287

p The point of departure in the study of any science is the definition of its subject-matter, that is to say, the elucidation of what basic questions it sets out to solve. This is not to be confused with the definition of subject-matter provided at the beginning of a textbook for the beginner, to whom any such definition will for some time appear incomprehensible and somewhat formal because he does not yet know the basic concepts, categories and departments of the science in question and its connection with other, related sciences. The definition of the subject-matter of a science has quite a different and far deeper meaning for those who have already mastered its problems and gained a notion of its history and methods of inquiry, since they will understand its place in the system of knowledge and realise that this place cannot be retained forever permanent and unchanged. When studying a science we become aware of the changes which its subject-matter has undergone in the course of historical development and understand the 288 inevitability of discussion of this subject-matter among people who specialise in that particular science. Such discussion is essential to the development of science and takes place not because scientists do not know what they are doing, what they are investigating, or what they are teaching.

p The scientific definition of the subject-matter of any science cannot, of course, be the starting point of its actual historical development, since such a definition becomes possible only at a relatively advanced stage of its development and is the summing up, the generalisation of the path travelled and the results achieved. Thus, for example, the scientific definition of the subjectmatter of political economy as a science investigating the laws of social production and the distribution of material goods at various stages of social development was provided only by Marx, although political economy had existed as a science as far back as the 17th century.

p The definition of the subject-matter of any science entails considerable difficulty also because it is by no means sufficient merely to indicate the objects that it investigates; it is essential to explain on what basis these objects have been chosen as the subject-matter of the given science. Further, it is essential to define these chosen objects of inquiry as being qualitatively different from others and consequently excluded from the frame of reference of the given science.  [288•1  These 289 definitions and explanations concerning the subject of inquiry should not, however, be allowed to restrict the possibilities of scientific development, which brings to light targets of investigation that had not been previously envisaged but which, once discovered, have to be included in the subject-matter of the science, even if its definition specifically excludes these targets. In such cases the definition has to be revised in the interest of the further development of the science. In other words, the definition of the subject-matter of any science should remain open and should take into consideration its prospects of development, that is to say, it should not only point out what it is investigating but should also indicate possible or probable directions of inquiry. So, any definition of the subject-matter of a science is necessarily approximate and should remain so because the range of questions that it investigates is bound to change. The boundaries of possible change in the subject-matter of a science are determined by its specific nature, its place in the system of scientific knowledge, and the demands of social practice.

p If we take a science like biology, we see that it would have been possible about one hundred and fifty years ago to indicate the visible, immediately definable objects of its inquiry, as animals and plants. Accordingly, biology consisted of two main scientific disciplines, zoology and botany, each of which could be broken down into the disciplines subordinate to it, whose subjectmatter could be defined without any special difficulty: ornithology, entomology, ichthyology, 290 anatomy, morphology, etc. As biology developed it acquired new disciplines. The study of the microscopic structure of plants led to plant anatomy, then came the theory of evolution (Darwinism), to be followed later by genetics. New means of observation made possible microbiology. The application of chemical and physical methods of research to biological processes laid the foundations of biological chemistry? biological physics, molecular biology, bionics, etc. Today it would be more correct to define biology not merely as a science, but as a system of sciences, each with its own specific subject-matter. This does not negate the unity of biological knowledge, but it does indicate the relative independence of its major branches, its diversity and range. Biology could, of course, be defined as a complex science, but it is not really a matter of terms but of being aware of the fact of the differentiation, the splitting up of its subject-matter. Many sciences are characterised by a similar versatility of inquiry at the present stage. From this standpoint it would be correct to speak of the components of the subjectmatter of any science that had become significantly developed, just as Lenin does in characterising the components of Marxism.

