17 18   19

p It appears, at least at first glance, that the subject of the history of philosophy is definite and clear. Its name speaks for itself. Still, we must not accord too much importance to that, because the subject is not fully revealed. This point becomes obvious if we compare the history of philosophy to that of science or art. For example, the history of mathematics reproduces the progress of that science, where each new accomplishment is rooted in past achievements. It presents the hierarchy of the development of mathematical knowledge, with the historical stages imperatively related to one another. The history of art as a special science reproduces the actual emergence of outstanding works of art which, of course, are not independent of one another. But their interrelationship differs greatly from the historical connections between scientific theories.

p Even those opposing the theory of development do not deny that the study of the history of science does have its purpose. As to art, it is a debatable point of methodology. Apparently, the same is true of the history of philosophy. Adherents of idealism among today’s historians of philosophy often say that philosophical systems are like great works of art because philosophy is the poetry of concepts. That analogy completely ignores the essential difference between the theoretical precepts of philosophy and images of art. Today, Homer’s Iliad is still largely an unattainable model of perfection. But today’s reader, while enjoying that great epic, does not argue with Homer over the gods of Ancient Greece, their relations with one another and with mortals, etc. On the other hand, while reading Aristotle or Plato, that same reader inevitably responds to their doctrines, analyzes them and strives to separate the rational in them from what is false or no longer relevant.

p Only Shakespeare could write Othello. No one else could 20 have done it. But the picture is different with regard to Plato’s or Aristotle’s doctrines. Other philosophers would have voiced their ideas, although, of course, differently. In this the history of philosophy is similar to the history of natural science. It is true that discoveries in, say, physics are the work of certain scientists and bear the imprint of their personality. Nevertheless, if those scientists had failed to make them, others would have made those discoveries in due course. Therefore, it is completely wrong to draw a parallel between a historian of philosophy studying the doctrine of Leibniz or Feuerbach and an art historian specializing in Tolstoy or Byron. The, history of philosophy diff era ^fundamentally from the history   " "

p “       

p The word “history” (the Greek historia) still retains its original meaning of an account, a narration. History as a science emerged precisely as  an .account of past events (a historian is not an eyewitness) that are of interest for the present.

p Hegel stressed the twofold- meaning j)f the word " histp^jry": "In our language, ’the word ‘history’ has both objective and subjective aspects, both as historian rerum gestarum and as the res gestas themselves; it denotes both what happened and the historical ⁿfg.^rJ*tiYe_. We must recognize ‘fETs’ conTBma*fion*of both those"’meanings as something more significant than merely an outward coincidence; one must admit that historiography emerges simultaneous- ly with historical actions and events per se: there exists a common internal basis that generates them." (63; 164) Still, we must admit that in the ancient times the term “history” already acquired a broader meaning. For example, Aristotle used the term to denote an accumulation (consequently, a description) of information on actual facts, which he set apart from theory, research and logical inferences.

p ’V-2^

p This polysemantic meaning of the word “history” survived for many centuries. Up to the end of the 18th century natural science, which remained a descriptive discipline that collected and classified facts recorded by observation, was called historia naturalis to differentiate it from the history of nations. Theoretical natural science replaced that obviously obsolete term with a more adequate one: natural science. According to Engels, "While natural 21 science up to the end of the last century was predominantly a collecting science, a science of finished things, in our century it is essentially a systematising science, a science of the processes, of the origin and development of these things and of the interconnection which binds all these natural processes into one great whole." (3; 3, 363)

p One pan^d^aw__ajx_snalogy between the histor ophy and the  Mstory l5FTiaTuYal science"; the former has also evotwed .from a description merely summing up facts to an orderly sCudy,""1recDmiro“g’"3cience about tbe^e_^m^^r" pence- and^dey.elopaien.t oT pmIosj)pli.v. But LfiTs*"aiialbgy must not obscure the fact that the history of philosophy differs substantially from the history of natural science.

p The history of philosophy, too, was born as an account of remarkable and even surprising developments in man’s intellectual life. For example, Diogenes Laertius believed that philosophers and their doctrines were a wonder. His treatise On the Lives, Doctrines and Maxims of Famous Philosophers can be considered the first study of the history of philosophy. While J?lato|_s_ _or_Aristotle’s remarks about the_ views of their pTectecessors"are oT"greaT;Impor: tance forthe history’ yf |)lii speaking, exercises__in’the ms£o?y 5f^—phifesep-hyr- As L. "Bfaun aptly TemarksTTTSttr^uiled lo -regard-Iris predecessors as thinkers of the past. In his dialogues, Parmenides, Protagoras and other philosophers participate in the discussion on a par with Socrates, Plato’s teacher. True, Aristotle does differ from Plato in this regard. But his examination of the earlier doctrines is fixed on presenting his own system, and he uses biased criticism of other philosophers’ theories to prove his own.

