Ancient treatise on Sankhya philosophy; Sanskrit text with English and Oriya translation and interpretation.

Introduction to Sexology [Vvedenie v seksologiiu] by I. S. Kon has finally been published after having made the rounds of publishing houses for many years. This is the first Soviet publication devoted to a description and an analysis of the genesis, development, and state of a new branch of scientific knowledge about man-sexology-which affects every one of us. To be sure, General Sexual Pathology [Obshchaia seksopatologiia], a textbook for physicians edited by G. S. Vasil'chenko, which came out in 1977, has (...) an extensive introductory chapter on sexology, but it is limited to medical problems. Kon's book is an example of an interdisciplinary approach that provides an idea of the most essential components of sexology; it is thus addressed not only to the medical profession, but also to sociologists, philosophers of culture, psychologists, pedagogues, etc. The book takes into account the latest publications in this area of science. (shrink)

This paper considers the potentially wrongful discriminatory nature of certain of our dating preferences. It argues that the wrongfulness of such preferences lies primarily in the simple lookism they involve. While it is ultimately permissible for us to date people partly because of how they look, I argue that we have a duty to ‘look behind’ people’s appearance, which I take to mean that we ought not, on the basis of their appearance, to regard them as absolutely out of the (...) question for us to engage with in a romantic setting. Further, constraints similar to those suggested by a duty to look behind people’s appearance gain support from another duty we have, namely, a duty to counteract, also in our daily lives, the fact that people are undeservedly disadvantaged in various ways. (shrink)

Книга рассчитана на студентов, аспирантов, преподавателей высших и средних учебных заведений, всех интересующихся данными исследованиями.

T. Adorno stands out among the theorists of the Frankfurt School for his interest in profound philosophical problems. For many years he actively participated in the work of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research, and at one time also headed it. Among his associates he occupies not only a very typical, but in a certain sense an exclusive position.

We are now observing a most notable anniversary: a century and a half since the birth of Karl Marx, the great founder of Marxist theory and the ideologist of the proletariat. Our present meeting virtually coincides with another date of great significance. The first thousand copies of Marx's immortal Capital appeared in Hamburg a hundred years ago, in September 1867. No other book has exercised as deep-going and ever-widening an influence on various aspects of the mental and practical activity of (...) men as this great work of theory. The influence of Capital on methodological thought, too, has been exceptionally great. It is precisely through the prism of the ideas of this classical piece of writing that the methodological and logical notions contained in the prior and subsequent writings of Marx and Engels can be understood most completely and employed to build a theory of knowledge. Capital is of immense significance to the further development of dialectical logic in our own day and for working out cardinal problems of epistemology. Emphasizing the exceptional significance to philosophy and logic of Marx's principal scientific work, Lenin wrote: "If Marx did not leave us a Logic, he did leave us the logic of Capital, something that should be utilized to the full in the matter at hand.". (shrink)

From the Editors [of Voprosy filosofii]: Recently the prominent Soviet philosopher, specialist in problems of dialectics, theory of knowledge, the history of philosophy, and esthetics Igor Sergeevich Narskii marked his sixtieth birthday. The editorial board and staff of Voprosy filosofii wish to extend their congratulations to him and wish him good health, happiness in his personal life, and continued success in his work.

