Table Of ContentSOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY OF PHILOSOPHY
SOVIETICA
VOLUMES7
PUBLICATIONS AND MONOGRAPHS
OF THE INSTITUTE OF EAST -EUROPEAN STUDIES
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF FRIBOURG I SWITZERLAND AND
THE CENTER FOR EAST EUROPE, RUSSIA AND ASIA AT BOSTON COLLEGE AND
THE SEMINAR FOR POLmCAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
Founded by J. M. Bocheflski (Fribourg)
Edited by T. J. Blakeley (Boston), Guido Kung (Fribourg) and
Nikolaus Lobkowicz (Munich)
Editorial Board
Karl G. Ballestrem (Eichstiitt) / Bernard Jeu (Lille)
Helmut Dahm (Cologne) / George L. Kline (Bryn Mawr)
Richard T. DeGeorge (Univ. of Kansas) / James J. O.'Rourke (St. Anselm's)
Peter Ehlen (Munich) / Friedrich Rapp (Dortmund)
Michael Gagern (Munich) / Tom Rockmore (Duquesne)
Philip Grier (Dickinson College) / Andries Sarlemijn (Eindhoven)
Felix P. Ingold (ETH St. Gall) / James Scanlan (Ohio State)
Edward M. Swiderski (Fribourg)
The titles published in this series are listed at the end of this volume.
EVERT VAN DER ZWEERDE
Faculty of Philosophy,
University ofNijmegen,
The Netherlands
SOVIET HISTORIOGRAPHY
OF PHILOSOPHY
Istoriko-Filosofskaja N auka
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.Y.
A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-90-481-4939-1 ISBN 978-94-015-8943-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1 007/978-94-015-8943-7
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1997.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1997
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
induding photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE vii
INTRODUCTION ix
CHAPTER ONE: THREE PERSPECTIVES ON IPN 1
History of Philosophy as a Discipline 2
ii Hegel's Conception of the History of Philosophy 7
III The Klassiki Marksizma-Leninizma on the History of Philosophy 15
CHAPTER TWO: SOVIET PHILOSOPHICAL CULTURE 25
Philosophical Culture and the Ideology of Soviet Philosophy 26
11 The Wedding of Politics and Philosophy (1917-1930) 32
iii The Construction of Soviet Philosophy (1931-1946) 35
IV Cold War in Philosophy (1947-1954) 40
v The Defrosting of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy (1955-1966) 42
VI Marginalization and Professionalization (1967-1975) 47
V11 Stagnation in Philosophy: the Limits of Development (1976-1985) 49
VIll Perestrojka and the End of Soviet Philosophical Culture (1986-1989) 54
CHAPTER THREE: THE DEVELOPMENT OF IPN(1920s-1980s) 59
Towards a Soviet History of Philosophy (1917-1930) 60
ii OrthodoxyandEscape(1931-1946) 63
11 The Cold Start of Post-War IFN(1947-1954) 69
IV IFN Liberated (1955-1966) 77
v IFN Blooming and Booming (1967-1975) 87
CHAPTER FOUR: lPN, A SOVIET PHILOSOPHICAL DISCIPLINE 93
The Place of IFN in Soviet Philosophical Culture 94
11 Knowledge and Ideology: the Functions of IFN 98
III The Disciplinary Structure of IFN 100
IV The Content of IFN: Translations, Textbooks and Teaching 101
v
CHAPTER FIVE: THE PRACTICE OF IFN 115
IFN on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy 116
II Modern West European Philosophy Revisited 120
III Critique of Bourgeois Philosophy [KBF] 127
iv History of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy [IMLF] 132
v Outside the Western World: the Limits of Anti-Eurocentrism 135
VI History of the Philosophy of the Peoples of the USSR [IFNS] 136
CHAPTER SIX: SOVIET THEORY OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 141
Development of Soviet Theory of the History of Philosophy 142
II Theory of the History of Philosophy: A Systematic Exposition 145
III Philosophy as Epochal Self-Consciousness 166
CHAPTER SEVEN: COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST (IFN 1986 - 1989)
Perestrojka and History of Philosophy 175
II Towards a 'Pure' History of Philosophy 177
III From KBF to the History of Contemporary Western Philosophy 179
IV From Philosophy to IFN and Back Again 180
v Reactions and Corrections: Theory of the History of Philosophy 182
CONCLUSION 191
REFERENCES
Chapter One 193
Chapter Two 196
Chapter Three 212
Chapter Four 222
Chapter Fi ve 227
Chapter Six 233
Chapter Seven 239
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 243
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245
INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 281
vi
Preface
Academic studies are not the mechanical result of library visits or archive research.