p While Diogjn^s_Ija£rtiuLg]treatise is objdcuisJ^_a__mere corrtpilatioji it is based on adeTrrntg"concept of the history of philosophy (although the author hlmsTJrf- “Is” TioFTiiBy aware of it): he _attempts_tp__single out and contrast dogmatisjGQ_aind skepticism, in his opinion, the two major philosophical trends.  [21•*  The description of philosophers’ theories 22 reveals such great discrepancies that it leads to an obvious conclusion: there are as many philosophies as there are philosophers. It follows that the history of philosophy is a history of philosophies; the concept of the history of philosophy as a single process is foreign to Diogenes Laertius. Still, he does admit that all philosophers are unanimous in their pursuit of truth, but none of them can reach it and their paths diverge increasingly. Although Diogenes Laertius was close to Epicureanism, his concept of the history of philosophy is essentially skepticist.

p I am convinced that^philosophical skepticism was _the first ever theory of thenistbrv of philosophy, and its im  pacF^ls still fell iii tiontemporary non-Marxist philosophy. The startijTP_jTfvmt in tin’s theory, ni in-Rl;^^0^^pti"ifrm in gPTV eral, ia_^a negative understanding’ nf—pMLosophy—as—an "exercise in wisdom" which can never arrive at. the truth sincS -pfeflosophy does nol and cannot offer a criterion separating truth from error. In the eye,s of skeptics, what philosophers term truths are merely opinions and beliefs. Hence the skeptics’ disdainful charge of dogmatism leveled at any philosophy maintaining that it is true.

p Skepticism combines a negative attitude to all philosophies with the conviction that it is the only correct philosophy because it rejects all positive philosophical postulates. Skepticism claims it knows the true worth of any and all philosophies: they cannot be trusted. Therefore, skepticism appears not as a philosophical doctrine about the world and knowledge but as a philosophy of philosophy or a metaphilosophy. This ambiguous attitude toward philosophy is justified by the claim that negating the correctness of any philosophical thesis does not mean accepting its antithesis as correct. According to the skeptics, all philosophers differ in their opinions and refute one another; therefore one must refrain from exercising philosophical judgment. The fact that skepticism is present in the philosophers’ arguments and, like other philosophies, refutes its opponents, is simply ignored.

p In its ,aB-aljzsis_jaJL_certain philosophicaljssueSj^^ncient __ Age to an even greater degree)   ^ knowledge and thus contributed to a  "" 23 But the skepticist concept of the history of philosophy was wrong, and shared much of the prejudices of everyday consciousness. Skeptics never raised such fundamentally important issues as: do philosophical doctrines really refute one another? Do differences between them really mean that the issues posed by philosophy are essentially unsolvable? Do the substantial differences and contradictions separating philosophies really rule out significant qualities that are common to them all? Does the contention between philosophies really have no positive significance?

p Skeptics never probed the epistemological nature of philosophical error, they never saw its real, although misunderstood, content. But no matter how much philosophers erred, we must credit them with singling out that content. Skeptics knew absolutely nothing about the dialectics of truth and error. Truth (it is not merely a statement of something easily perceived and generally known) and error (of course, if it at least indirectly points to significant and previously unknown facts) are not diametrically opposed, That is why the history of philosophy, even as a history of error, of brilliant error, is of tremendous epistemological importance. And that not only because it outlines, albeit indirectly, the correct way of developing knowledge; the history of philosophy cannot be regarded merely as a history of errors: it is also a history of brilliant, although far from universally accepted, discoveries. The fact that philosophy, as a rule, does not contain precepts shared by all philosophers does not at all rule out the existence of genuinely philosophical precepts. Dismissal of that fact is among the theoretical sources of the concepts holding that the history of philosophy is not development of philosophical knowledge.

p The discovery of the law of the transformation of energy provided theoretical and experimental natural science with proof that the fundamental materialist precepts about the unity of motion and matter (self-motion of matter) and the indestructibility of motion were correct. According to Engels, "the unity of all motion in nature is no longer a philosophical assertion, but a natural-scientific fact". (9; 197) On the other hand, "propositions which were advanced in philosophy centuries ago, which often enough have long been disposed of philosophically, are frequently 24 put forward by theorising natural scientists as brand-new wisdom and even become fashionable for a while". (9; 43)

p Thus even those philosophical precepts that are fully borne out by special scientific studies do not gain universal acceptance among philosophers. Natural scientists have long since accepted that consciousness is a quality of highly organized matter. But idealists still dispute ( although usually with reservations) that fundamental precept of materialist philosophy.

