Abstract
During the last quarter of the twentieth century, Soviet Russian philosophy did away with ideology in the fields of Science; but until the mid-1980s, scientists could not escape intense ideological scrutiny. A great number of Soviet scientists did their best to avoid this ideological supervision, and pursued their research, remaining neutral toward Marxist ideology. Among these fields of research were so called “philosophical problems of natural sciences” (The Western counterpart would have been the Philosophy of Science). Some Soviet Russian philosophers put forward original conceptions of scientific development, the structural features of science, and/or provided novel interpretations of certain scientific principles and ideas. These thinkers had deep roots in Marxism, though not orthodox Marxism. They, so to speak, overcame classical Marxism and proposed innovative ideas largely based upon epistemological considerations. The legacies of I. S. Alekseev and M. A. Rozov are especially worthy of attention for their original epistemological contributions to the philosophy of science.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
For example, even as late as the end of 1979, a powerful “blow” was struck at logical studies in the USSR. This happened at a time when logic was taught in all law schools, and even at the University’s specialty of “scientific communism.” In 1979, the leading ideological journal “Communist” published a lengthy article (as often happened in such cases) by a completely unknown author, who, in the spirit of the true Bolshevik maximalism, proclaimed a class approach to logic and partisanship in logic (and, therefore, partisanship is based on its politics). The article said that for any statements, including those made in logic, we must “seek the interests of certain classes, in the words of logic—the logic of thought…” we cannot tolerate attacks on the “algebra of revolution” which are typical for “petty-bourgeois narrow-minded ways of thinking” of logical positivism and its followers (Sadovskij 1979, 63). As a doctrine of “external forms of thought,” formal logic is hostile to dialectical materialism’s conception of logic as the science of universal development and the unity of opposites, which is the “soul of the revolutionary theory.” Here, in the author’s opinion, we have two opposite types of thinking—“proletarian-revolutionary bourgeois and petty-bourgeois”; the first reveals the laws of social development, and the second is used to falsify the ideas of scientific communism, being “professorial phrase-mongering” and “philosophical and mathematical antics,” smuggles idealism into a true science (Sadovskij 1979, 69, 65, 70–71).
On the non-governmental level, individuals who adhered to Marxism sometimes made unexpected and productive contributions to science and philosophy (in terms of results and of value for the future). Let it suffice to recall that we owe the assimilation of logical positivism and the beginnings of research in the field of philosophy of science in America to the Communists, emigrants from Russia (see McCumber 2001; Reisch 2005). Sometimes, false premises imply fruitful corollaries. For instance, I. E. Orlov was eager to find a dialectical logic of natural sciences; he did not find this logic but rather accidently constructed the formal system that became the starting point of so-called relevant logic (see Bazhanov 2003).
The idea of the over-reflexive status of science fascinated some Soviet scholars. Such a position appealed to the “dialectic of knowledge,” which implies not only the difference, but also opposition to the positions of epistemology and natural science. And so, he did his best to find J. A. Schreider (see Schreider 1983, 174–175).
Indeed, if we attend to work done in the 1960s and 1970s of the prominent, non-conformist scholar, sharply critical of the Soviet regime, the philosopher of science A. P. Ogurtsov, then we notice the predominantly descriptive writing style. However, unlike his fellow Marxists, Ogurtsov avoided and virtually excluded references to the classics of Marxism-Leninism (See, for example, his bulky article with only one quote from Lenin: Ogurtsov 1984, 186).
References
Ahundov, M. D., & Baženov, L. B. (1989). Filosofija i fizika v SSSR. Moskva: Znanie.
Ahundov, M. D., Baženov, L. B. (2000). Otnošenija filosofii i fiziki v gody sovetskoj vlasti. In Filosofija estestvoznanija: retrospektivnyj vzgljad (pp. 188–213). Moskva: IF RAN.
Akčurin, I. A. (2000). Vspominaja s ljubov’ju («Amarkord»). In Filosofija estestvoznanija: retrospektivnyj vzgljad (pp. 65–81). Moskva: IF RAN.
Alekseev, I. S. (1978). Konceptsiya dopol'nitelnosti. Moskva: Nauka.
Baženov, L. B. (1976). Dopolnitel’nost’ i edinstvo protivopoložnostej. In Princip dopolnitel’nosti i materialističeskaja dialektika (pp. 5–15). Moskva: Nauka.
Bazhanov, V. A. (1991a). Nauka kak samopoznajušhaja sistema. Kazan’: Izdatelstvo Kazanskogo universiteta.
