Abstract
History of philosophy (istoriko-filosofskaya nauka) used to be a fairly well-demarcated field; today, however, there is a general tendency among Soviet professional historians of philosophy to turn to actual questions of Soviet society, or to manifest themselves as philosophers in their own right. Moreover, the very conception and present position of Soviet philosophy are under discussion, and this touches directly on the history of philosophy. In this chapter, I shall try to analyse the relation of this branch of Soviet philosophy to the overall situation in Soviet philosophy. In the first part, I shall discuss the change in Soviet philosophy today, the perestroika filosofii (restructuring of philosophy), concentrating on a discussion about the question of whether philosophy should be regarded and treated as a science. In the second part, I will show how this perestroika filosofii is closely connected to a filosofiya perestroiki (philosophy of perestroika), concentrating on one person: I. T. Frolov. In the third part, I will try to give an idea of how both perestroika filosofii and filosofiya perestroiki are related to, and affect, the history of philosophy.
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Notes
K. N. Lyubutin and D. V. Pivovarov, ‘Problema nauchnosti filosofii i “kontrfilosofiya”,’ Filosoficheskaya nauka [hereafter, FN], No. 6 (1989) p. 72.
See Richard T. DeGeorge, ‘The Critique of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy: 1956–1981’, in J. J. O’Rourke et al. (eds), Contemporary Marxism (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1984) pp. 9–18.
James P. Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR, A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1985) p. 9.
Ivan T. Frolov et al. (eds), Vvedenie v filosofiyu (Moscow: Politicheskaya literatura, 1989).
Fedor V. Konstantinov et al. (eds), Osnovy marksistsko-leninskoi filosofii (Moscow: Politicheskaya literatura, 1982).
A. G. Spirkin, ‘Filosofiya’, L. F. Il’ichev et al. (eds), Filosofskii Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar’ (Moscow: Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya, 1983) p. 726.
A. L. Nikoforov, ‘Yavlyaetsya li filosofiya naukoi?’ FN, No. 6 (1989) pp. 52–62; K. N. Lyubutin, D. V. Pivovarov, ‘Problema nauchnosti filosofii i “kontrfilosofiya” ’, ibid., pp. 62–72.
See Teodor I. Oizerman, Problemy istoriko-filosofskoi nauki (Moscow: Nauka, 1982) pp. 137–42;
Aleksei S. Bogomolov and Teodor I. Oizerman, Osnovy teorii istoriko-filosofskogo protsessa (Moscow: Nauka, 1983) (English trans.:
A. S. Bogomolov and T. I. Oizerman, Principles of the Theory of the Historical Process in Philosophy [Moscow: Progress, 1986]; cf. also Scanlan, Marxism in the USSR, pp. 37f.
Valerii A. Kuvakin, Chto takoe filosofiya? Sushchnost’, zakonomernosti razvitiya i printsipy razrabotki (Moscow: MGU, 1989) p. 4.
V. S. Khaziev, FN, No. 2 (1990) p. 67.
B. A. Arkhipov, FN, No. 12 (1989) p. 70.
Zakhar A. Kamenskii, FN, No. 12 (1989) p. 73.
V. G. Tomilova, FN, No. 12 (1989) p. 75.
V. I. Kuptsov, ‘Perestroika obshchestvennykh nauk i zhurnal’, FN, No. 1 (1989) pp. 3 and 7.
See Loren R. Graham, Science, Philosophy, and Human Behavior in the Soviet Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987) pp. 20f, and pp. 152f; and
Ivan T. Frolov, ‘Zhizn’ i poznanie’, VF, No. 9 (1989) pp. 52–63.
Ivan T. Frolov, ‘O zhizni, smerti i bessmertii (Etyudy novogo [real’nogo] gumanizma)’, VF, (1983) No. 1 pp. 83–98, and No. 2, pp. 52–64.
Ivan T. Frolov, ‘Perestroika: filosofskii smysl’ i chelovecheskoe pred-naznachenie’, VF, No. 2 (1989) p. 22f.
‘Another equally manifest reality of our time is the rise and aggravation of so-called global problems, which also have acquired vital importance for the fate of civilization’, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Perestroika i novoe myshlenie dlya nashei strany i dlya vsego mira (Moscow: Politicheskaya literatura, 1987), p. 139. ‘The core of new thinking is the recognition of the priority of values common to all mankind, and even more precisely: the survival of mankind’. Ibid.. p. 149.
