Originally published in Russian in 1981, this unique history of early Soviet philosophy is now available for the first time in English, translated by Frederick Choate.Yehoshua Yakhot (1919-2003) was a professor of philosophy in the Soviet Union until forced to emigrate to Israel in 1975. While in emigration, he finished writing the book begun in Moscow years before. Yakhot's book is essential reading for an understanding of the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism and its devastating impact on every aspect of (...) Soviet thought. Rare among works dealing with this period, Yakhot presents an objective account of the theoretical role of the major figures in the early Soviet Union—including, most significantly, that of Leon Trotsky, co-leader with Lenin of the Russian Revolution of October 1917.The book describes the flourishing of philosophical discussion after the revolution and ensuing Civil War. By 1922, the major theoretical journal Under the Banner of Marxism had been founded at Trotsky's urging. The first two issues contained letters from Trotsky and Lenin that constituted the program of the journal. By the mid-1920s, two contending camps had formed in philosophy: the mechanists and dialecticians. The relatively free debate between them on many complex issues was followed by Stalin's intervention in December 1930. In a ferocious reaction against the theoretical foundations of the October Revolution, Stalin sent countless genuine Marxists to their deaths during the Great Terror of 1936-38. Prior to the opening of the archives in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Yakhot presents the largely unknown history of many of the Marxist philosophers victimized by Stalinism.The subjects covered in the book include: the subject matter of Marxist philosophy; the problem of contingency; the principle of partisanship in philosophy; Hegel and Marxist dialectics; Spinoza's place in the discussions of the 1920s and 1930s; the rejection of ideology by Marx and Engels; the influence of Bogdanov's ideas; the inevitable crisis of Soviet ideology; and continued attempts to conceal the crimes of Stalinism in the USSR.This new English edition contains photographs, biographical information, an index and two letters by Trotsky and Lenin. (shrink)

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Smirnov was born on March 2, 1931. He graduated from Moscow State University in 1954. From 1957 till 1961 he was a lecturer in philosophy and logic at the Tomsk University. Since 1961 his scientific activity continued in Moscow at the Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of the USSR. From 1970 and till the last days of his life V. A. Smirnov was lecturer and then Professor at the Chair of Logic at Moscow (...) State University. V. A. Smirnov played an important role at the Institute of Philosophy of Russian Academy of Sciences being the Head of Department of Epistemology, Logic and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and the Head of Section of Logic. Last years he was the leader of the Centre of Logical Investigations of Russsian Academy of Sciences. In 1990-91 he founded a new non-goverment Institute of Logic, Cognitive Sciences and Development of Personality for performing research, teaching, editorial and organization activity in the field of humanities. At the Department of Philosophy of Moscow State University and at the Institute of Philosophy V. A. Smirnov and his close colleagues have founded a Russian logical school which brought up many talented researchers who work at several scientific centres in various countries. (shrink)

Ethnic nepotism theory predicts that even in times of communal peace altruism is more pronounced within than between ethnic groups. The present study tested the hypothesis that altruism in the form of alms giving would be greater within than between ethnic groups, and greater between more closely related groups than between more distant groups. The three groups chosen for study were ethnic Russians, Moldavians, and Gypsies. Russians are genetically closer to Moldavians than to Gypsies. Observations were made of 128 ethnic (...) Russian, 25 Moldavian, and 25 Gypsy beggars receiving gifts from ethnic Russians in Moscow trains. The Gypsies were mainly girls, contrary to the Russian sample. Multivariate analysis identified three main strategies: active, personified, and appeasing-undirected. Russian strategies were most variable. Gypsies presented strong charity releasers: 84% were children who played music and sang and showed appeasing-undirected behavior. The few adults were highly submissive or friendly. Nevertheless, their success was limited compared with that of ethnic Russians despite the latter’s demanding behavior and their being mostly mature or elderly persons. Moldavians received an intermediate amount of charity. The hypothesis was supported. (shrink)

The present experimental status in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay is reviewed, with emphasis on the first indication for neutrinoless double beta decay found in the HEIDELBERG-MOSCOW experiment, giving first evidence for lepton number violation and a Majorana nature of the neutrinos. Future perspectives of the field are briefly outlined.