p Unlike biology, mathematics investigates objects whose presence cannot be directly recorded because they are not really objects but their idealised spatial forms and quantitative relationships. Engels pointed out that, in order to become mathematical objects, real objects and their relationships must assume an "extremely abstract form".  [290•1  Like logic, mathematics abstracts itself from the content and this abstraction, which is 291 justified by the fact that what it studies is specifically relationships that have a universal and necessary significance, constitutes the basic prerequisite for its existence as a science which does not rely on observation and experiment but achieves new conclusions and discoveries by purely logical means. "The subject-matter of mathematics,” A. D. Alexandrov points out, "is composed of the forms and relationships of reality which objectively possess such a degree of indifference to content that they may be completely abstracted and defined in general form with sufficient clarity, accuracy and wealth of relationships to serve as the basis for a purely logical development of theory. If such relations and forms are called quantitative in the general sense of the term, it may be stated briefly that the subject-matter of mathematics is quantitative relationships and forms taken in their pure state.”  [291•1 

p As we know, the fact that mathematics takes quantitative forms and relations in their pure state has been idealistically interpreted by some philosophers as meaning that the subject-matter of mathematics is an a priori construction without any relation to any empirically definable reality. Without going into these subjectivist interpretations of the subject-matter of mathematics at length, we would merely emphasise that they are epistemologically connected with the peculiarities of mathematics itself, with the difference between it and those sciences in which theoretical conclusions are based on the analysis of empirical data and may be experimentally tested.

292

p It should also be noted that the speculative character of mathematics, like the unlimited possibilities for its application in other sciences, has led some philosophers and mathematicians to infer that mathematics does not have any particular subject of inquiry that may be singled out from the whole diversity of reality, but is rather a universal method of investigating the subjectmatter of any science. Karl Pppper, for example, maintains that "pure mathematics and logic, consisting as they do of proofs, do not provide us with information about the world, but merely elaborate the means of its description".  [292•1 

p We have touched upon these aspects of biology and mathematics only to make it easier to find out what is investigated by philosophy. On the one hand, the targets of philosophical inquiry (nature, society, man, cognition, and so on) may be given approximately the same degree of empirical definition as the objects studied by biology. On the other hand, philosophy, as is shown by its whole history, is concerned with idealised forms of reality, abstract objects and categories, which quite often evoke doubts concerning the objective reality of their content. We have in mind not abstract objects such as the ideal gas in physics but, for instance, the monads of Leibnitz, Schopenhauer’s universal will, and Schelling’s absolute identity. For the materialist, we may be sure, all these are imaginary objects. But they cannot simply be discarded, because they are interpretations (albeit, idealist interpretations) of objective reality, of what actually exists, and consequently these imaginary objects are not meaningless; they 293 have sufficient meaning to make a mystery of the actual subject of philosophical inquiry, which idealism cannot avoid. Thus, the subject-matter of philosophy is not easily established. It comes to light gradually as a result of historico– philosophical inquiry. So it is not enough to stop at delimiting the empirically stated, abstract and imaginary objects of philosophical inquiry because they are epistemologically all connected with one another. Inasmuch as it becomes the subject of philosophical inquiry nature is not only that which is empirically given and capable of being perceived by the senses. Philosophy analyses the system of categories expressing nature: substance, matter, motion, space, time, unity, essence, phenomenon, law, necessity, etc. The subject of philosophical inquiry thus emerges as a system of categories.

p The distinction between concrete and abstract objects of inquiry in philosophy is the distinction between the theoretically abstract and the theoretically concrete. Any objects exist for philosophy in a logically generalised form because philosophy studies the specific forms of universality, specific in the sense that they entail the most general definitions of nature, society, cognition, man’s personal life, and so on. Categories are scientific abstractions, most general concepts, which may have quite different meanings in various philosophical doctrines. One has only to compare the materialist understanding of sensation as reflection of the external world with the subjective idealist proposition of Ernst Mach on sensations as “ elements” of reality. Categories, however, are not simply forms of thought. They also reflect essential aspects of objective reality in which, apart from thought, there exist causality, necessity, law, essence, and so on.