The general crisis of capitalism embraces all spheres of the life of society and, in the final analysis, is reflected in the life of each individual. The family is no exception in this regard. Problems of disorganization and disintegration of the family and marriage, the breakdown of traditional moral norms regulating familial and marital relationships and sexual behavior, have become subjects of close attention by philosophers, sociologists, educators, and physicians. The number of items published on these problems increases from year (...) to year. One is struck, in this regard, by the extreme diversity of criteria in the approaches to the study of these problems. Of course, this may be partially explained by the complexity of the subject under study. But in the case in point, the reason is primarily the presence of acute social contradictions in capitalist society itself, of methodological and ethical pluralism, and of the extreme contradictoriness of the initial theoretical positions characteristic of bourgeois social thought. For example, within a single collection, Sociology and Social Problems. A Conceptual Approach , one may find not only different but even mutually exclusive points of view on the same question. But for all the diversity of starting points, approaches and arguments, styles and methods of presentation, it is still possible to identify two common features that mark all such writings to some extent:1. The standards of consumer society are taken as model. Withrespect towoman's work in employment [outside the home], this is expressed in the attitude toward her career and her power . Development of parental roles in the family is associated with parents' capacities to assure, in the course of socializing their children, that they will subsequently advance. The relationships between spouses are regarded as harmonious only if a mutual attitude toward success outside the family and toward a high level of sexual activity, which creates a special kind of prestige, particularly for the man, is achieved. Consumerist attitudes are revealed, perhaps most vividly, in the approach to sexual behavior and corresponding norms of morality. Even in the writings of scholars striving for objectivity, overestimation of the significance and role of sexual activity is a factor. Most works are characterized by a spirit of negation of the traditional norms of sexual morality of Western European culture. (shrink)

Boehm reasons that human morality began when several heads of households formed a coalition to limit the despotic bullying of an alpha male. The logic is clear and the argument is persuasive. The premises require that: dominant individuals behave like chimpanzees, bullying their subordinates, early humans somehow developed one-male units from a chimpanzee like society and, the power of a despot is limited by group consensus and political activities. Not all alpha males behave like chimpanzees; most primate societies show little (...) evidence of bullying. One-male units are formed by some monkeys but there is little evidence of such tendencies in chimpanzees and bonobos. Hamadryas males do not compete with familiar males for females or possessions regardless of their dominance relationships, but this inhibition is not based on group consensus or coalitions repressing alpha males. Boehm's argument is, nonetheless, possible and plausible but cannot be empirically tested. (shrink)

As I understand it, Professor Blium's letter was occasioned by his desire to help overcome the gap between theory and practice in our times, between scientific constructs and real life—a gap which has done much harm to our society and which social scientists, aware of their responsibility to the people, are striving today to overcome to the extent that they are able. Indeed, we certainly do need extreme realism in assessing the present state of things in the country. People often (...) write now of the salubrious force of truth, and this is correct if by truth we mean a reference point for working out restorative operations and for not procrastinating in implementing decisions once they are adopted. (shrink)

One of the most important theoretical and ideological tasks of Marxist philosophy is the critical study of the philosophical thought of the West. In the second half of the 1970s and beginning of the 1980s, the ideological struggle on the international arena entered a new stage. It was characterized by the turn of the forces of imperialist reaction away from the politics of detente to the politics of the "cold war," to the active opposition to the forces of peace, democracy, (...) and socialism. The struggle of ideas has swung back and forth in the context of, on the one hand, a resurgence of reactionary anticommunist tendencies, and the stimulation and expansion of antimilitary movements and the struggles of the peoples for peace and socialism on the other. (shrink)

Contributed seminar papers on Vedic theory of creation, philosophy and science.

This is a very rewarding topic when we consider the history of dialectical logic, although it may seem to be unrewarding if it is formal logic that is under discussion. We are familiar with Hegel's hypercritical writings on this subject, with his evaluation of the use of symbols in cognition as "empty play," and with his — to say the least — skeptical reaction to early attempts at the mathematization of logic. He characterized the construction of calculi as "reduction" of (...) logic to a mechanical level lower than that it had already attained. Leibniz's feat in the realm of "logic" was condemned by the great dialectician, and a subsequent experiment in the improvement of logic through mathematics, undertaken by a follower of Leibniz, Ploucquet, was described by Hegel as a transformation of the process of inference into an "utterly contentless" manipulation of sentences . The fact is, however, that Ploucquet anticipated Lambert and Hamilton in constructing a table of propositions in which not only subjects but predicates were quantified, thus opening the road to the future algebraization of logic. (shrink)

