p It would be a mistake to consider the juxtaposition of philosophising to practice, to everyday human pursuits, anxieties and interests, only on the epistemological plane, in relation to the theory of knowledge. This historically inevitable juxtaposition, which was progressive in the conditions of slave society, indirectly reflected the growing contradiction between mental and physical labour, the contradiction between free men and slaves, whose labour in the course of the development of ancient society gradually ousted the labour of small property-owners with the result that productive activity became a servile occupation, unworthy of the free man. The 89 pursuit of theory was the free man’s occupation, particularly as such pursuits were not yet, strictly speaking, labour, and certainly not productive labour. Mental labour in its most highly developed form, i.e., the theoretical, arises not as labour but as freedom from labour, as a subjective need, and not a necessity. However, certain specific features of this early theoretical activity probably express the specific features of theoretical inquiry in general.

p The transition from the slave to the feudal social system brings no essential change in the juxtaposition between mental and physical labour, but the spiritual dictatorship of the Church destroys the cult of the theoretical contemplation of life that was evolved in ancient times. Bourgeois philosophy, which wins its spurs in the struggle against the religious apology for the feudal system, naturally reinstates the ancient notion of philosophy as a science of reason, the notion that rational human life is possible only thanks to philosophy. The inventors of the metaphysical systems of the 17th century seek to substantiate the characteristic conviction of the ancients that philosophy should be independent of practical life, a conviction that in reality reflects only the independence of practical life from philosophy.

p The idealists counterpose “pure” theory to empiricism, thus recording to a certain extent a state of affairs that actually exists and elevating it to an immutable principle of philosophical knowledge and of the philosophical attitude to reality. In contrast to the idealists, the materialists condemn this juxtaposition of philosophy to empirical knowledge and advocate the alliance of philosophy with the natural sciences, thus directly expressing new trends in the development of 90 theoretical knowledge stimulated by capitalist progress.

p The juxtaposition of philosophy to empirical knowledge is only one side of the coin. Its other side, as we have already stressed above, is philosophical “elevation” over everyday practical life with its petty interests, cares and anxieties. This intellectual aristocratism, which constitutes the intimate kernel of philosophising, is quite understandable among representatives of the highly educated section of the ruling class of slave society. It also finds nourishing soil in feudal society, particularly in the Christian interpretation of this world as a place of vanity and transient concerns. But why does intellectual aristocratism become one of the basic philosophical traditions which can be easily traced in the development of bourgeois philosophy, even in the period when it is actively breaking into the social and political movement and raising the banner of struggle against the feudal system and its ideology? Can it be attributed to insufficient development of philosophical theory, condemning it forever to the contemplative attitude? This is probably only one of the reasons. The main reason, I believe, lies in the fact that the " contemplative nature" of philosophy and its alleged impartiality, are conditioned by the position of the ruling classes in an antagonistic society, for whom the social status quo is not a historically transient stage in the development of society, but the “natural” condition of civilisation. Characteristically, the ideologists of the prerevolutionary bourgeoisie recognised the necessity for the destruction of the feudal system as a necessity for the restoration of natural human relations and realisation of the demands of pure 91 reason, which stood in opposition to the selfish partisanship and particularism of the ruling feudal estates.

p Thus the apparent impartiality of pre-Marxist philosophy is just as much an objective fact as is any appearance, which, as we know, contradicts essence but at the same time expresses an essential contradiction. In this sense apparent impartiality, as an essential characteristic of a historically defined philosophical knowledge, deserves special investigation. Virtually all preMarxist philosophy shares this illusion and lives by it, so to speak. Understandably, then, the creation of the philosophy of Marxism, which is aware of and openly proclaims its partisanship, regarding partisanship as constituting the definiteness of philosophy, was a revolutionary break with a philosophical tradition sanctified by the millennia. But this break at the same time revealed the social essence of philosophising. On the other hand, the opponents of Marxism saw in this discovery of the social essence of philosophy the disavowal of philosophy. This notable fact indicates not only the class nature of bourgeois philosophy; it also characterises the contradictions in the historical process of the emergence of scientific philosophical knowledge.

p The juxtaposition of philosophical consciousness to everyday life, as something alien to any lofty aspirations, implies yet another essential social element and stimulating theme of philosophising, which is not usually pointed out in special historico-philosophical studies. This juxtaposition reilects in its own peculiar way the emergence and spontaneous development of certain antagonistic contradictions of class society, contradictions which quite often horrify even the 92 representatives of the ruling classes. Consequently, the juxtaposition of philosophy to the historically defined practice of the slave, feudal and capitalist systems should be regarded positively. To elucidate our proposition let us turn to the famous legend of Thales, as related by Plato: "I will illustrate my meaning by the jest which the clever witty Thracian handmaid is said to have made about Thales, when he fell into a well as he was looking up at the stars. She said, that he was so eager to know what was going on in heaven, that he could not see what was before his feet.”  [92•1  But Thales was indeed capable of knowing things that were remote. For example, he foretold the eclipse of the sun. Nor was he a stranger to practical pursuits, as Aristotle relates: "When Thales was reproached for his poverty on the ground that philosophy yielded no profit, Thales, so they say, foreseeing on the basis of astronomical data a rich harvest of olives, before the winter was over, invested a small sum of money which he had accumulated with the owners of all the oil mills in Milet and Chios; Thales struck a cheap bargain with the oil mills because no one was competing with him. When the time of the olive harvest came round, there was a sudden demand for oil mills. Thales then began to lease out the mills he had chartered at any price he wished to charge. Thus having amassed a large amount of money in this way, Thales proved that even philosophers may grow rich if they wish without difficulty, but that this is not where their interests tend.”  [92•2  Thales, however, did not continue the enterprise he had so 93 auspiciously begun but abandoned it and turned once again to philosophising, as it was then understood, i.e., as knowledge for knowledge’s sake, although astronomy and geometry (they were then components of philosophy) also had practical significance. We know that Thales supervised the digging of a canal and solved certain other problems of a practical nature. But philosophising, according to ancient tradition, is elevated above all these mundane pursuits, and particularly self- interest, money-making and the desire for riches, since the essence of philosophy lies in a tireless quest for the ideal of knowledge and the life truly befitting man.

