p Investigation of the fact of knowledge is one of the paramount tasks of philosophy. But philosophy itself is a definite fact of knowledge, which can be analysed to discover its specific features. In this chapter we shall attempt to consider the special nature of the philosophical form of knowledge. But is such an approach to the question justified, if we have in mind not the past, but the present and future of philosophy? Is not this special nature merely an expression of the immaturity of philosophical knowledge, which is to be overcome in the age of science?

p Any concept of a specific form of cognition assumes a recognition of the existence of qualitatively different cognitive relations to reality. Is this posing of the problem compatible with the materialist principle of the unity of cognition, which in all its forms is ultimately the reflection of objective reality?

p Idealism has for long maintained the existence of knowledge that is above or prior to experience; faith, it claims, is a special type of knowledge. 116 The philosophy of Marxism rejects this idealist conception just as it rejects the metaphysical juxtaposition of various forms of knowledge and means of obtaining it. The unity of human knowledge, however, is not an abstract identity; it comprises certain essential distinctions, qualitative as well as quantitative.  [116•1  From this standpoint the posing of the question of the qualitative peculiarity of the philosophical form of cognition (and knowledge) seems fundamentally necessary.

p The psychology of cognition delimits the sensory reflection of reality and abstract thinking as qualitatively distinct stages of cognition. Sense data are comprehended and synthesised by thought. The sensory reflection of the external world, however, is not the only material for thought; thought has a certain independent significance of its own. Visual, auditory and tactile images, and emotional experiences, are definite human reactions and at the same time a specific form of knowledge about external reality and about the individual himself, who sees, hears and feels, and about the other people to whom the given individual has more than a theoretical relationship.

p Sensory reflection of the external world is not scientific knowledge, and it is not always bound to become scientific. All of us have certain definite ideas about our acquaintances, our near ones and ourselves. This knowledge, which is a mingling of perception and reminiscence, truth, 117 illusion, opinion, emotional experience, misapprehension, would lose its significance if it assumed a theoretical character. This is everyday knowledge, embracing not only the more or less subjective notions of one person about another, but also many notions about all kinds of things which are known to us because we perceive, use, touch them, and so on, fairly often.

p Dialectical materialism’s theory of knowledge, as distinct from the psychology of knowledge, which is concerned with the individual knower, draws a qualitative distinction between empirical and theoretical knowledge. This distinction cannot in principle be treated merely as the division between sense perceptions and thinking, because empirical facts are established by theoretical means as well. V. A. Lektorsky is quite right in saying, "Both empirical and theoretical knowledge assume logical, rational mediacy and indubitably belong to the rational stage of knowledge.”  [117•1 

p Mathematics certainly cannot be classed as empirical knowledge, which does not imply, of course, that it bears no relation to the world perceived by our senses. Astronomy is to a great extent a mathematical discipline, but one of its primary features is instrumental observation, which may be termed practical scientific research.  [117•2  118 Theoretical physics represents unity of theoretical (largely mathematical) and empirical knowledge. History as a science differs qualitatively from political economy if only because it studies that which no longer exists.

p A. A. Zinovyev, discussing the qualitative difference between the two levels of scientific research, classifies the first level as "observation of separate phenomena, connections, processes and so on, their selection, comparison, mental analysis and synthesis; all kinds of experiment; abstraction of separate properties and relations of objects, the formation of concepts, generalisation, establishing of empirical laws, making of hypotheses, modelling, use of deductions, etc. ... The first level in such understanding is valid scientific research in the full sense of the term, the basis and fundamental content of science in general. The majority of discoveries are made at this level".  [118•1  Zinovyev classifies the second level of research as the building of theories, which he characterises as totalities of concepts and judgements referring to a fairly wide range of subjects and united in a single whole with the aid of definite logical principles. Moreover, it is stressed that a theory is not simply a totality of knowledge but also "a description of a certain standard means of obtaining knowledge in a certain sphere of research.... In fact, only a description of the 119 means of obtaining knowledge allows us to define the various types of theory; means of obtaining knowledge may be described in various ways, depending on the particular data of the subjectmatter, the conditions of its investigation, the character of the problems involved and other circumstances.”  [119•1 

p Self-knowledge is qualitatively different from knowledge of the external world, although the one is impossible without the other. It is quite often absolutised by psychologists and philosophers and interpreted as a means of cognition independent of the external world. This does not, however, give grounds for denying its qualitative distinctiveness.

p Thus qualitatively different forms of knowledge exist both outside science and within the framework of science. For centuries philosophy has existed partially outside science, partially within it. Dialectical and historical materialism is a scientific philosophy, but it is qualitatively different from any other science, whose mode of existence necessarily presupposes strict limitation of the subject of inquiry.

The notion of the qualitative distinctiveness of the philosophical form of cognition was conceived along with philosophy. We have seen that in the beginning the specific feature of philosophy was understood as its distinctiveness from everyday and applied knowledge. Subsequently the notion 120 of the specific nature of the philosophical form of cognition was associated with its being distinct from the specialised sciences and the methods of research used by them. All this, however, is not enough to elucidate the special nature of the philosophical form of knowledge, particularly as there are differences of opinion between the various philosophical doctrines on this question as well. Perhaps this means there is no unified form of philosophical knowledge? It would be unscientific and anti-historical to identify the mode of philosophical inquiry of the ancient thinkers, on the one hand, with that of modern thinkers, on the other, materialists and idealists, rationalists and empiricists, etc. But no matter how varied the types of philosophical doctrines, they all possess something that makes them philosophical. It is this specific nature of the philosophical form of knowledge that we must investigate.