical system of conclusions and that this would end philosophical argument and make it possible to comprehend the absolute in all fields of study. It only remained to identify fundamental philosophical axioms and appropriate definitions. Spinoza attempted that in his Ethics.
Unlike rationalists, Kant maintained that there could be neither mathematical axioms nor definitions in philosophy. In his view, philosophy comprised "not a single fundamental that deserves to be called an axiom". (73; 3, 496-97) In contrast to mathematics, philosophical definitions are not apodictically authentic, rather, they are an exposition of available concepts. On the other hand, mathematical definitions are shaped by the modeling of concepts. Therefore, "in philosophy, the definition as an expressly clear definitiveness must rather complete the work than begin it. On the contrary, in mathematics we have no concept before the definition, because only the latter provides the concept; therefore mathematics must and always can begin with definitions." (73; 3, 495-96)
Treating axioms as self-evident truths, rationalists concluded that intellectual (that is, independent of sensory data) intuitive truths serving as the unshakable basis of the entire philosophical science can and must be the starting points of philosophy. The doctrine of intellectual intuition is a central proposition of rationalism.* It underlies
* Still, we must remember that Locke and some other empirical philosophers recognized intellectual intuition as the decisive moment of cognition. But, unlike rationalists, empirical philosophers con-
123the rationalist conviction that the boundaries of experience can be transcended. In the rationalist view, mathematics had already solved that problem, now it was philosophy's turn.
Kant rejected the rationalist doctrine of intellectual intuition and countered it with a new interpretation of `` selfevident'' mathematical theses which he denned as special sensory (but also a priori) acts of contemplation. As to the mind and reason, they were unable to perceive and contemplate directly and thus arrived at their conclusions by speculation, through discourse. Kant, therefore, saw the fallacy of the doctrine of intellectual intuition in the alienation of thought from empirical data, in the attempts to transcend the bounds of any possible experience by pure thought. Such attempts often led to theological conclusions whose theoretical fallacy Kant specially exposed.
Mathematics and mechanics were the most advanced sciences in the 17th century. Mechanics examined the movement of objects and related processes, and it proceeded mostly from mathematics. Chemistry, biology and other natural sciences were actually only taking shape and were mostly empirical---that is, they usually described the phenomena observed. Rationalists proceeded from mathematics, while philosophical empiricists from natural science. The antithesis of rationalism and empiricism thus reflected the actual opposition between the theoretical knowledge of that age and empirical natural science.
Kant's historic contribution was that he criticized (and to a certain degree overcame) the limitations of both the rationalism and empiricism of his time. He countered rationalists by showing that any knowledge proceeded from certain sensory observations. And he saw the main fault of philosophical empiricism in its rejection of the possibility of theoretically substantiated judgments that were strictly universal and necessary. For example, according to Locke, the "general and universal belong not to the real existence of things, but are the Inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by it for its own use". (78; 20) But, Kant pointed out, apodictic judgments formed
nected the concept of intellectual intuition to the sensationalist theory of knowledge maintaining that all human knowledge, even the more abstract (including mathematical), had an experimental, sensory origin.
124the most important content of mathematics and mechanics. Therefore, the issue was to grasp that fact (without which, Kant maintained, no science was possible) and explain the possibility of infinitely universal and necessary truths. However, neither Kant nor Locke placed the universal and the necessary in the realm of reality that was independent of knowledge.
The rationalist views of the 17th century were the philosophical expression of a transitional historical period and were thus ambiguous and inclined to compromise. The bourgeoisie used compromise to become the economically dominant class of feudal society. And while the bourgeois philosophy of that period resolutely opposed scholasticism and, to a certain degree, also theology, it preferred a compromise with religion, the dominant ideology of feudalism. Such was the ideological mission of the metaphysical systems created by 17th-century rationalists. In Descartes' philosophy, that compromise was evident in the dualistic opposition of physics and metaphysics. Cartesian physics (the philosophy of nature) studied the existing reality that could be perceived by the senses, while metaphysics claimed to comprehend the extrasensory. But since experience provided no basis for recognizing such suprareality, Descartes granted the possibility of the human intellect possessing innate ideas and innate knowledge which, in his view, could be used to logically deduce all the characteristics of metaphysical reality.
To reduce all metaphysics to the rationalist interpretation of theological (or theology-related) questions would be to oversimplify the issue. The metaphysical systems of Descartes and Leibniz did much to provide a philosophical interpretation of mathematical and natural science problems. Spinoza's metaphysics was a materialist system of views, albeit presented in the pantheist vein and identifying God with nature. Hence Marx's and Engels' assessment of the positive, earthly content of 17th-century metaphysics. The situation changed only in the 18th century: "The whole wealth of metaphysics now consisted only of beings of thought and heavenly things, at the very time when real beings and earthly things began to be the center of all interest." (1; 4, 126)
This means that Kant delivered his critique of rationalist metaphysics at a time of its decline. Unlike skeptics
125or 18th-century French materialists who rejected metaphysical systems out of hand, Kant above all tried to trace their epistemological, theoretical, phychological roots. That is why he studied not so much metaphysical systems as the process of cognition and its contradictions which inevitably found their expression in the building of metaphysical systems.
Kant never doubts that metaphysical systems raised problems of immense philosophical, general scientific and moral importance. If scientific experience always remains incomplete, if inductive speculation based on experience always remains incomplete, then how is it at all possible to arrive at a scientific theory that formulates precepts unlimited in their universality (and necessity)? If all theoretical knowledge stems from sensory data, how can one explain the fact that there are scientific truths which cannot be reduced to the content of sense perception? Kant agrees with those critics of theology who maintain that the concepts of God, the immortal soul or life after death are theoretically and empirically groundless and are only based on the belief in the supernatural. Nevertheless, Kant rejects atheist conclusions. He holds that the scientific fallacy of theism is not enough to prove the scientific validity of atheism. If religion cannot rely on theoretical reason (science) could it be based on practical reason, on moral consciousness?
As Kant firmly believes, religious faith is such a substantial and permanent feature of human existence that philosophy must study that form of spiritual and intellectual life as something inevitable and not accidental. The same is true---and apparently to an even greater degree---of the problem of free will, for centuries the stumbling block of philosophy. If man has no free will, does he possess will at all? If he cannot control his own actions, how does he differ from an animal? If he has no freedom of choice and cannot control his actions, then he is not responsible for them. But in that case there is neither sanity nor moral standards nor moral actions because man's conscious life implies his ability to exercise at least limited control over his actions. 'But the existence of morals, and human life in general, demonstrate that man possesses at least `` practical'' (relative) freedom. What is the nature of this fact and on what conditions is it possible?
126The problem of being---the central problem of all metaphysical systems---is also the problem of the essence of all that exists and the issue of the unity of the world as a whole. Philosophy cannot merely state the existence of minerals, metals, rivers, mountains, plants, animals, etc. It is supposed to reveal the basis of all that diversity of phenomena, some content that they all share, their interrelationship and interdependence. Are there any primal elements of all that exists, is there substance, does the world exist as one whole or is it only a contemplated entity, an abstraction with no factual basis? Does the world have a beginning in time and space or is it infinite in both these dimensions? Does it consist of simple or complex elements? Is the cause and effect relationship of things absolute or are there things free of determinism? These and other such questions are the key content not only of metaphysical systems but also of philosophy in general. The French materialists of the 18th century believed that by rejecting the systems of Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz they were putting an end to all metaphysical problems. But was Hoibach's System of Nature not an attempt at a materialist solution of those same problems? And was Helvetius not partly right when he said, "I compare these two types of metaphysics [materialism and idealism] to two different philosophies, those of Democritus and Plato. It is from the earth that the first gradually rises to the sky, and it is from the sky that the second gradually descends to the earth." (66; 1, 396).
Thus, 17th-century metaphysical systems were not merely speculative constructs dealing with nonexistent metaphysical reality. According to Kant, metaphysical problems (i.e., problems posed by Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza and others) form the most important part of the content of philosophy, the latter comprising only the metaphysical trend and skepticism, its age-old enemy, which is, however, devoid of positive philosophical content. Therefore, one of the key questions the Critique of Pure Reason poses is this: how is metaphysics possible as a science? In other words, how is scientific philosophy possible (if at all)? That question was first raised precisely by 17th-- century rationalists.
In Kant's view, metaphysics as a system of philosophical knowledge is the meaning of philosophy and the summit
127of the culture of the human intellect in general. Science is a sphere of sound sense, philosophy is the realm of reason. Human reason is by nature metaphysical: unlike sound sense, it strives to transcend experience. And man, a sentient being, is a metaphysical being, differing from the animal in his ability not merely to reason and speculate but to think metaphysically. However, so far all metaphysical doctrines have been false and unscientific. That, of course, has not been accidental, and it points to the fallacy of the fundamentals and the very method of metaphysical philosophizing. Therefore Kant sees his principal objective in radically reforming metaphysics and transforming it into a science. But he views the task of creating new, transcendental metaphysics as a total rejection of all the previously existing metaphysical systems. This explains, among other things, his words to the effect that "it is not metaphysics that I am working on in the Critique [of Pure Reason] but a completely new and heretofore untried science, namely, a critique of reason that speculates a priori". (72; 228) But it should also be noted that Kant considered the Critique of Pure Reason a substantiation of, and an introduction to, transcendental metaphysics.
Science for Kant is the model of true knowledge. Hence his formulation of the dilemma: either metaphysics becomes a science (naturally, a science sui generis) or it has no right to exist at all. Kant's philosophy shows that traditional metaphysics cannot become a science because its precepts are theoretically undemonstrable and experimentally unverifiable. Setting forth the task of creating a radically new metaphysical system, Kant proves the need for a scientific philosophy. This methodological approach differs substantially from the rationalist one in its profound understanding of the difficulties of turning philosophy into a scientific philosophical view of the world.
The rationalists of the 17th century tried to build systems of absolute knowledge and explained the failure of earlier attempts by the errors of individual philosophers. Kant does not share those illusions, he is fully aware of the conflict between metaphysics and science, and he searches for ways to overcome it. He concludes that major metaphysical ideas should not be interpreted as concepts of actually existing transcendental entities, but only as facts of consciousness, as ideas of pure reason. But this
128means that the concepts of God, personal immortality and the like must be excluded from the field of scientific knowledge, and all that remains to them is the field of faith. In this connection Kant contemplates the need to limit reason---that is, pure reason with its a priori claims: "We have imposed limits on reason so that it would not lose the thread of empirical conditions and not rush off into the realm of transcendental substantiations." (73; 3, 392) In this quotation, Kant's agnosticism is aimed against metaphysics. But the point is that, according to Kant, the entire outer world which is independent of consciousness, the world of "things in themselves" which is also proclaimed to be essentially unknowable, is transcendental too. Hence the fideistic leanings in Kant's agnosticism: "I had to restrict (aufheben) knowledge to make room for faith." (73, 3,25)
And so Kant's reform of metaphysics essentially interprets its key precepts as devoid of objective content that exists outside consciousness. Rationalist philosophers regarded the supranatural (metaphysical) as a distinct, highest and often divine realm of being, Kant declares it to be merely an aggregate of ideas of pure reason. Those ideas do possess vitally important, especially moral, significance, but the latter bears no relationship to objective reality which precedes and is independent of knowledge. Metaphysics is supposed to study the origin and significance of those ideas, but not to prove the existence of respective otherworldly entities. Proceeding from these precepts, Kant provides a thorough critical analysis of the rationalist doctrine concerning the identity of physical (real) and logical substantiations, and of the theory of a priori knowledge, created by prominent 17th-century rationalists.
Even before he wrote his Critique, Kant attacked the cornerstone of rationalist philosophy: the conviction that what is logically necessary is by the same token physically necessary too. Rationalists reasoned approximately as follows: if a certain logical conclusion has been deduced in accordance with logical rules (that is, if no logical error has been committed), the content of that conclusion should be regarded as objective reality, even if experience does not confirm it. The meaning of that thesis becomes clear if we recall that often logical deduction does lead to a discovery---that is, it does establish previously unknown
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physical facts whose existence was not confirmed by observation or experiment for a historically long period of time. But the point is that logical reasoning cannot reveal facts that are not implicitly present in precepts underlying logical deduction. Meanwhile, 17th-century rationalists tried to deduce the existence of transcendental entities from speculative premises that, naturally, did not go beyond the experimentally comprehensible. Rejecting that absolute interpretation of the potential of deduction, Kant argues that logical substantiation relates to its consequence in such a way that the latter can be grasped in it logically, under the law of identity. In other words, a logical consequence is only valid because it is essentially identical with its premise; that is revealed by a logical breakup of the premise: the conclusion is revealed to be its part. For example, ``complexity'' is the premise of ``divisibility''; that becomes obvious when we break up the concept of complexity. An actual premise is a different matter: here the consequence is not a part or feature of the premise. Therefore, an analysis of an actual premise does not reveal its possible consequence, it does not point to the inevitability of precisely this, and none other, consequence. For example, what causes rain is an actual but not logical premise, because there is no logical reason for rain.
According to Kant, an actual premise makes it possible to reveal the relationships among empirically established facts, but it cannot go beyond experience. Meanwhile rationalists, having identified the actual premise with the logical one instead of differentiating between them, concluded that they had broken through into the realm of the supraexperimental and supranatural. Kant brilliantly exposed those illusions, which led to the major errors of rationalist metaphysics.
The concept of a priori or supraexperimental knowledge was central to 17th-century metaphysical systems. For example, Leibniz asserted that apart from truths of fact there existed truths of reason which the latter arrived at without resorting to experience, to sensory data. The principles of logic, the axioms and demonstrations of geometry were regarded as indisputable a priori truths, with obvious universality and necessity as their salient features. The definition of the -a priori as universal and necessary means that the problem of the a priori is profoundly meaningful:
130it records certain actual characteristics of theoretical scientific knowledge especially of mathematics, whose precepts are relatively independent of experimental data. At the level mathematics and logic reached in the 17th century, the path leading from empirical data to logical and also mathematical precepts was still completely uncharted. And rationalists believed that logical and mathematical precepts were totally independent of experience. They regarded the latter merely as an aggregate of individual sense perceptions. Naturally, this limited understanding of experience failed to explain the universality and necessity of logical and mathematical precepts. And rationalists always answered this question in the same way: logical and mathematical propositions are universal and necessary precisely ffe- cause they are completely independent of experience, because they are a priori.
At that time, the concepts of universality and necessity as specific features of theoretical propositions could not yet be subjected to a special scientific analysis. Neither logic nor mathematics possessed any data confirming the fact that the universality and necessity of their propositions were not at all absolute, that they were limited, first, by the level of knowledge achieved and, second, by their theoretical premise. All that became obvious only after nonEuclidian geometry, the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics had been created.
This explains why Kant did not reject but merely revised the rationalist concept of the a priori. Like rationalists (and all philosophers and natural scientists of the time), he could not explain the objective emergence and historical development of universal and necessary theoretical precepts. At the level then reached by science and philosophy it was even more difficult to explain the universality and necessity of the categories of theoretical thinking: for example, space, time, causality. No one---at least among the scientists---doubted that all natural phenomena existed in space and time, that they all had definite causes, etc. But could one prove that those categories were really universal and necessary? That was why Kant followed rationalists in differentiating between pure (a priori) and empirical knowledge and maintained that logic and mathematics were a priori disciplines, while mechanics combined a priori fundamentals with knowledge deduced from experience.
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How does Kant's concept of the a priori differ from the rationalist one? At first glance it might seem that this is where Kant's polemics with 17th-century metaphysicians is least effective because he himself supported the a priori approach. But in actual fact Kant's understanding of the a priori differs radically from that of rationalists. The latter recognized a priori knowledge of the world. It follows that they assumed the existence of some way of knowledge other than that based on experience, and they accorded priority to that different way. That is where Kant breaks away from rationalism. He is convinced that ideas and concepts not taken from experience possess no real content at all; they only perform an instrumental function---that is, they are necessary formal means of cognition. The content of knowledge stems only from sensory data, but the a priori is undoubtedly necessary as a form of knowledge that unites sensory data into definite images. Such a priori forms of knowledge include the categories of unity, diversity, reality, causality, interaction, possibility, necessity, etc. Nothing contemplated a priori is independent of knowledge. According to this doctrine, a priori forms are not supra- but pre-experimental. In other words, they precede experience as its premises and conditions that enable experience and knowledge to become reality. It is only in this limited sense that one can and must view the part played by the a priori in klowledge and a priori knowledge in general. Kant stresses that "for us, the only a priori knowledge is that of objects of possible experience". (73; 3, 135) He explains this point further: "The only thing that reason can do a priori is anticipating the form of possible experience in general, and, because that which is not a phenomenon cannot be an object of experience, sound sense can never leave the confines of sense perception which is the only realm where things can exist." (73; 3, 217)
Thus a priori forms of knowledge are necessary for organizing random sensory data into a system of knowledge, and not for soaring above experience and into the world of imaginary entities. In contrast to his predecessors, Kant is well aware of the fact that experimental knowledge implies the use of categories. For example, the simple statement that the sun warms a rock links sense perception to the categorial relation of causality. Kant differentiates between the judgments of experience and those of direct per-
132ception; strictly speaking, the latter are not enough to provide genuine knowledge, at least the knowledge of relations among phenomena. It follows that categories are necessary prerequisites of empirical knowledge which, like theoretical knowledge, is rational. Hence Kant's illusion: categories precede experience. The point is that Kant (and all thinkers and scientists of his time) does not yet realize the historical development of experience in which categories emerge and develop. This error, inevitable for its time, must not obscure Kant's historic contribution to the understanding of this problem: he has revealed the unity of the categorical apparatus of thinking with the content of experimental knowledge. That is why Kant does not confine himself to opposing ``pure'' (a priori) knowledge to empirical knowledge, the way his predecessors did. He proves that since the precepts of theoretical natural science are universal and necessary, they are not purely a priori but both a priori and empirical---a priori in form and empirical in content.
The rationalist negation of the unity of a priori (that is, properly theoretical) and empirical knowledge led to the inevitable conclusion that a priori precepts (judgments, conclusions) were purely analytical---that is, that they did not produce new knowledge but merely revealed that which was already implicit in the subject of the proposition. The entire wealth of mathematical knowledge was thus reduced to something predetermined and preformed in the logical premises of mathematics. That inevitably came into conflict with the development of mathematics, mechanics and theoretical natural science in general.
The principle of the unity of the a priori and the empirical enables Kant to refute that rationalist dogma too. Without denying that analytical judgments exist, Kant regards the discovery of a priori synthetic judgments as his greatest accomplishment. In his view, such judgments exist in mathematics and mechanics because they proceed from a special type of sensory observations that he defined as a priori observations. They are possible in other sciences, too, because the latter adapt the a priori to sensory data. The significance of a priori synthetic judgments is that they provide an actual increase of knowledge. Kant's predecessors believed that only empirical judgments were synthetic because they recorded newly observed data. That
133approach severely limited the possibilities (and prospects) in the development of theoretical natural science. Kant put an end to that antidialectical opposition of analytical and synthetic judgments, and his new approach was clearly of outstanding importance for the development of theoretical natural science.
It is easy to see that Kant's doctrine of a priori synthetic judgments was an attempt at philosophically substantiating the possibility and necessity of theoretical natural science which was as yet practically nonexistent in Kant's time. But mathematical physics already existed, and it prompted Kant to raise the more general question about the epistemological premises of theoretical knowledge. The latter, by its very nature, transcends the confines of available experience. That is precisely why it is theoretical and not empirical knowledge. In Kant's system, however, the theoretical, which he considers a priori, is independent of any possible experience because it is based on a priori-- sensory observation. The assumption of that distinct type of observation---that is, the concept of the a priori nature of space and time---distinguishes Kant from the rationalists. This distinction reveals the contradictions of Kant's a priori approach. On the one hand, he asserts that the a priori is merely a form of knowledge. On the other hand, by assuming the existence of a priori synthetic judgments, he admits, to a certain degree, the existence of a priori content too. The contradiction between the form and content of theoretical knowledge thus remains unresolved. Still, the problem is posed in a comprehensive way (inasmuch as it was possible in that historical period).
Summing up, we can say that Kant was the first to subject 17th-century rationalist metaphysics to such meaningful and profound criticism. He was the only 18th-century thinker to have singled out and developed further the more valuable ideas of philosophical rationalism. True, he failed to overcome rationalist metaphysics because he criticized it from idealist and agnostic positions. But to believe that metaphysics could be positively overcome (with everything of value retained and later assimilated) at that time is to ignore the need for a historical approach to the development of philosophy. As Marx and Engels noted, classical German philosophy revived 17th-century rationalist metaphysics. (1; 4, 125) And that revival of metaphysical
134systems was not a reversal because it generated an effective and systematic development of the dialectical tradition, advanced in the 17th century, first and foremost, by the authors of metaphysical systems: Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz. The fact that Kant delivered his critique of metaphysical systems within the framework of his transcendental logic and especially transcendental dialectics clearly points to the great significance of his philosophical legacy for the development of the dialectical mode of thinking.
[135] __ALPHA_LVL2__ KANT'S DOCTRINEThe concept of the ``thing-in-itself'' is central to Kant's philosophy. The recognition of the objective existence, independent of knowledge, of ``things-in-themselves'' is inseparable from philosophical materialism. But in contrast to Kantian philosophy, materialism demonstrates that ``things-in-themselves'' can, in principle, be comprehended and inevitably turn into ``things-for-us''. Lenin criticized certain pseudo-Marxists who tried to prove "that the materialists Marx and Engels denied the existence of thingsin-themselves (i.e. things outside our sensations, perceptions, and so forth) and the possibility of their cognition, and that they admitted the existence of a fundamental boundary between the appearance and the thing-in-itself." (10; 14, 117-18)
Kant's concept of the ``thing-in-itself'' is profoundly contradictory. While recognizing the ``thing-in-itself'' as the source of sensory experience and even admitting that it may be a phenomenon---and phenomena are knowable--- Kant nevertheless insists on the absolute unknowability of ``things-in-themselves'' and even considers them transcendental. Hence the inevitable question: perhaps Kant regards ``things-in-themselves'' as noumena, i.e., supranatural, otherworldly entities? The affirmative answer which appears inescapable would rule out the materialist trend, bound by the assumption of ``things-in-themselves'' as generating our perceptions. But then how do "things-in-- themselves" differ from noumena? Regrettably, Marxist philosophy has not yet produced a special study of that question, although it would be extremely important for a correct understanding of Kant's philosophy.
Friedrich Jacobi, one of the first critics of Kant, made the following observation which later became proverbial: the ``thing-in-itself'' is a concept without which one 136 cannot enter Kant's system, but with which one cannot remain there. Pointing to the antinomy of Kant's understanding of ``things-in-themselves'', Jacobi saw nothing in it except for logically uncoordinated assertions. He opposed Kantian philosophy with the intuitivist doctrine of faith as the only demonstrable comprehension of meta-physical reality---in other words, he vindicated everything Kant's Critique of Pure Reason refuted.
The contradictory nature of Kant's doctrine of `` thingsin-themselves'' is rooted in the attempt to reconcile materialism with idealism. Jacobi's mistake was that he negatively assessed the contradictions he spotted. But those contradictions are very meaningful, and one can even say that they indirectly point to the profound approach to the problem. Dialectical materialism substantiates the need for a positive evaluation of contradictions inherent in outstanding philosophical doctrines. Meaningful contradictions that attempt to overcome the limited and one-sided approach to problems are not merely flaws but to a certain degree virtues of those doctrines. Let us recall that Marx regarded the contradictions of David Ricardo's theory of value as prerequisites for a correct approach to an extremely complex economic problem. I would think that an analogy ( naturally, only in the epistemological and methodological aspects) between Kant's doctrine of ``things-in-themselves'' and Ricardo's theory of value is both justified and fruitful, because we are dealing not only with the errors---brilliant errors---of the German philosopher but also with objectively existing contradictions.
It would be wrong to blame Kant for his inconsistent approach, for having misunderstood or overlooked something, for the contradictions that were so obvious to his followers. That would be an antiphilosophical analysis of a philosophy. Had Kant interpreted ``things-in-themselves'' simply as absolutely transcendental or merely as an epistemological phenomenon, that would have been quite consistent, but he would not have been a great thinker.
Lenin demonstrated a profound approach to the problem of the need to overcome the primitively materialistic errors in the critique of Kant's philosophy. A scientific critique of the latter does not simply reject but corrects his postulates. In this connection Lenin said that "Marxists criticized (at the beginning of the twentieth century) the
137Kantians and Humists more in the manner of Feuerbach (and Biichner) than of Hegel." (10; 38, 179) Of great methodological importance, that observation points to the need for studying the diverse real content of Kantian contradictions so that they could be resolved in a truly scientific way.
We know that before he wrote his Critique, Kant had created a basically materialist cosmogony which, in full accordance with the laws of classical mechanics, adequately explained the facts established by astronomy and provided a scientific (for its time) interpretation of the " systematic structure", origin and development of the solar system. Explaining the principles of his study, he said: "Here one could say in a certain sense and without arrogance: Give me matter, I will build a world out of it! that is, give me matter, I will show you how a world must emerge from it." But then, how can one "boast about this success when we deal with the most insignificant plants or insects? Can one really say: Give me matter, I will show you how one can create a caterpillas?... So do not be surprised if I dare say that it is easier to grasp the constitution of all celestial bodies and the cause of their movements---in short, the origin of the world as it exists today---than to understand, on the basis of mechanics, the origin of one single blade of grass or caterpillar." (73; 1, 231-32)
The evolution of Kant's vie"ws before the Critique led him to conclude that the origin of life, let alone of consciousness, thought, could not be explained by the motion, development of matter. Of course, this refers only to mechanical motion and a mechanistic interpretation of development. But neither Kant nor all his contemporaries had any idea of other natural processes, those subject to nonmechanical laws. Mechanistic materialism is incapable of tracing the origin of life, and Kant proceeds from this fact in his rejection of all materialism: in his view, the mechanistic form of that philosophy is not a historically transient limitation but the very essence of the materialist (and natural scientific) explanation of the world.
While he does not reject but instead justifies and substantiates the mechanistic method, Kant nevertheless stresses its limitations. Hence his conclusion about the essential impossibility of philosophical monism: the diversity of reality cannot be explained by assuming one fundamental
138postulate. And Kant follows his thesis about the insufficiency of the materialist (actually, mechanistic) premise with a demonstration of the fallacy of idealist monism (that is, of deducing the external world from consciousness). Here, Kant refers not only to Berkeley's ``dreamy'' and ``dogmatic'' idealism but also to the ``problematic'' idealism of Descartes which deduces knowledge of the existence of the outer world from cogito, self-consciousness, regarded as a fundamental premise that makes all other premises redundant. According to Kant, the existence of self-- consciousness proves the existence of the outer world perceived through the senses, because "the consciousness of my own being is also the direct consciousness of the being of other things outside myself". (73; 3, 201) This postulate recognizes the dependence of consciousness on the external world, but Kant's concept of the outer world is ambiguous because it points both to ``things-in-themselves'' and to phenomena. *
This quotation is from the section Refutation of Idealism written for the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is directed against those reviewers who believed, not without justification, that the book leaned toward subjective idealism. By stressing the points where he differs from Berkeley, Kant insists that an aggregate of concepts organized in a definite way and understood as nature perceived through the senses or as the world of phenomena inevitably implies the recognition of a world totally independent of knowledge, the world of "things-in-- themselves" which underlie the world of phenomena. The subjective nature of that which is perceived through the senses is rooted in the distinctive mechanism of human knowledge, but the sensory images which form the content of external world, and sense perceptions point directly to the ``things-in-themselves'' affecting our sense perception. Thus the existence of consciousness proves the existence of the thinking are involuntary because they are caused by the existence of ``things-in-themselves'' which should be regarded as the causes of the former and which to a certain de-
* In another place in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant is even more explicit in connecting consciousness (and self-consciousness) to objective reality, to ``things-in-themselves'': "I am as sure of the existence of things outside myself that are related to my sense as of my own existence in time." (73; 3, 31).
139gree determined not only the diversity of sensory data but also the distinctive features of their content.
According to Kant, the fact itself that the world of phenomena undoubtedly exists proves the existence of `` thingsin-themselves'' because the very word ``phenomenon'' implies the existence of something different, of the non-- phenomenon, conceivable only as the sensorial imperceptible basis of things or phenomena perceived through the senses. In other words, "phenomena always imply a thing-in-itself and, consequently, point at it". .. (73; 4, 109)
Thus Kant rejects both the materialist and the idealist solution of the key question of philosophy, and he stresses the need for a dualistic starting point: on the one hand, consciousness, the subject of knowledge; on the other hand, the world of ``things-in-themselves'', independent of and totally opposed to both consciousness and its object, the world of phenomena. That latter world is in correlation with the activity of knowledge. It is the dualistic opposition between the subjective and the objective, the spiritual and the ``material'', the phenomenon and the "thing-in-- itself" that is the central premise of Kant's agnosticism.
In contrast, to materialism, which confines the absolute opposition of the spiritual and the material to the key problem of philosophy (that of the relationship between the spiritual and the material), dualism rejects this limitation, interpreting the opposition as absolute in all aspects. But Kant's doctrine of the essential unknowability of `` thingsin-themselves'' is not only based on the dualistic opposition of the spiritual and the material: it also reflects and offers a subjectivist interpretation of the historically definite situation in natural science and certain general features of the cognitive process. As Engels said, in Kant's time "our knowledge of natural objects was indeed so fragmentary that he might well suspect, behind the little we know about each of them, a mysterious 'thing-in-itself ". (3; 3, 102) Even in the first half of the 19th century, Engels pointed out, chemistry treated organic elements as mysterious ``things-in-themselves''. It follows that Kant offered a philosophical interpretation of views held by many naturalists of his time.
Since that time, outstanding scientific discoveries and their practical application have convincingly refuted the basic postulates of Kant's and all other types of agnosti-
140cism. But naturally, the contradictions of knowledge, of the evolution of unknowable ``things-in-themselves'' into ``things-for-us'' have not disappeared. These contradictions are reproduced (usually, in a qualitatively new form) at each historical stage in the development of knowledge. The difference between the ``thing-for-us'' and the "thing-- initself" is not only the epistemological difference between the known and the unknown. As Lenin emphasized, "the thing-in-itself is distinct from the thing-for-us, for the latter is only a part, or only one aspect, of the former". (10; 14, 119) Therefore, the known is part of, and to a certain extent depends on, a broader, still unknown whole.
Each new stage of cognition also reveals that which was unknown before---new unknown phenomena. That, too, is an expression of the progress of knowledge: the notion of the diminishing unknown is true only within a certain framework of knowledge; it must not be applied to knowledge as a whole, to all available and possible (but not yet obvious) objects. For in the final analysis, the subject of the entire process of cognition taken in its historical entirety is infinite. True, by cognizing the finite we also cognize the infinite, but the fundamental difference between the two remains.
Marxist philosophy is equally incompatible with the agnostic refusal to believe the knowability of "things-- inthemselves" and with the opposite metaphysical faith in the attainability of absolute knowledge. The latter view, laid down by the authors of 17th-century metaphysical systems, was revived by Hegel. Theologians have always been attracted to that view too, because they hold that the Gospel contains all truth, and absolute truth at that.
Prominent skepticist philosophers---such as Bayle and Montaigne---contributed significantly to the struggle against theology and metaphysical system-building. Thus it would be unhistorical to ignore the connection of Kant's agnosticism (particularly, of the thesis about the essential scientific fallacy of all available and possible ``proofs'' that God exists) to an obvious antitheological position, albeit inconsistent and mitigated by numerous reservations. It is, of course, no accident that the Vatican entered Kant's works on the list of proscribed books: the dogma of the logical demonstrability of the existence of God is among the fundamentals of Catholicism. Kant proposes to impose
141limitations on the metaphysical and theological claims of reason. His doctrine is thus aimed directly against speculative metaphysics of the 17th century, and especially against its later followers who interpreted the rationalist attempts at creating a theoretical method designed to overcome the limitations of the available experience as substantiating the possibility of suprasensuous, supraexperimental knowledge providing theology with a rationalist methodology.
Kant rejects the rationalist dogma about the identity of real and logical postulates, used by speculative metaphysics to ``prove'' the existence of transcendental entities and God, the immortality of the soul, absolute free will and the like. He also rejects the rationalist premise about the supraexperimental nature of a priori precepts, and contrasts it with a new interpretation of the a priori as a form of knowledge which is essentially inapplicable outside experience and possesses only empirical content. Despite Kant's subjectivist interpretation of the forms of knowledge, this concept of the a priori approaches the rational understanding of the nature of theoretical knowledge. This explains why Kant's famous question formulated in the field of transcendental analysis---how is pure natural science possible?---is essentially a question about the possibility of theoretical natural science. We know that Kant answers it expressly in the affirmative.
It should be emphasized that for all his polemics with 17th-century metaphysical philosophers, Kant is, to a certain extent, their successor too. The theological implications of speculative metaphysics are not in the least its major content. The rationalist theory about a priori thinking and knowledge is rooted in the accomplishments of 17th-century mathematics and mechanics, in the distinctive aspects of the development of these deductive sciences whose postulates are apodictically universal. What is the source of that indisputable (it seemed at the time) universality? The 17th-century rationalists examined the logical form of mathematical constructions and arrived at what they considered to be the only possible conclusion: that those constructions were independent of experience, that they were a priori in character. Hence, too, the more general conclusion about the possibility of supraexperimental knowledge. Kant rejects the latter conclusion, interpreting
142the a priori as coming before experience and applicable only to experience---therefore, inapplicable supraexperimentally.
Kant reduces the metaphysical theory of being ( ontology) to a doctrine about the categories of cognizing thinking, about the categorial synthesis of sensory data. For all its subjective character, the epistemological interpretation of categories posed a real dialectical problem. It is no accident that Kant uses the transcendental analytical approach to demonstrate the need for a new, nonformal logic he calls transcendental.
Transcendental dialectics---one of the key sections of the Critique of Pure Reason---is devoted directly to demonstrating the fallacy of metaphysical claims to supraexperimental knowledge. The major ideas of metaphysics---the psychological, the cosmological and the theological ones---are devoid of objective content and cannot even indirectly prove the existence of transcendental entities. Reason deals only with intellectual concepts whose content is taken exclusively from experience. By synthesizing intellectual concepts, reason does not enrich them with new, supraexperimental content. That is why the metaphysical ideas of reason are nothing more than mere ideas expressing reason's striving to "make the categorically perceived synthetic unity totally absolute". (73; 5, 164) Thus the idea of the substantial soul contains the absolute unity of the thinking subject; the idea of God, the absolute unity of the conditions concerning all objects of thinking in general, etc.
The 17th-century metaphysicians regarded noumena as transcendental and essentially divine entities, perceived by the suprasensuous cognitive ability of reason. But Kant defines them as a priori ideas of pure reason (not based on experience). He says: "But in the end, one cannot see the possibility of such noumena, and outside the realm of phenomena everything remains empty (for us); that is, we have reason problematically extending beyond the realm of phenomena, but we have no such contemplation, nor can we even form a notion of such contemplation, by which objects could be given to us outside the realm of the senses ... Consequently, the concept of the noumenon is only a demarcation notion, used to limit the claims of the sensuous and therefore applicable only negatively." (73; 3, 221) But if the concept of the noumenon has no positive
143content, this also calls into question the assumption that metaphysical reality exists: "The division of objects into phenomena and noumena, and of the world into that perceived through the senses and that grasped intellectually is inadmissible in a positive sense." (73; 3, 221)
Kant's theory of the problematic nature of the transcendental as the subject of metaphysics makes it possible to better understand his agnosticism. Kant holds that the cognition of the world of phenomena, of nature (i.e., the subject of the sciences) is infinite. Only the transcendental is unknowable. Viewed from that angle, Kant's agnosticism can be described as antimetaphysical (of course, if we refer to the theory of meta-physical reality and not to dialectics). Still, one must stress that Kant's agnosticism is organically linked to the ambivalent interpretation of objective reality and the subjective-idealist conclusions it entails. Kant's concept of the transcendental, of the metaphysical encompasses everything objective, everything that is outside and independent of consciousness and that precedes knowledge. Thus he does not stop at an antimetaphysical assertion that the existence of metaphysical entities, the noumena, is undemonstrable: he turns the physical--- what is outside and independent of knowledge---into metaphysical, transcendental. Therefore, the things which affect our senses, generate sensations and therefore exist before and independently of knowledge are described as suprasensuous ``things-in-themselves''. But in that case, what is accessible to knowledge? If sensations caused by `` thingsin-themselves'' provide neither knowledge about them nor even any basis for such knowledge, then where does Kant's agnosticism end?