p Despite the fallacy of their negativist interpretation of the history of philosophy, skeptics are acknowledged to have discovered one of its key qualities. Unlike other fields of knowledge, philosophy comprises a great many conflicting trends, doctrines and concepts, and many are mutually exclusive. But the fact that philosophers (at any rate, prominent philosophers) have different opinions of key issues does not mean that philosophical truths are nonexistent. The only obvious thing (and that is the salient feature of the history of philosophy) is that the truths affirmed by some philosophers are denounced as utterly erroneous by their opponents. On the other hand, many philosophical errors are alleged to be basic truths. This sometimes occurs in other theoretical sciences too. But while it happens only occasionally in science, it is the usual thing in philosophy, and may be described as its intellectual climate.

p This explains why skeptics, and even philosophers who have nothing in common with skepticism, admit the boundless diversity of conflicting philosophies and regard it as something inherent in philosophical knowledge and as a serious obstacle hampering the eventual arrival at the truth.

p In the 18th century, Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, a philosopher who rejected skepticism, examined that typical state of philosophy. In his Treatise on Systems he wrote: "How many systems have already been built? How many more will be built? If only one found at least one that is interpreted more or less uniformly by all of its exponents! But can one rely on systems that undergo thousands of changes while passing through thousands of different hands; on systems that, whimsical and capricious, appear and disappear in the same manner, and are so unreliable that they can be used equally well to both defend and 25 refute?" (44; 21) Unlike the skeptics, Condillac believed it both possible and necessary to overcome the state of philosophy as he described it by creating a system of philosophy based on scientifically verifiable data. Condillac did much to develop sensationalist epistemology. And, although he failed to solve the problem, his work undoubtedly brought the solution closer.

p Today, most theoretical studies of the history of philosophy stress the increasing differences among philosophical doctrines. For example, the French historian of philosophy C. J. Ducasse believes that analysis of the existence of so many mutually exclusive philosophies makes it possible to grasp the essence of philosophy. In his words, "when one examines the history of philosophy, one is amazed by the contrast between the trend toward agreement increasingly evident in the natural sciences and the fact that a similar trend is less perceptible, if not completely absent, in philosophy". (46; 272) Unlike philosophers of the irrationalist trend, who insist that philosophy and science are incompatible, Ducasse regards philosophy as a science sui generis. Still, the facts that are the subject of philosophy differ radically from those that are the subject of any other science. In philosophy, facts are propositions, and thus "all the problems of philosophical theory are essentially semantic, but not all semantic problems are necessarily philosophical". (46; 282) Of course, this essentially formalistic interpretation of the nature of philosophy cannot show the way to a scientific solution of philosophical problems.

p While study of the history of philosophy is difficult, understanding the history of philosophy as a process of developing philosophical knowledge is even more difficult. Hegel was the first to pose this problem. That, apparently, was why Marx stressed that Hegel was "the first to understand the history -of philosophy as a whole" (4; 29, 549) despite his idealistic interpretation of that discipline.

p Above all, Hegel rejected the skeptical view of philosophical doctrines as being totally opposed to one another, a view rooted in ancient skepticism. He applied his dialectical interpretation of difference as comprising essential identity to his comparative analysis of philosophical systems. That was how Hegel viewed differences among philosophical systems, including those that evolved into 26 contradictions. In his words, "the history of philosophy shows, first, that the seemingly different philosophies are merely one philosophy at different stages of its development; second, that particular principles, each underlying one particular system, are merely branches of one and the same whole". (64; 6, 21)

p Hegel’s dialectics of difference and identity attributes primacy to the latter, since it is interpreted as unity, and unity as identity of opposites. Hegel holds that it is precisely the identity of being and thought that forms the substance of all that exists. Hence his inclination to underestimate the differences among philosophical systems: he regarded them all as consecutive stages in the development of a single philosophy, with its essence unchanged in all time. Refuting the skeptical claim that all philosophies were false, Hegel was rather inclined to recognize the opposite view: that all philosophies were true, albeit only as stages of a single developing philosophy interpreted as a means of the authentic self-expression of the "absolute idea". The latter allegedly gained self-awareness in the course of human history, above all in the course of the development of philosophical knowledge over the ages.

p This point of view also means that no system of philosophy considered in isolation from the entire history of philosophy is true. Truth is a process, and this applies first and foremost to philosophical truth as a unity of different and even opposite definitions. Therefore Hegel also opposed the view which, although it rejected skepticism, was equally fallacious because it held that all philosophies were true in their own distinct ways, despite the contradictions that separated them. According to Hegel, recognizing that philosophies are essentially different yet equally true is an assumption that does not merit serious attention no matter how comforting it may appear.