Bazhanov, V. A. (1991b). Shadow science in the Soviet union. Philosophy and Social Action, 17(3–4), 89–99.
Bazhanov, V. A. (2001). Restoration: SA Yanovskaya’s path in Logic. History and Philosophy of Logic, 22(3), 129–133.
Bazhanov, V. A. (2003). The scholar and the “Wolfhound Era”: The fate of Ivan E. Orlov’s ideas in logic, philosophy, and science. Science in Context, 16(4), 535–550.
Bazhanov, V. A. (2007). Istorija logiki v Rossii i SSSR. Konceptual’nyj kontekst universitetskoj filosofii. Moskva: Kanon+.
Bazhanov, V. A. (2009). Ideologizacija nauki. In Enciklopedija epistemologii i filosofii nauki (p. 266). Moskva: Kanon+.
Branskij, V. P. (1973). Filosofskie osnovanija problemy sinteza reljativistskikh i kvantovykh principov. Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Leningradskogo universiteta.
Hutt, V. (1977). Koncepcija dopolnitel’nosti i problema ob’ektivnosti fizičeskogo znanija. Tallin: Valgus.
Kuznetsova, N. I., & Rozov, M. A. (2000). Iz istorii sovetskoj epistemologii: žizn’ i trudy. In I. V. Kuznetsova (Ed.), Filosofija estestvoznanija: retrospektivnyj vzgljad (pp. 230–254). Moskva: IF RAN.
Kuznetsova, N. I., Rozov, M. A., & Shreider, Yu A. (2012). Ob’ekt issledovanija – nauka. Moskva: Novyj Hronograf.
McCumber, J. (2001). Time in the Ditch: American philosophy and the McCarthy Era. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Mitrokhin, L. M. (1974). Vvedenie. In Buržuaznaja filosofija XX veka (pp. 3–37). Moskva: Politizdat.
Ogurtsov, A. P., Neretina, S. S., & Assimakopoulos, M. (2005). 20th Century Russian philosophy of science: A philosophical discussion. Studies in East European Thought, 57, 33–60.
Omel’janovskiij, M. E. (1947). V.I. Lenin i sovremennaja fizika. Moskva: Izdatelstvo AN SSSR.
Omel’janovskij, M. E. (1951). Protiv idealizma i idealističeskih šatanij v kvantovoj mekhanike. Voprosy filosofii, 1951(3), 151–166.
Omel’janovskij, M. E. (1956). Filosofskie voprosy kvantovoj mekhaniki. Moskva: Izd-vo AN SSSR.
Princip dopolnitel'nosti i materialististiceskaja dialektika. (1976). Moskva: Nauka.
Reisch, G. A. (2005). How the Cold War transformed philosophy of science: To the icy slopes of logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rozov, M. A. (1977). Problemy empiričeskogo analiza naučnyh znanij. Novosibirsk: Nauka.
Rozov, M.A. (1986). Metodologičeskie osobennosti gumanitarnogo znanija. In Problemy gumanitarnogo znanija (pp. 33–54). Novosibirsk: Nauka.
Rozov, M.A. (1987). Ponjatie issledovatel’skoj programmy. In Issledovatel’skie programmy v sovremennoj nauki (pp. 7–26). Novosibirsk: Nauka.
Rozov, M. A. (1988). Filosofija bez soobščestva. Voprosy filosofii, 8, 23–36.
Rozov, M. A. (2012). Filosofija nauki v novom videnii. Moskva: Novyj Khronograf.
Sadovskij, G. (1979). Logika revoljucionnogo myšlenija i klassovyj podkhod k logike. Kommunist, 11, 63–75.
Shreider, Yu. A. (1983). Teorija poznanija i fenomen nauki. In Gnoseologija v sisteme filosofskogo mirovozzrenija (pp. 173–193). Moskva: Nauka.
Ogurtsov, A. P. (1984). Istorija estestvoznanija, idealy naučnosti i cennosti kul’tury. In Nauka i kul’tura (pp. 159–187). Moskva: Nauka.
Omel’janovskij, M. E. (1970). Idei dialektiki v kvantovoj fizike. In Filosofskie voprosy kvantovoj fiziki (pp. 19–46). Moskva: Nauka.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by RFBR grant (No 13-06-00005a).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bazhanov, V.A. Epistemological contributions to the study of science in the latter days of the USSR: rethinking orthodox Marxist principles. Stud East Eur Thought 67, 111–121 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-015-9232-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-015-9232-7