Kant tries to solve the problem he poses by subjectively interpreting the known reality as existing within and through experience. He maintains that "objects of experience are never given in themselves: they are given only in experience and do not exist outside it". (73; 3, 350) The world perceived through the senses thus appears as a phenomenon of knowledge, taking shape only in the course of cognition. Knowledge about an object and the object itself are treated as essentially identical, because "things-- inthemselves" are excluded from the sphere of knowledge. True, the content of our sensations is independent of consciousness, but things perceived through the senses as phe-
144nomena are the product ol synthesis, brought about by reason's unconscious productive force of imagination through the use of transcendental schemata and categories. According to Kant, "phenomena are not things-in-themselves but only a play of our concepts which are, in the final analysis, reduced to definitions of the inner sense". (73; <?, 613).
Thus the ambiguity of Kant's concept of the "thing-- initself" leads to a sabjectivist distortion of the concept of nature and the cognitive process. But that, naturally, cannot justify the neo-Kantian rejection of "things-in-- themselves". "The world in itself," Lenin writes, "is a world that exists without us." (10; 14, 118) He points out that Kant's mistake was not recognizing the existence of `` thingsin-themselves'' but insisting on their transcendental, unknowable nature. Everyday experience itself, Lenin emphasizes, proves that ''``fchings-in-themselves'' are knowable, for "each one of us has observed times without number the simple and obvious transformation of the 'thing-in-itself into phenomenon, into the `thing-for-us'. It is precisely this transformation that is cognition." (10; 14, 120).
Those who interpret Kant's philosophy idealistically usually equate ``things-in-themselves'' and noumena. For example, Paul Foulquie's Dictionnaire de la langue philosophique proceeding from the dichotomy "phenomena-- noumena" claims that the ``thing-in-itself'' is synonymous with ``noumenon''. (53; 483). This view is shared by Dagobert Runes (94; 215), duller (57; 2, 231) and Rudolf Eisler. (47; 887) But all those scholars confine themselves to an analysis of Kant's terminology and do not deal with the essence of his theory of ``things-in-themselves'' and noumena. Besides, they fall back on the vagueness of Kant's terminology: he often unites those two concepts in the general notion of the intelligible, "understandable substance" (Verstandeswesen). (73; 3, 219)
The fact that Kant sometimes classes "things-in-- themselves" together with noumena is well known, but it calls for elucidation. Kant never regards noumena as `` thingsin-themselves''. In his theory, a ``thing-in-itself'' is not an idea of pure reason; that is the key premise of transcendental aesthetics, that is, the theory of sensation. ``Things-in-themselves'' affect our senses. As for the noumena, they have nothing in common with sense perceptions or with the cognitive process in general.
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I have already quoted Kant's phrase that the existence of noumena is problematic and undemonstrable. `` Thingsin-themselves'' are a different matter. Kant repeatedly stresses that their existence is obvious from the existence of the world of phenomena. He dismisses as absurd the assertion that "the phenomenon exists without that which appears". (73; 3, 23) That which appears is the "thing-- initself". In Kant's view, that conclusion inevitably follows from the distinction between "things as objects of experience and as things in themselves" (73; 3, 23), although one still cannot understand why ``things-in-themselves'' can be absolutely unknowable if they really appear. But that does not in the least affect the distinction between ``things-in-themselves'' and noumena. God, absolute free will, the immortal soul are all noumena which Kant calls ideas of pure reason; ``things-in-themselves'' that cause sensations are a different thing. True, in his foreword to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant says that regrettably, the existence of "things-in-- themselves" is theoretically undemonstrable, but in the same breath he stresses that they "provide us with all the material of knowledge even for our inner sense". (73; 5, 30) He describes the impossibility to theoretically refute the skepticist questioning of the objective nature of "things-- inthemselves" as a scandal of philosophy. But he disproves the metaphysicians' attempts at demonstrating the objective reality of noumena. He is especially .explicit in his Prolegomena, an attempt at a popular version of the Critique of Pure Reason: "The essence of idealism is the assertion that only thinking beings exist, and that the other things which we think we perceive in contemplation are merely concepts within thinking beings, concepts to which no object outside them corresponds. On the contrary, I say: things are given to us as objects of our senses existing outside us, but we know nothing about what they really are, we only know their appearances, i.e., the images they generate in us by affecting our senses. Therefore, I naturally recognize that there exist objects outside us, i.e., things about whose essence we know absolutely nothing but which we know through the concepts we receive as results of their impact on our senses and call bodies, a name thus denoting only the appearance of the object which is unknown to us but nevertheless real. How can one call this
146idealism? It is a complete antithesis of the latter." (73; 4, 38-39) *
This quotation clearly bears out Kant's desire to distinguish between ``things-in-themselves'' and noumena as a priori ideas of pure reason. He describes "things-in-- themselves" literally as things, objects ``corresponding'' to sense perceptions despite their essential unknowability. Apparently, this means that different "objects of our senses" `` correspond'' to the distinction among sense perceptions. Referring to those ``objects''---that is, ``things-in-themselves'' ---Kant also says that they appear, manifest themselves in sense perceptions: "we know only their appearances". That is, Kant regards the existence of ``things-in-themselves'' as an obvious fact: we know about these things "through the concepts we receive as results of their impact on our senses''.
It would be wrong to consider this emphasis on materialist trends a purely polemic exaggeration which does not reflect Kant's profound convictions: the dualistic nature of his theory caused inevitable fluctuations now to the left, now to the right. Kant uses the concept of the "thlng-- initself" to try and limit the subjectivist leanings in his system. On the other hand, by resorting to subjectivist epistemology he tries to overcome the alleged dogmatism of the materialist recognition of objective reality and its infinite knowability. All that is clear from the contradictions of Kant's interpretation of ``things-in-themselves''.
Neo-Kantians have excluded ``things-in-themselves'' from Kant's philosophy but they have retained the world of noumena, having thus accepted (albeit indirectly) Kant's distinction between those two concepts. Still, they pass over in silence the materialist implications of that distinction.
* Sometimes Kant interprets the term ``thing-in-itself'' differently, applying it, among other things, to human reason (the subject of knowledge in general) inasmuch as it is examined outside empirical application. Viewed from that angle, "reason itself is not a phenomenon and it is not subject to any conditions of sensuousness" (73; 3, 386), it "is present and remains the same in all human actions and in all temporal conditions, but it is not in time and does not acquire, for example, a new state in which it did not exist earlier". (73; 3, 388). Obviously, in this case too, Kant distinguishes between the ``thing-in-itself'' and the noumenon that is only an idea of reason which is neither empirically applicable nor connected in any way to the world of phenomena.
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The irrationalist Lev Shestov mentions it with indignation, unable to accept the fact that Kant treats "things-in-- themselves" as undoubtedly objectively real, in contradistinction to noumena. Writes Shestov: "Here is an amazing fact which none of us has given enough thought to. Completely dispassionately---I would even say, with joy and relief---Kant arrived by his own reasoning at the ' undemonstrability' of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and free will (which he regards as the content of metaphysics), believing that faith based on morality would be quite enough for them and they would well serve their purpose of being modest postulates, but he was genuinely horrified at the idea that the reality of outer things could rely on faith . .. Why should God, the immortality of the soul and freedom make do with faith and postulates, while scientific proof is lavished on the Ding an sichT' (34; 221-22) This rhetorical question clearly shows what consistent idealists totally reject in Kant's philosophy.
The thesis about essential inapplicability of categories (and of all a priori forms in general) to the suprasensuous is among the fundamentals of Kant's theory. But he applies not only the categories of existence and causality but also others, whose significance, according to him, is confined to the realm of phenomena, to ``things-in-themselves''. Gottfried Martin, a prominent West German expert on Kant's philosophy, remarks in this regard: "One can well say that Kant applies almost all categories to the thing-- initself, especially the categories of unity, quantity, causality, community, possibility, reality and necessity." (86; 227) But all that is not true of noumena: Kant applies no categories to them, thus denying their connection to sensory data.
It may seem that the opposition of ``things-in-themselves'' to noumena refers mostly to the Critique of Pure Reason and not to Kant's theory of ethics, advanced in the Critique of Practical Reason which, to a certain extent, contradicts the first Critique. But an analysis of Kant's ethics disproves that view (as will be shown momentarily) and confirms the conclusions drawn from his theory of theoretical reason. Kant's ethics defines noumena as postulates of practical reason. This means that the assertion about the existence of absolutely free will, personal immortality and God are factually and theoretically groundless. It pays
148to stress that Kant does not consider ``things-in-themselves'' postulates of practical reason. Moral reason has nothing to do with them at all. Kant maintains that consciousness is only moral inasmuch as it is not affected by `` thingsin-themselves'', i.e., is not determined externally. Thus the distinction between ``things-in-themselves'' and noumena, tentatively advanced in the doctrine of theoretical reason, becomes a radical opposition in Kant's ethics. Practical reason is not engaged in cognition at all. Its ideas express only moral self-consciousness. Therefore, Kant holds, "we cannot even assert that we cognize and discern the possibility of these ideas, let alone their reality". (73; 5, 4)
Kant counters theology by proving that morality is the source of religion and not vice versa. Of course, that is an idealist viewpoint, but it is clearly aimed against theology. That also means that postulates of practical reason are not preconditions of moral consciousness but its necessary convictions which coincide with the conviction about the categorical imperative of recompense. But that conviction is incompatible with the facts of real life in the real world. Nevertheless, moral consciousness remains what it is only inasmuch as it is convinced that justice knows no limits in space or time. According to Kant, "the belief in life after death is not a prerequisite of demonstrating the retribution justice imposes on man; on the contrary, it is rather that the conclusion about life after death is drawn from the necessity of punishment". (73; 7, 306)
Kant actually maintains that the inevitable failure to rid the world of injustice forces moral consciousness to accept divine judgment. And, since morality is essentially an uncompromising acceptance of the internal law, theological postulates express the insoluble contradictions between what must be done and what is. In Kant's ethics, God is infinite duty inevitably conceived by pure practical reason. V. F. Asmus is right in saying that "Kant completely rejects the real ontological significance of religion's supernatural content... The concept of God is rooted not in the relations of concepts and their features but in the depth of conscience, in man's inability to reconcile himself to the reality of evil, to the moral discord that exists in the world, to social evil." (14; 443)
Among postulates of pure practical reason Kant singles out free will as an absolute (and in that sense prelimin-
149ary) condition of morality, whose very existence proves that there is this free will. But this does not refer to a noumenon or the so-called ontological, primal freedom conceivable only as an a priori idea, but to relative freedom, quite sufficient to explain the possibility of morality. "Freedom in the practical sense is will's (Willkiir) independence of compulsion by the impulses of the senses." (73; 5, 375) This definition of freedom by Kant is essentially similar to those provided by Spinoza and other pre-Marxian materialists who understood freedom as reason's domination over affects. And although Kant holds that practical freedom stems from the idea of transcendental freedom, he interprets will's relative independence of sensory impulses as an empirically established fact which forms a sufficient basis for actions dependent on the subject and determining 'its responsibility for the consequences.
What then is the position of the idea of transcendental freedom among other noumena (postulates of practical reason)? Theology claims that absolute free will is incompatible with the natural order of things, that it is a case of direct divine predetermination. In this problem, too, Kant actually opposes theology: in his view, the concepts of God and personal immortality proceed from the concept of freedom. Here Kant is more categorical than anywhere else. "Since its reality is demonstrated by a certain apodictic law of practical reason, the concept of freedom is the cornerstone (Schlusstein) of the entire edifice of the system of pure, even speculative reason, and all other concepts (those of God and immortality) which, being mere ideas, are not based on that system, are added to it, and with it and because of it they acquire firmness and objective reality, i.e., their possibility is demonstrated by the fact that freedom is real, because this idea manifests itself in moral law. But freedom is the only idea of speculative reason whose -possibility we know a priori although we cannot comprehend it, because it is a condition of the moral law we know. But the concepts of God and Immortality are not conditions of the moral law but merely conditions of the necessary object of the will, determined by that law." (73; 5, 3-4)
One can hardly find another quotation where Kant formulates his interpretation of the interrelationship of ideas of practical reason as explicitly and even frankly. Under
150Kant's system, the moral law forbids lies but permits, where necessary, figures of silence---and Kant often resorted to them because his "religion within pure reason" was officially condemned. Thus Kant asserts that the idea of freedom (actually, simply freedom) should be conceived as preceding and generating the ideas of God and immortality.
Therefore, on the one hand, there is the fact of freedom, obviously borne out by the existence of morality, and on the other hand, there are theological ideas which can only be interpreted as convictions held by moral and essentially free consciousness. It is only practical reason, Kant maintains, that, "through the concept of freedom, provides the concepts of God and immortality with objective reality, with the right and, moreover, the subjective need (the need of pure reason) to be assumed". (73; 5, 4-5)
To avoid misunderstanding, it should be noted immediately that Kant uses the term "objective reality" to express the necessary universal significance of ideas of reason (and forms of knowledge in general), and not to denote reality independent of knowledge. The concepts of God and immortality which, according to Kant, are not deduced from the material of knowledge and which form what might be called secondary postulates of practical reason can only be explained proceeding from its subjective need as the result of its freedom, aimed at the realization of the moral law. Therefore, these ideas are not arbitrary; man creates the concepts of God and immortality not in any way he likes but according to his far from arbitrary needs. This idea was later to be expressly stated by Feuerbach: aware of his helplessness before the external world and searching for at least illusory support in his struggle against the elements, man creates the idea of something omnipotent. But Feuerbach is an atheist, while Kant remains religious "within pure reason". According to Kant's philosophy of religion, "the doctrine of the existence of God is but doctrinal faith". (73; 3, 553). Such faith is inevitably limited because it runs counter to the critique of pure reason, that is, the self-criticism of reason, which holds that one cannot "positively expand the realm of the objects of our thinking beyond the conditions of our sensuousness or assume the existence of not only phenomena but also of objects of pure thinking". (73; 3, 240) By applying this pre151
cept to religion, Kant says: "I must not even say: it is morally certain that God exists, etc., but: I am morally certain, etc." (73; 5, 555) Kant's philosophy of religion is, of course, not atheism, but it has played an important role in the history of atheism in the New Age.
Thus Kant's concept of the ``thing-in-itself'' is contrasted to the concept of the noumenon, although the "thing-- initself" is interpreted as existing outside space and time and is not, strictly speaking, a thing in the usual sense of the word because the latter, being spatially definite and sensuously perceived, is a phenomenon. The relationship between these mutually exclusive concepts, the ``thing-in-itself'' and the noumenon, points to the contradiction between materialism and idealism Kant tries to overcome. Hence also a certain, mostly terminological, vagueness of distinction which enables many students of Kant to turn ``things-in-themselves'' into noumena. This confusion of concepts and slurring over the distinction fundamental to Kant's philosophy rejects the latter's materialist aspect.
The materialist interpretation of the ``thing-in-itself''--- which, as we have shown, is not alien to Kant---- encompasses all reality because it exists irrespective of the cognitive process. The concept refers to an infinite multitude of objects not necessarily related to the cognizing subject, and not simply to individual things that generate sensations. It is a problem, and, of course, not only for Kant. He has recorded the fact that objects independent of the cognizing subjecT do not determine, at least directly, its theoretical notions. The evolution of the latter is affected not merely by the object of knowledge but also by the incomparably more complex interrelationships of phenomena--- natural and social, objective and subjective, physical and psychological. As the Soviet philosopher V. I. Shinkaruk observes, "the duplication of the objects of knowledge as both things-in-themselves and phenomena was not simply an epistemological error on the part of Kant. This ambiguity is present in knowledge itself. The thing as it is perceived and generally known by the cognizing subject and as it exists in itself is both the same and totally different." (35; 74) Therefore, Kant was mistaken not in distinguishing between phenomena and ``things-in-themselves'' but in opposing one to the other.
One cannot blame Kant for having failed to provide a
152logically consistent definition of the ``thing-in-itself''. In his case, such a definition would have been an act of escape from the problem Kant wanted to pose and deal with comprehensively. Any attempt at formally defining the ``thing-in-itself'' is hopeless. A definition of the real, unlimited diversity of things is only meaningful inasmuch as it unites its numerous abstract---that is, inevitably onesided---definitions. But how does one define this diversity of the objectively existing which, to a significant (and, perhaps, even overwhelming) degree, is not yet the object of knowledge?
Thus the antinomy of Kant's concept of the "thing-in-- itself" reflects the heterogeneous content of the problem he poses. Therefore, we should refer not only to the antinomy of the ``thing-in-itself'' as a concept but also to the contradictions of the cognitive process itself, the contradictions which, to a certain extent, Kant exposes. Moreover, we should in all probability refer to the contradictions of objective reality itself. For example, the opposition of the appearance and the essence, the essence and phenomena does not depend on knowledge at all. And, if Kant does not distinguish clearly enough between the different meanings of the ``thing-in-itself'' it is likely because he is the first to grasp the need for this distinction. The complexity of the problem inevitably points to the conclusion that the inconsistency usually stressed in analyzing Kant's doctrine of ``things-in-themselves'' is largely the reverse side of the purposeful search for a real solution of the problem. This search is incompatible with simplifying the issue for the sake of arriving at an illusory solution that would satisfy a superficial intellect. And, in contrast to the idealist interpretation of Kantian philosophy, dialectical materialism interprets and solves Kant's problem in the entirety of its historical development.
[153] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE DIALECTICAL IDEALISMDialectics had existed long before the theory of dialectics and dialectical logic appeared. But, as a system of theoretically substantiated postulates, the theory of development, which is also a theory of knowledge and a method deliberately contrasted to the metaphysical mode of thinking, dialectics emerges only in classical German philosophy. Even Descartes^" Spinoza, Leibniz, Diderot and Rousseau did not lay down a theory of dialectics, although they did have brilliant dialectical insights.
Immanuel Kant drew up a doctrine about the inevitability of contradictions at the highest level of theoretical knowledge. Kant's transcendental dialectics deals with unavoidable errors of pure reason which strives, according to its nature, to rise above the inevitable limitations of experience and the mind.
The opposition of Kant's "transcendental logic" to formal logic definitely poses the issue of creating dialectical logic. As Kant pointed out, formal logic abstracts itself from any content and examines only pure forms of thinking. Consequently, those forms of thinking which, for all their universality, possess definite content (specifically, all categories are like that), remain outside formal logic. The latter is interested neither in the necessary and the accidental, nor in the possible and the real, nor in other categories---that is, forms of thinking which reflect the existing forms of universality irrespective of thought. According to Kant, logic is to deal not only with subjective forms of thought but also with the forms of universality inherent in phenomena themselves. "In this case there must be a logic which does not abstract itself from any content of knowledge." (73; 5, 83) Despite the subjectivist interpretation of the world of phenomena, this obviously recognizes the need for a new, dialectical logic. This logic is to trace the origin of our knowledge about objects because
154this knowledge is universal and necessary, or (which in Kant's view is the same), objective.
Transcendental logic is a doctrine about forms of thinking and their application to sensory data. These a priori forms are the idealistically and agnostically interpreted universality and necessity of categorical forms of cognition. Thus, transcendental logic anticipates, to a certain degree, the problems of dialectical logic. "To a certain degree" because Kant rules out the examination of the development of categories, regarding them as immutable structural forms of thinking and experience in general. But dialectical logic (and dialectics in general) examines the development of the forms of universality inherent in thinking. Therefore, although Kant played a prominent part in the history of dialectics and founded dialectical idealism, he was not, strictly speaking, a dialectical idealist.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a direct follower of Kant, was the first representative of dialectical idealism. Marx said that Fichte's concept of the absolute subject, together with Spinoza's substance, idealistically interpreted, became part of Hegel's philosophy. Hegel's postulate that substance should also be understood as subject (that it becomes subject as a developing substance) is already implicit in Fichte's philosophy.
Fichte the dialectical idealist differs substantially from his dialectical predecessors. He was the first philosopher to deliberately develop dialectics as a method of research, the theory of development, the system of the categories of scientific knowledge, and philosophy as a science.
Marx called Kant's philosophy the German theory of the French Revolution (1; 1, 206). This definition also applies to Fichte's theory: his dialectics can be properly understood precisely as a philosophical interpretation and conscious expression of that revolution. Manfred Buhr is right when he says that Fichte's "first works are ... an open, courageous and emotional acceptance of the revolution in France and recognition of the right to overthrow governments in general." (41; 43) His later works on the philosophy of law and ethics are largely devoted to the analysis of government and law problems and social issues advanced by the French Revolution during the National Convention. Fichte considered himself an ally of French bourgeois revolutionaries. When militant reactionaries succeeded
155in removing him from the faculty of the University of Jena, he wrote: "The reason behind it is clear; it is ob vious although no one will call it by its name ... To them I am a democrat, a Jacobin; that is the whole point." (49; 5, 286)
Fichte was an open and dedicated opponent of the feudal system and ideology that reigned in German states. That ideology, both religious-and secular, sanctified the existing order of things as inviolable, natural, justified by its age-old history, traditions and customs. The division into estates, the privileges of feudal lords, the oppression and poverty of the mass of people, the tyranny of the aristocracy led by the royal family and wallowing in luxury---all that was proclaimed ordained by human nature and divine reason. Submission and humility were regarded as the highest virtues. Any idea that the existing order could or should be changed was treated as sacrilege. But the French Revolution destroyed the feudal system and discredited its ideology. Fichte welcomed this revolution not only as a landmark in French history and an example to be emulated. He saw it as an expression of a law of world history, a law which people had previously failed to grasp and which therefore had failed to become an essence of their conscious activity. But it is activity that lies at the heart of the essence of man and world history. And if something exists contrary to man's interests and well-being, it means that man does not sufficiently understand the decisive role of his own activity. Says Fichte: "In all of world history we shall never find anything which we ourselves have not introduced into it before." (49; 6, 39) In other words, people are authors of their historical drama. Fichte arrived at that conclusion in his article entitled "A Contribution to Correct the Public View of the French Revolution". In that article Fichte explained his conclusion: 'Wo state system is safe from change^ it is in their nature that they all change. A bad system which runs counter to the necessary ultimate goal of any state unit must be changed; a good one which contributes to the attainment of this goal changes itself." (49; 6, 103) This quotation from Fichte is especially valuable in its admission of the universal and necessary character of change. Under any conditions, not only when man is dissatisfied, change is bound to occur; change is a universal law.
156The idea of people shaping their own history was born of the bourgeois Enlightenment as a theoretical generalization of the antifeudal popular movement. But this conviction, regarded as self-evident by all opponents of clericalism, failed to fit in with other, equally significant convictions of the Enlighteners. They put a naturalist construction on society, arguing that people's lives were shaped, on the one hand, by their external natural environment and, on the other hand, by their inner nature. But neither the external natural environment nor human nature depend on people. In that case, whence the conviction that people shape their own history?
The bourgeois Enlightenment never formulated this antinomy. True, sometimes, while discussing free will and necessity, the Enlighteners did note that contradiction. Significantly, while 18th-century French materialists offered a fatalistic interpretation of necessity, they nevertheless insisted that people shaped their history themselves. This conclusion stemmed directly from their atheist world view.
Fichte is profoundly aware of the contradictions in the naturalist interpretation of human history. Before him, Kant already pointed to them, but he regarded them as essentially insurmountable because freedom was inherent in the world of things-in-themselves, while necessity belonged to the world of phenomena. Fichte rejects this dualistic precept and proves that the contradiction between freedom and necessity can be resolved.
As an empirical agent, man is totally dependent on natural laws. "I myself with all that I call mine am a link in this chain of inviolable natural necessity." (52; 3, 15) Both man's psychological activity and his bodily being are necessarily shaped by forces over which he has no control. "What exists in nature is necessarily such as it is, and it is absolutely impossible that it be otherwise." (52; 3, 10) According to Fichte, the endless causality which predetermines each moment of man's life, the universal connection of everything to all, means that the existence of an empirical subject is determined by any accidental factor, by the position of a grain of sand on a seashore, for example. Hence my Ego is not my own creation. "It is impossible for another to take my place; it is impossible for me, having emerged, to be, at some moment of my existence, different from what I am in reality." (52; 3, 15) But if that
157is the case, no Ego, no personality exists. However, the empirical Ego, the human individual, does not want and therefore cannot reconcile himself to the omnipotence of nature. This Ego revolts against the slavery imposed on it, and the strength of this revolt helps it comprehend its real relation to the external world. "There is in me," Fichte writes, "a yearning for an absolute, independent self-activity. There is nothing less acceptable for me than existence only in another, for another and through another. I want to be and become something for myself and through myself. I feel this yearning as soon as I perceive myself; it is inseparable from my self-consciousness." (52; 3, 85)
Thanks to historical development whose most essential content, according to Fichte, is self-knowledge, man realizes that he is a slave of his own external and internal nature only as an individual, as an empirical Ego unaware Of its unity with the universal Ego of humanity, with the absolute subject, the infinite activity which is the absolute power of negation and the absolute power of creativity.
Self-consciousness, Fichte maintains, forces man to face pseudonecessity. And then it turns out that he is a product of nature only as an empirical Ego, but as a pure Ego attached to the absolute subject man creates nature and the necessity inherent in it. Freedom is the essence of the absolute subject. Its will, the absolute will, is "the first link in the chain of consequences of this world, the chain that passes through the entire invisible realm of the spirit; just as in the earthly world action, the known movement of matter, is the first link in the material chain which embraces the entire system of matter." (52; 3, 118)
That is how Fichte resolves the contradictions inherent in the naturalist interpretation of the ``man-nature'' correlation. He rejects the fundamental naturalist thesis which holds that the external natural environment and human nature itself shape the life of man. However, this correct conclusion follows from erroneous idealist premises.
Fichte's philosophy fails to see the true force that shapes man's life: social production, social production relations. This, no doubt, expresses his bourgeois limitations. However, the important point is that Fichte the bourgeois revolutionary advances (albeit in the erroneous idealist form) a brilliant insight which anticipates one of the fundamentals of the scientific approach to history: mankind
158itself creates conditions that determine its history. Of course, this approach to the problem is still quite abstract, and it does not rule out an erroneous---and theological---- interpretation of world history. But in the actual context of the development of classical German philosophy it led to the materialist interpretation of history which offered a scientific explanation of how and why mankind was really the author of its historical drama.
We shall later return to the concept of the absolute subject. But before we turn to the analysis of the dialectics of the Ego and the non-Ego, we should yet again stop to consider those bourgeois-revolutionary views of Fichte's which are directly linked to his dialectical understanding of the world. Feudal ideology treated social contrasts as primal and absolute. Bourgeois ideology rejected this metaphysical opposition of man to man as contrary to human nature. In this bourgeois ideologists proceeded from the concept of immutable human nature. Rousseau is the only one to approach the issue of the history of society affecting human nature. Fichte repeatedly quotes and supports Rousseau, but he goes further in understanding human nature. He reduces the latter to activity and regards all the qualitative characteristics of man as objective expressions of that activity.
Fichte rejects as unworthy of man the traditional feudal view that masters remain masters and serfs remain serfs. Developing the ideas of Rousseau and anticipating Hegel's famous postulate about the relative character of the contrast between master and slave, Fichte questions the apparently self-evident truth: are masters really masters? And do slaves remain slaves? He exclaims with indignation: "Anyone considering himself master of others is himself a slave. If he is not always really a slave, then he has the soul of a slave, and he will cringe disgustingly before the first one who is stronger and who enslaves him. Only he is free who wants to make free everything around him." (52, 1, 237)
Thus the opposition between masters and slaves turns out to be dialectical. The French Revolution brought down feudal lords. Fichte idealizes the bourgeois revolution, he sees it as abolishing all relations of domination and submission. This great objective justifies revolutionary violence.
159Thus, Fichte's passion for dialectics is rooted in the bourgeois revolution. In his view, the revolutionary restructuring of society, the conscious transformation of state and legal relations, the abolition of the feudal yoke, identified with the abolition of any oppression, reveal the universal essence of man and human history.
The ideologues of the French Revolution, the French Enlighteners, were mostly metaphysicians and not dialecticians. They absolutely opposed the new to the old, and that undoubtedly played a revolutionary ideological role. Unlike those people, Fichte was a contemporary of the French Revolution, he interpreted it drawing on the ideas of his French forerunners. On the other hand, Fichte was a follower of Kant and of the German dialectical tradition in general. This explains why in new historical conditions dialectical idealism became the ideology of the bourgeois revolution in Germany.
The mission of philosophy, according to Fichte, "is to furnish man with strength, courage and confidence, showing that all this and his destiny as a whole hinge upon himself". (52; 5, 345) That is what Fichte sees as the meaning of his philosophy which he describes as a consistent development of the concept of freedom. In one of his letters to Reinhold he remarks: "The soul of my system is the statement: the Ego is unquestionably conscious of itself. These words have no meaning nor value without the inner self-contemplation of the Ego." (48; 1, 477-78) He substantiates this postulate by analyzing the concept of the absolute subject, the absolute Ego.
The concept of the absolute Ego is the most difficult and the least clear concept in Fichte's system. Naturally, Fichte proceeds directly from the human Ego whose existence is, in his eyes, incomparably more obvious than that of external objects, that is, everything he negatively describes as the non-Ego. In his analysis of self-consciousness, Fichte, like Kant, arrives at the correct conclusion that it is only possible inasmuch as there is the perception of the external world. But in an idealistic system of views the recognition of the external world is a conclusion based on intellectual intuition and on the direct awareness of the unquestionable existence of the human Ego. Philosophy, Fichte emphasizes, must proceed only from that which is absolutely authentic: its entire content must be deduced
160from a fundamental precept, so that "if and inasmuch as this first is authentic, the second must also be authentic; and if the second is authentic, by the same token the third must be authentic, etc." (51; 7).
However, Fichte is far from regarding the consciousness of an individual, the individual consciousness he describes as the empirical Ego, as the cornerstone of his system. That cornerstone, he maintains, is the absolute Ego whose existence cannot be questioned either. This he refers to "quite a different Ego, concealed from ordinary eyes, not revealing itself in the realm of facts, but knowable only by rising to the basis". (50; 35) Fichte both opposes the absolute subject to the empirical Ego and insists that they form an integral whole. This is a thesis of tremendous theoretical and ideological significance. Each human individual comprises something absolute. True, the empirical subject comprises the absolute Ego only in a limited, undeveloped and transient form. But the absolute Ego realizes itself in the activity of finite empirical subjects.
While Berkeley is content to examine the individual human subject who perceives his sense impressions with combinations of the latter allegedly forming the objects of the sensuously perceived world, Fichte deems it necessary to rise from the individual Ego to the universal Ego, the absolute subject. Only that absolute subject is the source of everything existing, it is the activity which creates and determines everything.
The empirical subject is potentially absolute only in itself. The opposition between the absolute subject and the empirical Ego is relative although it is the relation of the universal to the individual, of the everlasting to the transient, the suprasensuous to the sensuous, the infinite to the finite. According to Fichte, the limitation of this opposition (which, naturally, is impossible to overcome), the rise of the individual to the level of the universal is the most profound essence of all that takes place in the world. This is likely to lead to the conclusion that for all its speculative abstract nature, the absolute Ego is actually mankind in the course of its past, present and future development--- that is, mankind unlimited by any historical bounds which could have restricted the development of its knowledge, its power over nature and the perfection of its social organization. But this idealist abstract concept of mankind, an
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abstraction that to a certain extent erodes the distinctive1 nature of social development, does not at all exhaust the concept of the absolute subject. In the final analysis, the absolute Ego is substantialized activity transformed into the absolute subject. That is "something totally unconditional and undeterminable by anything higher". (52; 1, 314)
Fichte refuses to proceed from the categories of , being and substance. He maintains that they should be viewed .as forms through which activity realizes itself. He is not satisfied with the formula that activity is inherent in being. In that case activity is regarded as a quality, an ability of being which, apparently, possesses other abilities too. But activity is that which makes being being. "That whose being (essence) is solely that it posits itself as existing, is the Ego as the absolute subject." (52; 7, 291) This explains why Fichte rejects the traditional philosophical concept of substance, usually understood as the absolute basis of the diversity of being which is devoid of self-activity and independence. It is true that Leibniz revised the concept of substance and interpreted it as the force making the material alive. But Fichte believes even that concept to be insufficient because in Leibniz's view monads and not activity are substances. Fichte maintains that if the concept of substance is to be used at all, it should be reduced to the absolute subject. "Insofar as the Ego is viewed as comprising the entire and fully determined circle of all realities, it is substance." (52; 1, 337) V. F. Asmus is right to point out that Fichte's philosophy combines subjective and objective idealism. (13; 81) Since the absolute Ego is treated as something different from mankind, it admits the existence of a supranatural and suprahuman first cause--- that is, it recognizes the starting point of objective idealism. "My absolute Ego," Fichte writes to Jacobi, "is, of course, not the individual.. . But the individual must be deduced from the absolute Ego." (48; 1, 501) Fichte's distinction between the concepts of the absolute subject and mankind to a certain degree anticipates Hegel's concept of the dialectical identity of being and thought. "The only thing that undoubtedly exists," he writes in his System of the Moral Theory (1812), is the concept, the purely spiritual being. The majority cannot rise to such being as the concept. To them, the concept is only an expression of ob-
162jective knowledge, a reflection, a replica of things . . . The idea, or pure seeing (blosses Gesicht) is the real and only true heing which reveals itself to pure thought." (52; 6', 31) Further, Fichte emphasizes: "The real Ego must appear only as the life of the concept. The Ego whose selfconsciousness would include some other principle besides the absolute concept would not be the true Ego but merely an appearance of the Ego." (52, 6, 37) That is precisely why Fichte's absolute subject is, as Marx and Engels pointed out, none other than "metaphysically disguised spirit separated from nature". (1; 4, 139) That concept of the first cause eventually leads to the recognition of the divine first cause of the existing. While in his earlier works Fichte does not formulate this conclusion, later he is quite explicit about it.
Thus, Fichte strives to prove that since activity is recognized as absolute, it is not an object but a subject, and only in this sense the absolute Ego. This identification of activity with substance, with the subject and, finally, with selfness (Ichheit) as the idealist solution of the key philosophical problem implies the absolute opposition of the subject to the object as the point of departure. "Either of the two must be removed: spirit or nature; the two cannot be united at all. Their imaginary unity is partly hypocrisy and lies, and partly the inconsistency imposed by the feeling." (52; 6, 32) He does not reject the existence of nature, of the world of things perceived through the senses, its independence of the individual human Ego. He rejects the primacy of the natural, material.
Furthermore, treating activity as an absolute means idealistically interpreting motion and change inherent in sensuously perceived things covered by the general concept of the non-Ego. The motion and change of things are viewed as alienated forms of activity; they are therefore reduced to activity which Fichte both distinguishes from and opposes to the motion and change inherent in natural things.*
* The Soviet philosopher V. V. Lazarev says: "Fichte insisted that development was actually contained not in the `object' itself but only in the method of theoretical construction and in the way it was set forth. He believed that the concept of the 'self-developing object' was self-contradictory and destructive for his entire system. His dialectics of self-consciousness did not merely tolerate the metaphysical view of nature as a motionless `object', it implied this view and was based on it." (27; 33)
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11* 163
Fichte's philosophy provided a comprehensive, albeit subjectivist-voluntarist development of the principle of an active role of the subject, already of paramount importance in Kant's system. Denying the existence of "things-in-- themselves", Fichte rejects not only Kant's agnosticism, the object's independence of the subject, that is, the non-Ego's independence of the absolute Ego. Since the absolute Ego is continuous activity and constant emergence, it is not something that is ready in advance, something immutable. Its relation to the non-Ego should be viewed as a process of change, of development. Therefore, the negation of the reality independent of the Ego (in other words, the nonEgo) must fully take into account the interaction and unity of those opposites which are both mutually exclusive and mutually implying.