p Hegel thus proved that the history of philosophy was development passing from one level of knowledge to the next, higher level and probing increasingly deeper into the nature of things. In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, described by Engels as "one of his most brilliant works" (2; 415), Hegel interprets the development of philosophy as motion in spirals, since philosophical issues solved in some way at one level are transformed by the later development of philosophy, acquire new content, 27 and reach a new and higher philosophical level as problems that are yet to be solved; a new approach to these problems leads to conclusions that enrich the philosophical understanding of reality.   [27•* 

p Hegel’s Lectures on the History of Philosophy combine the historical method of presentation that sums up all facts related to philosophical systems and their emergence with the logical method that traces the principal stages and laws in the development of philosophical knowledge. In this he follows his principle of the unity of the historical and the logical. According to this principle, the history of philosophy generally reproduces the logical development of major philosophical categories; the system of categories forms the final stage of philosophical development, the system of absolute idealism. "The development of philosophy in history must correspond to the development of logical philosophy; but there will still be passages in the latter which are absent in historical development." In quoting this postulate of Hegel, Lenin trajisfpjuiisJU-e-H a materialist bjasis and Jrtresses of_jjbjla|aphical concepts—the discovery of that process  

p by conditions that are broader than IKe content of philosophical consciousness: "Here there is a very profound and correct, essentially materialist thought (actual history is the basis, the foundation, the Being, which is followed by consciousness)." (10; 38, 265).

p In his Phenomenology of Spirit and especially The Science of Logic Hegel tried to theoretically reproduce the actual history of philosophy as a progressive movement of philosophical knowledge. Everyday consciousness, examined in the beginning of the Phenomenology of Spirit, rises 28 from immediate sensory verification to the intellectual understanding of natural laws closed to sense perception and, finally, to absolute knowledge, to the understanding of the absolute as the creative basis of all that exists, adequately manifesting itself in human history. This movement of cognition from everyday experience to absolute knowledge parallels the socio-cultural development of man and mankind from the initial (in Hegel’s view) master-slave relationship to a legal system that ensures freedom and equality for its citizens in the bourgeois-democratic sense. Thus, Hegel idealistically interprets the history of philosophy as the basis and motive force of all social development.

p The Science of Logic offers an ontological view of the development of philosophy as an objective, immanent logical process that occurs in the realm of the "absolute idea". Philosophical systems are described as the principal stages, categories of that process, of the emergence of an absolute philosophical system which integrates the principles of all earlier systems, freed from the rigidity of their historical existence and incorporated into the hierarchy of concepts of dialectical logic. This means that each philosophical system contains the idea in a distinct form, i.e. is a limited expression of the "absolute idea". The latter acquires its adequate and everlasting expression only in the system of absolute idealism that sums up the entire process. Philosophical systems "are nothing other than fundamental differences of the idea itself; it is what it is only in them, they are consequently important for it and make up the content of the idea. The content, fully deployed, thus becomes the form". (64; 13, 48)

p For all its brilliant insights, materialistically transformed by the founders of Marxism, Hegel’s logic of the development of philosophical knowledge is, in the final analysis, invalid since it proceeds from the false assumption of the self-development of philosophy. The absolute spirit which, according to Hegel, is the supreme manifestation of the "absolute idea" is thus the spirit of philosophy, and philosophy, a substantial creative force. Engels opposed precisely this type of concept when he wrote about the development of philosophy in the New Age: "But during this long period from Descartes to Hegel and from Hobbes to Feuerbach, the philosophers were by no means 29 impelled, as they thought they were, solely, by the force of pure reason. On the contrary, what really pushed them forward most was the powerful and ever more rapidly onrushing progress of natural science and industry." (3; 5, 347-48)

p Since absolute idealism substantiates philosophical thinking, Hegel ignores the important role of natural science and socio-historical practice in the development of philosophical knowledge. In his view, everything nonphilosophical is a product of philosophy. The contrasting of philosophy to nonphilosophical study and activity is typical of idealist philosophy, and here Hegel’s philosophy is an extreme case. For example, Hegel holds that philosophy, as the supreme manifestation of substantial thinking, alienates everything that is not pure thought and thus relies for its content solely on itself. But Hegel’s system comprises issues that are the subjects of natural science, anthropology, psychology, civil history, the history of art, etc. Still, all those fields of philosophical study are described as subjects of applied logic. Hegel categorically states that "what any knowledge and any science considers as true and meaningful can only merit that name if it is born of philosophy; other sciences, no matter how much they try to reason without resorting to philosophy, can have neither life nor spirit nor truth without it". (64; 2, 53-54)

p Thus, despite its dialectics, Hegel’s idealist concept of development offers a one-sided and inadequate interpretation of that complex and variegated process which even mathematics does not interpret as only a logical development of concepts. One has to admit, however, that in Hegel’s lifetime no field of scientific knowledge had yet produced any concept of development.