294

p There are certain philosophical doctrines which interpret the category of essence as a meaningless fiction. According to Wittgenstein, ”. . .there is only logical necessity"  [294•1 . Pre-Marxist materialism usually denied the objectivity of chance. Contemporary irrationalism regards the concept of objective law as a "scientific prejudice”. Existentialism discards general scientific categories as well as those that are accepted by most philosophical doctrines, substituting for them such categories as fear, anxiety and the absurd. Moreover, each of these categories is given a meaning that differs from the generally accepted. So, examination of the subject-matter of philosophy as a system of categories does not reveal an object of inquiry common to all philosophical doctrines, although it does indicate some of the object’s essentially common features.

p Characterising the subject-matter of philosophy as that which is concrete in reality and becomes abstract in philosophical speculation, as that which is concrete in philosophy and can become so only thanks to the synthesis of various definitions and categories, we arrive at the conclusion that these concrete-abstract objects of philosophical inquiry are not always real objects, independent of consciousness (the analysis of idealist philosophy makes this quite plain), and they are to be understood primarily as problems in the sense suggested in the previous chapter.  [294•2  This conclusion would 295 appear to be unavoidable since when analysing any philosophical doctrine a general notion of the subject-matter of philosophy is completely inadequate for elucidation of the subject-matter of that particular doctrine. From this standpoint the subject-matter of philosophy is a totality of problems formed on the basis of everyday and historical, individual and universal experience, science and practice. There is not one philosophical system that embraces all these problems. Even those of an encyclopaedic character are bound to restrict themselves to a certain range of questions, excluding certain problems that played a significant part in a previous philosophy and sometimes attaching special importance to certain questions (or one particular question) that have not previously received much attention. Philosophical doctrines that do not claim to be encyclopaedic or reject in principle the possibility of encyclopaedic philosophical systems usually give pride of place to one particular philosophical problem, subordinating others to it or even rejecting them 296 altogether, that is to say, selecting a relatively narrow range of philosophical themes. Such are William James’s treatment of the problem of truth, the problem of the human individual in philosophical anthropology, the problem of language in contemporary English analytical philosophy, and so on. However, within the framework of the basic, specialised theme an attempt is usually made to examine, admittedly from a certain angle, and, as a rule, one-sidedly, all the problems of philosophy. Hence the restriction of philosophical problems becomes no more than a means of solving an unrestricted range of philosophical problems. This restriction or, in other words, selection of problems, which a philosopher performs, significantly characterises the direction of the doctrine he creates. However, in any science the investigator is compelled to confine himself to certain definite problems, but in philosophy this is mainly a matter not of specialisation but of the basic world view that is assumed.

p The fact that philosophical doctrines differ not only in how they solve certain questions but also in what questions they pose has profound historical causes. Philosophical problems do not arise simultaneously in a particular epoch; they take shape, develop, and are transformed in the course of the development of society, philosophy and the sciences. V. F. Asmus writes of the uneven development of philosophical problems: "In different countries, in different stages of their history and among different philosophers, we do not find the same range of questions or identical, equally thorough elaboration of them.”  [296•1 

297

p This unevcnness of emergence and development of certain philosophical problems does not depend on the arbitrary will of individual thinkers, for in choosing certain problems or discovering new problems they express the demand of the time, the level of knowledge already achieved, and so on.

p Consequently this indicates that the subjectmatter of philosophy changes according to objective conditions.

p It is not only philosophy that changes. Any science changes, because it, too, develops and is subordinated to the general laws of the process of development. Not every new discovery indicates a change in the subject-matter of the given science. If this were so, it would be changing at a great rate all the time. A change in the subjectmatter of a particular science should be understood as a radical, fundamental change in the whole range of its problems and also its methods of research. The introduction of alternating quantity into mathematics in connection with the discovery of analytical geometry, and also the differential and integral calculus, provides a convincing example of how the subject-matter of a science actually changes. As Engels noted, this became a turning point in the development of mathematics, because up to this time mathematics had been a science of constant quantities.  [297•1  298 Another, equally striking example is the revolution in physics caused by the discovery of radioactivity, the electron, the special theory of relativity, and so on.