For almost the whole of the first half of the nineteenth century, philosophy at Moscow University was subjected to fierce persecution at the hands of the authorities. Their aim was, evidently, to smother in the cradle any manifestation of freethinking among students, the thinking part of Russian society. It was no coincidence that philosophy was chosen as the target of persecution, because the study of this science could lead by the shortest path to reflections concerning man's place in the (...) world, the role of the social sciences, the just or unjust nature of the existing state order in Russia, and so on. What would a student who got carried away by, for instance, Socrates's ideal of inner freedom or Spinoza's pantheistic system become? For a classical police state, which imperial Russia was, that was intolerable. One need merely recall that Chaadaev, Herzen, and many other rebels had at some time studied at the university. Russia's rulers clearly had no need of such people. (shrink)

The present experimental status in the search for neutrinoless double beta decay is reviewed, with emphasis on the first indication for neutrinoless double beta decay found in the HEIDELBERG-MOSCOW experiment, giving first evidence for lepton number violation and a Majorana nature of the neutrinos. Future perspectives of the field are briefly outlined.

In January 2019 the Faculty of Philosophy of the Lomonosov Moscow State University held the round table “Problems of Consciousness: Research Opportunities.” It was dedicated to problems of interdisciplinary studies of consciousness. Many famous Russian specialists whose academic interests include consciousness, brain and mind took part in this event: K.V. Anokhin, D.I. Dubrovsky, T.V. Chernigovskaya, M.A. Piradov, A.A. Potapov, V.Y. Sergin, V.V. Vasil’ev, Z.A. Zorina and others. At the round table, the following problems were discussed: the specificity of consciousness (...) problem, its relevance in various academic disciplines, contemporary research possibilities for consciousness studies to solve the problems that specialists actually face. Much attention was paid to the problems of neurobiology, empirical research of consciousness. Nonetheless, participants showed in their speeches that the problem of consciousness is also a philosophical problem. Hence it requires thoughtful consideration of philosophers. Participants decided that to progress in solving this problem researches from various disciplines have to cooperate. (shrink)

Legal thinking in the hermeneutic paradigm.

Abstract I develop the idea that there exists a special dimension of depth, or of scale. The depth dimension is physically real and extends from the bottom micro-level to the ultimate macro-level of the Universe. The depth dimension, or the scales axis, complements the standard three spatial dimensions. I discuss the tentative qualities of the depth dimension and the universal arrangement of matter along this dimension. I suggest that all matter in the Universe, at least in the present cosmological epoch, (...) is in joint downward motion along the depth dimension. The joint downward motion manifests itself in the universal contraction of matter. The opposite direction of motion, upward the dimension, would cause the expansion of matter. The contraction of matter is a primary factor, whereas the shrinking of space in the vicinity of matter is a derivative phenomenon. The observed expansion of the Universe is explained by the fact that celestial bodies become smaller due to matter contraction, while the overall space remains predominantly intact. Thus, relative to the contracting material bodies, the total span of cosmic space appears to be becoming vaster. I attempt to explain how the contraction of matter engenders the effect of universal gravity. I use over thirty animated and graphical color visualizations in the text to make the explanation of the proposed ideas more lucid. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-39 DOI 10.1007/s10516-011-9178-4 Authors A. Alyushin, Department of Philosophy, The Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Street, 101000 Moscow, Russia Journal Axiomathes Online ISSN 1572-8390 Print ISSN 1122-1151. (shrink)

В книге обсуждаются многие проблемные понятия современной российской жизни: разумность и недоумение, свобода и произвол, совесть и обман, честность и бесчестие, война, мир и другие.