p Let us consider this legend from the standpoint of the major social events of the time, which were specially studied by Engels in his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Describing the decay of Greek society under the influence of the developing commoditymoney relations, Engels points out that the mass of the free population of Attica, mainly small peasant farmers, were in fee to an insignificant group of rich men, to whom they were compelled to surrender five-sixths of their annual harvest as rent or to repay debts for mortgaged plots of land. If this was insufficient to repay the debt, the "debtor had to sell his children into slavery abroad to satisfy the creditor’s claim. The sale of his children by the father—such was the first fruit of father rights and monogamy! And if the blood-sucker was still unsatisfied, he could sell the debtor himself into slavery. Such was the pleasant dawn of civilisation among the Athenian people".  [93•1 

p Solon’s reform abolished mortgages on land and prohibited penalties for debt that made the debtor the slave of the creditor. Solon, however, was not expressing the interests of the propertyless classes of Attica. A representative of the hereditary aristocracy, he was probably prompted by the sense of tribal unity deeply ingrained in the minds of all members of the tribal community. But this unity was incompatible with moneycommodity relations, whose emergence brought into play, as Engels points out, men’s lowest instincts and passions and developed them to the detriment of all their other qualities. "Naked greed has been the moving spirit of civilisation from the first day of its existence to the present time.”  [94•1  This insatiable lust for gain was subsequently idealised by some ideologists of the exploiting classes. Nearly all the ancient philosophers, however, sharply condemn greed, although the majority of them justify slavery. This condemnation of the lust for gain may be attributed to the fact that commodity-money relations had not yet become the dominant social relations that they were to become in the age of capitalism.

p The bourgeois philosophers of the 17th-19th centuries, however, were very far from singing the praises of the profit motive. They also condemned greed, but now not because commoditymoney relations had not yet taken the helm but, on the contrary, because capitalism was reducing all social relations to the one urge for profit. Hegel calls the society of the burghers (“burgerliche 95 Gesellschaft”) the kingdom of poverty and calculation. This was no concession to feudal society, but an awareness of the humiliating status of philosophy in the realm of capital, where philosophy exists only as a specific form of non- productive labour.

p Marx points out that capitalism is hostile to certain forms of spiritual activity. Is it surprising then that even these forms of spiritual activity, despite the fact that they objectively express the needs of capitalist progress, take up arms against its most deformed aspects? When Hegel wrote that "revulsion against the excitement of immediate passion indeed prompts one to take up philosophical study”,  [95•1  he was sincerely expressing his attitude to the capitalist reality of his day, even though bourgeois-democratic reforms seemed to him the culmination of worldhistoric progress.

p We should not assume that the philosophers of the progressive bourgeoisie were prompted by the same motives as the capitalist entrepreneurs. Bourgeois philosophy (and art), in so far as it does not become an obvious apology for capitalism, strives to transcend the commonplaces of bourgeois life and in a sense actually succeeds in doing so.  [95•2 

p Thus the notions of the philosophers who believe that thanks to their theoretical activity they have risen above a world that does not inspire them (even though they may acknowledge it as the only possible world), have their real foundation in the antagonistic nature of social progress. "The philosopher,” Marx says, "sets up himself (that is, one who is himself an abstract form of estranged man) as the measuring-rod of the estranged world.”  [96•1  But this very same philosopher, while remaining a thinker of the ruling or exploiting class, cannot comprehend the true source of the alienation of creative work. On the contrary, because of this alienation he feels he is psychologically independent of those social forces whose interests he expresses, often without experiencing any personal allegiance.

Philosophy as alienated social consciousness in antagonistic society, as Marx and Engels point out, "was only a transcendent, abstract expression of the existing state of affairs" and just because of "its illusory distinction from the world was bound to imagine that it had left far beneath it the existing state of affairs and the real world of people. On the other hand, since philosophy was in reality not distinct from the world, it could not pronounce upon it any real judgement, could not apply to it any real force 97 of discrimination and hence could not practically intervene in the course of events, and at best was obliged to content itself with practice in abstracto.”  [97•1  This observation is fundamentally relevant to our understanding of the organic connection between the contemplativeness, the apparent impartiality of philosophy, its alienated form of existence and its protest against alienated social relations.