p It is not easy, for the researcher to apply the category of development to the history of philosophy. It would be naive to believe that the general theory of development, the essence of materialist dialectics, is directly applicable to each special branch of knowledge, including the history of philosophy. The latter—like biology, geology and the like—calls for a special theory of development based on a dialectical-materialist interpretation of the subject at hand. Darwin’s theory is a good example of a special theory of development comprising both the categories that 30 describe development in general and the concepts related only to the given subject. Physics, chemistry, political economy, and sociology study fundamentally different types of development. Marx’s Capital presents both a general theory of development and a special theory of socio-economic development.

p Features shared by all development processes are the irreversibility of change, its direction within the framework of a specific cycle of changes, qualitative transformations, negation, succession, the emergence and establishment of a new structure, conversion, the unity of repetition (reproduction) and uniqueness, the rise of the new, and renewal. Progress is the highest form of development; it is transition to a higher stage (level) of development that enriches content and improves form. Development is thus the unity of qualitatively different processes, each of them not yet the process of development itself but its necessary constituent element. For example, irreversibility is a concomitant of the functioning of everything living; therefore this process should not be identified with development. Movement and change by themselves are not development, but the latter takes place precisely through movement and change.

p Analysis of the history of philosophy makes it possible to single out all those common features typical of development. However, analysis also reveals certain trends that run counter to those listed: abstract negation of the preceding philosophy, return to historically obsolete philosophical doctrines, and struggle of opposites which often rules out mutual transition, interdependence and unity.

p A comparison of the history of philosophy with the history of the natural sciences immediately points to the essential difference between them mentioned in the beginning of this essay. The forward motion in the history of the natural sciences is broken very rarely, despite the fact that both continuity and interruption are typical of it. As a rule, scientific accomplishments are not forgotten; the existence of mutually exclusive concepts is a transient (although permanently recurring) feature. The picture is different in philosophy: coexistence and struggle between various schools, doctrines and trends run all through its history. Unlike discussions in other sciences, there is an increasing divergence of opinion in philosophical 31 argument. The contrast between such trends as rationalism and empiricism, rationalism and irrationalism, naturalism and spiritualism, metaphysics and phenomenalism shows that differences between philosophies turn into opposition, which is also typical of the more general and integral forms of the development of philosophical knowledge. Besides, each of the opposite trends tends to become polarized: rational materialism opposes idealist rationalism, idealist empiricism opposes materialist empiricism, etc.

p Thus, despite the great variety of philosophies—a fact not to be ignored, though it sometimes is in popular works on the history of philosophy—materialism and idealism are the two major comprehensive and contradictory systems. Their opposition has been brought about by a radical polarization of philosophies. Nevertheless, they are not absolute opposites: their opposition exists (and deepens) within the framework of the general philosophical field of study. That is an important point to stress if only because most idealists regard materialism as a nonphilosophical outlook.

p The struggle between materialism and idealism does not rule out relations of succession, but naturally not in the sense that materialists assimilate idealist views and vice versa. Marxist philosophers regard succession as dialectical negation, and its positive character has nothing in common with an eclectic mixture of incompatible views. The attitude of dialectical materialism to classical German philosophy is a very good example of this dialectical succession that works according to the scientific principle of • partisanship in philosophy.

p The natural question to ask is why the history of philosophy differs so much from the history of mathematics, physics and other sciences? The answer is that philosophy is both a specific form of study and a specific form of social consciousness—an ideology.

p Obviously, the fact that social consciousness reflects social being does not mean that it is a study of social being or the result of such a study. The content of social consciousness is determined by social being, which is an objective social process independent of consciousness. In certain historical, circumstances, social consciousness can become scientific consciousness, i.e. a system of scientific views. The scientific socialist ideology is a case in point: 32 born of a special scientific study, it reflects historically specific social being—the capitalist system; the place of the working class in that system; the interests, needs and emancipation movement of that class.

p The scientific socialist ideology differs radically from the spontaneous consciousness of the workers that takes shape in the course of capitalist development. Naturally, both the reflection of social being and the reflection of nature in human consciousness differ greatly from a study that provides a scientific reflection of its objects. This book contains a special essay on the relationship of science (and philosophy) to everyday consciousness shaped by everyday experience. Here, it should be noted that natural science differentiates between reflection of nature through everyday consciousness and data obtained by special studies, although the latter quite often rely on everyday experience.