p The changes in the subject-matter of science in the course of its historical development naturally make it particularly difficult to define. People sometimes protest that the objects investigated by science, by physics, for example^have not changed throughout its existence. But did physics previously study the microcosm, the elementary particles, etc.? All this has come into the subject-matter of physics as it has developed. Hence it is clear that increasingly profound knowledge of objective reality brings to light new, hitherto unknown objects of investigation, as a result of which the subject-matter of the given science changes. Consequently, science itself takes part in the process of change of its subject of inquiry, which in such cases should be understood not only as something objective and existing independent of science, but also as the circle, the system of questions with which science deals, the latter being organically connected with the former. This means that the change in the subject-matter of science is a special kind of cognitive, objectively conditioned process taking place in the sphere of reflection of objective reality.

p Change in the subject of inquiry is therefore not something peculiar to philosophy. This is a general law of the development of scientific knowledge. But the development of philosophy differs qualitatively from the analogous process 299 in physics, biology and mathematics. In philosophy we have not only changes in the subject of inquiry but also a perpetual controversy as to what this subject is (or should be). We have a quest for its subject of inquiry and various, sometimes diametrically opposed conceptions of this subject.

p There was perhaps not a single prominent philosopher in the pre-Marxist period who did not claim to have revolutionised philosophy. Not without reason, for instance, the historians of philosophy speak of the Cartesian revolution. Kant believed his doctrine to be a Copernican turningpoint in philosophy. Any number of examples could be given. But it is essential, of course, to distinguish between real revolutions in philosophy and philosophical declarations to this effect, that is to say, between the objective content of the historico-philosophical process and its subjective form of expression. The "revolution in philosophy" which the British neo-positivists write about in a collective work of this title, is rather just another palace revolution in the history of positivism. It is quite obvious, however, that the stopgo effect in the historico-philosophical process has a different quality from what we find in the history of the specialised sciences. So, while noting the specific nature of the philosophical form of knowledge, of philosophical problems, many of which are examined by all philosophical theories, and the general definability according to world view, common to all philosophical doctrines, we believe that it would be wrong to infer that the subject of philosophical inquiry was integrated in all periods of history. The existence of certain general problems in ancient Greek philosophy, in the philosophy of modern times and in Marxist– 300 Leninist philosophy does not by any means prove that the subject-matter of philosophy was one and the same in all these periods.  [300•1 

p We said earlier that every philosophical doctrine implies a specific world view, and that herein lies the objective unity of philosophical knowledge, which in principle has nothing to do with the fact that a considerable number of philosophers do not regard their philosophy (or philosophy in general) as a world view. Naturally the question arises as to whether this methodological approach (delimitation of the objective content and subjective form of expression) may be applied to the question of the subject-matter of philosophy as well. Is not the subject of inquiry basically the same in all philosophical doctrines? We maintain that the answer to this question can only be No, because the subject of inquiry, the objects of study, are consciously selected by the investigator within the framework of the field of knowledge in which he is working. Since philosophy is not 301 concerned with specialised questions, this selection of subject-matter, if it does not turn out to be in fact only a new interpretation of what is already accepted, is bound to be (to some degree) a venturing beyond the bounds of its field of study.

p The most scrupulous investigation of pragmatism, personalism, structuralism, philosophical anthropology and many other philosophical doctrines offers no grounds whatever for the conclusion that these doctrines study the most general laws of development, as the philosophy of Marxism does. Failure to appreciate the fundamental difference in subject-matter between Marxist philosophy and other philosophical doctrines undoubtedly detracts from the essence of the revolution in philosophy brought about by Marxism.

Since philosophy, however much it may change, still remains philosophy, the proposition that the subject-matter of philosophy changes qualitatively in the process of its development presupposes acknowledgement not only of the specific nature of the philosophical form of knowledge but also the specific nature of the objective content of the various philosophical doctrines. This fact, which is characteristic of the problems of philosophy, makes it possible to determine the limits within which the subject-matter of philosophy changes and also that which is common to the subjectmatter of various philosophical theories. This common ground may be defined as the fundamental themes of philosophy, and it is by investigating these fundamental themes that we are able to prevent the metaphysical opposition of certain philosophical doctrines to others.