It becomes more obvious each year that the appeals of the party and government to strengthen the ties between philosophy and modern science are not being adequately implemented by the chairs of logic in the universities. In a number of institutions, a situation has persisted for a long time in which only a few professors and instructors deal with the subject area of dialectical and mathematical logic at a high professional level. Most of the teaching staff continue to conduct their (...) work essentially within the confines and at the level of the old, arbitrarily designated "traditional" formal logic, primarily in the form in which it took shape in the middle of the last century. It is clear that this does not accord with the demands of the party and of our philosophical and scientific public to raise the theoretical level of all instructional and research work in higher educational institutions. The erroneous orientation toward the old formal logic was, in particular, one of the reasons why the fundamental problems of dialectical logic have to this day not found unambiguous solutions. This is also one of the reasons why the science of logic has suffered some loss of authority among a portion of the country's students. It is not uncommon to see teachers who deal with dialectical logic giving inadequate consideration to the problems of contemporary natural and social science, while those who concern themselves with mathematical logic give inadequate attention to problems in the realm of philosophy. The appearance and persistence of this situation have made possible a sterile and erroneous approach to theoretical problems, the discussion of which is our present aim. (shrink)

We are now observing a most notable anniversary: a century and a half since the birth of Karl Marx, the great founder of Marxist theory and the ideologist of the proletariat. Our present meeting virtually coincides with another date of great significance. The first thousand copies of Marx's immortal Capital appeared in Hamburg a hundred years ago, in September 1867. No other book has exercised as deep-going and ever-widening an influence on various aspects of the mental and practical activity of (...) men as this great work of theory. The influence of Capital on methodological thought, too, has been exceptionally great. It is precisely through the prism of the ideas of this classical piece of writing that the methodological and logical notions contained in the prior and subsequent writings of Marx and Engels can be understood most completely and employed to build a theory of knowledge. Capital is of immense significance to the further development of dialectical logic in our own day and for working out cardinal problems of epistemology. Emphasizing the exceptional significance to philosophy and logic of Marx's principal scientific work, Lenin wrote: "If Marx did not leave us a Logic, he did leave us the logic of Capital, something that should be utilized to the full in the matter at hand.". (shrink)

One hundred years have passed since the birth of Bertrand Russell, major English bourgeois philosopher of the twentieth century, logician, mathematician, sociologist, publicist, and Nobel Laureate for literature, who died two years ago. Russell was a philosopher who always sought truth, who tried to use for philosophy the lessons and achievements of diverse sciences, who responded deeply to social events in England and other countries, and who participated actively in them. He was a prominent public figure, a passionate humanist, and (...) a fighter against militarism and for peace and just relations among peoples. The literature on Russell is enormous. (shrink)

In everyday speech, expressions of the type "that thing exists" are frequently employed. What do they mean? They must be dealt with at the logical level where we seek greater precision. Also at the philosophical level, the predicate "exists" stands in need of analysis, inasmuch as its meanings are associated in one way or another with the meanings of the term "reality." It might also be stated that every entity, to the degree that it is "real" in one sense or (...) another, exists in a manner distinctive to it. In this sense, one might say that this is a problem of cognition of the history of an object, and its results are set forth in various existential judgments. Nevertheless, analysis of "existence" precisely as a predicate is necessary. It bears a specifically logical character and, moreover, is related in a lesser degree to the purely linguistic side of things than in the case of analysis of the meanings of the predicate "to be.". (shrink)

One of the pressing problems currently under discussion by Soviet philosophers is that of the subject matter of dialectical logic. As a consequence of the major disagreements on this question, many fundamental problems of dialectical logic remain unresolved, and teaching of the subject encounters very serious difficulties.

If we were to pose the question of identifying the most characteristically metaphysical of the teachings of the neopositivists, the reply, in our belief, would have to be: their elaboration of the basic concept of their epistemology, the concept of "logical analysis." This concept has some connection both with the history of the understanding of analysis within the bounds of previous philosophical teachings and — in particular — with its treatment in modern symbolic logic. However, the neopositivists have given this (...) concept a distinctive coloration, which merits examination. (shrink)

Marxism proved and developed the theory of the infinite process of the increase of absoluteness in relative truth ; and this, together with the introduction of the dialectical materialist concept of practice into gnoseology , led to a fundamental change in the entire theory of knowledge, elevating it to the level of a theory of ascent toward genuine knowledge of the objectively real world via contradiction.