p Science does not merely reflect objective reality, whether environmental or social, in human consciousness; science is the highest form of the theoretical reflection of reality. This dividing line between reflecting consciousness (any consciousness, including religious consciousness, reflects reality) and reflecting theoretical study is also valid in philosophy. Here is an example. The French 18th-century materialism was the scientific and philosophical outlook of its age. The substantiation (albeit in a limited mechanistic form) of the principle of self-movement of matter was among the greatest accomplishments of that philosophy. French materialists advanced the following principle in sociology: man changes as his conditions of life change. Marx and Engels stressed the importance of that principle for the later development of socialist doctrines.

p Besides, French materialism is the philosophy of the bourgeois Enlightenment, a bourgeois ideology reflecting the interests, needs, and position of the bourgeoisie fighting feudalism. And this is no doubt connected with its principal philosophical content; all this is its specific expression. But this fact should be viewed as an objective (even spontaneous) reflection of social being in the social consciousness of that historical era, and not as a result of study.

p Therefore, reflection as the content of a philosophical theory is expressed in two ways: as a study of specific 33 reality, i.e. as definite subjective activity, and as an objectively determined understanding of social being, the kind of understanding which is not always and not everywhere a cognitive process. Naturally, one should not always absolutely oppose reflecting consciousness to reflecting study. But one must not fall into the other extreme: the content of philosophical doctrines is not to be regarded merely as the result of study, ignoring the objective dependence of social consciousness on social being.

p In describing the ideological function of French materialism, Marx and Engels stress that "Holbach’s theory is the historically justified philosophical illusion about the bourgeoisie just then developing in France, whose thirst for exploitation could still be regarded as a thirst for the full development of individuals in conditions of intercourse freed from the old feudal fetters." (1; 5, 410) Of course, French materialists were not aware of that social content of their .theory, just as they did not consider themselves ideologists of the bourgeoisie, despite their perfectly conscious hostility to the feudal system and ideology. Marx and Engels demonstrated the historically progressive nature of the ideology of French materialists and wrote: " Liberation from the standpoint of the bourgeoisie, i.e., competition, was, of course, for the eighteenth century the only possible way of offering the individuals a new career for freer development. The theoretical proclamation of the consciousness corresponding to this bourgeois practice, of the consciousness of mutual exploitation as the universal mutual relation of all individuals, was. also a bold and open step forward. It was a kind of enlightenment which interpreted the political, patriarchal, religious and sentimental embellishment . .. the embellishment corresponded to the form of exploitation existing at that time and it had been systematised especially by the theoretical writers of the absolute monarchy." (1; 5, 410)

p The materialist interpretation of history makes philosophy a unity of a specific form of study and a special form of social consciousness, ideology. Marxism discovered and provided a scientific basis for a sociological dimension of the history of philosophy. This new dimension shows the distinctive way philosophy develops. The materialist understanding of this process underlies the scientific method of its study, which, in turn, serves as the basis for the 34 doctrine of partisanship in philosophy, of philosophy’s role in the socio-historical process and the social class roots of philosophical theories.

p The fldpnrf-nf-flTe- history of .philosophy .sliLiUes__the_ deyeZ^Hieffit-jaf^hilosophy. If one considers the above facts, this definition is^myTihing but trivial. Strictly speaking, Marxists are the only ones to accept it, while those opposing Marxism are almost unanimous in their claim that philosophy has a history, but not a history of development. I have already stressed that the development of philosophy is a process of differentiation, divergence, polarization, and struggle between materialism and idealism—a struggle that shapes the prerequisites of the dialectical-materialist view of the world. A scientific history of philosophy does not lose sight of the ideological direction of various doctrines and records the fact that the development of philosophy combines genuine progress with constant reversals leading back to earlier historical stages. This regressive aspect dominates the idealist philosophy of the latter half of the 19th century and the 20th century, where, in the final analysis, each new doctrine revives, and puts a radical construction on, principles that were formulated in the past and later refuted. Of course, this does not mean that bourgeois philosophy today poses no problems worth discussing. The radicalization of old problems reflects the new historical conditions and takes into account the latest scientific achievements; it is therefore a distinct form of the development of philosophy. Opposing any simplistic interpretation of the crisis of contemporary idealism, the prominent Soviet philosopher P. Fedoseyev is perfectly justified in saying that "some bourgeois philosophers work fruitfully in the field of formal logic, developing semiotics (including semantics and pragmatics). It would be unfair to disregard their achievements in that field; one should carefully examine all that is valuable here". (32; 132) Nevertheless, it should be expressly reaffirmed that Marxism was the school that produced an essentially different type of philosophy free from the age-old errors which today’s idealist philosophy is incapable of correcting. Marxist philosophy is a developing system organically linked to all scientific knowledge, to historical experience and practice. Marxism has fully overcome the fallacious opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study and practice. Dialectical and 35 historical materialism is a scientific philosophical outlook that not only explains the world but also shows how to transform it.

