SOVIET 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. x