They are also, one way or another, related to personal experience. When I first
visited Moscow, capital of the USSR, in 1984, I could not foresee the many ways
in which the encounter with Soviet philosophy would determine my life and
academic career. The confrontation with the Soviet way of doing history of
philosophy has proved to be a very fruitful experience. The desire to understand the
difference with my own academic background without declaring the latter 'normal' ,
but at the same time evading the relativist temptation, has forced me to analyze
Soviet philosophy in general, and Soviet historiography in particular, as a form of
philosophical culture, one concrete answer to the question 'What is philosophy?'
It has never been obvious, in Western academic philosophical culture, to study
Soviet philosophy, and this research could never have been done without the lasting
support and critical interest of teachers, colleagues and friends. I want to mention
here the following persons: Ludwig Heyde, who made me struggle with Hegel;
Edward Swiderski, whose confidence often kept me going; and Machiel Karskens,
whose support in every respect has been indispensable. Also, I want to thank Tim
Baerwaldt and Wilfried Simons for their professional help in the final preparation of
the manuscript.
A word of gratitude is due to the Soviet historians of philosophy, the aspiranty,
the students, and others in Soviet Russia, esp. at the department of history of
'foreign philosophy' at Moscow State University and at the sector of history of
Western philosophy at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences, who
helped me conduct my research and patiently answered questions that must often
have appeared very strange to them. When I first was their guest in 1984, at the
height of 'stagnation', I was pleasantly surprised by the hospitality and helpfullness
of the people working in my field of interest. The encounter with the complexity of
Soviet philosophical culture as it actually existed has remained a source of
inspiration, to which later changes, during perestrojka and thereafter, have added their
impetus, rather than replacing the initial intuition that this was a topic of
considerable interest.
This book has served, in a longer version, as my Ph.D. thesis. The present
version has been shortened, revised, and improved in many points, but I have seen
no ground to make substantial changes to my analyses and conclusions. On the
contrary: reactions, reviews, and recent publications have, in the main, confirmed
them. In this respect, this book concludes my life as a student in philosophy, and
therefore this is the place to express my gratitude to my dear parents, my mother and
my late father, whose support made it possible to study philosophy to begin with.
Finally, this book would have been unthinkable without the endurance and patience
of three beloved ladies: my wife Vera, and my daughters, Judith and Tanja. A happy
home is the basis of this work.
vii
Introduction
Jede Philosophie ist Philosophie ihrer Zeit, ... ; sie kann also nur
Befriedigung fUr die Interessen gewahren, die ihrer Zeit
angemessen sind.
G.W.F. Hegel, 18171
The subject of this study is Soviet historiography of philosophy, istoriko
filosofskaja nauka -IFN, as I shall abbreviate it-, which literally means 'historico
philosophical science' or 'scientific history of philosophy,' i.e. the account and
interpretation of philosophy's past as produced by Soviet historians of philosophy,
as well as the theories about the history of philosophy developed by Soviet
specialists. IFN was both quantitatively and qualitatively an important part of Soviet
philosophical culture, one of its many specialist branches, and not the least
interesting one: it often served as a place where philosophical culture was preserved
in an hostile environment, and it was, in building up considerable competence in the
history of philosophy, one of the factors in the improvement of the level of Soviet
philosophical culture as a whole.