The relation between the Ego and the non-Ego is the subject of Fichte's supreme principles. According to the first supreme principle, the absolute Ego originally undodoubtedly posits its own being. This means that the entire content of consciousness is rooted in the activity (Tat-- handlung), the self-positing of the Ego. "The Ego is the source of all reality, because it is posited directly and unconditionally. The concept of reality is given only through and together with the Ego. But the Ego exists because it posits its existence, and that because it exists. Therefore, selfpositing and being are one and the same thing. But the concepts of self-positing and activity in general are also one and the same. It follows that any reality is active and everything active is reality." (52; 1, 329)
The first supreme principle does not yet comprise the concept of the world of objects, of the non-Ego. Here Fichte deliberately excludes everything which is not the Ego, thus postulating the absolute freedom of the absolute subject, absolute activity's independence of conditions, and the ability of the human, empirical Ego to shape, create itself---of course, only inasmuch as it approaches the absolute subject. Therefore the meaning of man's life is "that each devote his entire personal life, all of its strength and all of its pleasures, to ideas". (52, 4, 460-61)
Further, the first supreme principle formulates the primacy of practical (of course, idealistically interpreted) activity over theoretical activity and knowledge in general. Absolute activity is, above all, practical activity: all other
164forms of activity are derivatives. "This world is undoubtedly only the sphere of our activity and definitely nothing greater. Consciousness of the real world stems from the need to act, and not vice versa---the need to act from consciousness of the world; this need is primary, consciousness of the world is a derivative. We do not act because we learn, we learn because our mission is to act; practical reason is the root of all reason." (52; 3, 99)
Fichte thus offers an idealist interpretation of the substantially new epistemological understanding of practice as the basis of knowledge. He even goes further, describing practice as universal activity and therefore as the essence of the absolute subject. However, both consciousness and practice imply something that is different from them. Activity is impossible without an object. Therefore the Ego asserts itself only inasmuch as the non-Ego exists. Self-- activity of the absolute subject and the existence of its opposite, the objective, determine each other. Fichte formulates this dialectical truth as a subjective idealist, asserting that the Ego posits the non-Ego. That is the second supreme principle, according to which the opposition between the Ego and the non-Ego exists only within the absolute Ego because nothing at all exists outside the latter.
Fichte is well aware of all the difficulties inherent in the subjectivist-idealist solution of the problem of subject and object. The existence of the non-Ego is a necessary precondition for the Ego positing its own being. If that is the case, the Ego does not posit the existence of the non-Ego but finds it as a condition of its activity; that questions or at least limits the self-positing of the Ego. The bare Cartesian cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) is essentially impossible: thinking implies an object independent of the thinking subject. Fichte writes: "The Ego never perceives itself and cannot perceive itself except in its empirical definitions . .. These empirical definitions always imply something that is outside the Ego. Even a man's body which he calls his own body, is something outside the Ego." (52; 1, 223) Typically, Fichte excludes everything bodily from the concept of the Ego (in this case it is the empirical subject). But he agrees that the bodily affects consciousness and to a certain extent even determines it, but this determination of the subject by the object is interpreted as posited by the subject, as the self-restriction,
splitting into two, self-alienation of the subject. Therefore, according to Fichte's theory, the admission that there exists "something outside the Ego" remains within confines of subjective idealism, because the external is interpreted as the self-restriction of the subject (that is already present in Kant's system).
As it was to be expected, Fichte uses idealist dialectics to substantiate subjective idealism. The opposition between the subject and the object is interpreted as a result of the subject's activity, although this activity is impossible without the existence of the object independent of it. "Any opposition as such exists only inasmuch as the Ego acts, and not for any other reason. Opposition is generally posited only through the Ego." (52; 1, 297)
Nevertheless, for all his attempts at substantiating the subjective-idealist solution of the problem of subject and object, even despite his conviction that their unity cannot be substantiated otherwise (of course if one rejects the dependence of the subject on the object), Fichte is forced to admit that his substantiation lacks a clearly necessary element which, however, is ruled out by the entire content of the theory. In his letter to Reinhold quoted earlier Fichte offers the following description of the difficulties in the substantiation of the concept of the absolute Ego: "If the Ego originally posits only its own existence, then how is it possible for something different to be posited too, that which opposes the Ego?" (48, 1, 478) This means that the non-Ego cannot be something that has appeared after the Ego. But then the original act of self-positing is not really original because the action of positing (and consequently, the very existence of the subject) already implies the existence of the object, of objective reality.
Therefore the non-Ego cannot be reduced to the Ego because this reduction would have destroyed the unity of opposites which is the basis and the content of self-- consciousness. And Fichte admits that the Ego needs a fundamental external impulse, a primal impetus without which activity, self-positing and self-consciousness are impossible. "Although the principle of life and consciousness, the proof of its possibility, are, of course, contained in the Ego, it is not yet the source of any real life, any empirical life in time... If this real life must be possible, this needs still another special impetus on the part of the non-Ego
to affect the Ego." (52; 1, 471) Naturally, Fichte's system does not develop these and other similar statements. They are incompatible with its subjective-idealist basis. Tracing them to their logical conclusion means abandoning subjective idealism in favor of a materialist recognition of ``things-in-themselves'' or in favor of objective idealism. The objective-idealist trend keeps surfacing in Fichte's theory, but it is suppressed by voluntarist subjectivism.
Thus, the analysis of the first and the second supreme principles of Fichte's theory shows that he cannot fully overcome Kant's ``thing-in-itself'', that his own philosophical consistency forces him to admit the existence of something which transcends the bounds of the subjective-idealist solution of the central problem of philosophy. Fichte's conclusion is a continuation of Kant's approach to the relation between theoretical and practical reason. The problem of the original impulse---or, more precisely, of the reality independent of the subject---is recognized as insolvable within the confines of the theoretical approach to philosophy; it is solved by the practical approach. One should note, however, that this formulation of the problem contains a rational element: the existence of reality that is independent of consciousness is proved above all practically.
The dialectical opposition of the Ego and the non-Ego, of thesis and antithesis, of reality and negation, of action and submission necessarily raise the question about the outcome of this struggle of opposites. Why does one opposite not destroy the other? Why do they not cancel each other out? Is their synthesis possible and if it is, how can it be achieved? Fichte tries to answer all those questions, thereby proving not only the necessity of the third supreme principle but also the theoretical understanding of the interrelationship of opposites in general.
In Fichte's opinion, the unity of opposites denotes the transition of the qualities of one aspect into those of the other. If the Ego is defined as activity and the non-Ego as passivity, the dialectics of these opposites inevitably leads to the Ego acquiring passive aspects, and the non-Ego, those of activity. "Passivity and activity as such are opposed; nevertheless, activity must necessarily imply passivity and vice versa." (52; 1, 347)
Opposition implies the unity of difference and identity. There is no identity without difference; there is no differ-
1,67
ence without identity. It follows from the second supreme principle, according to which the Ego posits the existence of the non-Ego, that "the Ego posits negation in itself since it posits reality in the non-Ego, and it posits reality within itself since it posits negation in the non-Ego. Thus it posits itself to be self-determining since it receives the determination, and it posits itself to be receiving the determination since it determines itself." (52; 1, 325) * This means that the Ego is both active and passive at the same time. But the same applies to the non-Ego. The unity of opposites appears as mutual transition up to the identity of opposites. The Ego not only opposes the non-Ego, it "opposes itself". In this connection Fichte says: "The Ego cannot posit any passive state within itself without positing activity within the non-Ego; but it cannot posit any activity in the non-Ego without positing some passivity in itself." (52; 1, 343) Does this dialectics of opposites not cancel out their differences? If that which distinguishes the Ego from the non-Ego is inherent in the latter and that which is distinctive of the non-Ego is present in the Ego too, if there is nothing in the subject which is not present in the object and vice versa "how then can one distinguish also between the Ego and the non-Ego under these conditions at all? For the basis of distinction between them which should have made the former active and the latter passive is no more." (52; 7, 354)
Answering this question---which is essentially insolvable for a subjective idealist because he views the outside world as derived from the subject---Fichte maintains that the problem can only be solved if the absolute Ego possesses a quality that cannot become a quality of the non-Ego. Therefore, to solve this problem one must go back to the original definition of the absolute subject, a definition which
* While stressing the great importance of Fichte's approach to the problem of the mutual transformation of opposites, one should not forget that its formulation is subjective-idealist, treating the problem as the principle of the mutual determination of the subject and the object: activity and its object are described as an identity which, on the strength of the activity that shapes it, splits into two opposites. According to Fichte, "Do not strive to spring out of yourself to embrace more than you can embrace, such as consciousness and the thing, the thing and consciousness, or, to be more precise, either of the two separately, but that which only later splits into two, that which is necessarily subjective-objective and objectivesubjective." (52; 3, 80).
' "
does not have to be demonstrated because it is intuitively obvious. Writes Fichte: "This characteristic of the Ego which cannot at all be ascribed to the non-Ego is the unconditional positing and the unconditional being posited, without any ground." (52; 1, 354-55) In other words, the Ego differs from the non-Ego in that it needs no original substantiation. Naturally, this fundamental postulate of subjective idealism does not help in solving the problem of the unity of opposites but confuses the issue still further. This key flaw of Fichte's supreme principle is aptly noted in the letter from his outstanding contemporary Friedrich Holderlin to Hegel of January 26, 1795: "But his absolute Ego (--- Spinoza's substance) conmprises all reality; it is all and there is nothing outside it: so there is no object for this absolute Ego, otherwise it would not have comprised all reality; but consciousness without an object is unthinkable, and even if I myself am this object I am necessarily restricted as such, at least in time, and therefore I am not absolute; thus, consciousness is unthinkable in the absolute Ego; as the absolute Ego I possess no consciousness, and insofar as I possess no consciousness, the Ego (for me) is nothing, therefore the absolute Ego (for me) is also nothing." (67, 6, 169)
Self-consciousness is not the starting point of human life. If consciousness is recognized being, self-consciousness is the recognition of this relation of the world of man to the outside world and, above all, naturally, to other men. Since man, in Marx's words, "comes into the world neither with a looking glass in his hand, nor as a Fichtean philosopher, to whom 'I am I' is sufficient, man first sees and recognizes himself in other men. Peter only establishes his own identity as a man by comparing himself with Paul as being of like kind." (5; 1, 59)
Fichte understands perfectly that the problem of the synthesis of thesis and antithesis cannot be solved by looking for intermediate links combining features of both aspects. He holds that this does not resolve the contradiction but merely moves it onto a different plane. Even if there is something intermediate between the two opposites, as twilight is halfway between day and night, even that intermediate link does not unite the opposites.. The unity of opposites is possible because they are relative and in a certain sense identical. The point, according to Fichte, is that
``light and darkness are not opposites in general but differ only in degree .. . The same is true of the relationship between the Ego and the non-Ego". (52; 1, 340)
Still, why do the opposites the Ego and the non-Ego not cancel themselves out but remain? Fichte stresses that this question cannot be resolved by any means of logic: the point is not to unite these opposites in some way but to find in them that which really unites them. Therefore the task is not reduced to "having immersed ourselves in reflection, invent for them [the opposites] a certain juncture by some trickery; it means that since the unity of consciousness is posited simultaneously with the positing that threatens to destroy it, such a juncture must be already available in our consciousness, and that our mission is merely to find it through reflection." (52; 1, 323)
According to Fichte's theory, the unity of the Ego (the absolute fullness of reality) and the non-Ego (the absolute fullness of negation) is formed through mutual restriction, on the strength of which the Ego partly determines itself and is partly determined by the non-Ego. But this means that the non-Ego, too, is only partly determined by the activity of the Ego. Fichte formulates the third supreme principle of his theory as follows: the Ego opposes the divisible Ego to the divisible non-Ego, that is, both opposites restrict each other quantitatively, in part.
Thus the third supreme principle, a synthesis of the two earlier ones, cancels their one-sidedness and substantiates the unconditional reality of both the subjective and the objective. Their relations are interpreted as a correlation, that is, in the spirit of subjective idealism which recognizes the subject's dependence on the object only inasmuch as the object is recognized as dependent on the subject. "Neither should the subjective be destroyed by the objective, nor the objective by the subjective . .. Both must continue existing side by side. Therefore they must be synthetically united, and that through something third in which they are equal, through determinability. Both are not the subject and the object as such, but the subjective and the objective, posited through thesis and antithesis and mutually determinable, and only because they are such they can be united and fixed by the ability of the Ego (force of imagination) working in the synthesis." (52, 7, 400) An examination of the supreme principles of Fichte's
170theory reveals the key features of his dialectics. According to Fichte, opposition, the struggle of opposites and their mutual restriction imply the activity of the Ego as their primary condition. Therefore, Fichte never mentions the immanent dialectics of the object, although he does demand that the basis of the unity of opposites should be sought in themselves. Interpreting any reality as subject-object, that is, as mutual dependence, in which primacy belongs to the subject, Fichte is far from seeing contradictions in objects themselves, irrespective of the existence of the subject. Besides, objects are described negatively, as the nonEgo which is, moreover, posited by the activity of the Ego. Thus, substantiating the concept of the moral subject, Fichte considers it a condition of the recognition of the external world's dependence on the subject: "Our world is the material for discharging our duty; this is the true essence of things, the substance of all that is seen." (49, 5, 185) Subjective idealism inevitably distorts a profound approach to the problem of the unity and struggle of opposites. Nevertheless, Fichte's concept of subject-object dialectics provides a mystical reflection of the dialectical character of human activity.
The unity of the subjective and the objective reveals the distinctive objectivity of social relations that are both products of the joint, Historically developing human activity and independent of human consciousness and will. Historical necessity differs radically from natural necessity which is independent of human activity. The laws of human activity are its inner content---the unity of live and objectivized (substantiated in the form of historical conditions, causes, institutes) human activity. Fichte treats the distinction between the social and the natural as an absolute, he turns the social, the human into the substantial which determines and gives rise to nature.
Fichte's subjective-idealist dialectics reveals the real process and, at the same time, puts a mystical construction on it. He sees its infinity as a justification of the subjectivist, voluntarist view of the world: mankind masters the elemental forces of nature and turns them into its own human forces. In Fichte's words, "I want to be master of nature, and it must be my servant; I want to have power over it which is commensurate with my strength, but it must have no power over me." (52; <?, 28-29)
171Fichte does not describe his method as dialectical but as antithetical, thus stressing the triadic relationship he has discovered: thesis---antithesis---synthesis. According to Fiche, however, the antithesis is not a result of the development of the thesis. The existence of the antithesis is implied in the existence of the thesis, just as one pole of a magnet implies the existence of the other. Of course, the correlative unity of opposites is a substantial dialectical relation, but,Fichte sees it as the only possible one. Therefore he does not interpret the relation of opposites (thesis and antithesis) genetically, in development. He describes even synthesis not as a new stage in development but as a juncture of given opposites, as something akin to a form of universality that unites them. In describing Fichte's antithetical method as a specific form of dialectics, V. F. Asmus aptly remarks that "Fichte's dialectical method alternates between two mutually determined approaches: the antithetical and the synthetic. The antithetical approach looks for the quality in which the things under comparison oppose each other. The synthetic approach searches for the quality in which they are equal. Antithesis is impossible without synthesis and synthesis, without antithesis." (13; 96) However, while pointing to the inevitable flaws in Fichte's subjective-idealist dialectics, one must not underrate his genuine dialectical insights.
I must add that the third supreme principle appears to contradict the original subjective-idealist premise and, on the strength of the mutual determination it establishes, implies only partial determination of the non-Ego by the Ego. True, in the language of subjective idealism this merely means that the Ego posits itself as partially determined through the non-Ego. Still, the crux of the matter remains unchanged: obviously, activity, process, being which is In dependent of the Ego exists not only in the non-Ego but in the Ego itself too. And although Fichte maintains that the entire reality of the non-Ego is merely reality transported from the Ego, the "alienation of sorts" (Entaussern) of the Ego, he is forced to recognize this being which is independent of, although originating from, the absolute subject: "There must be something in things-by-themselves that is independent of our perception, something that enables them to penetrate one another without our assistance. (52; 1, 370), However, to avoid the impression that this
173statement recognizes the ``thing-in-itself'', Fichte adds: "But the reason underlying the fact that we connect them [things] together must lie in ourselves, for example, in our perception." (52; 7, 370) Still, aside from Fiche's subjective-idealist conclusions, one must stress the rational aspect of his reasoning---the recognition of the dialectical transformation of the subjective into the objective. Consequences of subjective human activity become an objective process which is independent of men and which shapes the conditions of their subsequent activity and partly even the basis that determines it.
Naturally, Fichte offers a subjectivist interpretation of the transformation of the subjective into the objective, i.e., the objectivization of human activity. But it is also clear that this dialectical process discovered by Fichte leads directly to the understanding of social development in which material production, an objectivized result of human activity, is, on the one hand, live human activity and, on the other hand, an activity independent of men and determining all their social relations as a basis.
Already in his Phenomenology of the Spirit, Hegel, proceeding from Fichte, was on the verge of understanding the real content of the transformation of the subjective into the objective. That was evident in his brilliant definition of the essence of labor, a definition that Marx highly appraised. According to Marx, Hegel "grasps labor as the essence of man---as man's essence which stands the test" (1; 5,333).
Hence, people themselves do create objective conditions independent of their consciousness and will---conditions that, unlike the natural environment, determine human existence. Of course, Fichte does not even mention any nature independent of the subject, but he constantly refers to the idea of transforming nature and subjecting it to man's will. That is how he resolves the opposition between such seemingly mutually exclusive theses as "men are makers of their own history" and "history is determined by objective laws independent of men's consciousness or will". Productive forces develop through human activity, but since each new generation inherits the productive forces created by the preceding generations, it is obviously not free in its choice of productive forces, that is, of the motive forces of socio-historical development.
173Because of its inherently contemplative nature, pre-- Marxian materialism ignored the transformation of the subjective into the objective, thus weakening the concept of the subject which was described one-sidedly, mostly as an object affected by things of the external world. The real basis of human history is not nature as such but the "second nature" created by mankind throughout its history by material production. Incidentally, this concept should be applied not only to the natural environment transformed by man but also to his own nature.
Marx and Engels criticized Feuerbach for his lack of understanding of that fundamental fact and connected it to his naturalist and, in the final analysis, idealistic views of social relations. Fichte's dialectics enabled him to set forth---albeit in a speculative, idealistically absolute form ---that which Feuerbach failed to see because of his metaphysical limitations. This reveals not only the historical significance of Fichte's philosophy but also the epistemological roots of his subjective idealism.
The real dialectics of subject and object implies, as its original, natural premise, the existence of the objective as a reality preceding (and independent of) human activity, a reality which is transformed by men. As a result, not only the subjective is a consequence of the objective, but also the objective (in its definite form) is created and reproduced by the subject. To a certain degree, Fichte guessed this distinctive characteristic of the social as distinct from the natural process---and distorted it too, because he treated the ``subject-object'' relation as a principle of ontology.
Fichte's theory of supreme principles is the starting point in the deduction of the laws of formal logic and systems of major philosophical categories. Kant accepts these laws and categories as simply existing in thinking, but Fichte interprets them as determined by the dialectics of the subjective and the objective. Kant confines his mission to drawing up a table of categories, grouping them by major types of judgments and revealing the inner connections of categories in each of these groups (here Kant formulates the dialectical triad and thus approaches the understanding of the negation of negation). Fichte takes the next step forward. He views categories as forming a hierarchy comprising both coordination and subordination.
174In substantiating the first supreme principle of philosophy Fichte compares it to the formal logical law of identity. "A is A" (or "A=A") is obviously a logically correct proposition, but it does not follow that A really exists. What is the condition of A's existence? According to subjective idealism, the reality of A is posited in the Ego.
Fichte says that "the proposition A = A is originally meaningful only for the Ego; it is deduced from the philosophical proposition the Ego is the Ego; therefore any content to which it is applicable must lie in the Ego... Thus no A can be anything other than posited in the Ego, therefore our proposition will read as follows: what is posited in the Ego is posited; if A is posited in the Ego, then it is posited (because it is precisely what is posited as possible, real or necessary), and thus it is undoubtedly true, if the Ego should be the Ego". (51; 49) No doubt, any law implies objects and conditions which are subject to it. In this case Fichte opposes the metaphysical absolute construction put on the formal logical principle of identity, proving its conditionality. For all the fallacy of the subjective-idealist view of the basis of the law of identity, the raising of the issue about the need for a critical interpretation (and substantiation) of formal logical laws and their real significance (and limitations) is a philosophical accomplishment.
Substantiating the second and third supreme principles, Fichte examines the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded third. Formal logic treated these' laws as selfevident axioms. Fichte questions that view as dogmatic. According to him, intellectual intuition does not prove that those laws are undoubtedly true. Only the second and third supreme principles of philosophy make them true, and even that---and this is especially important---within certain limits.
A further analysis of the supreme principles singles out major categories of theoretical thinking which are thus not merely detected, enumerated and classified but deduced by a logical development of the concept of the absolute subject. For example, the concept of substance is an extended definition of the concept of the absolute subject because it posits itself. But the subjective-idealist concept of substance divorces it from nature and thus robs it of its distinctive content.
175An analysis of the dialectical relation between the Ego and the non-Ego makes it possible to deduce the concepts of the boundary, divisibility and quantitative definitivenness. Any restriction is a definition and negation of a different definitiveness. Therefore, the concept of the boundary comprises the concepts of reality and negation. The Ego and the non-Ego mutually restrict each other, and this restriction is restriction on action. This provides a logical basis for deducing the categories of interaction and causality. The deduction of the latter category is substantiated by the distinction between activity and passivity: "That to which activity is ascribed and therefore passivity is not ascribed is called cause... while that to which passivity is ascribed and therefore activity is not ascribed is called effect." (52, 1, 331)
Unlike Kant, Fichte did not believe that cause must necessarily precede effect; he deduced the concept of causality prior to the deduction of time. This concept---like other categories, to be exact---was devoid of the versatile content the natural science of the late 18th century was already bestowing on it. But Fichte treated the Ego as an absolute and thus divorced it from nature, and he could not use natural science data properly, although he did aim at producing not only general but also specific supreme principles needed by all sciences, including natural science.
Fichte does not stop at deducing the categories listed above and the laws of formal logic. Since, together with Kant's ``thing-in-itself'', Fichte is forced to reject the theory of sense perception being the starting point of knowledge (having replaced it with the itellectual intuition of the transcendental unity of apperception), he faces the unthinkable task of deducing the existence of sense perceptions. But in this case sense perceptions inevitably lose their cognitive significance. This explains Fichte's assertion that, "completely disregarding perception [italics mine], the theory of science deduces a priori that which, according to it, must take place precisely in perception, that is, a posteriori". (52; 3, 34) Here Fichte takes a step backward compared to Kant, and that is an inevitable result of criticizing Kant from the right. Kant insists that "perception is essentially that which cannot be anticipated in any way". (73; 3, 161) Fichte rejects this sensationalist postulate. He interprets sensuousness as passivity---which falls within the
176theory of affects---and consequently the practice he refers to is opposed to sensory activity, i.e., that which it really is.
Contemporary critics of dialectical materialism, repeating their predecessors' arguments, maintain that dialectics is essentially incompatible with materialism. And, while ancient materialists already began to develop dialectical ideas, these critics, ignoring or distorting the history of materialism, fall back on such idealists as Fichte and Hegel. But it is Fichte's dialectical idealism (and the same is true of Hegel's idealism) which shows, in spite of all its accomplishments, that idealistic speculation distorts and cancels out the major dialectical ideas it is connected with because of certain historical conditions. The intellectual intuition of the pure Ego, the cornerstone of Fichte's philosophy, rules out a scientific-philosophical analysis of the emergence, consolidation and development of consciousness. Inevitably, this distorts the essence of dialectics. Lenin wrote, "One cannot begin philosophy with the `Ego'. There is no 'objective movement'." (10; 38, 104)
Space and time are forms of the existence of matter, they are the conditions of movement, change and development in nature and society. But Fichte's absolute subject which, being absolute, is conceived outside space and time, cannot of course be the point of departure in studying the dialectics of nature and objective social relations. Fichte has completely foregone natural philosophy; as to the philosophy of history, that is where he strays farthest from dialectical principles.
Since the absolute subject is the starting point, the philosophical system must end where it began; therefore, history is a closed circuit, it attains absolute completion. "The basic premise from which we proceed is also the final result." (51; 36) This approach by Fichte to the problem is inevitable in a rationalist philosophical system; Hegel repeated it after Fichte. Obviously, the result that reproduces the initial idealist thesis affects the entire understanding of knowledge and the entire theory of science. And although, unlike Kant, Fichte understood the unity of selfconsciousness as a process going through certain progressive stages (and that, of course, is an important step forward), nevertheless he maintains: "The theory of science exhausts all human knowledge in its major aspects ... It
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therefore comprises the object of any possible science... Each study that is undertaken solves the problem once and for all." (52; 3, 87) Fichte's works carry a number of such metaphysical statements: they stem from the idealist concept of the extrahistorical, supranatural subject.
It is equally obvious that Fichte's concept of absolute knowledge (and of absolute power and absolute good) inevitably leads to a metaphysical opposition of duty and being, infinite and finite. As Lenin remarks in this connection, "The standpoint of Kant and Fichte (especially in moral philosophy) is the standpoint of purpose, of subjective ought." (10; 38, 236) The root of this metaphysical opposition of being and duty, at first glance incompatible with Fichte's voluntarism, is revealed in the basic premise of the theory of science.
Hegel says in this connection: "I find myself defined, and still the Ego equals itself, it is infinite, i.e. identical with itself. This is a contradiction that Fichte, it is true, tries to settle, but despite this attempt he leaves in existence the basic flaw, dualism. The last point Fichte touches on is only some kind of must, and this does not resolve the contradiction, since while the Ego should obviously be with itself, that is, be free, it is at the same time, according to Fichte, found with someone else." (64, 15, 629)
Therefore, Fichte's understanding of the absolute also makes an absolute of duty, interpreted as basically unattainable for the historically limited mankind. Fichte writes: "Ideals are unrealizable in the real world; we merely assert that based on these ideals, reality must be assessed and modified by those who feel capable of it." (52; 1, 220) This quotation reflects the impotence of the German bourgeoisie which only dreamed about what other European nations were doing.
Fichte's deduction of categories is dialectical only as an approach to the question of the need to examine these forms of thought in connection with their content, to study their genesis, their interrelationship within the system. But the categories themselves are examined outside motion, and Fichte loses sight of their interchanges. He considers it his paramount task to deduce all categories from the concept of the absolute subject, thereby proving that acceptance of that concept is absolutely necessary for building a system of knowledge.
178This idealist postulate entails artificial logical constructs and leads away from the study of the actual subordination of categories, the logical reflection of the historical process and the rise from the abstract to the specific. Hegel is right in describing Fichte's deduction of categories and phenomena of the external world in general: "It is a purely outward transition from one to another by means of ordinary teleological examination. The technique used is the following: man must eat---therefore, something edible must exist---that is the way plants and animals are deduced; plants must grow from something---therefore, the earth is deduced. What is completely lacking here is the examination of the object itself, an examination of what it is in itself." (64; 15, 638)
Fichte's subjective idealism has also affected his dialectical understanding of the opposition, unity and interchange of opposites. He insists that conrtadictions are inherently necessary, that they should not be confused with the erroneous contradictions described by formal logic. Dialectical contradictions are the motive forces of progress. But in Fichte's system, contradictions only exist in thought, consciousness. Even the subject-object contradiction is presented as a contradiction within self-consciousness, as its splitting into two. Viewed from that angle, contradictions proceed from the Ego, therefore they essentially cannot be regarded as existing outside and independently of human consciousness. Resolution of contradictions thus appears merely as a logical process of the mutual restriction of concepts, as a transition from one definition to another.
Naturally, this does not obscure Fichte's occasional dialectical insights into the objective dialectics of nature. For example: "But nature hurries onward in its constant change; and while I am still talking about the chosen moment, it is already gone and everything has changed; and equally, everything was different before I chose this moment." (52; 3, 9)
In his "philosophy of identity", Schelling tried to overcome the subjectivism of Fichte's interpretation of contradictions and their source. According to Schelling, contradictions exist in nature itself, but the latter is only the unconscious state of the absolute subject, evolving through contradictions to the self-conscious Ego, the intellect. Schelling goes further than Fichte in his understanding of
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dialectics as an objective process, but his theory about the absolute identity of subject and object, allegedly the primal source of development, shows that the original premise of Schelling's objective idealism is metaphysical and obviously not free of elements of irrationalism that dominates his later works.
Hegel profoundly criticized both Fichte's subjectivism and Schelling's absolute indifference. Hegel's concept of the identity of being and thought, substantiated in his Phenomenology of the Spirit and serving as the basic premise in The Science of Logic, is a concept of specific identity from the very start comprising a difference which evolves into an opposition, a contradiction. Hegel develops Fichte's ideas about the necessary relationship of thesis, antithesis and synthesis into a theory about the law of the negation of negation. Fichte saw his deduction of categories as a development of Kant's transcendental logic. Hegel provided a fundamentally new development of Fichte's deduction, which led to the creation---albeit on an erroneous, idealist basis---of dialectical logic. Hegel used the latter not merely to deduce categories but also to show their development and intertransition, the movement of knowledge from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. But the best Hegel's dialectics could do was but to pose the problems it proclaimed solved.
The theory of dialectics, the dialectical method, dialectical logic were originally worked out on the basis of idealist philosophy. Dialectics, the most comprehensive and unbiased theory of development, could not emerge all at once in its rational scientific form. The road to scientific, materialist dialectics created by the founders of Marxism passes through all the stages in the progressive development of pre-Marxian philosophy.
[180] __ALPHA_LVL2__ HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHYThe Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true.
V. I. Lenin
Today's idealist philosophy, often professing to do away with idealism, actually merely negates its historically progressive forms. The irrationalist philosopher of today regards rationalist idealism as pernicious, tempting mankind with an illusory reign of reason in our obviously unreasonable world *.
According to Martin Heidegger, a leading existentialist, reason is the most stubborn enemy of thought. If we follow the logic of irrationalist idealism, reason would appear as something divorced from the original, pre-- introspective and allegedly authentic thinking, as alienated thinking. An analysis of contemporary philosophical irrationalism shows that its polemic with rationalist phiolsophy which has become historically obsolete is aimed against the dialectical-materialist world view. That is why the question about the Marxist approach to the rationalist tradition and its greatest representative, Hegel, is of both scientific and topical ideological interest. It is all the more obvious because today's seemingly speculative critique of reason has acquired an empirically tangible form in the ideology of "technological pessimism" that condemns the scientific and technological revolution as an allegedly arrogant and suicidal intrusion of human reason into the irrational world of the natural, but is actually subtle apologia of the capitalist system.
The concept of reason is one of philosophy's fundamentals. Already in the ancient world philosophy was described as an examination of the world from the viewpoint of
* In his critique of Gabriel Marcel's philosophy, B. E. Bykhovsky shows that existentialism is "not a rejection of idealism but a distinctive radical form of the latter which cannot regard even spirit as an object of knowledge because it is thus `reduced' to the level of the rationally knowable". (17; 558).
181reason, as a rational interpretation of reality which, differing from both mythology and everyday consciousness, was the rational human being's attitude, free from irrational affects, to the outside world and its own life.
The Middle Ages subordinated reason to faith, and philosophy to religion. But it was Thomas Aquinas who proclaimed faith to be rooted in reason, although the reason he meant was divine, not human.
The philosophy of the New Age, shaped in the era of bourgeois revolutions, rejected the views generated by the stagnant feudal social production. The founders of the new philosophy advanced a new concept of reason, independent of faith. As a rational agent, man was to become master of nature, rebuild society along rational lines, and learn to master himself. * All those aspects of the new, progressive view of man's mission were summed up in the concept of social progress. Bourgeois Enlightenment proclaimed social progress to be based on the perfection of reason, increase of knowledge, and eradication of error and superstition.
Hegel's philosophy, the summit of this upward evolution of bourgeois social consciousness, imparts a universal significance to the concept of reason. Reason is "substance, i.e., that through which and in which all reality finds its being; reason is infinite power, because it is not so helpless as to confine itself to an ideal, a duty, and to exist as something special only outside reality, nobody knows where, somewhere in the heads of certain people. Reason is infinite content, the entire essence and truth, and it is for itself the object at which its activity is directed, because, unlike finite activity, it does not need the conditions of the external material of the given means to find in them the content and objects of its activity." (63; 1, 28-29)
That is the basic formula of Hegel's absolute idealism. It follows from it that nature and all that is not thinking are merely its external, alienated expression. All finite things, Hegel says, "have an untruth in them" because their existence "does not correspond to their concept". (64;
* Manfred Buhr proves it using Francis Bacon's doctrine as an example. Most experts on Bacon see him as a shipwrecked reformer of logic, but the most important point about his theory was different. Buhr, however, asserts: "Bacon wanted to be a reformer of human society, not a reformer of logic." (42; 30)
1826, 52) Each finite thing or phenomenon is based on something different: on reason, on thought which is free of the limitations typical of objects. So Hegel proclaims that " only thought is the essence of being". (64; 6, 77) He describes reason as thought, but he also distinguishes it from the latter as authentic thinking directed at itself and not at the external, sensuously perceived content. In Hegel's words, reason is "thought which determines itself freely" (63; 1, 39) Thus Hegel's philosophy puts an absolute, universal construction on reason, thought, and it rejects the fact---already known in Hegel's time---that thinking is a function of the brain.
This does not mean that Hegel ascribes the ability to think to everything existing, that he treats things as animate, the way the hylozoists did. On the contrary, Hegel believes that man is the only living being endowed with sentience, reason, thought. But, he maintains, reason cannot be understood as a quality, as something inherent in this or that body, as something conditional, secondary. Nor is reason, in Hegel's view, a property of specially organized, living matter. All living is finite, it is born and it dies. But reason is not something that is born and dies together with individual human existence. According to Hegel, to understand reason correctly means to grasp it as the suprahuman, supranatural, infinite and universal which, however, does not exist outside the natural, human, finite, individual but forms their substance. Hegel stresses that this is already expressed in religion, albeit inadequately; but philosophy grasps the truth in the form of a concept, i.e., in a way which ig, adequate to the nature of thought and consequently, to the nature of being.
In Hegel's opinion, the recognition of reason, thought as the absolute essence of things does not mean that it negates the material nature of things, that they dissolve in spirit, reason, consciousness. Although things are described as creations of spirit, they themselves remain spiritless objects; such is their being for they are not a direct but secondary expression of spirit, its transformed, alienated form of being. Hegel distinguishes between reason and spirit, regarding reason as the highest form of the spiritual. Viewed from this angle, material things appear as the lower, alienated forms of the spiritual, its other-being. Thus, the opposition between the material and the spiritual is not
183removed but preserved and emphasized, sometimes even overmuch. But this opposition is interpreted as an external relation, brought about by the splitting of the spiritual into two mutually exclusive forms of being which determine each other and form the contradictory substantial identity of thought and being.
Hence, Hegel's definitions of reason quoted above do not deal with merely human reason, because Hegel is an objective idealist. However, according to Hegel, human rea.son is directly related to the absolute: it is the highest form of the latter's self-realization. And if absolute reason is God, it is a God that overcomes his imperfection. Moreover, this God finds Himself in man, and Jesus Christ is His symbolic image.
