A história da psicologia, tal como aparece em algumas obras (E.G. Boring 1950; M. Reuchlin 1957; P. Fraisse e J. Piaget 1963) ou em capítulos introdutórios de alguns manuais (M. Reuchlin 1977), reflete uma adesão — raramente discutida — a uma concepção internalista. Segundo essa concepção, a psicologia seria animada por uma dinâmica própria, um processo evolutivo totalmente endógeno, e seria independente de fatores externos tais como os domínios religiosos, sociopolíticos e econômicos. Além do mais, os partidários dessa história aceitam (...) ver a psicologia influenciada por disciplinas situadas em suas fronteiras, como a biologia, a fisiologia e, em menor medida, a física. Esses domínios fronteiriços geralmente dizem respeito a objetos psicológicos habitualmente qualificados de inferiores, como reflexos, sensações e percepções, em oposição à linguagem e ao pensamento, qualificados como processos superiores. Esses mesmos domínios fronteiriços engendraram por sua vez subdomínios relativamente autônomos, tais como a psicofísica ou a psicofisiologia. Correlativamente a essa concepção internalista, o desenvolvimento científico é apresentado como um caminho ao estado de psicologia positiva, tal como A. Comte a definiu em 1837 na 45a lição do Curso de Filosofia Positiva. A caminhada até a positividade foi indicada pelo próprio A. Comte: estudo da anátomo-fisiologia do sistema nervoso (a frenologia de Gall lhe parece a esse respeito uma contribuição decisiva), estudos comparados, análise de casos patológicos, estudo dos comportamentos animais e do desenvolvimento individual. Considerando a evolução da psicologia nos últimos cem anos, seríamos tentados a sustentar que ela realizou o projeto positivista. Psicologia diferencial, psicopatologia, etologia animal e psicologia da criança são vários domínios que concorrem para essa realização. Entretanto, esses domínios estão longe de parecerem homogêneos quanto aos métodos empregados e os modelos epistemológicos aos quais se referem. Um exame atento dessas dimensões metodológicas e epistemológicas mostra que se avança, sobretudo, em ordem dispersa. (shrink)

The collapse of the Soviet Union, all hope that Eastern European communism might somehow be transformed into a more attractive, less environmentally destructive social order than the liberal democratic societies of the West has been destroyed. The description of the modern predicament by Alvin W. Gouldner has become even more poignant: "The political uniqueness of our own era then is this; we have lived and still live through a desperate political and social malaise, while at the same time we (...) have outlived the desperate revolutionary remedies that had once been thought to solve them." If this is the case, there is reason to examine the failure of the Soviet Union more closely. Was it possible that things might have worked out differently; and if so, does this provide any orientation for the present? In this paper I will show how an alternative path for Soviet society had been charted, and partly implemented, in the 1920's by the radical wing of Bolshevism, a path which made environmental conservation a central issue. And I will suggest that this is the path which holds most hope for the future. (shrink)

Philosophical analysis of the Soviet Union as a phenomenon is relevant in light of the approaching centennial of its formation. The significance of this event derives from the Soviet Union’s enormous scale and historically, qualitatively unique formation that included many dozens of nations and nationalities. This formation replaced the equally enormous Russian Empire but arose not due to natural development but on its ruins, by the means of a European Marxism adapted to domestic conditions. Nowhere in the world (...) have societies and states like the Soviet Union arisen spontaneously, while the Eastern European “people’s democracy” countries created after the Second World War repeatedly attempted to free themselves from the kinship and dominance of the Soviet Union and would disappear immediate with its collapse.In this article, the question of what the Soviet Union was in its project and reality is discussed in the following contexts: Marxist solutions to Russia’s agrarian question and their subsequent internationalization to create a “world union of workers and peasants” (V.I. Lenin); analysis of the principle of forced labor as the primary means of creating the “socialist working man”; the formation of the Soviet Union as a “quasi-federal” community of peoples “national in form, socialist in content”; and the forced inclusion of Eastern European peoples in the emerging “world Soviet Union” as “payment” for their liberation from fascism. This article justifies the claim that without analysis of the essential role of these ideas and phenomena, one could hardly expect to gain a holistic understanding of the nature of the Soviet Union. (shrink)