‘The course of development of the world puts a good deal of questions of a global scale before mankind. Scientific thought must give true answers to these questions’, ‘Programma Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soyuza; novaya redaktsiya’, Materialy XXVII s”ezda Kommunisticheskoi partii Sovetskogo Soyuza (Moscow: Politicheskaya literatura, 1986) p. 168.
Leszek Kolakowski, Die Hauptströmungen des Marxismus: Entstehung, Entwicklung, Zerfall (Munich: Piper Verlag, 1979) Vol 3, p. 104.
Leszek Kolakowski, ‘Aktueller und nichtaktueller Begriff des Marxismus’, Der Mensch ohne Alternative: von der Möglichkeit und Unmöglichkeit Marxist zu sein (Munich: Piper Verlag, 1967) pp. 7f.
K. N. Lyubutin, A. V. Pertsev, review of Istoriko filosofskii ezhegodnik ‘86 and Istoriko-filosofskii ezhegodnik ‘87, VF, No. 11 (1988) p. 169.
Yurii K. Mel’vil’, ‘Marksistskaya i nemarksistskaya filosofiya. Problema vzaimodeistviya’, Vestnik MGU, ser. 7 (Filosofiya) No. 4 (1989) p. 9.
See, for the ‘classical’ Marxist-Leninist conception of the history of philosophy, Karl G. Ballestrem, ‘Soviet historiography of philosophy’, Studies in Soviet Thought, Vol. 3 (1963) pp. 107–20;
Evert van der Zweerde, ‘Recent Developments in Soviet Historiography of Philosophy’, Studies in Soviet Thought Vol. 39 (1990) pp. 1–53.
Aleksandr L. Dobrochotov, ‘Welches sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysik seit Parmenides Zeiten gemacht hat?’ La parola del passato, rivista di studi antichi, Vol. XLIII (Naples: Gaetano Macchiaroli Editore, 1988) pp. 126–42.
Vladimir S. Bibler, ‘Im. Kant i logika eksperimenta novogo vremeni’, Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniya i tekhniki, No. 1 (1987) pp. 51–61; idem, ‘K filosofskoi logike paradoksa,’ VF, No. 1 (1988) pp. 28–42; idem, ‘Kul’tura. Dialog kul’tur,’ VF, No. 6 (1989) pp. 31–42;
Merab K. Mamardashvili, ‘Problema soznaniya i filosofskoe prizvanie’, VF, No. 8 (1988) pp. 37–47; idem, contribution to ‘Fenomenologiya i ee rol’ v sovremennoi filosofii’, VF, No. 12 (1988) pp. 55–9; idem, ‘Soznanie — eto paradoksal’nost’, k kotoroi nevozmozhno privyknut” (interview) VF, No. 7 (1989) pp. 112–18; idem ‘Mysl’ v kul’ture’, FN, No. 11 (1989) pp. 75–81.
Kant appears as a central figure in this ‘humanist’ movement, not only in the Vvedenie v filosofiyu, but also in Mel’vil’ ‘Marksistskaya’, p. 9, as well as in several contributions to the discussion on the scientific status of philosophy (for example, V. G. Tomilova, FN, No. 12 (1989) p. 75).
Nelli V. Motroshilova, Sotsial’no-istoricheskie korni nemetskoi klassi-cheskoi filosofii (Moscow: Nauka, 1990) p. 191f.
Ibid., p. 190. In ‘pre-perestroika’ texts by Motroshilova, the same attitude, albeit less explicitly, is present. See her ‘Uchenie o cheloveke v filosofii epokhi rannikh burzhuaznykh revolyutsii’, in T. I. Oizerman (ed.), Filosofiya epokhi rannikh burzhuaznykh revolyutsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1983), pp. 481–575; and ‘Orientatsii novoi lichnosti i ikh vyrazhenie v filosofii cheloveka XVII stoletiya’, in
N. V. Motroshilova, Istoriko-filosofskii ezhegodnik ‘86 (Moscow: Nauka, 1986) pp. 84–103.
Teodor I. Oizerman, ‘Vvedenie,’ Nauchno-filosofskoe mirovozzrenie marksizma (Moscow: Nauka, 1989) p. 27.
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© 1992 International Council for Soviet and East European Studies, and Michael E. Urban
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van der Zweerde, E. (1992). Preparing for Renaissance: Philosophy, Ideology and the History of Philosophy in the USSR. In: Urban, M.E. (eds) Ideology and System Change in the USSR and East Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22328-2_12
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