Hegel describes reason as infinite activity, infinite content, infinite power, the absolute All. It does not exist simply "somewhere in the heads of certain people", nor is it--- and that is even more important---"outside reality, nobody knows where". The latter remark is directed against orthodox theism which insists that the divine is not of this world, that this world's existence is allegedly contingent. Hegel argues that infinite reason and reality are, in the final analysis, identical. Accordingly, he holds that "all philosophy is pantheistic: it proves that reason is inside the world". * (64; 14, 437)
Thus Hegel offers an idealist interpretation of Spinoza's pantheistic materialism. Spinoza's concept of substance, interpreted in the spirit of objective idealism, is, as Marx notes, one of the basic elements of Hegel's system.
Hegel uses all those definitions of reason and philosophy to conclude that, strictly speaking, materialism as a philoso-
* I would like to stress that pantheism, especially in its Spinozist form which seriously influenced Hegel, is essentially an antireligious interpretation of the world as a whole. For example, the Soviet philosophers I. Vasiliev and L. Naumenko stress in their analysis of Spinoza's materialism: "This is a truly dialectical breakdown of the fundamental concept of theology and religion, a breakdown that completely pulverizes the cornerstone of religious-idealist ethics and cosmology. One by one, God loses all the aspects and attributes ascribed to Him by religion, these are immediately restored to their rightful owner, man. In the final analysis, God loses any deflnitiveness at all and completely merges with the infinite totality of all mutually negating 'types of definitiveness'. In other words, the name is the only thing left of God." (18; 64-65)
184phy is impossible. Nevertheless, Hegel's idealism, as Engels repeatedly points out, is materialism turned upside down. (64; 3, 348) One must bear in mind that paradox to grasp the real content of Hegel's philosophy, his dialectical idealism, which in some aspects is closer to the dialectical-- materialist world concept than metaphysical materialism. For Hegel maintains that the universe is causa sui, that it propels itself, although he holds that this universal dialectical process is rooted in reason; and reason is "the soul of the world, it lives in it, is its immanentness, its most genuine inner nature, its universality." * (64; 6, 46)
Hegel's absolute treatment of reason is based on the principle of the dialectical identity of being and thought. Hegel transforms the traditional idealist formula---thought is primary and being is secondary---into a new postulate: thought is being and being is thought. This new idealist solution of the fundamental problem of philosophy is made meaningful by an important assumption: being and thought are not immediately identical.
Thus, Hegel to a certain degree recognizes the fallacy of the traditional idealist approach to the fundamental problem of philosophy which holds that thought (and spirit in general) is prior to being. But he cannot accept the materialist solution. A position halfway between the two is incompatible with absolute idealism either. Thus Hegel suggests the following solution: being is inherent in thought, thought cannot be excluded from being, being is, in the final analysis, thought.
* Although Christian theologists usually present God as absolute reason, they interpret the world as unreasoning, because the divine is posited outside the world and is its absolute opposite (Protestant theology places special emphasis on this point). This explains why young Marx opposes Hegel's philosophy of reason to Christian theology and remarks ironically that the proofs of God's existence upon which theologians concentrate so avidly, should sound as follows: " 'Since nature has been badly constructed, God exists', 'Because the world is without reason, therefore God exists' ... But what does that say, except that for whom the world appears without reason, hence who is without reason himself, for him God exists? Or lack of reason is the existence of God." (1; .7, 105) Therefore we must take full note of the important difference between Hegel's pantheistic concept of absolute reason and the theological concept of the divine. This distinction is all the more necessary because Hegel often deliberately slurred it over.
185Hegel reduces being to thought and describes it as an objective universal process of forward motion, change and development. This spiritualization of being is the principal direction of universal progress. Development is the transition of that existing in itself into that existing for itself. Therefore, according to Hegel, the identity of being and thought is a concealed premise and an obvious result of development. In other words, Hegel's principle of the identity of being and thought discovers the substantial nature of development and puts an idealist mystical construction on it.
The identity of being and thought does not mean that the two are indistinguishable, the way Schelling believes. It is rather an identity of opposites which therefore presupposes that an opposition of the latter exists---the opposition of thought and being. Such an identity comprises its own negation; it is thus a unity of identity and nonidentity. However, the latter exists only in the former as its dialectical determination. This dialectical relation of opposites is a continuous process of emergence, of self-- determination. Contrasting his interpretation of the fundamental identity to Schelling's philosophy of identity, Hegel stresses that "philosophy is not a system of identity; that is unphilosophical... It is activity, motion, repulsion---and so not an immutable identity; at the same time it is identical with itself." (64; 14, 332) Thus, distinction within identity is as significant as identity itself. And if being and thought are substantially identical, they are also substantially distinct. Substance itself must be understood as the unity of identity and distinction.
Hegel's concept of the primordial dialectical identity is not simply a speculative-idealist construct. It comprises (and naturally, mystifies) a profound understanding of the dialectical forms of universality which Hegel reduces to logical forms of knowledge. But we must also remember that, according to Hegel, knowledge, cognition, is not only human activity but also, and above all, the universal, substantial functioning of the "absolute idea"---that is, of the idealistically interpreted universe.
While Kant regards categories only as ways to connect sensory contemplations, Hegel argues that categories are the major determinations of being itself. Indeed, causality, necessity, etc. are not only forms of thinking: they are
186such only inasmuch as they conceptually express the objectively existing forms of universality. It is true that logical categories reflect objectively existing forms of universality only approximately. But as knowledge develops, they develop too and provide increasingly precise reflections of interrelationships among phenomena.
The epistemological principle of reflection inseparable from the materialist world concept is, of course, alien to Hegel. But his concept of the identity (and distinction) of being and thought offered an idealist interpretation of the dialectical relation between categories (thinking) and the forms of universality existing independently of consciousness and organically inherent in being itself.
Metaphysical materialists both pointed to the objective content of logical forms and stressed their distinctly human, subjective character. They never considered how the forms and content of thinking came to correspond to each other despite their obvious difference. Hegel addresses himself to an analysis of this contradictory relationship. In his examination of the structure of judgments and speculations he substantiates the following-thesis: logical forms are as objective as their content. The importance of this discovery, noted by Lenin in his Philosophical Notebooks, nevertheless should not obscure the fact that Hegel ontologizes the epistemological objectivity of logical forms, thus putting an idealist construction on his discovery.
The self-activity of reason within the dialectical identity of being and thought is expressed above all as negation. The dialectic of negation in Hegel's philosophy is, according to Marx, the moving and generating principle. (1; 3, 332) But negation proceeds from something given, stated. Therefore the first act of reason is always to record that which is available, to reveal relations of distinction and similarity. In this quality, reason is merely common sense, which is "a necessary moment of sensible thinking". (64; 7, 356) Nevertheless, common sense is inevitably limited by its realm of objects and by its one-sided positive approach to that which exists. It remains on the level of phenomena, their interrelations and the laws determined by the latter. Common sense cannot understand that the basis of finite things "is not in themselves but in the universal divine idea". (64; 6, 97) However, besides this reference to the divine, Hegel also offers a fully realistic ex-
187planation of the limitations of common sense: the latter is reason fixed in its subjectivity and individuality. In other words, common sense is simply the reasoning human individual, it is "understanding reason or reasoning understanding" which is inevitably limited. (64; 3, 7) In Hegel's language this means that common sense is in contradiction with its essence---sovereign reason.
The principle of common sense is the principle of identity. But it is not a dialectical identity which forms the essence of reason and being but a formal identity, the highest principle of elementary logic. Observance of this principle is doubtless necessary but absolutely insufficient for meaningful thinking. Since commonsense thinking eliminates contradiction as allegedly incompatible with identity, it understands definitions of a concept only in their abstraction---and consequently, in their one-sided and finite nature. Therefore, while stressing the reasoning character of commonsense thinking (and, by the same token, of formal logic), Hegel constantly criticizes the latter, contrasting it to dialectics as a logic of a higher order. Some authors, even Marxists, are often mistaken in their interpretation of Hegel's critique of formal logic. Some see this critique as a concession to irrationalism, they accuse it of underrating formal logic, of an unjustified contrast between the latter and dialectical thinking which also has to observe elementary requirements of formal logic. Conversely, others try to slur over Hegel's critique of formal logic, believing that essentially, and despite Hegel's express indications, it is a critique of the metaphysical, antidialectical mode of thinking. But the point here is that according to Hegel, reason comprises the principle of negation: it criticizes itself, subjecting its own definitions to dialectical negation (Aufhebung). Hegel was wrong not in criticizing formal logic but in interpreting the self-critique of reason as an a priori immanent process of the self-- development of the concept.
According to Hegel, the principle of negation is implicit in the very nature of reason, because reason is a negation of common sense, that is, of its own limitations. Eventually, negation is positive and concrete, because abstract, rational negation as a real moment, treated as an absolute by skepticism, is itself subject to negation. The negation of negation is the third, synthetic, speculative moment of
188reason which, in Hegel's view, ``cancels'' the "negative-- rational", thus asserting the ``positive-rational''.
This reasoning---at first glance, completely speculative--- sums up perfectly real, diverse contents which, however, are not of equal value (as far as their rational element is concerned). I have already noted that above all Hegel tries to grasp the "dialectics---formal logic" relation as a dialectically contradictory unity, the unity of identity and difference, which in certain conditions is transformed into a relation of mutually exclusive and mutually determining opposites. The fact that formal logic is linked to the anthropological ``fmitude'' of the human individual cannot obscure the rational meaning of Hegel's approach to the problem of dialectical logic as the authentic logic of reasonall the more so because, according to Hegel, in the course of his emergence as a member of society and due to his further personal development, the human individual is an increasingly meaningful and substantial expression of the social whole.
The negative nature of reason, formally expressed in Hegel's famous triad, is not confined to its relation to common sense. All forms of the existing---consequently, above all nature---are finite determinations of reason. The spirit which is the essence of nature is not yet reason. Nevertheless, the system of natural phenomena and its laws are described as rational. For example, referring to the laws of the solar system, Hegel says that they are "its reason. But neither the Sun nor the planets that revolve around it following those laws are conscious of them." (63; 1, 37) Thus, the concept of rational nature is merely an idealist interpretation of the universal character of its laws. * And at the same time it is, of course, a subtle teleological interpretation of the world, contrasted to ordinary, crude teleology which maintains that "sheep are covered with wool only so that I could be clothed". (64; 7, 10) Hegel defines the teleological relation as the unity of the mechanical and chemical processes. However, this brilliant insight into the
* Such views are often held by natural scientists who are not at all idealists. For example, Louis de Broglie believes that the "concept of the rationality of the Universe ... is a basic postulate of science". (39; 353) This thesis is an inadequate expression of the scientific postulate regarding the inevitable interconnection of phenomena, their ``orderliness''---that is, their conformity to laws.
189material structure of the expedient in living nature is only a moment of the idealist interpretation of nature: according to Hegel, spirit is the goal of nature and that is why it both crowns the hierarchy of natural substances and forms their fundamental basis. True, spirit precedes nature not in time, "not empirically, but in a way that spirit, which posits nature ahead of itself, is always already present in nature". (64; 7, 695) Nature is defined as the alienated being of the "absolute idea"; and the monolineally interpreted hierarchy of nature's stages from the mechanical motion of matter to life is described as the comprehension of its other-being---or, as Hegel puts it, of its other--- by the "absolute idea". Knowledge, cognition of nature is thus the realization of the dialectical identity of being and thought, the identity that is the active basis of nature. And the philosophy of nature (Hegel's idealist natural philosophy) reproduces this road the "absolute idea", universal reason has taken from its alienation. Moreover, "natural philosophy is itself part of this road back; because it is what cancels the separation (die Trennung) of nature and spirit and enables spirit to establish its essence in nature". (64; 7, 23) Naturally, we must never lose sight of the fact that philosophy, according to Hegel, is not simply a distinctive form of human knowledge; above all, it is the self-consciousness of the "absolute idea''.
Thus, according to the logic of absolute idealism, the natural is rational, but it is not yet conscious of its rationality, and therefore it directly appears as its negation. Meanwhile, according to the definition, reason knows itself as reason. Therefore, it is spirit comprehending itself.
The transition to self-comprehending spirit, or reason, is the elevation of the "absolute idea" that has triumphed over the entire diversity of the natural, material and reached "absolute spirit", that is, mankind. This idealist concept is related to mythology, but it still contains profound and extremely valuable dialectical insights. The most important of these is the idea of developing substance.
Pre-Hegelian philosophy saw substance as the first cause, the primal source of everything existing. Idealist linked this speculative concept with the notion of the divine first cause. Conversely, materialists offered a naturalist interpretation of the concept of substance, but they did not recognize the substantial nature of development. For ex-
190ample, that was the view held by Spinoza, the brilliant creator of the idea of the substantial essence of nature. Nevertheless, he treated substance (natura naturans) and the world of modes (natura naturata)---that is, the world of real things subject to motion and change---as absolute opposites. The 18th-century French materialists overcame the inconsistent approach of their brilliant predecessor and substantiated the principle of the self-propulsion of matter. But they did not connect the self-propulsion of matter with development, which they did not view as a universal form of the existence of the material.
Already in his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel formulates the following principle: the beginning must also be understood as a result---specifically, as a result of development. This means that the spiritual, at any rate in its highest form, is not the starting point but the summit of the development of the universal whole. Contrary to the Christian mythology which Hegel formally constantly upholds (this often deceives scholars who underrate the difference, even opposition, between the exoteric form in which Hegel sets forth his philosophy and its esoteric content), he maintains that the highest is a result of the entire historical development. The highest is the sovereign creative human reason throughout its global historical development. Viewed from this angle, the "absolute idea" is an absolute but unconscious source of nature which does not exist outside nature because the latter is its being.
In his Conspectus of Hegel's Book "The Science of Logic", Lenin cites the following quotation from Hegel: "For the Idea posits itself as the absolute unity of the pure Notion and its Reality, and thus gathers itself into the immediacy of Being; and in doing so, as totality in this form,, it is Nature." Lenin describes this postulate as `` archbrilliant'' and says: "The transition of the logical idea to nature. It brings one within a hand's grasp of materialism. Engels was right when he said that Hegel's system was materialism turned upside down." Then he adds: "The sum-total, the last word and essence of Hegel's logic is the dialectical method---this is extremely noteworthy. And one thing more: in this most idealistic of Hegel's works there is the least idealism and the most materialism. ' Contradictory', but a fact!" (10; 38, 234) And, despite these points that lead up to materialism, Hegel keeps repeating that the
191``absolute idea" is supranatural, divine. These statements express his subjective conviction but they contract his dialectical approach to the problem of substance. Here, Hegel's position is similar to Spinoza's who did not doubt the existence of God because he was convinced that God is nature.
Hegel's understanding of development as an infinite process negates all attempts at interpreting any of its results as the final completion of development. And, although Hegel constantly violates this categorical imperative of dialectics he himself has formulated, "the true significance and the revolutionary character of the Hegelian philosophy", according to Engels, is that "it once for all dealt the death blow to the finality of all products of human thought and action". (3; 3, 339)
Thus, reason in the entirety of its historical development is substance which has become subject, self-- consciousness. Aside from nature, the finite, alienated spheres of the existence of "absolute reason" are "subjective spirit" on the one hand, and "objective spirit" on the other. These opposites---the human individual and society---form a unity described as "absolute spirit". The development of subjective spirit is dealt with by anthropology, phenomenology and psychology which comprise the first part of Hegel's Philosophy of Spirit. Here, man is examined as a bodily, sensuous natural being, as the individual with all the qualities inherent in the latter; he is born, turns from a man in himself into a man for himself and, as an adult human being, strives to reach his private goals generated by the conditions of his existence. This being suffers and enjoys life, loves and hates, succumbs to disease and finally dies. The development of the individual aspect is in overcoming its alienation from the universal, in its elevation to the social. This concept reflects both a profound understanding of the social essence of the individual and the typically rationalist-idealist underrating of man's sensuous life, his subjectiveness, uniqueness, ``finitude''.
According to Hegel, objective spirit is the truth of subjective spirit not only because man is a social creature but above all because, with its negation of the anthropological limitations of man's individual being, reason begins to enjoy free development unlimited in time or space. Reason as "objective spirit" is the socio-historical process of
192grasping its essence (freedom, substantiality), of attaining state-legal forms and economic orders ("civil society") that are increasingly adequate to man's rational nature.
Hegel describes the state as a rational-moral organism and law, as the realization of freedom based, among other things, on private ownership. The elimination of slavery and serfdom, the establishment of the ``inviolability'' of private property, freedom of conscience, an end to feudal privileges, the establishment and legal formalization of limited civil freedoms---Hegel views all that as the final completion of the cause of "objective spirit", despite the fact that according to Hegel's system, as Engels points out, "just as knowledge is unable to reach a complete conclusion in a perfect, ideal condition of humanity, so is history unable to do so; a perfect society, a perfect ``state'', are things which can only exist in imagination". (3; 3, 339)
We know that Hegel described the state as an earthlydivine being and world history, as God's progress on Earth. These grandiloquent phrases were, of course, not accidental; even their bombast expressed the social position of the German bourgeoisie, pinning its hopes on the spontaneous development of the capitalist system and striving to ensure an evolutionary transition from feudal to bourgeois monarchy. While stressing these socio-- political aspects of Hegel's system, one must remember that it treats "objective spirit" as a finite, limited and essentially still alienated form of universal, infinite reason.
Infinite reason, or "absolute spirit", absolute knowledge, which is to be regarded as the grasping of the absolute, finds its authentic expression only in art, religion and philosophy. Only in the creative spiritual sphere which Hegel elevates above all forms of conscious and purposeful practical activity, "thinking is by itself, relates to itself, and has itself as its subject". (64; 6, 63)
Spiritual creative activity is contrasted to other forms of human activity dealing with material objects. Although this opposition is not absolute because, according to Hegel, the essence of the material is spiritual, this opposition is of importance for his entire system of views. Specifically, it shows that Hegel is not quite free from the romantic censure of social reality he himself criticizes as a powerless and affected position. But, apparently this opposition
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is inevitable in a system proclaiming the thought of thought as the object ol philosophy.::~
It is equally obvious that the concept of pure thought immersed in itself is only applicable to an idealist system of views, and even that only to the idealistically interpreted logic but not at all to art or religion. To a certain degree, Hegel is aware of this, and that is one of the reasons for his treatment of philosophy as the highest realization of "absolute spirit". But art and religion also deal directly with the spiritual, rational which, as artistic and religious consciousness develops, increasingly overcomes the inertia of sensory guises to eventually become conscious of itself as pure spirit or pure reason.
On the one hand, the concept of pure reason is a speculative-idealist abstraction opposed to empirical study and reality perceived through the senses. In this aspect, pure reason is inevitably associated with the teleological notion that God, who created the world out of nothing (the mythological prototype of pure thought), is, in the language of scholasticism, actus purus. We know that Hegel refers to and upholds this definition of the divine.
It should, however, be noted that the reduction of "pure reason"---that is, the central concept of the entire rationalist philosophy---to a meaningless teleological premise extremely oversimplifies the task of historical-philosophical analysis. The task is to reveal the real and not imaginary content of this concept, that is, to critically interpret the idealist error about the fact which was discovered and also distorted by idealist philosophy.
The rationalism of the 17th century proclaims that reason (meaning real human reason) is, strictly speaking, never mistaken---naturally, if it observes its own rules,
* To avoid error in understanding Hegel's concept of the object of philosophy, one must stress that thought as the object of philosophy is not that which is studied by formal logic. The latter deals with forms of thinking irrespective of their content. Hegel, on the contrary, is interested in the meaningful forms of thinking, reality as reflected in thought, and the forms of universality equally inherent in knowledge and in objective reality. That is why Hegel's critique of, say, the logical doctrine of stoicism, stresses that they regard forms of thinking only as "formal forms which determine no content as such". (64; 14, 451) Hegel disassociates himself from this understanding of thought as the object of philosophy.
194that is, if it recognizes the obvious as obvious and meeis the requirements of logic. Viewed from this angle, error is rooted in sense perceptions which are by nature vague, in passions which care nothing about the truth, and in the will which prefers the desired to the actual.
The rationalist concept of pure reason (could it perhaps l)e compared to certain contemporary notions of the electronic ``intellect'' as incapable of error if it possesses all the information necessary for solving the questions posed before it?) was formed on the basis of outstanding accomplishments of ``pure'' mathematics (and of mathematical physics). It was a philosophical interpretation of the essence of mathematical thinking, treated by rationalism as universal and paradigmatic. No doubt this' concept contained a rational element because it substantiated, albeit paradoxically, reason's independence of faith and of assertions based on authority. Descartes' cogito, which proclaims the self-consiousness of the thinking individual to be the highest authority in the argument of truth and error, and the rationalist cult of infallible reason are phenomena of the same order. Their revolutionary scientific and ideological significance is obvious.
In the late 18th century, a new period which completed the era of early bourgeois revolutions, Kant opposed the rationalist cult of pure reason. Above all he tried to prove that pure mathematics was based on sensory (although a priori sensory) observations. Kant did not question the existence of pure reason not based on sensory data, but he argued that it inevitably lapsed into error (paralogism, antinomy) precisely because it was pure reason. Nevertheless Kant considered the concept of pure reason highly significant as the source of the more general, regulatory ideas of knowledge and morality.
An analysis of the concept of pure (especially pure practical) reason as independent of individual consciousness but existing only in the consciousness of individuals shows that the point here (if we abstract ourselves from the idealist mode of expression) is social consciousness and the totality of all theoretical knowledge possessed by humanity. This real meaning of the concept of pure reason, already evident in Kant's concept of categorial transcendental consciousness preceding any individual experience, was fully revealed and systematically developed
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by Hegel in his doctrine of the forms of absolute spirit: ,art, religion and philosophy.
So, as a consistent idealist, Hegel puts an absolute construction on spiritual production, that is, the production of knowledge, artistic values, the development of reason itself, etc. Since reason in its absolute ontologized form is treated as the primordial, the substantial, Hegel, for all his insights into the role of labor in the emergence of man, is totally incapable of grasping that, as Engels put it, "it is in the measure that man has learned to change nature that his intelligence has increased". (9; 231) Material production is reduced to spiritual production, and the latter is regarded as the activity of pure reason. This stresses---of course, idealistically---the social character of production.
Marx says that Hegel understands labor as the emergence of the human personality in society. But "the only labor which Hegel knows and recognized is abstractly mental labor". (1; 5, 333) And the point is not only that Hegel puts an absolute construction on the intellectual moments inherent in any labor or presents the highest intellectual forms of man's productive activity as the essence of labor in general. The crux of the matter is much more profound: by elevating spiritual production above material production, Hegel tries to find a way toward overcoming man's alienation in bourgeois society.
Since Hegel fails to see the true cause of man's alienation---the existence of alienated labor---therefore, following the logic of idealism (and the logic of bourgeois thinking in general), he sees the source of alienation in the world of objects, and especially in the objectivized products of human activity that oppose man's self-consciousness. According to Marx, "The issue, therefore, is to surmount the object of consciousness. Objectivity as such is regarded as an estranged human relationship which does not correspond to the essence of man, to self-consciousness. The reappropriation of the objective essence of man, produced within the orbit of estrangement as something alien, therefore denotes not only the annulment of estrangement, but of objectivity as well. Man, that is to say, is regarded as a non-objective, spiritual being." (1; 3, 333-34) In his exposition and description of the phenomenon of alienation, Hegel is incapable of pointing to any
196effective way of overcoming it. He only refers to the sur mounting of alienation in consciousness, and that implies the retention of alienation in actual life. Consciousness, which allegedly overcomes alienation, appears (since the case in point is religion and idealist philosophy) as alienated consciousness, although, according to Marx, "the superseding in thought, which leaves its object in existence in the real world, believes that it has really overcome it". (1; 3, 341)
But then what is rational about Hegel's doctrine of authentic reason, or "absolute spirit"? This essay is to deal rather with what, in Hegel's view, defines social consciousness and human knowledge in general, than with what is of value in his understanding of art, religion, philosophy and its history. This definition of these higher forms of the spiritual lies in the dialectic of negation, in historical nature and development. In other words, the higher forms of the substantial imply not a cessation of development but, on the contrary, development in its fullest form, free from one-sidedness. Moreover, Hegel asserts that genuine development takes place only at the stage of "absolute spirit". That is why the category of development appears only in the third part of The Science of Logic, in the doctrine of the concept which, according to Hegel, is direct basis of life.
Although Kant asserted that pure reason is fated to err by its very nature, he was naturally unable to explain why it comprises the highest forms of knowledge and morality. Kant was not fully aware of this contradiction and he never posed it as a problem to be solved. But Hegel not only interpreted it but also offered a solution of sorts in his doctrine of "absolute spirit''.
Hegel regards the rationalist dogma about the infallibility of pure reason as a thesis; Kant's postulate that it is precisely pure reason which errs appears as antithesis. As to his doctrine about the development of pure reason inherent in mankind, Hegel describes it as a synthesis, as a negation of negation. However, the question is not exhausted by the speculative form of the triad. Hegel finds even a specific form of the understanding (and expression) of the dialectic of negation inherent in pure reason: the principle of the historical character of reqson,
197Reason is limited at least by the level of its development. The historical character of reason, an outstanding discovery of Hegel's method obviously contradicts the unconditional universality and infinity of reason he postulates. But it is an actual and not seeming contradiction, the motive force of the development of knowledge. If we discard the idealist assumption of the supranatural ( although inseparable from nature) divine first cause, the point, it turns out, is that "human thought is just as much sovereign as not sovereign, and its capacity for knowledge just as much unlimited as limited. It is sovereign and unlimited in its disposition, its vocation, its possibilities and its historical ultimate goal; it is not sovereign and it is limited in its individual realization and in reality at any particular moment." (Engels.) (8; 106) Thus Hegel treats the essence of human thought as absolute and divine, and its historical character as the substantial expression of its human existence. But both definitions of thought (knowledge) are equally substantial. And Hegel actually proves it contrary to his own postulates.
``Absolute spirit" or absolute reason posits its definitions as true, but then it dialectically negates them, contrasting thesis to antithesis and uniting these opposites in a synthesis which constitutes a new, higher stage in the development of reason. Hegel does not say that reason errs and overcomes its errors: this mode of expression is incompatible with the dignity of absolute reason. In actual fact, however, Hegel reveals the dialectic of truth and error and proves that the power of reason consists in that it dialectically negates its definitions as untrue and thus grasps the truth, the latter evolving further also through dialectical negation.
Thus, on the one hand, Hegel grasps the necessarily contradictory nature of the universal process of cognition, of its development through the negation of negation. But on the other hand, Hegel mystically interprets this real historical process---first, because it is identified with the development of nature and society, and second---and that, of course, is a result of the substantialization of reason--- Hegel presents the materially determined historical development of knowledge as the self-propulsion of pure reason. Referring to this fundamental flaw in Hegel's interpretation of the development of knowledge, Marx says:
198``Wherein does the movement of pure reason consist? In posing itself, opposing itself, composing itself; in formulating itself as thesis, antithesis, synthesis, or, yet again, in affirming itself, negating itself and negating its negation." (1; 6, 164) Marx exposes the fallacy of Hegel's attempt at interpreting the human as the suprahuman, the historical as the suprahistorical; but he also stresses the outstanding importance of the dialectic of negation and offers a classic formula of this law governing the knowledge and development of objective reality, the law Hegel discovered. According to Marx, dialectics "includes in its comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence. .." (5, 1, 29) Lenin describes positive dialectical negation---a moment of connection, a moment of development---as a highly important element of dialectics (10; 38, 225-26).
Naturally, because of the idealist premises of his system, Hegel is unable to reveal the real motive forces behind the historical development of knowledge, forces determined by the socio-economic process. The deification of knowledge actually rules out a sociological interpretation of the history of knowledge. And the assertion that there is no development within divine reason because the latter is outside space and time extremely confuses the idealist concept of the historical character of reason.
Hegel is right to stress the historical character of each philosophical system: he sees this character as both its limitation and its real historical significance. But he does not apply the principle to his own theory. Hegel is convinced that his system crowns the self-comprehension of pure reason. This means that he is guilty of the same illusion for which he justly criticized his predecessors. Then how do we explain his attempt at a theoretical substantiation of the need for a final system of philosophy that would end philosophical development? The point here is not vanity or conceit but the very principle of absolute idealism maintaining that absolute reason fully comprehends itself in everything born of its infinite power. This 199 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1982/DMHP286/20100608/286.tx" __EMAIL__ webmaster@leninist.biz __OCR__ ABBYY 6 Professional (2010.06.12) __WHERE_PAGE_NUMBERS__ bottom __FOOTNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [*]+ __ENDNOTE_MARKER_STYLE__ [0-9]+ means that, for all their pantheistic interpretation, teleological premises make a consistent dialectical examination of the history of philosophy impossible. Hegel's philosophy of the history of philosophy admits only the past and refuses to recognize philosophy's future.
However, one must not oversimplify Hegel's postulate about the absolute completion of the history of philosophy, the way the French personalist P. Ricoeur does. He holds that according to Hegel, the entire preceding development of philosophy providentially leads to Hegel's system (vers moi) and is a monolinear process where each system has been merely a failed attempt of anticipating Hegelian philosophy. (92; 55-56) In actual fact, Hegel saw his philosophy as the summit of the process which had progressed over millennia. He credited himself not with solving the problems over which his predecessors had agonized, but with-completing their accomplishments. It is true that Hegel's entire philosophy is, in a certain sense, the result of pre-Hegelian philosophy: he organized it into a system. Hegel's emphasis on the dialectical interpretation of succession is the salient feature of his concept of the history of philosophy.
Of course, absolute knowledge---in Hegel's view, the completion of the history of philosophy---must not be interpreted to mean that, from the standpoint of the philosopher, a stage has been reached where everything is known and there is actually nothing left to do for mathematicians, physicists, chemists and other scientists. According to Hegel, absolute knowledge is the comprehension of the absolute and only the absolute---that is, the comprehension by reason of its own essence, and that as the essence of everything existing. The fallacy of this idealist conclusion is obvious, but it is equally obvious that knowledge, logically surpassing its own achievements in the course of its development, also produces results of everlasting value (of course, within the dialectical relativity of the bounds of any knowledge). And the concept of absolute knowledge in Hegel's system refers not to the scope of knowledge but to its distinctive quality. This, of course, does not mean that Hegel's concept of absolute knowledge is acceptable to dialectical materialism. The fallacy of that concept is also in the fact that it refers mostly to philosophy---that is, to the sphere of knowledge
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where it is less applicable than in some particular discipline restricted to the confines of its subject. However, one must also remember that philosophy does deal with the absolute, if only in the sense that the motion, change and development of matter is absolute.
The problem of the everlasting value inherent in certain results produced by the development of knowledge and the principle of the dialectical negation of knowledge cannot be opposed to each other. The dialectical understanding of negation means understanding its relativity. It therefore implies negation of negation itself which takes place in the course of "living, fertile, genuine, powerful, omnipotent, objective, absolute human knowledge". (10; 38, 363) This statement formulated by Lenin in his critical analysis of Hegel's philosophy is a dialectical-- materialist definition of the everlasting verity of the major results achieved by scientific knowledge. Therefore, the element of truth contained in Hegel's concept of absolute knowledge should be contrasted to the absolute relativism which is widespread in contemporary bourgeois philosophy and which maintains, the way Karl Popper does, that "in science, we never have sufficient reason for the belief that we have attained the truth. .. It is, using the language of Plato and Aristotle, information concerning the latest scientific `opinion'. This view means, furthermore, that we have no proofs in science (excepting, of course, pure mathematics and logic)." (91; 2, 13)
The true meaning of Hegel's philosophy as the philosophy of the era of bourgeois revolutions in which establishment of the new and rejection of the old were organic, mutually complementary aspects of a single historical process, lies in its postulate about the infinite power of reason. The opposition between human and divine reason often discussed by Hegel, in the final analysis appears, by the logic of dialectical development, to be merely a distinction within identity. The absolute is realized in the human because absolute reason is none other than the impersonal, aggregate reason of humanity, its infinitely developing active knowledge which transforms the irrational into rational; the latter is in turn to be surpassed by the more rational. Hegel's seemingly accidental phrase to the effect that "God and man are generally not so far apart" (64; 14, 305) in actual fact expresses the principal content
of his world view. He advances this point in another book too: "Divine nature is not different from human." (61; 266) According to Hegel, the divine, the inevitable, the rational, including the rational in its distinctive human form, eventually coincide. This coincidence, understood as a process, is the most important content of human history.
Hegel's conviction that "reason dominates the world, and therefore world history is rational" (63; 1, 28) should be understood with due regard to the dialectical nature of reason whose power, according to the objective logic of development, is equally expressed in affirmation and negation. It pays to recall in this connection Engels' opinion about the greatest accomplishment of Hegel's philosophy: "For the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgment-seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of the intellect to follow the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental phenomena." (8; 34) This Marxist materialist interpretation of the rational content of Hegel's theory about the power of reason makes it possible to more profoundly grasp the antitheological aspects of this theory.
We all know about the numerous misconceptions and simple misunderstanding (let alone its groundless interpretations) brought about by Hegel's famous thesis about the rationality of the real and the reality of the rational. But if we recall the fundamental distinction Hegel draws between the real and the simply existing, we can easily see that it refers to the historically necessary and that the power of reason is equally expressed in affirmation and negation. Thus, according to Engels, "in the course of development, all that was previously real becomes unreal, loses its necessity, its right of existence, its rationality". Therefore, the rational is also historical, and that not only
202in the sphere of knowledge but also in socio-economic development. This means, Engels continues, that " everything which is rational in the mind of men is destined to become real, however much it may contradict existing apparent reality". (3; 3, 338)
Today's bourgeois ideologists oppose social progress and dismiss Hegel's faith in reason as naive, uncritical and Utopian. Hegel, they assert, believed in the rationality of the real, but the rational has turned out to be unreal and the real, irrational.
According to Hegel's irrationalist critics, a rational restructuring of social relations means the transformation of society and the human personality into objects of bureaucratic manipulation. Viewed from this angle, a utopia that has become reality is the worst of evils. Thus, today's bourgeois criticism of Hegel's philosophy is essentially the bourgeoisie's renunciation of the progressive philosophical traditions of its past. The reactionary nature of this critique is evident in that it actually defends not even the status quo but the ante status quo of contemporary capitalism. The Soviet philosopher M. B. Mitin says in this connection: "Hegel's historical optimism, his dialectically sound concept of social progress, his conviction that the rational is feasible are rejected as naive rationalist illusions. They are contrasted to the concept of unhappy consciousness which is generally accepted as secondary in Hegel's doctrine, even in his Phenomenology of Spirit, let alone The Science of Logic or the Philosophy of History." (30; 149-150)
Unlike the 17th-century rationalists and the 18th-- century bourgeois philosophers of the Englightenment, Hegel's faith in reason was not uncritical. The most important point in his dialectical understanding of reason, the principle of development, contradiction and negation, is its positive critique of reason which differs from Kant's critique in that it substantiates (of course, in its rational element) the inevitability of knowledge which is not confined to the world of phenomena, and of the rational transformation of the world. That is why Hegel's theory of the power of reason found its scientific-philosophical development in the Marxist system,
[203] __ALPHA_LVL2__ THE SOCIAL MEANINGLike his brilliant predecessor Heraclitus, Hegel is often called an ``obscure'' philosopher. That is understandable. But in this case we have to examine why he is called that; apparently, his ``obscurity'' should not be reduced to the complexity or flaws in the exposition of his theory. True, Hegel's language is difficult, it has to be studied, and it takes getting used to. Still, this distinctive language is very expressive and very good for conveying all the nuances of his thinking.