However, like the other disciplines within Soviet philosophical culture, IFNhad
its specific nature and background. It is not only a Soviet philosophical discipline,
but also an example of an historiography of philosophy, comparable in this respect
to its Western counterpart, and it was, through its Marxist background, strongly
influenced by the philosophy of Hegel. Therefore, the first chapter of this book
briefly discusses, in the first place, history of philosophy as a specialist discipline,
secondly, Hegel's conception of the history of philosophy, important for the
discipline in general and for IFN in particular, and, in the third place, the theoretical
impulses contained in the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, important for IFN as
for any branch of Soviet philosophy.
After this preparation of the ground, the second chapter is dedicated to a concise
historical survey and philosophical analysis of Soviet philosophical culture as it
existed and developed from 1920 to the late 1980s, and in doing so tries to assess its
nature. To my knowledge, it is the first attempt to do so after the disappearance of
the Soviet system and its philosophical culture.
The next four chapters make up the central body of this monograph. The third
chapter sketches the historical development of IFN, from its foundation in the 1930s
to its mature stage in the 1980s, showing both the limitations and the possibilities
of this discipline. The fourth chapter discusses the place, function, form, and content
of IFN as a part of Soviet philosophical culture in the so-called period of
'stagnation', which was, for IFN, a period of unprecedented bloom. The next, fifth
chapter, consists of a necessarily selective, but representative survey of the work
done by Soviet historians of philosophy in six different fields, from Greek Antiquity
to the 'history of the philosophy of the peoples of the USSR,' showing sometimes
ix
INTRODUCTION
striking qualitative differences. The sixth chapter analyzes Soviet theory of the
history of philosophy, paying particular attention to the gradual return of essentially
Hegelian elements.
The seventh, concluding chapter consists of a discussion of developments in late
Soviet lFN, during the period of perestrojka, developments which are used, with the
advantage of hindsight, to shed light on Soviet lFN as it existed until 1986.
This study as a whole aims to fill the only remaining gap in Western scholarship
with respect to Soviet philosophy: all other branches of Soviet philosophical culture
have been the subject of studies within the tradition of 'philosophical sovietology'.2
At the same time, it embarks upon an endeavor that differs from the 'sovietological'
perspective on one significant point, namely the historical investigation of Soviet
philosophy: it is only after the end of Soviet Marxist-Leninist philosophy as an
"influential school of thought in the contemporary philosophic scene,'" that Soviet
philosophical culture can appear as an historical phenomenon. In that respect, the
history of Soviet philosophy is yet to be written, and with this book I hope to make
a first step in that direction.
Soviet philosophy most definitely is a thing of the past. Hardly anybody in the
world today will lament the disappearance of this 20th century phenomenon, apart
perhaps from the people who owed their status to it, the 'generals' of Soviet
philosophy. It has been the object of vehement criticism in the years of perestrojka,
and it has become the topic of reminiscences and empirical investigations since. It is
only of past things that histories can be written. Consequently, it is only now that
one can develop a truly historical perspective on Soviet philosophy. But why would
one adopt that perspective, why take any interest in Soviet philosophy at all?
There are, in my opinion, three reasons for such an interest. The first is that
Soviet philosophy is a chapter, and a lengthy one, in the history of Russian
philosophy. Its precise place within that history, the extent to which it was a
continuation of what existed before, its lasting influence on post-Soviet Russian
philosophy, and its actual contributions to Russian philosophical culture, are still to
be determined. To regard it as a quantite negligeable, a mere gap of seventy years is
as naive as it is unhistorical, and to leave the rewriting of its history to post-Soviet
Russian scholars alone is as unprofessional as it would be unwise to disregard their
efforts: the history of Soviet philosophical culture is only conceivable as a 'joint
venture' .
A second reason to reinvestigate Soviet philosophy is that the actual
contribution of Soviet philosophers to philosophical thought in general is yet to be
assessed. If it is true, as is one of my assumptions, that the Western perception of
Soviet philosophy was systematically distorted by the predominance of an official
philosophy, the 'system' of diamat and istmat, and by the presence, on the
*Cf. the backside of several volumes of the Sovietica-series in which this book is
appearing, too.
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