In my view, Soviet philosophy must be judged not by the number of books and articles written, but by the works that won recognition in the professional milieu both in our country and, of course, abroad. There are such works and, furthermore, they are found in various areas of philosophical knowledge: the history of philosophy, social philosophy, esthetics, ethics, religious studies, logic, the methodology of scientific knowledge, and so on. Of course, one can accuse philosophers for writing during the (...) years of the existence of the Soviet Union many fewer good works than weak or mediocre ones, but this applies no more to philosophy than to science, art, or any other sphere of human activity. (shrink)

Originally published in 1961. Russian Marxist philosophy of science originated among men and women who gave their whole lives to rebellion against established authority. The original tension within Marxist philosophy between positivism and metaphysics was repressed but not resolved in this first phase of Soviet Marxism. In this volume the author correlates the development of ideas with trends in the Cultural Revolution and against this background it is possible to understand why debates over general philosophy gave way to conflicts (...) over specific sciences in the aftermath of the first Five Year Plan and why there was a genuine crisis in Soviet biology. (shrink)

In his review of The Neo-Stalinist State, Luke reproaches me for neglecting both “the new importance of the USSR's and Eastern Europe's niche in the world economic system” and the use of the East-West economic exchange by the Soviet regime to “sustain its ‘neo-Stalinist’ state.” These criticisms are well taken. Yet, I deliberately concentrated on the inner workings of the Soviet state in its mature form without going into the problems of the Soviet position in the global (...) system. After pointing to these weaknesses, Luke suggests his own interpretation of Soviet developments in the past decades. They can be summarized as follows. (shrink)

All the social sciences are now in flux and Soviet studies even more so. Many traditional approaches prove to be useless for understanding the changed world and there is a search for new explanatory models, and even for “alternative organizing myths.” All this fosters confusion and during such periods of “paradigm change” debates assume predictable characteristics. First of all, there appears a large gap between, in John Stuart Mill's words, “the meaning which a term bears in common acceptation” and (...) that which the writer “intends to annex to it.” It provides a great opportunity for sniping and passionately accusing opponents of lack of conceptual rigor. (shrink)

Josef Bocheski, pioneer of the discipline ofphilosophical sovietology and one of the firstto criticize Eurocentric attitudes, emphasizedthe central role of logic and sound argument inacademic philosophy. This helped him todemonstrate both the general flaws of and thedifferences in quality within Sovietphilosophy. His endeavors and results areindispensable for the yet-to-be-written historyof Soviet philosophy. By the same token, itmade him less perceptive of the centralpolitical, not just philosophical, role of thepartijnost'-principle. More recent developmentshave shown both Soviet philosophy andBocheski's own, Neo-Thomist (...) position to bepart of a fundamentally outdated idea ofscientific philosophy. However, the criteria oflogical scrutiny and sound argument have notlost their force within globalizingphilosophical culture. (shrink)

It is clear enough why both major propaganda systems insist upon this fantasy. Since its origins, the Soviet State has attempted to harness the energies of its own population and oppressed people elsewhere in the service of the men who took advantage of the popular ferment in Russia in 1917 to seize State power. One major ideological weapon employed to this end has been the claim that the State managers are leading their own society and the world towards the (...) socialist ideal; an impossibility, as any socialist -- surely any serious Marxist -- should have understood at once (many did), and a lie of mammoth proportions as history has revealed since the earliest days of the Bolshevik regime. The taskmasters have attempted to gain legitimacy and support by exploiting the aura of socialist ideals and the respect that is rightly accorded them, to conceal their own ritual practice as they destroyed every vestige of socialism. (shrink)

In November 1970, four Soviet philosophers, two from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences and two from Moscow University were in England for the purpose of continuing the discussion with British philosophers begun two years earlier. [See previously translated reports in Soviet Studies in Philosophy, Winter 1970-71 - Editor.] Like the previous trips, this one was organized by the Association of Soviet Friendship Societies and the British Society of Friends.

Interview of Vsevolod Khoma with Professor Tamara Yashchuk within the framework of the research program “Ukrainian Philosophy of the 60s-80s of the 20th Century” of the Student Society of Oral History of Philosophy.