Hegel once wrote to van Ghert of Holland that the difficulty of his language was explained by the complexity, the abstract and speculative nature of the philosophical content which appears simply incomprehensible to those not well versed in philosophy. But Hegel is obscure not only for beginner students of philosophy. Therefore, this ``obscurity'' is not superficial but substantial, meaningful. Some experts explain this shortcoming in Hegelian philosophy by the complexity of its dialectics which often runs counter to ordinary common sense. That explanation is both apt and insufficient, because those who have grasped the true content of Hegel's dialectics see it as highly logical and therefore accessible to a cognizing mind.
Hegel's philosophy is ``obscure'' not only for laymen but also for experts on philosophy. Another important point is that both the ``supersubtle'' speculative distinctions in Hegel's philosophy and his socio-political and philosophical-historical postulates appear unclear, although the latter are set forth in a more or less popular way and are free of dialectical ``paradoxes''. The argument is not so much over the meaning of the category of "being in itself" as over the social meaning of his philosophy. Is it progressive or reactionary? This debate began in Hegel's lifetime and continues to this day.
204Some experts believe that Hegel's philosophy is a feudal-romanticist reaction to the French Revolution. On the contrary, others see it as the ideology of the bourgeois revolution. Halfway between these extremes there are those maintaining that Hegel's doctrine is a theory of the `` Prussian'' road of capitalist development or, conversely, of the period of the Restoration which was forced to reconcile itself to the gains of the bourgeoisie but did all it could to restrict them. Of course, these conflicting assessments of the ideological content of Hegelian philosophy could be explained by the conflicting ideological positions of their authors. But such mutually exclusive points of view have also been advanced by Marxists. This brings us back to the ``obscurity'' of Hegel's philosophy which thus acquires a certain meaning and possibly even some concealed purpose. And so the question arises: could it be to a certain extent artificial, deliberate, at least where Hegel sets forth his socio-political beliefs? After all, in feudal Germany (suffice it to recall Marx's critique of the Prussian censorship regulations) one could only express, argue and publicize antifeudal views in an ``obscured'' form. On the other hand, this ``obscure'' approach perfectly fits into the traditional distinction between exoteric and esoteric philosophies.
Hegel spoke differently about quite important socio-- political issues in his works. This is particularly obvious when his letters to friends (which were often delivered by friends too, and not by postal services) are compared with his published works. As far as the latter are concerned, we should distinguish (of course, it is not a fundamental distinction) between the works published by Hegel himself and his lecture courses publshed by his students after his death and based on his own notes and the summaries written by students. It is equally interesting to compare Hegel's socio-political views set forth in his Philosophy of Law and those advanced in his aesthetics and history of philosophy where he expressed these vews in passing and no doubt much more freely. The French expert on Hegel's philosophy Jacques D'Hondt has recently made a comparative study of Hegel's works that differ in their origin. (68)
The French Marxist has clearly demonstrated the truth of a long-advanced assumption: that Hegel was much more
205explicit about topical socio-political problems in his lectures and letters to friends than in his published works. This does not mean that Hegel advanced reactionary ideas in his books and revolutionary ones in his lectures and, especially, letters. An examination of Hegel's letters and other documents makes it possible to elucidate and amplify the postulates he laid down in the books he edited for publication himself. This cancels the certain vagueness which often obscures the true meaning of some of the principal postulates of Hegel's social philosophy.
We might also refer to the four large volumes of Lectures on the Philosophy of Law recorded by Hegel's students in 1818-1831 and published by Karl-Heinz Ilting and to excerpts from some of his manuscripts, specifically those he used for his lectures. (70) In the introduction to the first volume, Ilting shows that Hegel, adapting to the changing political conditions (specifically, to the rise of feudal reaction), often altered some of his especially provocative statements concerning the monarchy and other topical political issues. However, the principal content of his theory of the state and law remained essentially unchanged.
With regard to esoteric and exoteric philosophies, one should stress that antiquity and the Middle Ages generated many esoteric doctrines intended exclusively for members of a particular religious sect or a closed (sometimes even secret) philosophical society. The ideologists of the bourgeois revolution usually rejected such doctrines because they ran counter to the overall spirit of the bourgeois Enlightenment. But in their struggle against the dominant feudal relations and their religious sanctification, these ideologists resorted, when necessary, to esoterically ciphering their true views and to exoteric language which should not be taken at face value. Justifying this ideological technique, the British 18th-century materialist Anthony Collins said that although the philosophical mind was a good judge of the truth, it yielded to the need for donning a mask. Therefore, Hegel is no exception. His sociopolitical views often appear unclear precisely because he deliberately obscures them by all kinds of reservations and vague definitions and sometimes by such statements---- usually, affected---which contradict his basic, systematically presented postulates.
So, Hegel was not at all always frank in those of his
206works which were subject to censorship; sometimes he formulated his postulates with deliberate ambiguity (in this connection, Engels pointed to the thesis about the rationality of the real and the reality of the rational), often he did not pursue this or that formula to the end and concealed something. In the period of the French Revolution Hegel thought that the time had already come when people could express themselves more freely. But these hopes turned out to be vain, and Hegel, who regarded the " cunning of universal reason" as the fundamental objective law of world history, acted in accordance with his own maxim: reason is as powerful as it is cunning. Truth must not be bare: it is too blinding.
Therefore, the distinctive features of Hegel's thoroughly organized manner of exposition are rooted not so much in the uniqueness of his personality (although that is obviously important too *) as in the fact that a bourgeois ideologist, who relies for his livelihood only on his position in a feudal hierarchy, is forced to partly conceal and partly disguise his real views. And it is not only a case of insincerity, secretive behavior or ``timeserving''. The point is also that clear class consciousness is in general not typical of the ideologist of the bourgeois revolution. Holbach was perfectly sincere when he dedicated his L'Ethocratie to Louis XVI. An ideologist of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, he entertained illusions concerning enlightened absolutism. The petty-bourgeois revolutionary and republican Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed that monarchy was the best state system for a large country and dreamed about a philosopher on the throne.
The foremost illusion of revolutionary bourgeois ideology is the belief that bourgeois social transformations are natural, rational and, in addition, financially sound. The bourgeois thinkers of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries believed that those opposing such transformations were either ignorant or malicious. Philosophers of the revolutionary bourgeoisie were striving to convince, educate
* Already a professor at Berlin University, Hegel wrote to Niethammer: "On the one hand, I am a timid man; on the other hand, I like quiet, and I do not at all enjoy watching the storm approach all these years." (38; 272) But his friend Holderlin contradicted that when he wrote to Hegel: "You like it when it is noisy but I need quiet." (67; 6, 138-39).
207and convert their class enemies. This shaped what might be called their educational ideology which guided bourgeois ideas to adapt to the feudal world concept. If we recall that, under the impact of the spontaneous development of capitalism, feudal lords gradually switched over to a bourgeois economy, we see that the educational ideology was based not only on illusion but also on fact. Such, apparently, are some of the key reasons behind both the explicit and implicit meaning of Hegel's works, behind both what he said and how he said it and, finally, what he deliberately suppressed: let us recall that even Kant, who preached rigorously ethical behavior, argued that in certain cases omission did not contradict morality.
Let us turn to Hegel's Philosophy of Law, the work usually cited to prove his reactionary socio-political views. Here Hegel refers to the traditional classification of state forms adopted since antiquity and says that monarchy, . aristocracy and democracy in the shape they took in the past are one-sided forms of state organization which " cannot tolerate the principle of free subjectivity within themselves and are unable to correspond to a developed reason". (64; 8, 360) The principle of free objectivity is none other than a speculative (and esoteric) definition of the bourgeois-democratic concept of civil rights of the individual.
With regard to "feudal monarchy" (his own term) Hegel declares that "under this political system, the life of the state rests on privileged persons whose whims determine much of what is to be done to preserve the state's existence." (64; 8, 359)
Hegel contrasts feudal monarchy---i.e., autocracy as a system of arbitrary political rule---to constitutional monarchy which he considers the highest, final and essentially absolute form of state organization: "The evolution of the state into a constitutional monarchy is the task of the new world in which the substantial idea has acquired an infinite form." (64; 8, 355) Thus Hegel extols the immediate objective of the bourgeoisie. This obviously contradicts Hegel's dialectics. But does it contradict the interests of the bourgeoisie?
In connection with the definition of constitutional monarchy, Hegel holds forth in detail about the greatness of the monarch (who is allegedly above responsibility for the
208government's actions), about his divine authority, about state sovereignty personified in the monarch, etc. Even in Hegel's lifetime, all that could not fail to arouse indignation among advocates of the republic. This servile aspect of Hegel's philosophy of law was the subject of devastating criticism by young Marx in his manuscript essay A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law. Specifically, Marx shows that the Philosophy of Law offers a mystical interpretation of constitutional monarchy to present it as the absolute social ideal which realizes itself: " Hegel converts all the attributes of the constitutional monarch in the Europe of today into the absolute self-determinations of the will. He does not say 'the monarch's will is the final decision', but 'the will's final decision is the monarch'. The first proposition is empirical. The second perverts the empirical fact into a metaphysical axiom." (1; 3, 25) At the same time Marx notes that in fact Hegel places the strictest possible limitations on the monarch's functions and reduces them to acts that have nothing in common with the functions of the head of state. Marx interprets Hegel's viewpoint as follows: "The hereditary character of the monarch follows from his concept. He is to be the person specifically distinguished from the whole species, from all other persons. What is it, then, that ultimately and firmly distinguishes one person from all others? The body. The highest function of the body is sexual activity. The highest constitutional act of the king is therefore his sexual activity, for through this me makes a king." (1; 3, 40) Marx ironically comments on that statement of Hegel's which describes the king's highest mission in dead earnest, although this royal prerogative is related neither to legislative nor to executive power. *
* We should here recall the overall assessment of Hegel's Philosophy of Law which Marx offers in the Deatsch-Franzosische Jahrbiicher; "The criticism of the German philosophy of state and law, which attained its most consistent, richest and final formulation through Hegel, is both a critical analysis of the modern state and of the reality connected with it, and the resolute negation of the whole German political and legal consciousness as practised hitherto, the most distinguished, most universal expression of which, raised to the level of a science, is the speculative philosophy of law itself." (1; 3, 181). Unfortunately, this thesis which reveals Hegel's sociopolitical views has not been examined in detail in Marxist studies of tho history oE philosophy.
14-01562 209
We have seen that indeed there is much that is `` obscure'' in Hegel's socio-political views. That is why we must separate the real content of his social philosophy from all sorts of exoteric phraseology, bows and scrapes before the Prussian state and government, etc. All that must also be taken into account, but only inasmuch as it expresses Hegel's genuine convictions. And it is this fact that calls for investigation.
Let us begin the examination of this ``obscure'' problem with the fact that Hegel proclaims the establishment of constitutional monarchy to be the supreme political goal of his time. Some scholars believe that this fact alone proves the conservative character of his politics. I believe that this view is clearly unhistorical and abstract.
In a revolutionary situation, when absolutism is ready to ``bestow'' some scanty constitution on the people in order to strengthen its own social basis, the demand for a constitutional monarchy is usually counterrevolutionary. When feudal absolutism is on the verge of collapse, the propaganda of constitutional monarchy is taken up by political reactionaries. But Hegel advanced and substantiated the slogan of a constitutional monarchy at a time when there was yet no revolutionary situation in Germany, when all attempts at imposing legislative restrictions on absolutism failed and the very idea of a constitutional monarchy was officially dismissed as ``demagoguery''. Could it be that this forced Hegel to accompany his demonstration of the need for a constitutional monarchy with all sorts of reservations about the greatness and inviolability of the monarchist principle? And perhaps the objective logic of ideological struggle demanded such maneuvering also because monarchist illusions still ruled the bourgeoisie?
Engels probed the true meaning of Hegel's concept of constitutional monarchy; "Hegel pronounced, in his Philosophy of Law, Constitutional Monarchy to be the final and most perfect form of Government. In other words, he proclaimed the approaching advent of the middle classes of the country to political power." (1; 11, 14) Three decades before the 1848 Revolution the slogan of constitutional monarchy in Germany was a bourgeois-revolutionary slogan which undoubtedly helped the antifeudal opposition to consolidate its forces.
True, advocates of constitutional monarchy can interpret
210it differently. When a reactionary or a conservative is forced to admit that without a constitution one can no longer preserve monarchy, he sees the constitution merely as a new monarchist guise with democratic trimmings. A superficial examination of Hegel's Philosophy of Law can lead to the conclusion that Hegel advocates precisely such new democratic guise for absolutism. In actual fact, however, he argues against this approach, although he does slur it over. Let us recall that in his Philosophy of Law he speaks about the development of the subjectivity, initiative of society's members, about the development of civil rights and representative institutions as a highly essential content of the constitution. The citizens' private aims are legitimate aims, and even arbitrary action by an individual (of course, within legal bounds) is to be regarded as necessity. Such is the Tiew of Hegel, who stresses the first element in the expression "constitutional monarchy", while the conservatives naturally underscore the second.
But the real meaning of Hegel's understanding of constitutional monarchy is expressed explicitly and unequivocally in those of his works which do not deal directly with law. For example, in the third chapter of his lectures on aesthetics (Beauty in Art, or the Ideal) he says that in the past, works of art usually portrayed kings and queens, and adds: "The monarchs of our time, unlike the heroes of the mythical times, are no longer some summit of the whole which is concrete in itself; they are rather the more or less abstract center within institutions that have already been independently developed and established by law and the constitution. The monarchs of our time no longer have the most important functions of the ruler in their hands; they no longer exercise legal judgment; finances, civil order and security are no longer their own special occupation; war and peace are determined by the overall conditions of foreign policy which is not subject to their direct personal guidance or power; and when the final, highest decision in all these matters of state rests with them, nevertheless the specific overall content of these decisions depends little on their individual will; it, too, has been determined before it is presented to them for decision. Thus the summit of the state, the monarch's own subjective will is purely formal in its relation to the universal and the public." (64; 10, 248-49) Of course, those firmly subsribing to the prej-
u* 211
udice that Hegel's socio-political views were reactionary can interpret these sufficiently clear theses as a complaint of sorts about the decline of royal authority, because Hegel is quite cautious here too: he describes a process that takes place in history and does not express---at least directly---his attitude to it. Nevertheless, this attitude is obvioug to those who have grasped the essence of his philosophy: the history of mankind is its forward motion, and that is the reason why the desire to freely build one's life, substantially inherent in the human personality, becomes possible. That is why the quotation cited above describes Hegel's convictions sufficiently clearly. They can hardly be called simply monarchist: under the constitutional monarchy which he sees as the summit of social development, the monarch is a figure-head because all matters of state are decided by appropriate state bodies. This explains Hegel's unequivocal statement: "When laws are unshakable and the state is organized in a certain way, that which is subject to the monarch's exclusive decision appears irrelevant compared to the substantial." (63; 4, 937)
In his Philosophy of Law Hegel goes into great detail to prove the advantages of hereditary over elected monarchy. This has nothing to do with extolling hereditary monarchy. When Hegel asserts that only the latter corresponds to its concept, he simply stresses that the question of formal, actually fictitious supreme royal authority must decide itself, as it were, on the strength of birthright and not as a result of political struggle. Viewed from this angle, Hegel's negation of elected monarchy is perfectly justified. Hegel's concept of constitutional monarchy centers not on the doctrine of royal authority but on that of "civil society" (biirgerliche Gesellschaft). In his. Lectures on the History of Philosophy he analyzes Plato's theory of the ideal state and formulates his view of the rights of citizens. Plato's ideal, he says, faces the past, when there was no subjectivity of the individual as an element of social organization. "Plato did not recognize the knowledge, the will, the decision of an individual, he did not recognize his right to stand on his own two feet, and did not know how he could reconcile this right to his idea. But justice equally demands that this principle, too, be accorded its proper place, and that this principle be supremely dissolved, thai it be in harmony with the universal. The opposite of Pla-
212to's principle is the principle of the conscious free will of the individual which in recent times has been pushed to the forefront, especially by Rousseau: that freedom of the individual is necessary precisely as that of the individual, that each individual must be able to express himself fully." (64; 14, 295)
Hegel contrasts Plato to Rousseau the bourgeois revolutionary, whose viewpoint he regards as an expression of the necessary development of the idea of statehood, the development free from the arbitrary approach of philosophers. True, Hegel does make a reservation: in Rousseau's doctrine, "this opposite principle is in the extreme and appears in its total one-sidedness". (64; 14, 295) This reservation should not be presented as an attempt at disguising revolutionary views. Hegel really disagrees with Rousseau on many points.
In his Philosophy of History, Hegel develops his concept of the constitutional monarchy and puts the demands for the freedom of ownership and individual to the forefront, seeing them as the central moments of objective (real) freedom. As a result of the establishment of this " objective freedom"---that is, capitalist social relations---"all unfreedom stemming from feudal relations ceases, as do all determinations stemming from feudal law, tithe and quitrent. Furthermore, real freedom demands the freedom to choose an occupation, meaning that man must be allowed to use his abilities the way he chooses and that all government positions be accessible to him. Such are the moments of real freedom which are based not on sense because sense admits the existence of both serfdom and slavery, but on man's thought and self-consciousness which belong to his spiritual essence." And further Hegel stresses: "A citizen must not only be able to do his job but also to profit from it; it is not enough for him to be in command of his abilities, he must also be able to apply them." (63; 4, 927)
Hegel contrasts feudal law to bourgeois law which he idealizes: private ownership is denned as "freedom of ownership", and the elimination of serfdom (formal freedom) as "freedom of the individual". But this idealization of bourgeois transformations (which, in Hegel's time were rather tempting prospects than fact) was typical of revolutionary bourgeois ideology. Those who did not idealize such
213transformations in the era of bourgeois revolutions were mostly its feudal opponents.
Finally, to conclude our examination of the question of constitutional monarchy, we can refer to some of the ideas Hegel expressed in his letters to friends. In one of his letters to Niethammer (Hegel always remained loyal to the convictions he expressed in this letter) he stresses that the problem of the constitution is not reduced to the restriction of royal authority, that the most important point here is the freedom of the people and their participation in elections and decision-making. Without it, any constitution turns into arbitrary rule, grossness and cruelty, which in turn leads to stupidity, dissatisfaction with everything social, servility and meanness. Hegel knew full well that the ``constitutions'' graciously granted to the people by the monarchs of some small German states simply disguised royal despotism. Hegel connected the introduction of the constitution to profound changes in the very way of life of the people: "There is a great and profound meaning to creating a constitution; it is all the more great and profound the more freely---in Germany---the country is ruled and things are done without any constitution, and this is considered not only possible but preferable!" (38; /, 197-98)
It is obvious that Hegel idealizes the social consequences of introducing the constitution and the constitution itself; he sees it as something similar to the substantial basis of social life which has achieved genuine self-- consciousness and freedom in its development. Meanwhile, no constitution prevents the exploiter classes from going their own way. The idealist understanding of history inevitably entails a reappraisal of the legal superstructure and legal consciousness. Nevertheless, it should be noted that such idealization of the constitution idealizes bourgeois democracy and not bourgeois monarchy.
To show the degree to which Hegel's understanding of constitutional monarchy and the monarch's role contradicted the feudal ideology then dominating Germany, I might quote the speech made by Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia 16 years after Hegel died. Demanding new credits from the joint landtag, the king asserted that no constitution could equal a king's fatherly concern for his subjects: "I and my house, we want to serve the Lord!" (56; 49) And, cen-
214suring the nationwide demands for a constitution, the king declared there was no force on Earth that could make him replace the ``natural'' relations between the king and the people---relations based on some inner truth---with conventional constitutional relations.
Ideologists of the feudal-romanticist reaction saw Hegel's concept of constitutional monarchy as an attempt at applying the British pattern to the conditions of Germany. In Britain, the preservation of the monarchy upheld conservative traditions, but it was naturally not the king---a king who reigned but not ruled---that stood in the way of completing bourgeois-democratic transformations. But in Germany, a backward country, the issue was not completion but commencement of bourgeois-democratic transformations. As it specifically appears in his articles, Hegel's political program is modest enough. In my opinion, this also explains his negative attitude to the British Reform Acts (i831) which envisaged a substantial democratization of the electoral system. Hegel was firmly convinced that the "absolute spirit" was progressing slowly and barely perceptibly and that this was where its irresistible power lay.
While seeing the "obscure points" in Hegel's philosophy as a deliberate step to disguise the political program of the bourgeois revolution (of course, this refers to the German theory of the bourgeois revolution), we must also remember that there is a contradiction between the self-- consciousness of a bourgeois philosopher and the actual social meaning of his doctrine, that is, between its subjective form and objective content. The author of this or that theory is often not aware, or not fully aware, of its objective meaning; on the other hand, his own evaluation of his theory is not comprehensive with regard to its objective content and sometimes even distorts it. This general methodological consideration which is among the principles of the history of philosophy is particularly applicable to Hegel because the contradiction between method and system permeates his entire philosophy. In this connection one can say that the content of Hegel's theory is infinitely more significant than the one he was aware of and expressed.
Hegel's philosophy was an ideology of the bourgeois revolution. Subjectively, however, he supported not the revolution bi\t reform---a gradual bourgeois transformation of
215feudal social relations. One must therefore distinguish between Hegelian dialectics---a theory of revolution, and Hegel's interpretation of it. That is a rather difficult task because Hegel simultaneously created the revolutionary theory of development and its reformist interpretation.
Hegel's dialectics is a theory of immanent, absolute and irresistible development. But he interpreted it to mean that social progress was spontaneous and that it was no use ``subjectively'' interfering in that process which, he alleged, was inherently rational. Hence the idea of reconciliation to social reality, which is interpreted simply as what exists. "Comprehending what is is the task of philosophy, for what is is reason." Then he adds: "This rational viewpoint is reconciliation with reality." (64; 8, 19) This interpretation of dialectics completely cancels its central (in Lenin's view) idea, that of positive negation, and replaces dialectics with a reformist approach to feudal institutions which is justified by the simple statement that they change and improve.
This "uncritical positivism" (Marx's term) of Hegel's philosophy directly affects his attitude to the Prussian state. The latter is seen as the most adequate embodiment of the Protestant Reformation which Hegel contrasted, to a certain extent, to the French Revolution. Hegel writes: "In this light, Friedrich II is a figure of world history. He may be called the ruler, with whom the new era became reality in which the true interest of the state realized its universality and its supreme justification... He was the hero of Protestantism, but not only personally, like Gustav Adolf, but as the king of a great power... Frederick the Great not only turned Prussia as a Protestant power into one of the great powers of Europe, but he was also a philosopher king." (63; 4, 919)
We must, of course, remember that Hegel saw the Protestant Reformation not only as the struggle of a new religion against Catholicism but also as the struggle of the emergent bourgeois social relations against the dominant feudal system. Apparently, his assessment of Prussia took it into account that already in the second decade of the 19th century Prussia had become the strongest German state (both militarily and economically) and that this had largely predetermined its role in the unification of Germany. Be it as it may, Hegel indulgently tolerated the re-
216actionary features of the Prussian state and obviously idealized its role in German history.
Elevation of the state to the absolute, even its deification is one of the central and salient features of Hegel's sociopolitical views. His system describes the state as "objective spirit", and its finite, limited forms are the family and "civil society"---that is, the sphere of private interests, including economic ones. By recording the relation "the state ---civil society", Hegel posed a question whose materialist solution is one of the fundamentals of the scientificphilosophical understanding of history.
Naturally, Hegel solves this question idealistically: he sees the state as a moral and legal organism which determines the basis of civil society. Thus he uses his absolute approach to the state as a principle substantiated by the entire content and structure of his system. But the central question of any revolution is that of power; the revolution destroys one type of state and replaces it with another, historically more progressive type. Hegel's system does not philosophically substantiate the need for the revolutionary transformation of the state. On the contrary, that system implies an immanent, spontaneous development of the state. But, in contradiction to his system (and in full accordance with his method), Hegel separates the state conforming to its concept from the pseudostate which is terminated by a revolution. "In a state which is truly rationally compartmentalized all laws and institutions are none other than the realization of freedom according to its substantial determinations." (64; 10, 128) But not every state is a realization of freedom. For example, describing the French state on the eve of the 1789 Bevolution, Hegel exclaims indignantly: "What a state! The totally arbitrary rule by ministers and their whores, wives, lackeys; so that the enormous host of petty tyrants and idlers saw it as their divine right to plunder the wealth of the state and the sweat of the people. Shamelessness and injustice were rampant, morals could only be compared to the baseness of institutions. We see a lack of individual rights in the civil and political aspects, as well as in the sphere of conscience, thought." (64; 75, 516) This attack on the French (and any feudal) state shows that Hegel did not put an absolute construction on the state when he was to explain the need for the bourgeois revolution, that had already happened.
217Condemning the abstract opposition of necessity to being, he often made this opposition specific and historical.
Thus, the contradiction between the objective social content of Hegel's philosophy and his subjective views was rooted in the inconsistent and halfhearted nature of the bourgeois revolutionary spirit. Lenin points to the crux of the matter: "Although Hegel himself was an admirer of the autocratic Prussian state, in whose service he was as a professor at Berlin University, Hegel's teachings were revolutionary." (10; 2, 21) Lenin draws a firm line between the subjective views of the thinker and the actual social direction of his philosophy, and even opposes one to the other. The role of the latter in ideological struggle is independent of the thinker's consciousness. Hegel's left-wing followers grasped this real content of his philosophy and used it to arrive at revolutionary and atheist conclusions. Of course, such conclusions were alien to Hegel, and he would have opposed the Young Hegelians had he lived long enough to witness their emergence. Nevertheless, the Hegelian left did not simply impose these conclusions on, and ascribe them to, Hegel's philosophy to use the prestige of his name: they actually followed from his theory---his dialectics, to be precise. Paradoxically enough, the central meaning of his own doctrine was in many respects unclear to Hegel; this meaning surfaced in the course of history.
What then is the revolutionary significance of Hegel's philosophy? Lenin answers this question as follows: " Hegel's faith in human reason and its rights, and the fundamental thesis of Hegelian philosophy that the universe is undergoing a constant process of change and development, led some of the disciples of the Berlin philosopher---those who refused to accept the existing situation---to the idea that the struggle against this situation, the struggle against existing wrong and prevalent evil, is also rooted in the universal law of eternal development. If all things develop, if institutions of one kind give place to others, why should the autocracy of the Prussian king or of the Russian tsar, the enrichment of an insignificant minority at the expense of the vast majority, or the domination of the bourgeoisie over the people, continue forever?" (10; 2, 21) Obviously, such radical conclusions were impossible for Hegel, but they have their own objective logic: they inevitably
218stem from the dialectical analysis of the socio-historical process.
Hegel often drew on dialectics to produce conservative and even reactionary conclusions, but in all such cases he actually violated dialectics. For example, he maintained that the development of the state, even when it leads to radical change, is "orderly and outwardly imperceptible motion". Marx cited this statement as obviously conflicting with both dialectics and the entire historical record of bourgeois revolutions, and said: "The category of gradual transition is, in the first place, historically false; and in the second place, it explains nothing." (1; 3, 57)
The contradiction between the philosopher's subjective •views and the real social trend of his theory should not be interpreted to mean that Hegel was a conservative (or even reactionary) even though his doctrine was revolutionary. Any contradiction has its limits, it is restricted in real life: to ignore this truth means yielding to the irrationalist interpretation of dialectics in the spirit of illogic.
Hegel's attitude to the French Revolution exposes the fallacy of the absolute, metaphysical opposition of the thinker's subjective self-consciousness to the actual content <of his philosophy. Hegel described that revolution as "world-historical for because of its content it is of global and historical importance". (63; 4, 931) After the Congress •of Vienna, when feudal reaction emerged triumphant and was destroying bourgeois-democratic gains, trying to stamp <out memories of the revolutionary past, Hegel passionately declared: "It was a glorious sunrise. All thinking beings celebrated that era. Exalted, moving feelings reigned at that time, the enthusiasm of the spirit swept the world, as if it were only then that the divine was really reconciled with the world." (63; 4, 926) Those enthusiastic words were followed by serious reservations, but they were already unable to belittle the assessment.
True, Hegel did not believe the revolutionary road of bourgeois transformation to be inevitable for all countries. But he said it in so many words (in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy) that certain conditions make revolution inevitable. When the popular spirit, he said, realizes that the existing legal basis is no longer necessary and has turned into shackles, "an alternative arises. Either the people destroy, by an internal violent explosion, this right
219which still demands recognition; or it quietly and gradually changes the law which is still regarded as law but is no longer a genuine integral element of morals, it is that which the spirit has already overcome." (64; 14, 276-77) Of course, Hegel supports a quiet and gradual transformation of the feudal superstructure into the bourgeois one. This ideological trend reflects the distinctive nature of the bourgeois revolution which begins only when the capitalist structure takes shape within the feudal system. Still, Hegel is fully aware of the fact that such peaceful evolution calls for the readiness of the ruling social forces to welcome the new. "The state is transformed without violent revolutions when this realization is universal; institutions fall like ripe fruit, they disappear, no one knows how--- each bows before the inevitable fact that it must lose its right. But the government must know that the time for it has come. If the government, unaware of the truth, ties itself to transient institutions, if it undertakes to defend the insubstantial which is law against the substantial... it is for that reason overthrown by the advancing spirit." (64; 14, 277)
The ideology of the bourgeois revolution is logically inclined to compromise with the ruling feudal forces; one of the reasons is that the bourgeoisie stands to gain the most from such compromise. The bourgeois revolutionary spirit is always limited, inconsistent, halfhearted; but it is these features that win over a certain part of the ruling feudal classes to the bourgeois side. And Hegelian philosophy authentically expresses the essence of the bourgeois revolutionary spirit during the rise of bourgeois relations in a backward, feudal country. That is what makes his philosophy the social consciousness of an era.
Hegel's philosophy loses its ``obscure'' appearance under the spotlight of Marxist-Leninist analysis. The social meaning of the Hegelian doctrine becomes obvious. Why then do the bourgeois philosophers of today present him as a political reactionary, as a theorist of the totalitarian state? Ironically, Hegel the great bourgeois thinker is today an ally of the progressive social forces in their struggle against reactionary ideology.
[220] __ALPHA_LVL2__ DIALECTICAL MATERIALISMRemarkable: Hegel comes to the ``idea'' as the coincidence of the notion and the object, as truth, through the practical, purposive activity of man. A very close approach to the view that man by his practice proves the objective correctness of his ideas, concepts, knowledge, science.
V. I. Lenin
Marxist philosophy has revealed the diversity of practice, its epistemological, socio-economic, socio-political, revolutionary functions, its universal content and meaning which are expressed in fundamentally different ways in material production, social transformations, knowledge, artistic activity and any human activity in general. The dialectical-materialist theory of practice exists and develops as a critical summing-up of the entire history of knowledge, including the history of philosophy as an important element. Significantly, the classics of Marxism advanced the central postulates of the Marxist philosophical theory of practice above all in their studies of the history of philosophy: Marx's Contribution to Hegel's Philosophy of Law, Engels' Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, and Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Cnticism and Philosophical Notebooks. This, naturally, gives rise to the following question: what role did the problem of practice play in pre-Marxian philosophy? Marxist philosophy differs from all its predecessors, including progressive ones, in that it has made the question of practice the central philosophical problem. Still, one should not underrate the philosophical legacy without which dialectical and historical materialism would have failed to emerge.
Strictly speaking, there was no problem of practice as a philosophical problem in ancient and medieval philoso-
221phy, even in those theories which posed ``practical'' (moral, educational) problems before philosophy. Only in the period of early bourgeois revolutions, which is also the period of revolutionary change in philosophical subjects, does the problem of practice become a philosophical issue. Bacon and Descartes are the first philosophers to proclaim man master of nature. Still, while entrusting the practical task of grasping natural laws to philosophy, those thinkers make no distinction between philosophy and particular sciences. Nor do they study the specific relation of philosophy to practice. The philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries see practice mostly as the application of scientific knowledge or the activity of individuals who proceed from their everyday experience and pursue their private aims. The contrasting of philosophizing to non-philosophical, and especially practical, activity is retained, despite the attempts at a philosophical understanding of its accomplishments and epistemological significance.
The new stage in the development of the philosophical understanding of practice is connected with the emergence of classical German philosophy. Although the Kantian postulate about the primacy of practical reason over theoretical reason reduces ``pure'' practical reason to moral consciousness, essentially, it already transcends the bounds of ethics. The point is that there are philosophical problems which can only be solved practically. The philosophy of Fichte, the direct successor of Kant, is not only a theory of science but also the philosophy of idealistically interpreted practice.
Hegel goes still further. Pie sees thought as an almighty and all-creative "absolute idea". In other words, he sees thinking as practical activity. Viewed from this angle, practice is not merely human activity. True, man is the only live, finite creature capable of purposeful practical activity which effectively transforms the world around him. But Hegel's practice is above man: like thought and reason, it is described as substantial activity which, by mediating the fundamental opposition of thought and being, brings about their dialectical identity. These seemingly unintelligible . idealistic theses actually lead to quite an important conclusion: the opposition between theoretical and practical activity is relative. Practice is the unity of the spiritual and the material; that is why it is universal. And since prac-
222tice substantiates itself by giving birth to the world of the objects it creates, it is really above the subjective activity of individuals---as it is seen, for example, from social production, the determining basis of social life. Naturally, Hegel never makes this conclusion, but it follows from the materialist interpretation of his postulates which describe practice as the substance of the "absolute idea", the content of the cosmic genesis and the entire development of the universe, the dialectical identity of the material and the spiritual. Hegel expresses it as follows: "The absolute idea is above all the unity of the practical and the theoretical idea and, consequently, it is also the unity of the idea of life and the idea of knowledge." (64; 6, 408)
But the opposition of thought and being which directly determines man's life is no illusion. It is stark reality to which we belong body and soul. Our life constantly shows us that the thinkable and the really existing are quite different things. Theoretical knowledge, therefore, is not enough because it strives only to see the world as it is, while the point is to make it into what it should be.
The theoretical idea---or knowledge---interpreted by Hegel not only as human activity but also as the self-- propulsion of the "absolute idea" draws its content from its other being---from the outside, alienated world. This reliance on the external imposes limitations on the theoretical idea, therefore it is not yet the all-encompassing substance-- subject which generates everything existing and contains it in itself as its recognized content. These limitations cannot be overcome by theoretical means; theory must turn into practice. It is only on this condition that the concept in itself becomes a concept for itself---it now appears not only as knowledge but also as activity changing the existing being. Thus, as a practical idea, the concept introduces its content into the objective world, thus overcoming the ``external'' bias of the objective, its alienation from the spirit, and rebuilding the world on a rational basis.