p .. ... ... ... science

p as ^development of philosophyTonenrmsl sliifl; from the procBSiT’of development. imtLr,pnsif|pr of_develOTiEMt" What ’cfoes development of philosophy meanT This question is justified by the fundamental difference of philosophy from other forms of knowledge. It is true that the sciences that here are compared with philosophy differ substantially from one another. Biology differs from mathematics. Social sciences and natural sciences are two distinct fields of knowledge. Still, this essay has shown that philosonhy differs radically from all other sciences, and consequently from anything that they may have in common. Philosophy, including scientific dialectical- materialist philosophy, holds a place of its own in the system of scientific knowledge. Therefore ^ of, J.h£- dist.inct_way philosophy develops.

p For several centuries, unlike knowtetl ge gained from everyday experience, philosophy emerged and existed as theoretical knowledge. This undifferentiated theoretical knowledge contained elements that later transcended the realm of philosophy and became independent fields of knowledge, particular sciences. But science springs from philosophy. That would be true only of some, mostly fundamental, fields of science. Most of today’s sciences owe their birth to the development of fundamental science that had already hived off from philosophy, to the increasing social division of labor, scientific and technological progress, socio-economic development, and the like. The break between philosophy and particular sciences changed the place philosophy holds in the system of scientific knowledge. It also changed the subject of philosophical study; it laid the basis for the development of a scientific philosophical outlook. All these processes, combined with the special features of philosophy described above, impart a distinctive^ quality to the development of philosophy. / Study of the history of science shows that the emergence of new sciences implies the discovery of previously unknown laws; therefore the great variety of sciences points to a great variety of substantially different laws. For sciences in general and for philosophy in particular, this 36 variety of laws poses the question of the unity of diversity as expressed in the concept of universal laws.

p The laws discovered in various fields of science determine the essential relationship between phenomena, and their relatively constant and recurring interdependence. The progress of scientific cognition makes it possible to evaluate not only the relationship of simultaneously existing phenomena but also the linkages between current and future processes. Science probes more and more into the process of development and its laws. Thus the subject of dialectical materialism—the more general laws of the development of nature, society and knowledge—is historically shaped as a summing up and conceptualization of the history of scientific knowledge.

p Of course, the philosophical approach to the issue of universal laws of development does not at all detract from the importance of the special laws of development studied by astrophysics, geology, biology and other sciences. Marxist philosophy deals with the unity of substantially different laws, their common dialectical nature. This becomes obvious not only during the examination of physical or economic laws but also when the analysis is applied to the more general laws of social development. This must also be remembered when describing the distinctive quality of the more general laws of cognition.

p Therefore, even the first attempt at interpreting the phrase "development of philosophy", a simple statement, raises a host of important questions, because the problem is to determine both the specific nature of development in philosophy and the subject of development, i.e. philosophy itself. One should, of course, remember that there exist radically different philosophies. The concept of development should be applied differently to materialism and idealism, the two basic trends in philosophy. Consequently, the old problem "One is not one but many" arises in philosophy too (as a paradox). The diversity of doctrines does not rule out philosophy (albeit relative and contradictory). But this unity should also be viewed as a process of development and especially as its result. Overcoming the approach that contrasts philosophy to nonphilosophical study and to practical activity no doubt helps achieve the unity of philosophical knowledge. Since the splitting up of philosophy into a multitude of mutually 37 exclusive doctrines is brought about by profound socio-economic causes, the transition to classless communist society is bound to be a stage of tremendous importance for the emergence of the unity of philosophical knowledge. Naturally, this will not end argument in philosophy, but it will change its major aspects.

p Since Hegel substantializes the spiritual, he sees the history of philosophy as the development of idealism: "Any philosophy is essentially idealism or at least has idealism as its principle, and the question here is only how well it has been developed." (64; 3, 171) In rejecting this idealist distortion of the development of philosophy one should not go to the other extreme. The history of philosophy is not the mere history of materialism.

p Materialism and idealism, the two major philosophical trends, are organically linked with various doctrines also subject to radical polarization. As Lenin wrote, both Berkeley and Diderot were followers of Locke’s sensationalism, the former in the idealist direction, and the latter in the materialist. Thus the opposition of materialism and idealism is also present in doctrines that cannot be described either as fully idealist or fully materialist.

p The main thrust of any study of the history of philosophy is analysis of the struggle between materialism and idealism. Naturally, the character, content and outcome of that struggle are not changeless. For example, according to Engels, ancient materialism "was incapable of clearing up the relation between mind and matter. But the need to get clarity on this question led to the doctrine of a soul separable from the body, then to the assertion of the immortality of this soul, and finally to monotheism. The old materialism was therefore negated by idealism." (8; 165- 66) In the New Age the materialist philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries, won an impressive victory over the idealist metaphysical systems of Descartes, Leibniz, Malebranche and their followers. But later, classical German idealism revived the rationalist metaphysics of the 17th century. Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism negated the idealism of Hegel and his predecessors. Classical German philosophy culminated in the victory of materialism. But Feuerbach’s materialism was limited: its negation of idealism was abstract and metaphysical.