Modern epistemology adopted the idea of historicism, of the historicity of knowledge and the self-consciousness of the cognizer. The research, undertaken within cultural–historical epistemology, also spread in the context of the prevailing tendencies in the sphere of modern epistemology. The specificity of this type of epistemology is related to a special interpretation of the history of cognition. On this interpretation knowledge represents a cultural phenomenon that has an existentially-symbolical meaning for the cognizer. Therefore this type of epistemology returns us to (...) the dimension of knowledge, which has in fact been lost today. It returns us to the original antique notion of knowledge as “good,” as something that changes the person who acquires it. And here in this context comes forth such a feature of knowledge as its integrity. At the turn of the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, Russian philosophers turned to the problem field of “integral knowledge,” the core of which lies in the unity of the integral and cognitive, which is reflected in the concreteness of knowledge. Such an understanding of knowledge enabled the articulation of a number of ideas that enriched European traditions of socio-humanitarian research and influenced the development of semiotics and structuralism both in Europe and in Russia. The ideas of R. Jakobson that stimulated the structure-semiotic research in the first half of the twentieth century are very well-known to world humanity science. Yet their epistemological potential is related to the idea of the integral knowledge. The epistemological turn towards historicism in semiotics in Russia was accomplished by G. Shpet. Jakobson communicated with Shpet at the Moscow linguistic circle in the 1920s. They both referred to the ideas of Husserl, and, as Jakobson acknowledged himself, he borrowed many ideas from Shpet—in particular, the idea of semiotics. Shpet’s helped implement the idea of “integral knowledge” that opened a perspective of the analysis of knowledge as an open symbolic sign system. This methodological approach appears to be especially topical nowadays in the sphere of humanities, which scientific character does not exclude historicism. The ideas of Russian philosophers, then, provide a productive context immediately as well as long-term prospects for developing the methodology of the humanities. The concepts that prevail in modern methodology accentuate the historical relativity and the outer social determinacy of scientific knowledge. Meanwhile the problem of the cultural–historical status of the humanities and the problem of addressing the idea of “integral knowledge” become increasingly topical and allow the transfer of the epistemological search for the conditions and the landmarks of scientificity. (shrink)

The article discusses the methodology for studying reflective systems, which are very specific objects of study. However, such objects include almost all phenomena of the socio-humanitarian sciences, including scientific knowledge. It is noted that in the era of the “sixties” original concepts of reflexive analysis arose in Russian philosophy, among which the three most striking ones, associated with the names of V.A. Lefebvre (1936-2020), G.P. Shchedrovitsky (1929-1994), M.A. Rozova (1930-2011). The main attention is paid to the methodology that was built (...) within the framework of the theory of social relay races by M.A. Rosova. It is shown how systems with reflection function and why they are able to rebuild, changing the order of sociality. (shrink)

This article, for which the focus is an intellectual autobiography, examines the development of worldview of a young person who graduated from the Moscow University Faculty of Philosophy in 1970. I...

On November 19, 1985, a seminar on the topic "Mind and the Brain: Philosophical Aspects" was held at the M. V. Lomonosov State University at Moscow. It was organized by the journal Philosophical Sciences [Filosofskie nauki], the Division on Scientific Method and the Philosophical Problems of Natural Science of the Philosophical Society of the USSR, the administration of the "Knowledge" [Znanie] Society of the RSFSR, and the Department of Philosophy of the Natural Science Faculties of Moscow State University. (...) Over three hundred persons participated in the seminar, ranging from students, graduate students, instructors at Moscow State University and other institutions of higher learning, to students at the Moscow University Institute for Advanced Teacher Training, associates the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Institute of the History of Natural Science and Technology of the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Social Sciences attached to the CPSU Central Committee, and the Institute of Philosophy of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, etc., to representatives of the editorial boards of the journals Philosophical Sciences, Problems of Philosophy [Voprosy filosofii], The Moscow University Herald [Vestnik MGU], and members of the Scientific Method Council on Philosophy of the "Knowledge" Society of the RSFSR. The seminar attracted the attention of psychologists, physiologists, physicians, biologists, philosophers, physicists, students of literature, etc. (shrink)