But the practical idea is also limited because it opposes the theoretical idea as its negation. According to Hegel, it "still lacks the moment of the theoretical idea" (64; 5, 323)---that is, the understanding of the objectives and the ways leading to them, and the critical assessment of reality which it changes no matter what the latter's nature. At this stage in its development, the practical idea grasps re-
223ality still inadequately, as something which is "insignificant by itself and which must attain its true determination and only value solely through good as its objective. (64; 5, 324) The inadequate evaluation of objective reality is overcome by the development of the practical idea, of practice because the latter assimilates theoretical knowledge and masters it as the knowledge of reality and of the laws governing its change, thus comprehending that its own opposition to the theoretical idea is only relative. This produces and establishes "an objective world whose inner basis and actual stability is the concept. This is the absolute idea." (64; 5, 327)
Despite its idealist character, the dialectical concept of practice Hegel develops profoundly anticipates the true content and meaning of social practice. The practical change of the existing is the fundamental condition of its knowledge. Therefore, practice is the basis of knowledge and the highest form of its realization. Naturally, Hegel presents these truths in an idealist manner: the spirit cognizes only that which it creates itself. But since this creative spirit has not yet achieved self-consciousness, it treats the reality it transforms as unspiritual and therefore insignificant. But reality is not at all insignificant because its essence is spiritual. The practical idea cancels its own negation of reality, comprehending it as its own creature. The practical idea in this aspect, as the "absolute idea", is above knowledge, because it "has not only the dignity of the universal but also of the simply actual". (10; 38, 213) Lenin sets much store by this postulate of Hegel's. In his notes on The Science of Logic Lenin analyzes Hegel's postulates about the theoretical and practical idea and reveals their rational elements. Defining his subject---"Hegel on practice and objectivity of cognition"---Lenin shows how close the German idealist is to the correct epistemological understanding of the role of practice. Lenin sums up and materialistically corrects Hegel's theses as follows: " Theoretical cognition ought to give the object in its necessity, in its all-sided relations, in its contradictory movement, anund fur-sich. But the human notion `definitively' catches this objective truth of cognition, seizes and masters it, only when the notion becomes 'being-for-itself in the sense of practice. That is, the practice of man and of mankind is the test, the criterion of the objectivity of cognition. Is
224that Hegel's idea? It is necessary to return to this." (10; 38, 211)
Lenin does return to these problems later in his notes on The Science of Logic. In the section dealing with practice in the theory of knowledge he critically analyses Hegel's understanding of the relation ``theory---practice''. Lenin dismisses idealism and shows that Hegel dialectically understands both the relation of theory to practice and that of practice to theory. This leads Hegel to conclude that practice enriched by theory becomes the highest form of knowledge at each separate stage of its development. Referring to Hegel's thesis quoted above, Lenin says: "Practice is higher than (theoretical) knowledge, for it has not only the dignity of universality, but also of immediate actuality." (10; 38, 213)
I must stress that Lenin does not refer to any and all practice. Practice is examined in its development, as a transition from one stage to the next, higher stage. Simultaneously, the relation of practice to knowledge changes too; the latter also develops and reaches the level of theoretical knowledge. Theory is transformed into practical activity, raising it to a new, higher level. Guided by theory, practice corrects, enriches it and makes it more specific. It is the unity of immediate actuality and universality inherent in practice in its developed form and organically linked with theoretical knowledge that makes practice the criterion of the truth. And that is why theoretical verification of the results of study and their testing by practice complement and enrich each other, ruling out any absolute approach to both the truth and its criterion---that is, science and practice.
Today's idealist philosophers reject the Marxist view of practice as the criterion of the truth and point to the opposition between knowledge as a spiritual phenomenon and practical activity directly connected to material objects. Unlike these contemporary bourgeois philosophers, Hegel totally rejected the metaphysical opposition of thought, logic to practical activity. According to his theory, practice is a process which turns the spiritual into material and the subjective into objective. Lenin points to the rational element of this concept and brilliantly deciphers Hegel's idealist postulate: "For Hegel action, practice, is a logical 'syllogism', a figure of logic. And that is true! Not,
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of course, in the sense that the figure of logic has its otherbeing in the practice of man (= absolute idealism), but vice versa: man's practice, repeating itself a thousand million times, becomes consolidated in man's consciousness by figures of logic." (10; 38, 217)
Pre-Marxian materialism countered idealism by substantiating the epistemological principle of reflection, but it did not pose the problem of the relation of the logical forms inherent in knowledge to objective reality. Engels points out that metaphysical materialism "restricted itself to the proof that the content of all thought and knowledge must derive from sensuous experience ... It was modern idealistic, but at the same time dialectical, philosophy, and especially Hegel, which for the first time investigated it also as regards form". (9, 266)
Because he opposes metaphysical materialism, on the one hand, and Kant's subjectivism, on the other, Hegel, despite his idealism, anticipates the correct understanding of the logical forms as forms reflecting objective reality, although his exposition is strictly idealist. He holds that all things are judgments, speculative conclusions. Referring to these seemingly absurd statements, Lenin remarks: "Very good! The most common logical `figures'---(all this in the Par. on the 'First Figure of the Syllogism') are the most common relations of things, set forth with the pedantic thoroughness of a school textbook, sit venia verbo." (10; 38, 177)
Hegel approaches the understanding of the fact that the reproduction of the relations of objective reality in forms of thinking is the result of the protracted, versatile, aggregate practical activity of men. Lenin notes this fact and stresses that the seemingly absolute stability of the figures of logic is determined by their constant practical application. These figures have the firmness of prejudice, they are axiomatic precisely (and only) because they are repeated a thousand million times (10; 38, 216-17). Summing up Hegel's understanding of the role of practice in knowledge, Lenin says: "Undoubtedly, in Hegel practice serves as a link in the analysis of the process of cognition, and indeed as the transition to objective (`absolute' according to Hegel) truth. Marx, consequently, clearly sides with Hegel in introducing the criterion of practice into the theory of knowledge." (10; 38, 212)
226Let us recall that Hegel describes the idea not as man's concept of some thing hut as something allegedly independent of man and mankind: the impersonal process of thinking which takes place in everything natural and social and comprises their absolute essence, substance. The same applies to the concept which, in Hegel's view, is not only a form of human thought but also an authentic form of the "absolute idea", that is, it is also absolute. According to Hegel, the idea "should not be understood as an idea about something, just as the concept should not be understood only as a definite concept". (64; 6, 385)
Hegel uses the word ``idea'' to denote substance, first, because of his idealist interpretation of the category of substance, and second, because in substantiating the dialectical concept of developing substance he argues that substance becomes subject, mankind, the theoretical idea, the practical idea, etc. That is why he describes the idea as the absolute, the single which combines itself to shape certain ideas. The latter, in their logical development, form the system of categories of dialectical logic, the system of universal determinations applicable to both knowledge and being. These postulates of Hegel's become clearer if we connect them to the philosophical tradition begun by Plato who maintains that the transcendental world of ideas is the source of the world of things perceived by the senses. In Plato's view, there are as many ideas as there are individual things and qualitative definitive features inherent in them; all that exists in the sensuously perceived world has a counterpart in a certain idea of the other-world.
Hegel rejects this infinite multitude of ideas whose quantity and quality are actually determined by the sensuously perceived things: it leads nowhere. He recognizes the existence of only one universal primordial idea which is christened the "absolute idea" and is the unity of being and thought, is thought-being, subject-object. Thus, reason, thought, knowledge, practice---the principal intellectual characteristics of man---acquire a suprahuman significance and are regarded as attributive definitive features of the universe, its mode of existence, motion and development. Hegel's panlogical approach extrapolates man's features into reality which is independent of him; it is a case of most sophisticated intellectualist anthropomorphism.
But the point is that, side by side with this thinkable
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world of the absolute, endowed with hypostatized human qualities, there exist nature, society, the empirically observed life of men in which reason, thought and knowledge are neither infinitely powerful nor absolute nor universal. Naturally, Hegel cannot deny the opposition between the extratemporal world of the absolute where everything has been comprehended and realized, and the imperfect human reality wbich exists in space and time, in which knowledge is far from complete, is not free from error, and practical .activity is directed at limited, finite objectives. Aware of this contradiction, Hegel tries to express it conceptually: the true essence of the world "is the concept in and for itself, and so the world is itself the idea. The unfulfilled yearning disappears when we learn that the end goal of the world is as achieved as it is eternally being achieved . . . But this correspondence of being and duty is not something petrified and immobile, because good, the end goal of the world, exists only inasmuch as it constantly generates itself." (64; 6, 407)
Thus the absolute is realized in its extratemporal being, but it is constantly realized in its other-being too, which Hegel describes as an alienated form of the absolute. Such are real nature, man and society. While in the sphere of the absolute practice is described as mediating motion which turns the opposites of being and thought into a dialectical identity, in real human life practical activity is sensuous and inseparable from natural motives, attractions, passions and interests. But the absolute does not exist outside nature, society, human activity. That is why the opposition between the "absolute idea" and human history is as relative as the antithesis of thought and being. Therefore, the point is to reveal aspects of the eternal in the historically transient social movement, to grasp the relative as the emergence of the absolute, and the absolute as developing.
Hegel begins his analysis of practice as human activity by describing the human individual whose consciousness appears directly only as sensuousness. Although Hegel does not single out the distinctive nature of man's sensations (in the sphere of the senses, he sees man rather as object than subject), he examines the forms of sensuousness as forms of the emergence of the human personality. The lowest form of sensuousness is the natural motive, "the un-
228free, directly determined, lowest ability to want, in following which man acts as a natural being". (64; 18, 4) Hegel differentiates between natural motives, also called desires, and the yearnings of great content, purpose and meaning. Passions stand still higher in the hierarchy of man's independent sensuous activity. In Hegel's view, no great deed is possible without passion. Interest is the most developed and meaningful form of sensuous yearning. It must not be confused with self-interest in which the human individual is not conscious of his substance. The value of interests in human life is hard to overestimate: nothing can take place without an interest. The existence of interests implies the existence of inclinations---substantial determinations of man's senses which distinctively describe man's individuality.
The will is the highest ability of the senses and the mind. The will assesses sensuous motives; the former, as the highest ability to want, rises above the latter although it is dependent on them. Choice is the result of this assessment. Since choice is determined by the individuality of human existence, by itself it is still arbitrary, but, because the will, freeing itself from the rule of natural motives, is filled with rational, universally significant content, choice overcomes arbitrariness, expresses the will's essence in-, creasingly adequately, and thus becomes freedom. In Hegel's words, "the subjective will is a purely formal determination which says nothing about what it wants. Only the rational will is this universal premise which is determined and develops in itself and interprets its moments as organic members." (64; 1, 144) According to Hegel, the will is free only inasmuch as it is rational, i.e. is determined by rational motives which, rising above human individuality, possess universal significance. But man's rational essence is not something directly given: it is constantly in the process of emergence. The human individual becomes social, or rational, through his own activity. He makes a man of himself.
Thus the will---Hegel is far from rejecting its genetic link to sensuousness, he even tries to systematically trace it---is inherent only in man and, like reason, is a distinctive determination of human nature. The same applies to passions, interests, inclinations and, to a certain extent, even yearnings which differ radically from the motives of
229animals. Hegel himself stresses this fact, but his panlogical premise maintaining that substantial reason is the source of sensuousness prevents him from correctly understanding sensuousness as a relatively independent sphere of human life and activity. Hence the inevitable contradictions in Hegel's theory about the relation of will to sensuousness, because in his examination of man as an individual Hegel, naturally, cannot fail to see that man's sense perceptions are the source of Ms thoughts, which are very often directed at sensuously perceived objects and therefore prove the dependence of abstract thinking on sensory experience.
In describing the emergence of the will as an exclusively human phenomenon, Hegel correctly indicates the principal direction of that process: the filling of the will with social content, the determination of acts of will by socially meaningful motives. Although, according to Hegel, the concept of morality is broader than that of ethics, reducing the objective content of the will and practical activity in general to morality and law is, Lenin stresses, a one-sided approach. (10; 38, 212). Of course, the point here is that law and morality are the basis of Hegel's "civil society". His understanding of social life is substantially determined by the legal world outlook---the classical form of bourgeois ideology. As will be seen further on, Hegel has brilliant insights into the role of labor in the development of man. Nevertheless, he does not regard labor activity as determining precisely the human character of volition. This limitation and the concomitant errors are rooted in idealism which makes it impossible to understand material production as the basis of social life.
Initially, Hegel examines the will in its relation to sensuousness, but later, in connection with the determination of the objective, universal content of volition, he shifts his analysis to the relation of the will to substantiated reason. The rationalists of the 17th century already denned the will as a special form of reason. They contrasted the will to affects so they could substantiate their concept of the rational will. As a dialectician, Hegel restricts this contrasting, both connecting the will to affects and differentiating between them. As in other cases, here he applies his famous formula of dialectical identity. This approach helps overcome the abstract-rigorist concept of the will
which is typical of rationalism and finds its extreme expression in Kantian philosophy. The analysis of the various forms of sensuous activity enables Hegel to pose---- albeit within an idealist framework---the problem of the fundamental significance of practice.
Thus, according to Hegel's theory, spirit exists, on the one hand, as knowledge, and on the other, as the will, activity aimed outward. The will "strives to objectivize its internal content, still bearing the form of subjectivity". (64; 7, 359-60) Knowledge implies the existence of an object of cognition which is external to the subject. The opposition between cognizing activity and its object must be mediated; otherwise the object cannot be an object of cognition. This mediation can only be practice as the unity of the spiritual and the material.
If knowledge is the interiorization of external reality, practice is the exteriorization of the internal content of consciousness acquired through previous cognition. Because of its dialectical relativity, this relation of the internal and external is mutually transitive: the external becomes internal and vice versa.
According to Hegel, practice "essentially unites the internal with the external. The internal determination with which it begins must be removed as far as the form is concerned, i.e., it must cease to be purely internal and become external; but the content of that determination must be preserved; for example, the intention to build a house ..." (64; 18, 16)
Thus the transformation of the internal determination of consciousness (and knowledge) into something external--- that is, practice---is, in Hegel's view, the constant content of human life, a content which realizes human essence, human spirituality and freedom. The determinations of the human Ego "must not remain only the determinations of its concept and thought but become externally existing. Here I determine things, I am the cause of the change of these objects." (64; 18, 4) This definition of practice stresses its universal character. Indeed, if we abstract ourselves from the distinct features of fundamentally different forms of practice, what is general and typical of any practice appears as a process (of course, a material process which Hegel the idealist fails to see), initiated and implemented by human individuals organized in a certain way
231Hegel's understanding of practice---"the transformation of the internal determination into something external" (64; 18, 16) is inadequate because, among other things, it interprets the fact of the transformation of the external into the internal merely as the process of cognition. But man, by changing external nature, changes his own, human nature too. Generally, the creation of the "second nature" cannot be understood correctly only as the transformation of the internal into the external: naturally, man's . mind does not possess an ideal image of everything he creates in pactice. Since the conditions of social life created by men are the determining basis of their being, practice comprises the transformation of the external into the internal too. In this regard it is the exchange of substances between nature and men organized by men, the transformation of the social into the natural and vice versa. Interiorization and exteriorization are equally both acts of cognition and acts of practice.
Hegel's concept of the dialectics of the internal and the external tentatively pointed to the correct way toward understanding the unity of knowledge and practice. But a clear description of this way called for rejecting the idealist premises of Hegel's system and demystifying, materialistically assimilating and creatively developing Hegel's method. This task was brilliantly fulfilled by Marx and Engels and later Lenin.
The high evaluation of labor activity is typical of Hegelian philosophy. He believes that labor is the most important form of practical activity: "Practical culture acquired through labor comprises the need and habit to do something, further, restriction of one's doing, partly because of the nature of the material and partly---and mostly--- because of the arbitrary acts by others, and the habit, generated by this discipline, of performing objective activity and. acquiring universally significant skills." (64; 8, 261) Marx sees the significance of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit above all in the fact that in it, Hegel "grasps the essence of labor and comprehends objective man---true, because real man---as the outcome of man's own labor". (I; 5, 333).
According to Hegel, the emergence of man as a member of society concisely repeats the history of mankind; the personality masters the experience of world his-
232tory. This elevation of the personal to the social is possible only through labor.
In his examination of Hegel's analysis of useful activity Lenin stresses that the German philosopher pays special attention to labor tools. Hegel compares them to the goals men pursue in their labor activity. He believes that everyday consciousness sees labor merely as a means for attaining certain goals which are the sole reasons why labor is implemented. Viewed from this angle, labor tools are only tools, i.e., external means used to attain that which is of greatest importance: the end. Hegel questions that consumer approach which, incidentally, is typical of the idealist view of history. He contrasts this to the dialectical understanding of the relation ``end-means''. The ends which appear as products of human subjectivity are actually dictated by the conditions of men's life and human nature itself, while the tools (instruments) of labor embody the immanent end of human activity---mastering the forces of nature. That which appears as the immediate end turns out to be essentially a means, while the means serving a subjective end (of meeting men's immediate needs) is an expression of the principal end (and meaning) of human life---the realization of its potential, the development of the human personality.
In this connection Lenin quotes the following passage from Hegel: "The Means is higher than the finite Ends of external usefulness: the plough is more honorable than those immediate enjoyments which are procured by it, and serve as Ends. The instrument is preserved, while the immediate enjoyments pass away and. are forgotten. IN HIS TOOLS MAN POSSESSES POWER OVER EXTERNAL NATURE, ALTHOUGH AS REGARDS HIS ENDS, HE FREQUENTLY IS SUBJECTED TO IT." Lenin sees this thesis as "the germs of historical materialism in Hegel". (10; 38, 189) Explaining the positive content of Hegel's line of reasoning, he says: "In actual fact, men's ends are engendered by the objective world and presuppose it,---they find it as something given, present. But it seems to man as if his ends are taken from outside the world, and are independent of the world (`freedom')." (10; 38, 189) Formulating the subject of study---"Hegel and historical materialism"---Lenin advanced a thesis pointing to the prin-
233cipal direction of such study: "Historical materialism as one of the applications and developments of the ideas of genius---seeds existing in embryo in Hegel." (10; 38, 190)
Inevitably, the following question arises: how can one explain the fact that, having profoundly understood the role of labor activity, Hegel is so far from recognizing production as the determining basis of social life? The answer lies in his idealist understanding of labor as exclusively spiritual, intellectual activity. This means that Hegel reduces material production to spiritual production, dissolves the former in the latter. Hegel's view of the world fails to see the inner connection of the supreme spiritual manifestations of human life with the diversity of the manmade "second nature". Idealism prevents Hegel from grasping the fundamental phenomenon of physical labor and the facts describing the distinctive features of the objective basis of social development.
The idealist distortion of the essense of labor is rooted in the fundamental precept of Hegel's panlogism which reduces being, the material to thought, consciousness, selfconsciousness. In Hegel's opinion, man is essentially selfconsciousness. The bodily existence of man is described as the ``other-being'' of the human essence, as alienation. Of course, Hegel admits both the existence of material products of human activity and the fact that they are needed to satisfy men's needs. But he asserts that the material is a product of the spiritual, its other-being, an alienated form of existence.
This concept finds its fullest expression in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Marx criticizes it in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844: "And since it is not real man, nor therefore nature---man being human nature---who as such is made the subject, but only the abstraction of man, self-consciousness, so thinghood cannot be anything but alienated self-consciousness." (1; 3, 335) To counter this idealist mystification of human consciousness' relation to the world of objects, Marx explains that the objects of man's needs and instincts "exist ouside him, as objects independent of him; yet these objects are objects that he weeds---essential objects, indispensable to the manifestation and confirmation of his essential powers". (1; 3, 336)
So we see that Marx does not confine himself to criti-
234cizing Hegel's understanding of activity's relation to the world of objects. He counters idealist dialectics with the dialectical-materialist understanding of the organic connection between needs, abilities, attractions and objects through which they are fulfilled. For example, the ability to see implies the existence of the sun; the emergence and development of this ability is the result of the sun's impact on the development of organic life. Furthermore, the very existence of life implies a certain diversity of conditions. This means that there is an internal and not external connection between living things and their "life forces" on the one hand, and the diversity of things which constitute their living conditions on the other. But this does not mean, as Hegel believes, that objects are produced by the abilities inherent in living things, that they are the objectivization of the spiritual potential, etc. This inner connection of the living, including human life, and its supreme, spiritual manifestations with the diversity of the world of objects and the man-made "second nature" is a product of the development of nature, man, society. Hegel's idealism prevents him from grasping this law because idealist dialectics distorts the actual process of development.
Marx notes that Hegel "sees only the positive, not the negative side of labor". (1; 3, 333) The positive side is that labor creates not only the things man needs but also man himself as an active agent, member of society, etc. In Hegel's words, man in the sphere of production "is the end for himself, and he relates to nature as to something which is subordinated to him and which bears the imprint of his activity". (63; 2, 449) Despite the profound insights of this understanding of production (industry), it suffers from bourgeois one-sidedness, which Marx stresses. Maintaining that man is "the end for himself" in production, Hegel obviously forgets that for millennia, production has exploited man; therefore the producer at, say, a capitalist enterprise, is least of all an end for himself.
Of course, Hegel does not connect the existence of slavery and serfdom, or capitalist exploitation of labor, to production, to historically definite levels of its development. Hegel's brilliant insights, described by Lenin as the germs of historical materialism, do not include one about the existence of social relations of production, the social form of the development of productive forces. Marx stresses that
235Hegel shares the view of the classical political economy of his time which, for all its scientific accomplishments, identifies capital with accumulated labor, production of goods with production of things in general---that is, perpetuates the capitalist form of -social production, seeing it as the only rational form consistent with human nature.
The category of relations of production is the central category of historical materialism. In describing capitalist production relations and examining the laws governing their operation, classical bourgeois political economy did not single out that category because it regarded slave-- owning and feudal relations not as a historically definite social form of development of productive forces but as unjust legal institutions, explained by the employers' lack of humaneness and economic competence. Hegel generally shared this view. The only difference was that he regarded slavery and serfdom as historically necessary, inevitable forms in the development of the "objective spirit" of nations, with the latter realizing only gradually that freedom is the substantial essence of man.
Marx counters Hegel's one-sided understanding of labor, his disdain for the antagonistic contradictions inherent in the development of production with the concept of alienated labor, which makes it easier to understand the development of private ownership, class contradictions and exploitation. Referring to the antagonistic social relations of production, Marx says: "Labor is man's coming-to-be for himself within alienation, or as alienated man." (1; 3, 333) Alienated labor is the alienation of the product of labor and of the very productive activity, the transformation of both into spontaneous social forces that rule men. Alienated labor is antagonistic relations of production under which man subjugates and exploits man. The alienation of labor which Hegel (and all bourgeois thinkers) fails to notice is in the fact that "labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home ... It is therefore not
236the satisfaction of a need; it is merely a means to satisfy needs external to it." (1; 3, 274)
Hegel's lack of understanding of the negative aspect of labor proves that not only idealism but also the bourgeois world outlook in general makes both the materialist understanding of history and the scientific-philosophical understanding of practice as universal human activity absolutely impossible. Practice in its fundamental form---i.e., as material production---is the basis which determines all social life. In the broadest sense of the word, practice is the active basis of the active process of cognition. Distinct forms of practice are the criteria of the verity of knowledge, especially those of its forms which are connected to cognition, first and foremost to scientific research. Practice enriched by, and directly linked to, the development of scientific knowledge is the summit of knowledge.
Any human action, whether individual or collective, is directly or indirectly connected to practice. Practice is not only the changing of nature but of social relations too. Any instrumental act, even when the instruments are a man's hands and legs, is practical. This understanding of practice, of its universal character, is, of course, totally incompatible with idealist philosophy, including dialectical idealism, despite the fact that it was the first in the history of philosophy to pose the question of the universal character of practice.
The Marxist concept of revolutionary practice is all the more incompatible with idealism because of the latter's class limitations. In their understanding of practice, bourgeois thinkers usually proceed from the empirical notion of the need to reproduce human life, the need to satisfy ``external'' requirements instrumental to human life. Hegel tries to connect practice to the overcoming of the alienation which, according to his theory, is inherent in "civil society". But he declares that alienation, which he treats as the universal relation of spirit to its other-being, can only be overcome by knowledge in what Hegel describes at its absolute forms: art, religion and philosophy. It is precisely knowledge and not practice^which Hegel reduces, in the final analysis, to knowledge---that absolute idealism regards as universal activity and therefore ascribes to it functions and abilities it does not possess.
Hegel accords the place of revolutionary practice, which
237is aware of the need to apply material force against material social relations that enslave the working man, to purely spiritual activity which has completely renounced direct connection to material objects. This means that Hegel's overcoming of alienation is not practical but theoretical and even speculative. This superseding of alienation is, in Marx's words, "superseding in thought, which leaves its object in existence in the real world". (1; 3, 341) Marx counters this seeming negation of alienation with its revolutionary-practical negation which really attains its objective. In his famous Theses on Feuerbach he says: "The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice." (1; 5, 4)
As I pointed out earlier, Hegel's doctrine transforms the theoretical idea into the practical idea. In the context of this process, which in its purely logical form is the selfmotion of the "absolute idea" and in its specific historical, temporal other-being is the history of mankind, Hegel poses the question about combining philosophy with practice. This combination is interpreted as the realization of philosophy. On the one hand, philosophy is the extratemporal self-consciousness of the divine "absolute idea"; and on the other, it is the self-conscious "absolute spirit"---i.e., mankind throughout its historical development. Philosophy can be realized only in this latter aspect, and Hegel directly connects it to the French Revolution. It is precisely in this connection that Hegel maintains: "The consciousness of the spiritual is now essentially the basis, and through this philosophy now reigns. It has been said that the French Revolution sprang from philosophy, and not without reason philosophy has been called world wisdom because it is not only truth in and for itself as pure being but also truth because it comes alive through worldliness." (63; 4, 924)
However, one should stress that in Hegel's view, the transformation of philosophy into practice---the rational transformation of the world---did not find its adequate expression in the French Revolution. Hegel follows the above quotation with these words: "Thus one should not object to the fact that the revolution received its first impulse from philosophy. But this philosophy is only abstract thinking, non-concrete comprehension of absolute truth, and it is here where the great distinction lies." (63; 4, 924)
238According to Hegel's logic, the French Revolution could only have realized the philosophy of the Enlightenment, the ideas of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Holbach, Helvetius, et al. All these thinkers differed substantially from one another but were united in their struggle against feudalism. Although Hegel justifies this struggle, he criticizes the French Enlightenment, describing it as a subjective understanding of the task of rationally transforming society. Hegel sees the French Revolution (and revolution in general) as a social restructuring based on subjective human reason, while the objective-rational, the "absolute idea"---"absolute spirit" is the social form of its being---is the determining content of the world historical process. According to Hegel, the highest forms of realization of " absolute spirit" are not revolutions but the state ("objective spirit") and forms of social consciousness---art, religion and philosophy---which he interprets as forms of comprehending the absolute and therefore defines as "absolute knowledge''.
Any revolution fights against the existing state power. Hegel vindicates the French Revolution and its ideologists, but he does not regard revolutions as a necessary, objectively inevitable form of the rational transformation of society because he fails to detect the antagonism of social relations and ignores the class nature of the state. He sees the Reformation as a form of the rational transformation of social relations. However, aware that the Reformation was also a revolution, albeit in a religious guise, Hegel concludes: "A principle is false if it maintains that right and freedom can throw off their fetters without freeing conscience, that revolution is possible without reformation." (63; 4, 931-32)
Thus, according to Hegel, philosophy can find its objective realization and truly combine itself with practice only through reforms carried out by the state itself. This compromise view expresses the class position of the German bourgeoisie and its desire to peacefully transform a feudal monarchy into a bourgeois one. Hence Hegel's ideal of the state: constitutional monarchy. But in this (and other) form of state organization, paramount importance is accorded to religion and not to philosophy. Hegel is convinced that "the Protestant Church has reconciled religion to law. There is no sacred religious conscience which is
239isolated from, or even opposed to, secular law." (63; 4, 937)
According to Hegel, the state, and especially constitutional monarchy, is the substantial embodiment of reason. But what then is the role of philosophy in social progress? Hegel's approach to this question is contradictory. He holds that philosophy is realized in society as a force ensuring the advancement of culture. But his conviction is even stronger that philosophy must never become practical. Philosophy deals above all with contemplation, with the rational comprehension of the existing. Summing up his understanding of philosophy's relation to practice, Hegel says: "Philosophy deals only with the brilliance of the idea, reflected in world history. Aversion for the clash of direct passions in reality prompts one to undertake a philosophical examination; its interest is to grasp the development of the self-realizing idea, namely, the idea of freedom which exists only as the consciousness of freedom." (63; 4, 938)
In 1841 young Marx proceeded from Hegel's theory about the relation of the theoretical idea to the practical one and, in his doctorate thesis, concluded that by consistently developing its postulates, philosophy necessarily turned into revolutionary practice. True, at that time Marx generally shared Hegel's idealism, especially its Young Hegelian interpretation and held that "the practice of philosophy is itself theoretical." (1; 1, 85) But subsequently Marx crowned his philosophical development with the creation of dialectical materialism and scientific communism. Marx concludes that since revolutionary theory seizes the masses it becomes a material force. He singles out the working class from among all those oppressed and exploited as the most revolutionary, capable, by its very position in capitalist society, of destroying all political and economic oppression.
Marx counters the Young Hegelian "philosophy of selfconsciousness" by proving that by itself, philosophy cannot yet realize the humanitarian ideals it has worked out in the course of its historical development. "Philosophy cannot be made a reality without the abolition of the proletariat, the proletariat cannot be abolished without philosophy being made a reality." (1; 3, 187) This means that philosophy---naturally, the revolutionary philosophy which arrives at the negation of capitalism and thereby at the ne-
240gation of all forms of domination over man---is to become the ideological banner, of the emancipation movement of the working class, the world outlook of the Communist Party. "As philosophy finds its material weapons in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapons in philosophy." (1; 3, 187) This radical change of philosophy's social position also transforms its content and relation to social practice and social reality in general.
Thus, having posed the problem of the universality of practice and advanced a number of fundamental postulates about the epistemological role of practice and the part it plays in the shaping of the human personality, Hegel is nevertheless unable to grasp socio-historical practice, material production as the active, determining basis of social life, and the emancipation struggle of the working people as a tremendously important historical form of revolutionary socio-political activity. Marxism-Leninism connects the solution of the problem of the universality of practice Hegel posed to the revolutionary transformation of philosophy and practice by creatively combining the two. This can be attained only through the communist transformation of society and the creation of a scientific-philosophical, dialectical-materialist world outlook.
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[241] __ALPHA_LVL2__ LENIN ON THE HEGELIAN CONCEPTLenin does not believe that Hegel's dialectics has been fully reshaped in the materialist spirit and continues the work of Marx and Engels in this regard. The Soviet philosopher E. V. Ilyenkov is right to say that "in the form of a critical analysis of Hegel's concept, Lenin examines the state of this philosophy of his time, compares and evaluates the various approaches to its cardinal problems" (21; 213). This is borne out not only by Lenin's notes on The Science of Logic and other works by Hegel but also by Lenin's own works. For example, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, like Engels' Anti-Duhring, is a work on the history of philosophy. That is how we should interpret Lenin's words in the article "On the Significance of Militant Materialism" about the need for a further study and materialist interpretation of Hegel's dialectics.
Lenin's analysis of the Hegelian philosophy singles out those fundamental precepts of Hegel's dialectics which previously remained unnoticed. Above all this applies to the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. Materialistically interpreted, this principle has become part of Marxist philosophy. Therefore its examination makes it possible to better understand the relation of dialectical materialism to the Hegelian philosophy and the classical philosophical heritage in general.
Hegel's understanding of dialectics as a theory of knowledge and logic is rather abstract and idealistically distorted. Hegel sees it as directly following from the fundamental idealist postulate. The latter regards everything existing as born of thought which is interpreted not only and not so much as human activity but as the self-propulsion of the "absolute idea". Nevertheless, Lenin stresses that despite its idealist mystification, Hegel's approach to this problem is the theoretical starting point for its dialectical-
242materialist solution too. For example, referring to the introduction to Section III of The Science of Logic and the appropriate paragraphs of Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline (paragraphs 213-215), Lenin says that they "ARE PERHAPS THE BEST EXPOSITION OF DIALECTICS. Here too, the coincidence, so to speak, of logic and epistemology is shown in a remarkably brilliant way". (10; 38, 192)
The section and paragraphs in question deal with the ``idea'' which is denned as "the adequate concept, objectively true or true as such". (64; 5, 236) In Hegel's terminology, an adequate concept is one whose content is thought itself and not external, material reality perceived through the senses. Accordingly, he defines the objective truth as the coincidence of the object of knowledge and the concept described as the object's essence grasped by thought. There is definitely a rational element in these idealist postulates because knowledge (and therefore truth) does not merely record or reproduce phenomena but also reveals their essence and laws which are grasped and formed through concepts. Of course, we must remember Hegel's opinion that "something is true only inasmuch as it is the idea". (64; 5, 236) Hegel explains it by stressing that "the kind of reality which does not correspond to the concept is merely a subjective, accidental, arbitrary phenomenon which is not truth". (64; 5, 238) But since even this precept rejects the nominalist (and conceptualist) interpretation of the concept and scientific abstraction in general, it indirectly points to the need for a correspondence between concepts and objects of knowledge.
In his notes on the section "The Idea" in Hegel's The Science of Logic Lenin shows that Hegel's ``idea'' is a mystified portrayal of the history of mankind which, through its practical activity and knowledge, increasingly grasps and transforms its environment and being. Materialistically interpreting Hegel's postulates, Lenin says: "The Idea (read: man's knowledge) is the coincidence (conformity) of notion and objectivity (the `universal'). This---first.
``Secondly, the Idea is the relation of the subjectivity (= man) which is for itself ( = independent, as it were) to the objectivity which is distinct (from this Idea) ...
``Subjectivity is the impulse to destroy this separation (of the idea from the object).
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``Cognition is the process of the submersion (of the mind) in an inorganic nature for the sake of subordinating it to the power of the subject and for the sake of generalization (cognition of the universal in its phenomena) . ..
``The coincidence of thought with the object is a process: thought (= man) must not imagine truth in the form of dead repose, in the form of a bare picture (image), pale (matt), without impulse, without motion, like a genius, like a number, like abstract thought." (10; 38, 194-95)
Lenin's conclusions both explain how Hegel mystifies the history of knowledge and show the rational element of his concept. Hegel has revealed the unity of ontology (the theory of being), logic and epistemology and delivered a profound critique of their metaphysical opposition. Contrary to the opinion of metaphysicians, ontological definitions of reality---that is, the categories describing the world as a whole, its motion, development, etc.---are not final truths but the developing knowledge about the world.
The need for an epistemological examination of the categorical definitions of objective reality is rooted in the very nature of dialectical and historical materialism. The epistemological interpretation of ontological definitions makes our understanding of their objective content more profound and reveals its relation to the existing level of the development of knowledge. Ontology thus becomes the epistemology of objective reality. The prominent Soviet philosopher B. M. Kedrov stresses quite rightly that "to recognize the unity of dialectics, logic and the materialist theory of knowledge means to admit that a Marxist cannot even try to pose philosophical questions either as purely methodological, completely isolated from the theory of knowledge (from materialism), or as purely epistemological, completely isolated from the method of cognition (from dialectics), or as purely logical, completely isolated from both the materialist theory of knowledge and the dialectical method, the way it was possible in classical formal logic." (23; 6-7)
Lenin's philosophical definition of matter is a highly effective and instructive example of the epistemological interpretation of an ontological category, an interpretation based on the application of the Marxist principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. We know that Lenin's epistemological definition of the
244category of matter does not include such obvious physical characteristics as its existence in space and time, its motion; naturally, these are not excluded because Lenin considers them secondary or such that will possibly be rejected by the subsequent development of natural science. The epistemological definition of matter records (naturally, in the most general form) its distinction from consciousness--- that is, it serapates objective and subjective reality. It would be wrong to regard this philosophical concept of matter as negative, meaning that matter is not mass, something possessing a molecular and atomic structure, etc., but objective reality. Lenin's philosophical definition of matter is not negative but positive. Besides, it points to the necessary epistemological condition of any possible scientific desription of material processes. This means that all characteristics of matter---both known to science and as yet undiscovered---should be viewed as objectively real and therefore existing independently of cognitive activity.
Cognition is a historical process, and its interpretation and generalization is the central task of dialectical-- materialist epistemology. Seen from this angle, epistemology is also the theory of those phenomena and laws of the world which are revealed in the course of the historical development of knowledge. Epistemological categories largely refer not only to cognitive activity (and human activity in general) but also to reality which is independent of man. In other words, epistemology also comprises categories describing the object of knowledge.
Logic (dialectical logic) is not simply a science about the subjective forms and rules of human thought. Its object cannot be separated from that which is cognized in logical forms, and the latter cannot be regarded as indifferent to the content embodied in them.