p Meanwhile, classical German idealism raised real issues, 38 and their solution paved the way to a scientific philosophical outlook.

p According to Engels, the progress of natural science and the productive forces contributed to the creation of a scientific philosophy: "Among the materialists this was plain on the surface, but the idealist systems also filled themselves more and more with a materialist content and attempted pantheistically to reconcile the antithesis between mind and matter. Thus, ultimately, the Hegelian system represents merely a materialism idealistically turned upside down in method and content." (3; 3, 348).

p Creating a scientific-philosophical system and thus negating philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the term was impossible if based on bourgeois ideology The metaphysical opposition of philosophical thought to nonphilosophical activity (both theoretical and practical), and the “nonpartisanship” ascribed to philosophy by the bourgeois consciousness rule out any materialist interpretation of philosophy. The materialism of bourgeois thinkers is inevitably contemplative and undecided. In bourgeois philosophy dialectics can only be idealist.

p The brilliance of the founders of Marxism derives above all from the fact that they theoretically grasped and scientifically substantiated the need for proletarian partisanship. From a radically new position, they gave a new, revolutionary critical interpretation of the entire history of philosophy and social development, and created dialectical and historical materialism, thus ushering in a new universal era in the development of philosophy.

p Marx said that the human anatomy is the key to the simian. By the same token, since dialectical and historical materialism solves problems that had plagued philosophy earlier, it offers a scientific understanding of its content and significance. For example, dialectical materialism offers a scientific philosophical solution to the problems of innate ideas, of a priori forms of thinking in its doctrine of the development of categories. This doctrine does not merely remove those problems (neopositivism, for example, rejects them out of hand) but reveals their real epistemological content. The foremost task of the Marxist- Leriinist history of philosophy is to study the historical forms of materialism, the historical forms of dialectics, and to study the categories that provide adequate expression to 39 materialism and dialectics. It is, however, imperative to warn against any simplistic interpretations. Marx’s words do not mean that simian development is essentially human development because, in the final analysis, the former led to the emergence of man. Thanks to its inherent specific historicism, the dialectical-materialist interpretation of development rules out teleology. Direction is not a property of development in general, of the process as a whole; each stage of development has its own essential qualities and its own appropriate direction within a historically definite cycle, era, and so on.

p Marx opposed those petty-bourgeois socialists who, failing to scientifically substantiate the concept of the socialist reconstruction of society, declared that people had always wanted to establish a socialist system, social justice, equality, and the like. Marx said that "the tendency towards equality belongs to our century. To say now that all former centuries, with entirely different needs, means of production, etc., worked providentially for the realisation of equality is, first of all, to substitute the means and the men of our century for the men and the means of earlier centuries and to misunderstand the historical movement by which the successive generations transformed the results acquired by the generations that preceded them". (1; 6, 173)

p Marx’s thesis is very important methodologically and should therefore also be applied to the history of philosophy. The reference here is to the principle of historicism and its correct application, which rules against ascribing the tasks of the proletariat to the emancipation movement of former exploited classes who lived under different systems of production relations. It is equally wrong to ascribe qualities belonging solely to dialectical materialism to any prior schools of thought.

p Dialectical and historical materialism is the theoretical and methodological basis of a scientific history of philosophy that traces the development of philosophical knowledge and asserts the historical necessity of a scientific philosophical outlook. But it would be an obvious departure from the principle of historicism (and from its concomitant, the principle of the partisanship of philosophy) to assert—as it is sometimes done—that the history of philosophy is the history of dialectical and historical 40 materialism. Applying that formula to the majority of pre-Marxian doctrines—mostly idealist but also scholastic and mystical—would be tantamount to espousing them.

The existentialist history of philosophy is actually the history of existentialist philosophy. The positivist history of philosophy is equally subjective: it slights those thinkers of the past who did not share the empirical and subjectively agnostic views that were close to positivism. Marxist philosophy differs radically from all pre-Marxian and non-Marxist philosophies. The Marxist-Leninist history of philosophy is a scientifically sound, dialectical negation of previous and current concepts of the history of philosophy; it critically treats the problems they pose and the solutions. The more thorough, profound and scientific is the study of the history of philosophy, the more obvious it becomes that a scientific theory of the development of philosophical knowledge is possible exclusively on the basis of dialectical and historical materialism.