Hegel resolutely criticizes those who see logical forms only as formal functions of thinking and confine themselves to the description of these functions. Of course, this critique does not apply only to Kant (although it does apply above all to him) but to all traditional, formal logic which begins with Aristotle. While stressing that the description of the forms of thought irrespective of their content was a great accomplishment of Aristotle's, Hegel calls for a further examination of these forms and of their logically generalized content. The first task is to see how
245these formal functions of thought "by themselves correspond to truth". In this connection, Lenin points to the idealist vagueness, reticence and mysticism in Hegel's approach to the problem, but he also stresses that Hegel tries to understand logical forms as the quintessence, the summing-up of the history of thought: "In this conception, logic coincides with the theory of knowledge. This is in general a very important question." (10; 38, 175)
Generally, Hegel examined the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology mostly in connection with his exposition of dialectical logic. Naturally, in creating a metaphysically closed philosophical system supposed to have completely grasped the absolute, Hegel does not raise the point that the philosophical theory of the world and knowledge which sums up the continuing history of knowledge cannot be completed. He was equally uninterested in examining the dialectics of the transition from sensuous experience to abstract theoretical thinking. Lenin says that Hegel failed to understand this dialectical, leap-like transition and that it was inevitable because thought, which Hegel interpreted as the substance of things, was accordingly described as the source of notions, contemplation, sense perceptions. According to Hegel, "In all forms of spirit---in feeling, contemplation and notion---thought remains as the basis." (64; 7, 111)
Naturally, the problem of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology also comprises the examination of the relation between the dialectical laws of objective reality itself and the laws of its reflection in epistemology and logic. But Hegel only tentatively poses these questions which arise on the basis of the materialist interpretation of nature and the knowledge of it. Still, his approach to the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology is among the greatest accomplishments of pre-Marxian philosophy.
Hegel proceeds from the identity of being and thought, interpreting it in the spirit of objective idealism: he sees thought (since it comprises the entire diversity of reality) not so much as an ability inherent in the individual but as the source, the original essence of everything existing, which reaches the summit of its development and selfconsciousness in man and in human history. Viewed from this angle, everything existing is a manifestation of this
246omnipresent, suprahuman thought (the "absolute idea") which appears as both subject and object (in Hegel's terminology, subject-object), both knowledge (absolute knowledge) and the object of knowledge, of philosophy.
Naturally, no one denies the fact that the examination of the laws of knowledge, thought is among the central tasks of philosophy. However, Hegel's idealist understanding of the object of philosophy inevitably leads to a mystical interpretation of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology, a question he himself poses. This is graphically seen in his understanding of the transition from the abstract to the concrete. Hegel is right to point out that the development of scientific knowledge proceeds from abstract, one-sided, incomplete knowledge (which implies the breaking-up of the object of study into separate parts and aspects, and the examination of each of these separately) to concrete knowledge which unites the already examined separate aspects or parts of the object of study that are abstracted from the whole. "The concrete is the unity of different determinations, principles; to achieve their full development and appear fully determined before consciousness, these must first be established and fully developed separately." (62; 18, 182) However, Hegel puts a mystical construction on this actual cognitive process and presents it as ontological---in other words, he describes the transition from the abstract to the concrete as the emergence and development of things themselves, of reality itself. According to Marx, Hegel was wrong to understand "the real as the result of thought which synthesizes itself in itself, immersing itself in itself and developing from itself; while the method of rising from the abstract to the concrete is only a way through which thought appropriates the concrete and reproduces it as the spiritually concrete. But this is by no means a process of the emergence of the concrete itself." (7; 1, 22)
This quotation from Marx graphically expresses the opposition in the approach of dialectical materialism and dialectical idealism to the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology. According to Hegel, the laws governing the development of objective reality do not exist outside and independently of the "absolute idea", that is, thought in its absolute interpretation: objective reality dissolves in this suprahuman thought. And since Hegel presents knowledge
247both as a subjective human process and as the ontological essence of the objective world, his ontology directly blends with logic and epistemology. Instead of the concrete unity of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge, which does not rule out certain distinctions among them (Hegel stresses that dialectical identity comprises difference), there is the total identity which cancels out the distinction between subject and object, thought and being, reflection and objective reality.
But the complexity of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology is rooted, among other things, in these distinctions, in the fact that laws of being cannot be deduced from thought; they are merely reflected in thought, in logical forms, categories, etc. The fact that thought, science reflect, comprehend forms of matter's existence does not at all mean that these forms of matter's being (for example, motion, time, space) are generated by thought. A scientific solution of the problem concerning the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology must fully take into account the distinctive aspect of cognition as a reflection of the external world in human consciousness. The latter, unlike the mythical "absolute idea", is historically limited, exists in time and space, and comprehends the surrounding reality above all because the latter affects man's sensory organs.
Warning against a one-sided epistemological interpretation of the object of Marxist philosophy, the Soviet philosopher L. F. Ilyichev aptly remarks: "An effective examination of logical-methodological, epistemological problems largely depends on progress in the theory of objective dialectics, because subjective dialectics reflects the objective dialectical process. The philosopher pursuing his study in another direction would risk a formalistic interrpetation of methodology and epistemology, an isolation of the theory of knowledge from the fundamental dialectical-materialist theory of objective reality." (22; 100) Hegel's panlogism identifies objective reality with its reflection in consciousness, knowledge. But Hegel no doubt understands that sense perceptions are man's direct link to the external material objects which surround him. Hence his assessment of empiricism as a necessary element of cognition. However, he identifies empiricism and sensationalism with the mettaphysical understanding of cognition and regards man's
248direct sensory relation to the external world as a disguise to be removed. For example, in the beginning of the Phenomenology of Spirit he analyzes the sensory relation of subject to object and says that the object, as seen by the subject, "is whether it is or is not known; it remains even when it is not known; but there is no knowledge if there is no object." (64; 2, 75) However, a further analysis of the so-called sensory verity is completed by the conclusion that the object of sense perception is not something definite, but, on the contrary, that it is some indefinite ``this'', ``here'', ``now'' which can be applied to any object and points, first and foremost, to the existence of the subject. "Its truth [the truth of sensory verity] is in the object as an object inherent in me (als meinem Gegenstande) or in the opinion (im Meinen); it is because I know of it." (64; 2, 77) Thus, irrespective of consciousness, the existence of the object is described as an appearance, and materialist sensationalism, as the viewpoint of ordinary consciousness which is alien to philosophy.
By rejecting materialist sensationalism, Hegel rejects the theory of reflection. He uses the concept of reflection mostly to describe the correlation of different, mutually determining moments of essence. In this connection, Hegel says that in essence "all is posited as the being of reflection, a being which shines in the other and in which the other shines". (64; 6, 229)
This idealist distortion of the concept of reflection is explained by the fact that Hegel's philosophy treats cognition as a process inherent in things themselves, in nature. That, too, idealistically distorts the obvious objective necessity of cognition as a process historically determined by the development of nature, man and society. But obviously, in Hegel's view, concepts or notions do not reflect material objects; on the contrary, material objects are `` reflections'' of the concept. That is why he tries to "find only a mirror of us ourselves in this external being, see the free reflection of spirit in nature". He states explicitly: " Images of nature are only images of the concept, but in the element of external being .. ." (64; 7, 696, 695)
These Hegelian postulates bear out Lenin's remark about the ideological affinity between the idealism of Hegel and that of Plato who regarded material things as pale, imperfect, distorted images of otherworldly ideas and concepts.
249While noting Hegel's negative attitude to materialist sensationalism, to the materialist theory of reflection---which clearly made it impossible to tackle scientifically the problem of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology---we must draw a firm dividing line between the objective content of Hegel's philosophy and its subjective exposition. The point is that Hegel's dialectical interpretation of forms of thought brings him closer than his predecessors to the understanding of their actual relation to objective reality. Above all, Hegel puts an end to the traditional belief that logic deals only with subjective forms of thought. Opposing the Kantian interpretation of logical forms as a priori and consequently subjective, Hegel unwittingly approaches the correct understanding of logical relations as forms of reflection of objective reality. His well-known postulate that all things are speculative deductions is a good example. Lenin refers to Hegel's transition from deduction by analogy to that of necessity and says: "Hegel actually proved that logical forms and laws are not an empty shell, but the reflection of the objective world. More correctly, he did not prove, but made a brilliant guess." (10; 38, 180)
Thus, although Hegel rejects the materialist principle of reflection in epistemology, he inevitably arrives at conclusions that bear out and develop this principle in connection with the very complex question about forms of thought and their relation to forms of being.
Opposing the subjectivist, formalistic interpretation of logical forms especially distinct in Kantian philosophy, Hegel does not confine logical forms only to judgments, deductions, etc. We know that Hegel takes a broad view of forms of thought as comprising all the more general concepts and categories which reflect general and substantial connections and relations among phenomena. That is why his logic includes the concepts of quantity, quality, measure, essence, contradiction, basis, phenomenon, appearance, causality, reality, necessity, freedom, etc. But unlike Kant, whose transcendental analysis also deals with such concepts, Hegel sees all these categories not as subjective forms of human thought but as definitions of things themselves which are independent of man's will. Besides, his logic also includes the concepts of the mechanical and chemical processes, life and purposeful activity.
250Hegel sees his mission in the analysis of the motion and interrelationships of all scientific categories because logic must be the science of knowledge in the entirety of its development. Lenin calls this definition of logic brilliant. (10; 38, 103) He values equally highly the inclusion of the category of life into logic and Hegel's approach to the place of practice in dialectical logic. Without these categories, dialectical logic cannot reflect the forward-moving development of knowledge and its objective content which determines appropriate logical forms.
Naturally, one should remember that in his introduction of the so-called ontological categories into logic, Hegel does not confine himself to merely posing the problems of dialectical logic; he is substantiating the system of absolute idealism which transforms actual history into the history of self-knowledge, of the self-development of the concept whereby the much-vaunted "absolute idea" allegedly manifests itself and comprehends itself. Exposing the Hegelian mystification of objective reality and of its reflection in men's consciousness in the course of the historical development of knowledge, Marxist-Leninist philosophy produces a materialist solution of the dialectical relation between the objective historical process -and cognition. That is how dialectical materialism approaches Hegel's postulates about the connection, mutual transformation, notion and development of concepts.
Lenin describes the key problems of dialectical logic as follows: "Logic is the science of cognition. It is the theory of knowledge. Knowledge is the reflection of nature by man. But this is not a simple, not an immediate, not a complete reflection, but the process of a series of abstractions, the formation and development of concepts, laws, etc., and these concepts, laws, etc. (thought, science = 'the logical Idea') embrace conditionally, approximately, the universal law-governed character of eternally moving and developing nature." (10; 38, 182) Thus mediation is typical of all stages of cognition.
But if scientific knowledge of objective reality cannot be its immediate reflection, if it is necessarily mediated, it follows that scientific knowledge always represents certain stages in the development of knowledge, the transition from ignorance to knowledge, from one type of knowledge to another, more profound one. It also means that any knowl-
251edge must be examined in its relation to a different, previous type of knowledge, for the cognition of any object of science is also the result of its own development. The same applies to the categories which are the logically generalized content of knowledge developing in history. But the history of knowledge is infinite; therefore, categories--- as the logical forms of universality---must also change and develop. The principle of the universality of development must be successively applied to all categories of philosophy and science without exception. As Lenin says, "if everything develops, does not that apply also to the most general concepts and categories of thought? If not, it means that thinking is not connected with being. If it does, it means that there is a dialectics of concepts and a dialectics of cognition which has objective significance." (10; 38, 256)
Thus, any absolute treatment of categories, including those of dialectical materialism---in other words, disregard of the constant need for their further development and generalization---in the final analysis replaces dialectics with the metaphysical mode of thinking. Even empirical discoveries in geography, astronomy and other sciences are essentially the results of the development of those sciences. This is particularly true of the basic concepts of this or that science, especially philosophy.
Naturally, the concept of the atom or the molecule above all implies the objective existence of these material particles because this concept reflects the objective fact that atoms and molecules exist. But equally obviously, the scientific reflection of the given objective fact has become possible due to the development of certain knowledge and appropriate methods and means of study. Viewed from this angle, the modern scientific concept of the atom or molecule sums up the history of knowledge.
In his critical interpretation of Hegel's dialectics, Lenin constantly stresses that the scientific understanding of objective reality at each given stage of development also sums up the history of knowledge about the real world, the history of the sciences and of the versatile practical human activity. It is precisely by reason of the historical development of knowledge (without which it cannot correctly reflect external reality) that the scientific, dialecticalmaterialist understanding of the world is also the scien-
252tine understanding of cognition as a process. For example, the history of physics historically reveals not only its object and the scientific understanding of the latter, but also the process of cognition of physical laws and the distinctive features of this process, the emergence and development of physical categories, the interrelationship of these categories, etc.
In the dialectical-materialist view, the theory of knowledge can only be the summing-up of the history of knowledge, the history of the sciences and practical human activity, for only this summing-up of real history, of the real experience of knowledge can help solve key epistemological problems---let alone those issues of the theory of knowledge whose very formulation is directly linked to certain stages in the development of scientific knowledge and social practice. The Soviet philosopher M. A. Kissel is right to say that Marxist philosophy "is not ontology in the old sense of the term, that is, it is not a speculatively developed theory of being which shuns scientific knowledge about the world". (24; 175)
Traditional philosophical empiricism substantiated the principle of the sensory origin of theoretical knowledge and arbitrarily reduced epistemology to the psychology of knowledge. Today, the psychology of knowledge is a special science mostly studying the human individual who possesses certain cognitive abilities. The importance of psychological studies for the substantiation and development of dialectical-materialist epistemology must not be underrated. But it is equally obvious that epistemology, which studies the development of knowledge (primarily in its categorial forms) deals with the aggregate cognitive experience of all mankind, and not with the individual. That is precisely why the exposition of dialectical-materialist epistemology cannot be presented as a recapitulation of the psychological theory about sensation, perception and thinking.
What I have said about the theory of knowledge also applies to dialectical logic whose categories are the key junctures, the main stages of the historical process of cognition. Dialectical logic sums up this process from the viewpoint of the logical forms and categories emerging and developing in it and of their relation to one another. Naturally, this does not mean that dialectical materialism refuses to deal with special philosophical problems of materialist dia-
253lectics---such as the theory of the development of the objective world, or problems of dialectical logic and the theory of knowledge. These problems do exist, but only within the framework of unity, because materialist dialectics is the theory of development both of the material world and of its reflection in knowledge and the latter's logical forms. Therefore, the coincidence of materialist dialectics on the one hand, and dialectical logic and epistemology on the other, means only that, like epistemology, dialectical logic is the theory of development, a theory determined by the distinctive character of its object of study in each of its three aspects. Thus the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology is not an abstract identity devoid of differences. As the general theory of development, as the theory of knowledge and its logical forms, materialist dialectics dialectically studies the dialectical process.
In his Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin materialistically interprets Hegel's concept of law. On the one hand, he stresses the objectivity of law as the relation of essence, a relation which exists outside and independently of consciousness. On the other hand, he underscores equally firmly that the concept of law is a definite stage of the historically developing knowledge which far from exhausts the knowledge of phenomena and relations of essence in general. This means that any scientific law---for example, a law of physics or chemistry---expresses objective, real, essential relations. But it expresses them relatively, according to the existing objective conditions of cognition, and consequently it is an objective but relative truth---that is, a certain stage which knowledge reaches and will later surmount. Referring to Hegel's assertion that "the realm of Laws is the quiescent reflection of the existing or appearing world", Lenin arrives at the following, quite remarkable, epistemological conclusion: "Law takes the quiescent---and therefore law, every law, is narrow, incomplete, approximate." (10; 38, 151) Obviously, this does not in the least diminish the cognitive value of science.
Lenin warns against absolute treatment of the knowledge which is contained in any law formulated by science. But, although phenomena are richer than laws, the cognition of the laws governing phenomena is the comprehension of their essence.
As he often does in his Philosophical Notebooks, here
254Lenin elaborates upon the postulates he advanced in earlier works. For example, he stressed in his Materialism and Empiric-Criticism that millions of individual producers in capitalist society interact in some way in the course of producing and exchanging goods, thus changing social being. "The sum-total of these changes in all their ramifications in the capitalist world economy could not be grasped even by seventy Marxes. The most important thing is that the laws of these changes have been discovered, that the objective logic of these changes and of their historical development has in its chief and basic features been disclosed ..." (10; 14, 325) Thus, using the operation of commodity-capitalist economy as an example, Lenin formulates the epistemological understanding of the category of law which he later develops and classically defines in his Philosophical Notebooks.
The description of each category from the point of view of its objective content and place in the development of knowledge graphically shows how dialectical materialism applies the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. Viewed from this angle, the principle of coincidence is the truly dialectical approach to the study of phenomena, an approach which takes into account the existence of the subject of cognition and the historical level of knowledge, which rules out dogmatism, the absolute interpretation of the results achieved by cognition, and concessions to absolute relativism, subjectivism and agnosticism.
However, that is not all there is to applying the principle of coincidence, because the point is not only to reveal the objective content of a given category and stress its relativity as a stage of knowledge, but also to define its place among other categories and its relation to them. For example, when we deal with the category of necessity, we must define its relation to such categories as law, essence, possibility, chance, probability, basis, etc. It is equally insufficient to state that the category of reality possesses such-and-such objective content and is also a definite stage in cognition. A correct objective dialectical, epistemological and logical definition must explain the relation of the category of reality not only to that of possibility but also to such categories as existence, essence, phenomenon, appearance, necessity, contradiction, development, etc.
255In analyzing the relations among categories and thus a certain system of categories, one should examine the movement of concepts and their intertransition---that is, define concepts dialectically, not as immutable but as moving, flexible, capable of mutual transition: to approach them from the viewpoint of motion, change, development. Therefore, materialistically interpreting Hegel's idealist theory about the self-development of the concept, Lenin says: " Dialectics in general is 'the pure movement of thought in Notions' (i.e., putting it without the mysticism of idealism: human concepts are not fixed but are eternally in movement, they pass into one another, they flaw into one another, otherwise they do not reflect living life. The analysis of concepts, the study of them, the 'art of operating with them' (Engels) always demands study of the movement of concepts, of their interconnection, of their mutual transitions." (10; 38, 253)
Significantly, Lenin sees the observance of the requirement of motion, change---in short, of the dialectics of concepts---as the observance of materialist principles in epistemology and logic, for we know that materialism demands correspondence of consciousness to being which is essentially dialectical. Metaphysical materialism cannot consistently observe that principle of reflection in epistemology. As far as Hegel is concerned, he reveals, in a distorted idealist form, the unity of motion in thought (in concepts) and in being. Engels refers to it by saying that Hegel's philosophy is materialism turned upside down. And in his Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin stresses the correctness and insight of Engels' definition precisely in connection with Hegel's theory of the concept.
Lenin sees the merit of Hegel's view not only in that he has proven the objectivity and essentiality of inner contradictions, the universal and essential character of motion, change and development and that he brilliantly guessed at the more general laws of development, but also in that he is able to express this objective dialectic in the logic of concepts---in other words, that he has produced dialectical logic. For, starting from ancient Greek philosophy, many philosophers, while detecting the contradictions of motion or cogniiton, arrived at a metaphysical negation of movement, at agnosticism and irrationalism. In his notes on Hegel's History of Philosophy and on the famous aporias
256of Zeno of Elea, Lenin says, with good reason, that "the question is not whether there is movement, but how to express it in the logic of concepts". (10; 38, 256) Hegel answers this question which was posed in ancient times, by creating dialectical logic, by substantiating the unity of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge.
We know that unlike Hegel's method, his system is conservative and dogmatic. In his logic, philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit Hegel claims to have exhausted all human knowledge---at least as far as its principles and theoretical fundamentals are concerned. This is an inevitable consequence of the premises of absolute idealism, because the latter eventually reduces the history of knowledge (and history in general) to the gradual comprehension by the "absolute idea" of its own essence and of the entire wealth and diversity of development it comprises outside time and space.
The contradiction between method and system in Hegelian philosophy clearly shows that Hegel is unable to consistently follow, within his own philosophical theory, his own principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge. For, according to this principle, any knowledge (even absolute truth) must be viewed as a certain stage in historical development, and the categories through which this or that content is cognized and formulated must be compared to other categories---that is, they must also be evaluated as certain stages in the development of knowledge. But Hegel's cognition and development are completed by absolute knowledge because the "absolute idea" comprehends itself, and by the same token it comprehends its ``alienation'', ``other-being'', etc.
Another important point is that because of his idealist premise, and the long-established philosophical tradition, Hegel resolutely opposes philosophy to other sciences, maintaining that only philosophy deals with truth, that in other sciences truth is not pure and is relegated to the background by other ideas, claims and intentions which have nothing to do with it. That is why Hegel contrasts the philosophy of nature to natural science, the philosophy of history to history, the philosophy of law to law, etc. In his opinion, cognition is dialectical only in philosophy (more precisely, only in speculative-idealist philosophy) because it comprises the analysis of concepts and thought
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is the object of knowledge; other scie'hces, especially those dealing with material objects, are by their nature undialectical. Consequently he believes that dialectics, logic and epistemology coincide only in philosophy, and even that inasmuch as it deals with thought, knowledge. Naturally, this error is inevitable for speculative-idealist philosophy.
Unlike the Hegelian panlogism, dialectical materialism consistently applies the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology. Observing this principle in philosophy means not only to reject dogmatism and dogmatic claims to absolute knowledge and absolute, final truth, but also to positively examine, develop, enrich, elaborate on and offer a concrete interpretation of, all the postulates, laws and categories of dialectical and historical materialism without exception. That is exactly why dialectical materialism is not a science of sciences in opposition to other, allegedly ``finite'' and limited sciences. Like all sciences, dialectical materialism is developing, it finds new data, it deepens, elaborates on and offers a concrete interpretation of, its postulates and conclusions.
Another, equally important point is that Marxist-Leninist philosophy demands that the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge be applied to all sciences without exception. According to Lenin, " continuation of the work of Hegel and Marx must consist in the dialectical elaboration of the history of human thought, science and technique." (10; 38, 146-47) This means that any postulate, concept or law in any science must be viewed, first, from the standpoint of their objective content ( reflection of objective reality); second, epistemologically, as a certain stage in the development of knowledge, as transition from one type of knowledge to another, more profound type; and third, from the standpoint of dialectical logic which analyzes the interconnection and movement of categories irrespective of whether they are generally significant philosophical categories or the fundamental notions of some individual science (such as mass, inertia, velocity and acceleration in classical mechanics).
For example, Galileo's postulate that the velocity of an object in free fall does not depend on its shape and mass is correct because it is abstracted from the environment in which this free fall takes place. Although this fundamental of classical mechanics refers to free fall in vacuum,
258it is an approximately true reflection of the actual process of fall as it takes place in nature. However, today's aerodynamics regards Galileo's law as merely a certain stage in the cognition of the process in question: aerodynamics has to take into account the weight and shape of the falling object, the environment, the atmospheric conditions ---i.e., all the factors which classical mechanics ignores. Such is the way the knowledge of a certain law develops in history, generalizes and sums up the history of knowledge, examines the categories of classical mechanics connected to this process and their relations of coordination and subordination, and graphically shows the essence of the dialectical-materialist application of the principle proclaiming the unity of dialectics, logic and epistemology in special spheres of knowledge. This is also the approach to be used in examining relations between Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry; between classical and modern, quantum mechanics. While classical mechanics treats the categories of mass and velocity as independent of each other, quantum mechanics sees them as inseparably linked.
The question of applying the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology to special spheres of knowledge---a question Lenin poses in his Philosophical Notebooks---opens new vistas before knowledge in any science. Proceeding from that precept, Lenin points out as early as in Materialism and Empirio-Criticism that the electron is as inexhaustible as the atom. Lenin's brilliant concept of matter is based on the dialectical understanding of the object's nature and the scientific knowledge about it. Lenin stresses that any natural scientific theory of matter does not exhaust all its qualities but is a definite stage in the development of knowledge about matter, a stage inevitably negated dialectically by the subsequent development of knowledge. It follows---as I have noted earlier--- that a concept of matter truly comprising all its states and qualities, including those not yet known to science, can only be an epistemological concept, an epistemological category. Naturally, this does not rule out the need for the philosophical theory of matter to record all of its attributes studied by natural science.
Thus, in laying down the materialist principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and epistemology, Lenin,
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259unlike Hegel, demonstrates the necessity of its application in any specific science. Stressing that Hegel's The Science of Logic sums up the history of thought, Lenin says that the laws governing the general trend of human knowledge, of all science in general, also operate in each individual science. "To trace this more concretely and in greater detail in the history of the separate sciences seems an extraordinarily rewarding task." (1; 38, 318)
This is also the way to understanding Lenin's famous words to the effect that Marx's Capital applies dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge to one science---political economy. He says that "Marx applied Hegel's dialectics in its rational form to political economy". (1; 38, 178) Suffice it to compare the dialectical-materialist, strictly historical interpretation of economic categories (labor, value, capital, money, etc.) in Marx's Capital with their interpretation by the classics of English political economy to understand the importance of applying the principle of the coincidence of dialectics, logic and the theory of knowledge in political economy. And since Marx's Capital is the finest example of such study, Marxist philosophers must examine the method of Capital and grasp its significance which goes far beyond the confines of economics.
[260] __ALPHA_LVL2__ DIALECTICAL MATERIALISM,What I have understood from Heraclitus is wonderful, Socrates used to say, but what I have failed to understand must be even better. Today's opponents of Marxist philosophy do not follow this wise example: they blame Marxism for their own lack of understanding of this doctrine. Hence the opinion that Marx rejects philosophy as an explanation of the world and sees it only as a means for changing it. However, suffice it to recall certain statements in The German Ideology concerning this issue to see that Marxism is against the apologia of social reality. Marxism counters it with a scientific explanation of social relations and theoretically substantiates the need for their transformation. Marx's Capital is a great example of this revolutionary-critical explanation of social reality.
The attempt at accusing Marx of the intention to do away with philosophy is equally fallacious. A one-sided interpretation of quotations from Marx lends an appearance of objectivity to such claims. But in the history of philosophy there is no single cut-and-dried definition of concepts, including the concept of philosophy. Feuerbach says that his philosophy is no philosophy, but no one would think of calling him a non-philosopher.
Marx and Engels consider it necessary to do away with philosophy in the old sense of the word, that is, speculative philosophy opposed, on the one hand, to positive sciences, and on the other hand, to the socio-political movement. For Marx, philosophy is an integral part and a spiritual weapon of the great emancipation movement which is to forever end exploitation of man by man. This fact, which testifies to Marx's profound understanding of the social mission of philosophy (today no one denies it, at least formally) serves as a pretext to some critics of Marxism for describing it as "prearranged thinking''.
Marxism outlines the scientific ways of studying the 261 trends, contradictions and motive forces of our era. A correct understanding and creative application of Marxism implies a rejection of a biased approach to it. But throughout the history of social thought, no doctrine has suffered so much from distortion as Marxism. And today, when even its opponents have to reckon with Marxism and study it, it is being distorted more than ever before. Sometimes it seems that certain bourgeois scholars study Marxism not so much to understand it as to collect more ``evidence'' for refuting it. This sheds light on the latest ``discovery'' by the bourgeois experts on Marx: that an immanent part of Marxist theory is, of all things, Hegelianism.
In his Essays on Marx and Hegel, Jean Hyppolite, a French existentialist neo-Hegelian, draws a parallel between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit and Marx's Capital. Hyppolite sees both works as developing the same theme of alienation. "Just as in Hegel's Phenomenology," he says, "the producer, according to Marx, alienates himself in goods and money, and this monumental alienation constitutes Capital; capital, the really leading protagonist of Marx's work, is produced by man and ends up as dominating man in history and reducing him to a simple cogwheel in its mechanism." (69; 160)
Jean Hyppolite is a serious scholar and an expert on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Surely he knows that Marx's Capital---even viewed as an economic interpretation of Hegel's theory of alienation---differs substantially from the Phenomenology which deals with the alienation of selfconsciousness, with overcoming alienation by grasping the absolute. But Marx thoroughly criticizes the idealist concept of absolute knowledge, proving the fallacy of Hegel's understanding of alienation as the alienation of consciousness and self-consciousness, and countering it with the materialist postulate about the alienation of the product of labor and labor itself. True, Hyppolite does not deny that. He even admits that, according to Marx, the proletariat's class struggle, and not knowledge, leads to the overcoming of alienation. But, although he points to that distinction between Marxism and Hegelianism, Hyppolite does not consider it important. In his view, much more important is that which brings the two thinkers closer together and not the difference between them: the conviction that alienation can be overcome and that society can be restructured on 262 rational principles. According to Hyppolite, this conviction iis fallacious and it means that Marx is essentially as much •of an idealist as Hegel is. Here, idealism is interpreted not .as a certain ontological or epistemological theory but simply as the belief in the power of human reason, the inevitability of progress and the feasibility of social ideals.
Since contemporary bourgeois ideology is irreversibly ihostile to socialism, it opposes not only Marxism but also the great rationalist traditions of its own past. Thus the reduction of Marxism to Hegelianism bears out the spiritual crisis of today's bourgeois society, its moral erosion and ideological impotence.
Lenin describes Hegel's faith in reason, his conviction that the struggle with the existing social evil is rooted in the objective law of universal development, as the revolutionary aspect of Hegel's philosophy. (10; 2, 21) In Hyppolite's opinion, this very important aspect, critically accepted and materialistically developed by Marx, is naive, obsolete and disproved by history.
Karl Lowith is close to existentialism, and he believes that Marx, like Hegel, was a rationalist: "Hegel's principle---the unity of reason and reality, and reality itself as the unity of being and existence---is also Marx's principle." (80; 109) Lowith is sure to know that Marx thoroughly criticized Hegel's ontologization of reason, thought as early as 1843-1844. Nevertheless he asserts that Marx failed to overcome Hegel's speculation, i.e., that he could not remain on the level of a critical analysis of Hegel's philosophy. Like Hyppolite, Lowith essentially does not distinguish between the rational and the materialist interpretation of the forward-moving development of society: inexplicably, he sees the very idea of the inevitability of social progress as idealist.
Erwin Metzke, an evangelical critic of Marxism, is well aware of the fact that one cannot ignore the opposition between Marxism and Hegelian absolute idealism, so he tries to treat these two opposites as identical by a sophistic interpretation of dialectics. According to Metzke, Marx's materialism and Hegel's idealism form, of all things, a unity of opposites: "The connection between Marx and Hegel is itself dialectical. It comprises an opposition. The depth of connection corresponds to the depth of contradiction." (88; 15
This dismissal of the fundamental opposition between Marx's materialism and Hegel's idealism is an important ideological indicator of today's bourgeois critique of Marxism. The latter is accused not so much of negativism (as was the case in the early 1900s) as of an insufficiently critical approach to the great rationalist traditions of the past. There is no need to recapitulate here the fundamental opposition between materialist dialectics and Hegel's idealist dialectics, between historical materialism and the idealist philosophy of history, between scientific communism and Hegel's bourgeois views. To refute the legend about Marxism's allegedly Hegelian view of the world, one has to analyze what is really common to Marx and Hegel and to spot the fundamental opposition of dialectical materialism to dialectical idealism within what is common to them.
Hegel's philosophy is the self-consciousness of the era when bourgeois society established itself, it is actually the first brilliant attempt at theoretically interpreting this society's past and future. Marx's theory is the self-- consciousness of the era of the emancipation of the working class, it is a brilliant scientific understanding of the immanent development of bourgeois society which, by its own progress, creates material and spiritual prerequisites for a revolutionary transition into its opposite, the socialist social system. This means that Marx's dialectical materialism is a direct and immediate continuation of Hegel's dialectical idealism both theoretically and historically.
``Hegelian philosophy," the Russian revolutionary Alexander Herzen said, "is the algebra of revolution, it emancipates man, exceptionally and completely destroys the Christian world, the world of myths that have outlived themselves." (19; 23) Naturally, this does not mean that Hegel has fully appreciated the importance of revolutions in human history. That understanding is precisely what he lacks. But the most powerful and, one might even say, remarkable aspect of Hegel's method and of himself as man and thinker is, as Jacques D'Hondt rightly says, his tireless and passionate interest in everything that changes, is in motion, alive and transient. Goethe's mountain peaks, the symbol of the unattainable quiet for which man yearns, bore Hegel. Above all he is interested in the living, in what has come and will pass; it is ever emerging, and Hegel describes this state as unrest. (68; 14-18) Calmness
and the slowing down of motion are harbingers of death, and speculation about them bores him as it does Spinoza. Let the dead bury their dead. Everything that exists in time, especially everything alive, is transient, and its energy is born of its limitation. The power of the living is in the combination of opposites. The habitual, the routine, the traditional belong to the past which is of interest only inasmuch as it is the road to the present. Hegel admires outstanding personalities above all because they oppose routine.
Hegel opposes history to nature: nature lacks passion, it always repeats itself. But no great deed is possible without passion: it is the realm of history, where emergence and destruction are inseparable. Here, development is continuous; there is constant irreversible change, the emergence of the new which is unlike what existed before it or still survives. Here the new battles the old. The struggle of opposites is what gives birth to the new. As Hegel says, "Something is therefore vital only if it contains a contradiction, and it is precisely the power which is capable of containing and withstanding it." (64; 4, 69) It is ridiculous to say that one cannot think a contradiction; to think development means to grasp the contradiction.
Of course, these ideas and the perception of the world connected with them is only one aspect of Hegel's theory. He is the creator of the last great metaphysical system. And the system, in turn, subjects the method to itself and distorts it. Already the Young Hegelians pointed to the contradiction between Hegel's dialectical method which rejects completion of development and his system which establishes, within the framework of bourgeois law and order, absolute boundaries of the socio-political and intellectual progress of mankind. The Young Hegelians looked for the roots of this contradiction in the philosopher's personality, in his official status and conformist prejudice. As early as his first philosophical study---rough drafts of his doctorate thesis---Marx goes incomparably further. "It is quite thinkable for a philosopher," he says, "to fall into one or another apparent inconsistency through some sort of accommodation; he himself may be conscious of it. But what he is not conscious of is the possibility that this apparent commodation has its deepest roots in an inadequacy or in an inadequate formulation of his principle itself.''
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The inadequacy of Hegel's principle, i.e., the idealist character of his dialectics, was exposed by Marx in his Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law written in 1843. Here Marx shows that idealism distorts dialectics because it sees the relation of opposites as existing only in thought which, although treated ontologically and as an absolute, nevertheless remains thought. Therefore, according to Hegel, contradictions are solved only in the realm of pure thought, i.e., in the course of meditation. These contradictions are merely thought, they do not really struggle against each other; each sees the other as its other-being.
In 1839-1841, when he worked on his doctorate thesis, Marx noted the two mutually exclusive aspects of Hegel's dialectics. Still paying homage to Hegel's idealism, Marx says that "dialectic is the inner, simple light, the piercing eye of love, the inner soul which is not crushed by the body of material division, the inner abode of the spirit". But already in the following phrase he stresses that " dialectic is also the torrent which smashes the many and their bounds, which tears down the independent forms, sinking everything in the one sea of eternity". (1; 1, 498) Marx develops precisely this second, revolutionary aspect of Hegel's dialectics. Having begun with atheism and a critique of speculative philosophizing, he arrives at an integral dialectical-materialist understanding of reality, at scientific communism and the new economics.
Naturally, the transition from idealist to materialist dialectics cannot be understood without due regard to the development of Marx's socialist and economic views and his practical political activity, first, as a revolutionary democrat, and then as a conscious exponent of the fundamental interests of the working class, the creator of its scientific ideology. Marx himself notes that, stressing, first, the organic connection of his theory to the experience of the working-class movement, and second, that dialectics in its rational interpretation is incompatible with the bourgeois view of the world which makes an absolute of the capitalist mode of production. But negation---dialectically concrete and not senselessly negativist negation---is a most important element of dialectics. That is how Marx understands it, and that is why his analysis of Hegel's dialectics comprises, as an important element, the critique of the?
266speculative-idealist interpretation of negation. The latter practically always leads to reconciling the new with the old because speculative negation negates itself and also because the old, since it resists the new, is, according to Hegel, no longer old.
In stressing that Hegel's dialectics is limited, inadequate and inconsistent, one must not lose sight of the generally accepted, although disputed by the opponents of Marxism, truth that Marxist dialectics is as opposed to Hegel's dialectics as Marxism as a whole is opposed to Hegel's bourgeois theory. The revolutionary aspect of Hegel's dialectics, the rational element, of his method, the passion for truth, historicism, the profound conviction in the possibility and objective necessity of the rational transformation of human life---that is what makes Hegel's philosophy relevant today.
Many scholars overlook the fact that Hegel not only profoundly criticized the views of the Enlightenment but also upheld its finest traditions: not the Enlightenment which is often pictured as something similar to the smug optimism of the philosopher Pangloss, but the one that mercilessly ridiculed his pseudophilosophy, the one that anticipated, in the famous story of Frankenstein, the conflicts of today stemming from the spontaneous advances in science and technology, the Enlightenment which brilliantly exposed, in Rousseau's theory, the contradictions inherent in progress and generated by antagonistic social relations.
Hegel was far from the oversimplified notion that the light of truth is itself enough to dispel the darkness of error, that good triumphs over evil thanks to its immanent significance. But he was even further from rejecting the idea of progress or seeing it as threatening human existence merely because progress is not straightforward but realizes itself through struggle and suffering. Fully conscious of the difficulties and contradictions of social progress, Hegel was nevertheless absolutely free from the views held by those of our contemporaries who believe that no social transformations are capable of overcoming the inevitable disharmony of human existence. Hegel's brilliance is clear from the way he connects the genesis and development of the "unhappy consciousness" category to the status of an enslaved man who is conscious of himself
as a personality that is inherently free and capable of creative activity. This enslavement should be interpreted sufficiently broadly because, according to Hegel, it is determined by the situation in which man chooses between life without freedom and death; no other choice is possible.
Hegel destroyed the metaphysical concept of immutable truth, he was the first to prove that truth is relative, that it is the development of knowledge. But naturally, he never even conceived of asserting---the way pragmatists, neopositivists and other bourgeois philosophers assert today---that truth is reduced to usefulness or that it is a convention agreed upon by scientists. "Truth," says Hegel, "is a noble word and a still nobler cause. If man's spirit and soul are still sound, this word must make his breast heave higher." (64; 6, 29)
According to Engels, no other postulate of Hegel's generated such diversity of interpretation as his famous " everything real is rational, everything rational is real". Both myopic liberals and proponents of feudalism saw this phrase as a justification of the feudal ways. Heinrich Heine was the first to grasp the revolutionary meaning of that dictum. The most important ideas of the progressive bourgeoisie of the 17th-19th centuries, proclaimed almost simultaneously by Bacon and Descartes, were those about mastering the elemental forces of nature and rationally organizing the life of society. Hegel's phrase is the quintessence of these ideas.
Despite the clearly idealist construction put on it by Hegel, the idea about the rationality of reality is filled with a profound and even materialist content. The science of the New Age discovered the diversity of natural laws and came very close to the understanding of social laws. Naive teleological notions were replaced with the theory about the necessary connection of phenomena; in Kant's view, it was so obvious as to be a priori. These scientific concepts found their philosophical, albeit idealist expression in Hegel's panlogism, specifically in the postulate about the "rational reality". Hegel did not describe everything existing as real. In its expanded form, the real is necessity. The existing which has lost its necessity loses its justification: it must yield its place to the new, the progressive.
An equally profound materialist conclusion can be d§-
ducect if we ``peel'' the second part of Hegel's dictum: everything rational is real. Of course, Hegel did not describe everything thinkable and expressed in words and phrases as rational. Concerning medieval scholasticism which some bourgeois philosophers are ready to see as a model of methodical scientific thinking even today, Hegel said that it was "a barbaric philosophy of mind, devoid of any real content". (64; 15, 198) The rational must be sound, it authentically manifests itself as a dialectical concept which reveals the unity of the universal, the particular, the individual. The rational is real only inasmuch as its content is objective, necessary. This understanding of the rational differs radically from the subjectivist-abstract necessity at which Kant and Fichte stopped. These predecessors of Hegel were brilliant thinkers, and they cannot be blamed for some of today's philosophers still maintaining that ideals cannot be realized in this world. They hold that such is the otherwordly nature of ideals: all attempts at realizing them lead to catastrophic consequences because the world essentially cannot be better but, regrettably, it can obviously be worse. Hegel's thinking was both much more sober and much nobler: "Should an idea be too good to exist, it is the fault of the ideal itself." (64; 14, 274)
Marx and Engels directly develop Hegel's idea by opposing abstract necessity and the contrasting of the ideal to reality. This self-developing reality generates ideals and surpasses them in its subsequent development. Unlike Hegel, the founders of Marxism are perfectly aware that Utopias are not produced by reason which abstracts itself from reality and is engaged in imagination, but are a definite reflection (from a definite social position) of historical reality. That is why they distinguish between progressive and reactionary Utopias, showing that the former unscientifically reflect the actual trends of social development while the latter idealize the past presenting it as a lost paradise to be regained. Thoroughly criticizing various forms of utopianism, Marx, like Hegel, argues that the rational ideal stemming from reality itself is merely a spiritual expression of the real, historically definite trend of social development; if it appears unattainable, it is only because the trends it expresses are still embryonic. "Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve," Marx says, "since closer examination will always show
269that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation." (6; 21) Thus Hegel's postulate that "everything real is rational, everything rational is real", at first glance a mystification of the socio-historical process, is actually a brilliant insight into its inevitable progress.
But today's 'bourgeois ideologists see the idea of progress as an illusion of the Enlightenment gone bankrupt. If progress does exist, they maintain, it exists only in an extremely one-sided, limited and distorted form. As to the trend which dominates history, they see it as mostly regressive. "The social pessimism of a large part of today's bourgeois philosophers," P. N. Fedoseyev observes, " indirectly censures any protest against the historically obsolete capitalist production relations. It is apologia of conformism in a most subtle form, conformism which appears as nonconformism and widely uses pseudocriticism of capitalism and anticapitalist phraseology, but which actually vindicates contemporary capitalism, allegedly radically transformed." (33; 11)
Everything real is rational, everything rational is real. No, it is not a secular formula of Leibniz's theodicy, ridiculed by Voltaire. It is a formula of historical optimism which is perfectly conscious of the fact that the tragic is not idola theatri but that it really exists not only in personal but also in social life. But neither the tragic nor the comic nor their various combinations cancel either purposeful human activity or that dialectics of social development because of which struggle against the existing evil is rooted in the objective inevitability of change and development.
Ridiculing sober historical optimism has recently become fashionable with many bourgeois philosophers. Hegel used to say that it is childish to fight fashion, but he did not mean fashion in philosophy because philosophy is an intellectual occupation which is too serious and very important for mankind. Still, some philosophers who follow philosophical fashion see the historical optimism of Hegel and Marx as an idealist dismissal of harsh reality, as fear of the true nature of life which offers no hope of salvation to anyone. But today's social pessimism is not simply escapism a la George Santayana, preaching placid contempla-
270tiori of the turbulent stream of life from a solitary cliff. Nor is it merely a philosophical fad successfully exploiting Schopenhauer's legacy. This pessimism, which intellectually expresses the self-alienation of personality in bourgeois society, censures the struggle against obsolete capitalist relations of production. In other words, it is the subtlest apologia of conformism which appears as nonconformism since it creates the impression of intellectual independence and opposes the saccharine meliorist sermons of a large part of bourgeois ideologists. But this misanthropic view of the world from above does not in the least justify social pessimism. Hegel was right when he said that it was vanity to contemplate everything as vanity of vanities: "Perhaps treating the conviction that everything is nothing as the ultimate wisdom is really some profound life, but it is the profundity of emptiness ..." (64; 14, 64) That was also Hegel's approach to the enthusiasm of the French Revolution. The most valuable aspect in his assessment of that revolution (which the ideologists of aristocratic reaction saw as divine punishment for man's sins) is the understanding* of its historical necessity, popular character and great importance for socio-historical development in general. "I am convinced," Hegel wrote in 1816, "that the world spirit of our times uttered a command to advance. Such a command encounters resistance; this being presses on like an armored and compact phalanx, inexorably and barely perceptibly, as the sun moves, forward through all obstacles." (62; 2, 85-86) These words recognize the objective inevitability of fundamental social transformations and expose the fallacy of its speculative-- idealist interpretation. Anyway however, Hegel's approach to the greatest historical event of his time paved the way toward understanding the objective inevitability of the socio-historical process. That was where his dialectics led, and it was capable of that because it was the intellectual expression of this revolution's historical power.
Dialectics demands that historical events be examined in their interrelation, in their immanent, contradictory movement, development. It is precisely the idea of the spontaneity of the dialectical process, even in its speculativeidealist interpretation (i.e., as the process of thought), that directly approached the understanding of the objectivity of that process: the thinker does not simply transform a
271Concept into another concept, it becomes its opposite itself, it splits and transforms itself into another. In this connection Lenin referred to the germs of historical materialism in Hegel's philosophy of history. Naturally, these germs could not develop in a speculative-idealist system which saw the activity of individuals, social groups and classes as a means used by absolute spirit, world reason to realize its world historical goal. True, as Wilhelm Windelband correctly observes, Hegel's absolute spirit is actually human spirit. But the idealist mystification of mankind's historical activity inevitably turned world history into a predetermined teleological process, i.e., into the teleology of history.
The discovery of the materialist understanding of history is a true revolution in the history of sociological thought. Marx and Engels have not merely proven that material production is an objective and necessary condition of social life. That was nothing new. Even the demonstration that material production transforms not only external but also human nature is anticipated to a certain degree in Hegel's understanding of labor---Marx points to that in his "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844". The most important thing Marx has demonstrated, the source of all his subsequent discoveries, is the fact that mankind itself creates objective conditions that shape its development. Neither geographical conditions, nor the climate nor other natural factors can .be the determining force of the socio-historical process. In the final analysis, productive forces are this force.
The development of productive forces is an objective process of succession which differs fundamentally from succession in the history of ideas; there is no freedom of choice in the former: people cannot freely choose their productive forces. But it is the people and not "absolute spirit" who create and develop productive forces, and the historical necessity which emerges on this basis is the unity of live and materialized human activity. The progress of productive forces and therefore also the development of man's substantial forces necessarily change the ratio of materialized and live human labor in favor of the latter. And people determine the conditions of their life inasmuch as they create these conditions. Thus recognition of the decisive role of productive forces does not lead to the fatal-
272istic conclusion alleging that social development is predetermined. In the course of socio-economic progress the significance of the entire past of production for its current state diminishes and not increases. By his theory about the role of material production in the development of society, about the working masses as the key productive force, Marx has overcome the fatalistic concept of history Hegel did not break free from, and totally refuted the subjectivist notion holding that history is the result of man's will. Historical materialism shows that the sway the elemental forces of nature held over man for millennia (and still felt in some spheres of man's life today) is not rooted in natural but in human, social, historical causes. This means that it is historically transient.
Today's bourgeois philosophers and sociologists very often describe Marx's theory of society as a technological concept of history. This superficial view is usually based on a biased interpretation of arbitrarily selected quotations from Marx. Besides, it ignores the fact that in the Marxist view, productive forces and technology are two different things. The most important productive force is man himself, with his historically shaped abilities which vary from person to person. This obscures the fact that as a whole, they are the product of social development, which makes them and the extent to which they are developed as a whole independent of human consciousness and will, although each individual himself develops and perfects his abilities, i.e., cannot entrust this task to others.
Marx sees technology as a most important element of the means of production and, of course, an indicator (and not at all the only one) of the degree to which productive forces have developed. Other indicators are the social organization of labor, the way production is managed, the degree to which scientific advances are applied technologically, etc. In the Marxist view, since technology is a means of production (and---another important point---a means of cognition, a means of meeting cultural needs, a means of medical treatment and, regrettably, of destruction too) it is naturally in a certain dialectical relation to the objectives it helps attain. This is seen not only from the fact that many objectives become feasible, attainable only through the given technological means, but also from the fact that they actually owe their emergence to the development of
18-01562
273
technology. Besides, while Marxism explicitly stresses the importance of scientific and technological progress, it does not lose sight of its possible and actual negative consequences. But since historical materialism has nothing in common with the technological concept of history which maintains that the all-important and decisive force is precisely technology, it is equally free from the temptation to ascribe the negative consequences of technological development to technology. Marx holds that these negative consequences are inevitably brought about by the fact that production and application of technology are determined by the law of value, i.e., by the minimum of man-hours necessary for the production and application of technology. In this connection Marx spoke about the terrible consequences of the capitalist application of technology (and labor force) which opponents of Marxism only discovered in the past 25 years.
Paradoxically, while today's bourgeois philosophers and sociologists ascribe the technological interpretation of history to Marx and describe him as a "philosopher of technology" who succumbed to the "eros of technology", they are actually themselves under the influence of the technological philosophy of history, although they have a negative view of it---in other words, they have succumbed to technophobia. They talk about the "demon of technology" reigning over mankind, they say that mankind's only alternative is either to defeat the demon or be destroyed. All this idealist-irrationalist talk shows not only technophobia but also consciousness, albeit mystified, of the contradictions and difficulties generated by the spontaneous development of science and technology, by alienated social relations and by the self-alienation of the personality. " Bourgeois irrationalist philosophers," the Soviet philosopher A. G. Yegorov remarks, "are not above presenting their pessimism and mysticism as an adequate expression of human nature. Naturally, this is not so. One should look for the roots of irrationalism not in the human psyche and not even in reactionary bourgeois ideology but, in the final analysis, in the general crisis of capitalism which is expressed both in bourgeois ideology and in bourgeois culture." (20; 399)
Today's bourgeois ideologists often accuse Marx of overlooking the contradictions of scientific and technological
274progress. But it was precisely Marx who, already in the mid-19th century brilliantly exposed those contradictions and proved that they could only be solved by the communist transformation of social relations. Marx overcame not only fatalism and subjectivism but also the naturalist interpretation of history which even the greatest of pre-- Marxian materialists had failed to surpass. In his "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844", Marx described his understanding of history as "accomplished naturalism", meaning that the motive forces of social development are natural and not supernatural. That was also why he said his accomplished naturalism was humanism: the forces that create history are human, although they are obviously not the forces of each given generation. Neither nature nor mankind are all-powerful. Nothing is all-powerful. But there is the potentially all-powerful mankind, just as the allpowerful nature, and these potential infinities can never be realized in full. The road to infinity remains infinite in each of its sections, i.e., there are infinite opportunities for creative activity before us and our infinitely removed descendants.
The Marxist world outlook is full of vigor and optimism, it is based on a profound understanding of human history in all its complexity and contradictions. The Marxist viewpoint, Lenin remarked, "may be called historical optimism: the farther and the quicker things go as they are, the better it will be". (10; 2, 525) Defining the objective conditions of the communist movement, he said that a Marxist "believes in the present course of social development, because he sees the only earnest of a better future in the full development of these contradictions". (10; 2, 525)
The historical optimism of Marxism is organically linked to the dialectical-materialist theory of development. Marxist philosophy sees objective reality as an infinite sphere for conscious and purposeful human action. There are no unknowable ``things-in-themselves''; the entire record of science and practice shows that "things-in-- themselves" turn into ``things-for-us'', just as necessity "in itself" turns into necessity "for us", i.e., into freedom. Naturally, the unknown, the undiscovered, the unaccomplished, the future will always be greater than the known, the discovered, the accomplished. That is what is meant by the infinite prospects of social progress, and the scientific-- philosophical Marxist world outlook is to help in realizing them.
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[279] __ALPHA_LVL1__ NAME INDEXAbbagnano, Nicola---78, 116 Aristotle---19-21, 41, 51, 65, 67,
69, 127, 201, 245 Asmus, V. F.---149, 162, 172
D
D'Alembert, Jean Le Rond---90 Darwin, Charles---29, 76 Democritus---47, 51, 93, 104, 127 Descartes, Rene---12, 28, 37, 54, 64, 67, 76, 87, 121, 122, 125, 127, 135, 139, 154, 195, 222, 268
Diderot, Denis---37, 154, 239 Dilthey, Wilhelm-79, 80 Diogenes Laertius---21, 22 Ducasse, C. J.---25
B
Bachelard, Gaston---102, 109 Bacon, Francis---12, 104, 182,
222, 268
Bayle, Pierre---141 Belaval, Yvon---69 Berdayev, N.---117 Bergson, Henri---14, 76 Berkeley, George---12, 37, 54,
110, 111, 113, 139, 161 Bogdanov, B. V.---27 Bogomolov, A. S.---116 Bohr, Niels---67 Bolnow, Otto---116 Braun, L.---21 Brezhnev, Leonid---15 Broglie, Louis de---27, 189 Brunner, F.---64, 66, 71, 73, 80 Buhr, Manfred---155, 182 Bykhovsky, B. E.---181 Byron, George Gordon---20
E
Einstein, Albert---8, 76, 105
Eisler, Rudolf---145
Engels, Frederick---5, 7-11, 15, 20, 23, 26, 32, 33, 38, 41, 45, 84, 89-91, 94, 95, 97, 98, 101, 102, 105, 106, 117, 125, 134, 136, 140, 163, 174, 185, 192, 193, 196, 198, 202, 203, 207, 210, 221, 232, 242, 256, 268, 269, 272
Epicurus---47, 51, 54, 104
Euclid-86, 105
Calvez, Jean-Yves---84 Collins, Anthony---206 Comte, Auguste---76 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de---
24, 25 Copernicus, Nicolas---105
F
Fedoseyev, P. N.---34, 270 Feuerbach, Ludwig---20, 28, 37,
44, 86, 138, 151, 174, 221, 261 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb---41, 46,
52, 63, 64, 87, 154-80, 222, 269 Foulquie, Paul---145 Frank, Philipp---112, 113 Frederick the Great---216 Fuller---145
280K
Galilei, Galileo---258-59
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
---264
Goldschmidt, V.---64 Gorgias---103
Gouhier Henri---64, 67, 75-77 Gueroult, Martial---64, 67-74,
79, 80, 82
Kant, Immanuel---7, 14, 21, 41, 46, 52, 69, 70, 79, 87, 93, 95, 121-55, 157, 160, 164, 166, 167, 174, 176-78, 180, 186, 195, 197, 203, 222, 226, 231, 245, 250, 269
Kautsky, Karl---83, 84
Kedrov, B. M.---244
Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye---94, 114
Kissel, M. A.---253
Kolmogorov, A. N.---105
Konstantinov, F. V.---95
Koyre, Alexandre---69
H
Hartmann, Nicolai---97
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich-10, 12, 13, 20, 25-29, 37, 41-61, 64, 65, 69, 78, 87- 89, 91, 92, 95, 96, 103, 104, 106, 141, 155, 159, 169, 173, 177-258, 260, 262-72
Heidegger, Martin---114, 115, 181
Heine, Heinrich---268
Heisenberg, Werner---8
Helvetius, Claude-Adrien---127, 239
Heraclitus---204, 261
Herzen, Alexander---264
Hobbes, Thomas---12, 28
Holbach, Paul-Henri---33, 110, 127, 207, 239
Holderlin, Friedrich---169, 207
Homer---19
D'Hondt, Jacques---205, 264
Hume, David---12, 54
Husserl, Edmund---73, 114, 115
Hyppolite, Jean---53, 84, 262, 263
Lavoisier, Antoine---90
Lazarev, V. V.---163
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm--- 12, 20, 37, 54, 64, 73, 122, 125, 127, 130, 135, 154, 162, 270
Lenin, V. I.---8, 9, 11, 13, 27, 77, 81, 83, 92-95, 97, 104, 111, 137, 141, 145, 177, 178, 181, 187, 191, 199, 201, 216, 218, 221, 224-26, 230, 232, 233, 235, 242-46, 250-52, 254-60, 262, 272, 275
Leucippus---47
Lobachevsky, N. I.---105
Locke, John---12, 37, 122-25
Lombard!, Franco---64, 65
Lowith, Karl-263
Ilting, Karl-Heinz---206 Ilyenkov, E. V.---242 Ilyichev, L. F.---248
M
Mach, Ernst---83
Maimon, Salomon---64
Malebranche, Nicolas de---37, 64, 76
Marcel, Gabriel---94, 181
Marcuse, Herbert---84
Marie, Gilbert---67
Maritain, Jacque---117
Martin, Gottfried---65, 148
Marx, Karl---9, 15, 25, 30, 32, 33, 38, 39, 57, 81, 84-86, 93- 95, 101-03, 125, 134, 136, 137,
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich-
136, 137, 162 James, William---75
281155, 163, 169, 173, 174, 184, 185, 187, 196, 197-99, 205, 209, 219, 221, 232, 234-36, 238, 240, 242, 247, 258, 260-67, 269, 270, 272-75
Melvil, Yu. K.---111
Mercier, Andre---63
Metzke, Erwin---263
Mitin, M. B.---203
Montaigne, Michel---141
Scherer, Edmond---80 Schmidt, Conrad---84 Schopenhauer, Arthur---70, 75, 271
Shakespeare, William---19 Shestov, Lev---148 Shinkaruk, V. I.---152 Socrates---21, 47 Spinoza, Benedict---11, 12, 46,
54, 76, 87, 122, 123, 125, 127,
135, 150, 154, 155, 169, 184,
191, 192, 265
N
Naumenko, L.---184 Newton, Isaac---68 Niethammer, F. L---207, 214 Nietzsche, Friedrich---94, 113
Tchaikovsky, P. I.---71 Tertullian---108 Thales---47
Thomas Aquinas---108, 182 Tiedemann, Dietrich---103 Timiryazev, K. A.---8 Tolstoy, Lev---20
Parmenides---21
Pheidias---71
Pierce, Charles Sanders---111
Plato---19, 20, 21, 41, 47, 51,
65, 69, 70, 73, 127, 201, 212-13,
227, 249
Popper, Karl---111, 201 Protagoras---21
van Ghert---204 Vasiliev, I.---184 Vernadsky, V. I.---8 Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet -239, 270
R
Raphael---71
Reid, Thomas---110
Reinhold, Karl Leonard---160,
166Ricardo, David---137 Ricoeur, Paul---64, 74, 75, 77,
78, 200
Rombach, Heinrich---68 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques---154,
159, 207, 213, 239, 267 Runes, Dagobert---145
W
Waelhens, Alphonse De---66 Wagner, Albert de Reyna---74 Windelband, Wilhelm---272 Wittgenstein, Ludwig Josef Johann---113
Yegorov, A. G.---274
Santayana, George---270
Sartre, Jean-Paul---114
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm
Joseph von---41, 46, 87, 179,
180, 186
Zeno of Elea---257
282 __ALPHA_LVL1__ SUBJECT INDEXActivity---158, 159, 162-65, 168,
171---cognitive---92-93, 223-24 -labor---229, 232-34 ---practical---16, 63, 164, 165,
221-23, 225, 226, 231-32, 237 ---theoretical---63, 164, 222, 223 Agnosticism---li, 14,129, 140-41,
144 Alienation, self-alienation---103,
115, 163, 165, 172, 182, 183,
190, 196, 197, 234, 236-38, 262 Antinomies---10, 81, 137, 153,
157
A priopi approach---11, 95, 114,
123, 128-35, 142-43
------identity and distinction---
25, 26, 84, 85, 167, 168, 179,
180, 185-87, 222, 223
------matter (Lenin's definition
of)---244-45, 259-60
------"one is not one but
many"---36
------opposites---31, 42, 112, 159,
161, 164-72, 179, 186, 198, 265 ------space and time---177
------substance (Hegel's, Spinoza's)---162, 175,184, 190-92,227 ------substantiation and consequence---130
------the absolute and the relative---228
------the finite and the infinite
-97, 141
------the historical and the logical---8, 9, 27
------the internal and the external---231, 232
------the means and end---233
------thesis and antithesis, synthesis---10, 169-72
------the whole and a part---10,
93Civil society---57, 212, 217, 230 Cognition (knowledge)---6, 7, 22, 27, 88-92, 95-98, 112, 126, 132, 133, 140-42, 144, 145, 152, 164, 165, 180, 186, 190, 199, 200, 221, 224, 225, 231, 232, 237, 242, 243, 245-48, 251-53, 257
------psychology------253
Common sense---103-11, 116 Concept---6, 7, 27, 42, 44, 132,
162, 223, 224, 227, 252, 253, 255-57
---and noumenon---136, 143-49, 151, 152
Categories (philosophical)---46,
54, 252, 255-57 ---definition of---94-96, 244 -Fichte's---174, 178-80 ---Hegel's---95, 96, 180, 186-87,
250, 251 ---Kant's---95, 131-33, 151, 154,
155, 174 ---separate
------casuality---95, 176
------content and form---30, 48,
53, 134, 179, 187, 250 ------contradictions---141, 169,
171, 179, 180, 236, 265 ------development---7, 16, 19,
26, 29-30, 34-37, 64, 65, 88-92,
94, 186, 191, 192, 197, 198,
202, 203, 251-54, 257, 265 ------freedom and necessity---
157, 158, 160, 171
283Consciousness---24, 27, 138-40,
144, 149, 169, 234 -moral---149, 150, 230 ---everyday---23, 27, 28, 32, 47,
106, 108-10, 112-14, 117, 118,
233---social---31-33, 57, 195, 239 ---philosophical---27, 57, 107,
114---religious---60, 103, 117 ---and everyday experience---
103, 107, 109-12, 208 (see also
Spirit) Continuity (historical, relation
to the preceding philosophy)
---11-14, 27, 31, 42, 57, 58,
75-78, 200, 273
---historical---16 ---scientific---109, 126
F
Freedom-213, 214, 217, 220 Fundamental problem of philosophy--- 140, 167, 185
H
Historical-philosophical process
-5, 9, 12, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22,
24, 25, 29, 33, 47, 57-61, 66,
67, 69, 79, 80, 81, 82 ---Hegel's-12-13, 25, 27-29, 37,
41, 52, 64, 65, 87-89, 91-93,
199-200
Historical-philosophical study ---principles of---41, 42, 50, 51,
137, 138, 153, 194, 195, 215,
217 Historicism (Hegel's concept of
world history)---39, 197, 202,
203, 210, 272, 273 ---epistemological---96, 258 History---20-21, 26, 156-59, 195,
212, 217, 232, 250, 251, 257,
265, 272, 273
---idealistic understanding---214 ---materialistic understanding---
10, 33, 158-59, 237, 271-72 History of philosophy---7-10,
13-15, 19-23, 26, 30, 31, 34-37,
39-43, 44-46, 48-51, 57, 58, 60,
61, 63, 64, 68-71, 77, 221, 261 ---subject of---19, 21, 24, 25, 34,
35, 41
Deduction---129, 130 Definition---123, 153 Dialectics---38, 39, 52, 61, 135,
154, 177, 179, 180, 188, 189,
198-99, 218-19, 242-43, 255,
256, 271-72 ---idealist (Fichte, Hegel)---166,
174, 204, 216, 235, 242, 263,
264, 266, 267 ---materialist---255-56, 264, 266,
267---transcendental---154, 155 ---as logic and epistemology---
242-48, 250, 253-55, 257-60 ---theory of---154, 155, 180-81 Dualism-12, 140, 178
E
Empiricism---12, 14, 111, 121-24,
248, 253 Epistemology---9, 53, 244-46,
253, 254 (see also Cognition)
Error-11, 22, 122, 123, 137 (see
also Truth)
Esoteric, the, and exoteric, the
---60, 191, 205, 206, 208 Euclidean (Euclid's) geometry
---86, 105 Experience ---everyday---34, 72, 100, 101,
104, 105-07, 110-13
Idealism (idealist philosophy) -10, 14, 15, 31, 36, 37, 38, 63, 66, 67, 73, 74, 79, 88, 89, 91, 92, 98, 104, 108, 110-13, 139, 181, 230, 231, 234, 237, 263, 264, 266
-absolute-12, 27-29, 44, 53, 57, 61, 182, 185, 190, 199, 251
---dialectical (German classical)
284---5, 13, 38, 46, 47, 63, 87-89,
154, 155, 160, 177, 185, 237,
264, 266, 267
---objective---180, 184, 246 ---subjective---12, 110, 111, 161,
165-74, 179 Ideology---31, 32, 65, 66, 82,
102, 103, 156, 159, 160, 181,
205, 213, 216
---bourgeois (and petty-- bourgeois)---32, 33, 102, 207, 208,
263, 270
---socialist---31, 32, 102 Intellectual intuition---123-24,
160-61, 175, 177 Interest---229 Irrationalism---U, 73, 76, 95,
113, 118, 148, 181, 188, 262-63,
274, 275
---formal-86, 154, 175, 188, 189,
245, 246 ---transcendental---143, 154, 155,
180 Logical forms---187, 245, 246,
248, 250, 251
M
Marxism (Marxist philosophy) ---10, 13, 15, 16, 33-35, 38, 40, 61, 66, 83-86, 94-98, 116, 137, 181, 203, 221, 242, 248, 253, 261, 262, 264, 272, 273
Materialism (dialectical-- materialist philosophy)---8, 31, 38, 39, 46, 47, 61, 100, 111, 112, 136, 256
---dialectical---5, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 34-36, 41, 112, 137, 153, 242, 247, 258
---French, 18th-century---32, 33, 110, 125-26, 157, 191
---mechanistic---138
---metaphysical---185, 225, 226, 256
---pre-Marxian (old, metaphysical)-174, 187, 190, 226
---and idealism---31, 36-38, 76, 100, 108, 112, 113, 137, 152, 225, 226
Material, the, and spiritual, the ---140, 183-84, 193, 196-97, 223, 231, 234
Method (methodology)---13, 75, 94, 138, 139, 142, 155, 259, 260
---antithetical---172
---dialectical-10, 134, 135, 172, 180
---historical and logical---8, 9, 27, 50
---metaphysical---94, 95, 106, 107, 128, 137, 178
---transition from the abstract to the concrete---247
---and Hegel's system---215, 232, 257, 265
Monarchy, Hegel's concept of
---feudal and constitutional--- 208, 209
---constitutional---210-15, 239
Motion (and matter)---23, 30, 138, 163
K
Knowledge---57, 73, 89-92, 96, 97, 124, 132, 133, 139, 141, 142, 251, 252, 254, 257
---absolute (and specific)---28, 49, 86, 87, 94, 97, 98, 128, 178, 193, 200, 239, 257, 262
---a priori (supraexperimental) -130-33, 142
---empirical---131-33
---philosophical---27, 28, 36, 37, 43, 54, 59, 62, 66, 71, 80, 87- 92
---scientific theoretical ( scientific, theoretical)---14, 35, 47- 48, 126, 130, 131, 133, 134, 195, 196, 223, 224, 251-54 (see also Practice)
Labor---196, 232-37
---alienated---236
---tools of---233
Law---193, 213, 230, 257
---philosophy---56, 57, 209
Laws---35, 36, 174, 175, 190, 246,
247, 250, 254, 255, 260 Logic ---dialectical---154, 155, 179, 180,
188, 245, 250-54, 256, 257
285Natural science---6-8, 9-21, 23, 24, 29, 47, 48, 59, 90, 176, 257, 259
---empirical---12
---theoretical---7, 8, 20, 133, 134, 142
Negation (dialectical)---11, 42, 54, 84, 85, 87, 88, 91, 92, 174, 180, 187, 188, 198, 199, 201, 203, 266-67
---of the bourgeois Enlightenment---32, 157, 160, 182, 203, 267, 270
---today's bourgeois---34, 63, 262, 274
separate trends
------existentialism---75, 114-16,
181------Frankfurt School---84
------neopositivism---14, 38, 95,
112-14
------neo-Thomism---66, 108, 109
------"philosophy of the history
of philosophy"---63-68, 73-75,
78-82
------"technological pessimism"
-181, 274
---principle of partisanship in ---240-41 (see also Marxism)
Practice---Hi, 117, 164, 165, 176, 221-26, 228-33, 237, 251
---revolutionary---237-41
---socio-political---29, 241
---and theory---224-26
(see also Activity, Revolution)
Progress-30, 42, 57, 182, 186, 203, 216, 263, 267, 268, 270, 272, 273
Objectivity (and subjectivity)
---74-77
Ontology-44, 53, 143, 174, 244 Optimism
---historical---270, 271, 275 Outlook---31, 78, 172, 181, 275 ---bourgeois---28, 237 ---scientific philosophical---15,
16, 32, 35-39, 61, 83, 181, 240,
241, 275
(see also Philosophy)
Panlogism---227, 234, 248, 258,
268Pantheism---184, 185 Pessimism ---social---270 Philosophy ---subject of---96, 97, 127, 128,
194, 240, 241, 248 ---as a system of world outlook
---98 ---and science---25, 32, 34, 35,
62-64, 67-69, 72, 96, 97 ---and religion---103, 110, 116,
126, 183, 239 ---Hegel's---28, 29, 41-46, 48, 50,
57, 61, 87-91, 185, 190, 192,
194, 199-201, 232, 240-42, 247,
256, 258, 263, 264 ---of the New Age---13, 15, 37,
182R
Rationalism of the 17th-c.---96,
121-25, 127-32, 134, 135, 143,
181, 194, 203, 230, 263 Reality---166, 171, 243, 261 ---everyday---72, 73 ---philosophical---72, 74, 76 Reason---42, 121-23, 128, 129,
143, 181-84, 187-90, 192,
194-98, 201, 207, 230 ---practical---149-51, 167 -pure---122-23, 128-29, 146, 151,
194-97
---theoretical---148, 167 ---historical character of---197-99
(see also Spirit) Revolution ---Fichte's attitude to---155, 156,
159 ---Hegel's attitude to---219, 238,
239, 271
286s
---metaphysical---13, 54, 89, 96, 125-30, 134, 135, 141, 142
Science---32, 34-36, 47, 48, 63,
64, 79, 92, 105, 112, 113, 124, 125, 128
---history (development) of---
8, 19, 20, 21, 27, 30, 31, 35,
36, 41, 42, 67-69, 86, 252, 253
(see also Knowledge) Self-consciousness---57, 58, 138,
139, 158, 169, 177, 234 Sensationalism---248-50 Skepticism---12, 14, 22-26, 41,
54, 71, 77, 78, 141 Spirit (and nature)---163,189-91,
224, 225, 231 ---absolute---28, 49, 53, 55-58,
87, 88, 92, 192, 193, 197, 198,
215, 239, 272 ---objective and subjective---
192, 193
(see also Subject-object) State--57, 192, 193, 216-19,
240Subject ---absolute (and empirical)---
160-66, 168-69, 172, 177-79 Subjectivism---11, 40, 75, 167 Subjective, the ---and the objective---77, 144,
170-74 Subject-object---163-68, 170, 171,
173, 174
(see also Spirit) Systems (philosophical)---28,
42, 44, 46, 49, 51, 52, 58, 64,
65, 67, 71-73, 80, 83-95, 177, 199, 246
T
Technology---273, 274 Theism---126, 184 Theory-20, 47, 50, 51, 60, 224, 225
---of reflection---10, 32, 92, 96,
102, 112, 187, 249, 250 ``Thing-in-itself''---136-37, 139-
141, 144-49, 152-53 Thinking-7, 29, 101, 112, 122,
123, 182, 183, 194, 222, 266 ---theoretical---5-9, 175 ---and being---96, 162, 222, 223,
227, 228, 234, 248 ---identity of being and thought, Hegel's concept of---
47, 48, 57, 92, 162, 179, 180,
185-87, 246
(see also Spirit) Truth---10, 11, 22, 24, 26, 29,
41-43, 51, 52, 71, 72, 88, 102,
206, 207, 257, 268 ---absolute---97, 98, 142 ---relative---97, 98, 268 ---objective (Hegel's)---243 ---and error---23, 52, 92, 194-95,
198, 199, 267
W
Will---229-31
---freedom---126, 150-51, 158
Working class---241, 266
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