p Marxism is the system of Marx’s views and teachings.
V. I. Lenin

p I have already noted that the scientific-philosophical world outlook of Marxism negates philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the term; that is, it negates any attempt at creating a complete system of philosophical knowledge, exhaustively covering its subject and independent of all the subsequent development of cognition and social life. It is a specific, dialectical-materialist negation typical of the revolution in philosophy Marx and Engels brought about by creating dialectical and historical materialism, a system of philosophy fundamentally different from all philosophies of the past.

p In his critique of bourgeois and revisionist attempts at playing off one precept or component part of Marxism against another, Lenin always stressed that Marxism was a single, integral scientific system. This very important point is also true of Marxist philosophy, but neither its bourgeois critics nor even some (although admittedly inconsistent) Marxists understand it. Suffice it to recall that in the early 20th century the Marxist attitude to philosophy was still interpreted as clearly negative. For example, Karl Kautsky said: "By that [Marxism] I understand not a philosophy but an empirical science, a distinct view of society." (74; 2, 452)  [83•*  That peculiar “understanding” of the philosophical fundamentals of Marxism is important to remember because today it has been revived by the theorists 84 of the Frankfurt School of Social Studies who claim to offer an authentic interpretation (or, in their own word, “ reconstruction”) of Marx’s doctrine. For example, Herbert Marcuse, a man of considerable stature in the eyes of today’s petty-bourgeois intellectuals, echoes Kautsky in asserting that Marxism "is an economic, not a philosophical system". (82; 103) And here is what Marcuse thinks of the works Marx wrote while only beginning to elaborate his doctrine—a time when the philosophical aspects of Marxism were of paramount importance: "Even Marx’s early writings are not philosophical. They express the negation of philosophy, though they still do so in philosophical language." (83; 258)

p Some critics of Marxism (for example, Jean Hyppolite and Jean-Yves Calvez) interpret it as only philosophical, ignoring Marxist political economy and scientific socialism as doctrines essentially different from philosophy. Others refuse to accept that Marxist philosophy exists, citing the fact that Marxism rejects traditional philosophies and philosophy in general in the old sense of the term. But the opponents of Marxism ignore the dialectics of that negation. A critique of that antiscientific interpretation of Marxism and the need to grasp the Marxist approach to past philosophy raise the following questions: what is the Marxist negation of traditional philosophies? What is the Marxist view of philosophy as a system?

p The Marxist negation of traditional philosophies rejects the fact that they all oppose philosophy to nonphilosophical (and especially practical) activity and nonphilosophical study. To avoid the error of oversimplification, we must remember that this opposition, typical, first and foremost, of rationalist philosophies and to a certain degree criticized by pre-Marxian materialists and by empiricists, records obvious differences between the philosophical and the nonphilosophical. Admittedly, those are substantial, but authors of philosophical systems made an absolute of them and ruled out the moment of identity inherent in specific difference. But distinction and identity form a dialectical unity, and they are both important as aspects of that correlation. To cite the example quoted in Engels’ letter to Conrad Schmidt, the substantiality of the difference between man and woman implies their substantial identity. But the difference between an apple tree and the moon, for 85 all its ovious and many-sided nature, is a meaningless statement if it does not demonstrate any substantial identity. This does not mean that the term “opposition” is alien to dialectical materialism. On the contrary, the point is to understand it dialectically and reject its antidialectical interpretation which is usually totally negative. Essentially, that is a specific expression of the more general fundamental distinction between specific and abstract negation.

p Opposition of the philosophical to the nonphilosophical in pre-Marxian philosophy was to a certain degree justified by historical considerations, although it was exaggerated out of all proportion. But it was already an anachronism in the 19th century. On the one hand, philosophy realized that it could no longer be a passive observer of social upheavals. On the other, the great scientific discoveries proved ad oculns that nonphilosophical studies are of great importance for philosophy. Philosophical reason began to realize that it did not rise above the unreasonable empirical reality as pure, sovereign and self-assessing thought. The illusion of philosophy’s independence of everything nonphilosophical was shattered. "Philosophers," Marx wrote in his early works, "do not spring up like mushrooms out of the ground; they are products of their time, of their nation, whose most subtle, valuable and invisible juices flow in the ideas of philosophy. The same spirit that constructs railways with the hands of workers, constructs philosophical systems in the brains of philosophers." (1; 1, 195)

p Opposing the philosophical disdain of nonphilosophical reality, Marxism reveals the historical prospects of philosophy’s creative development through its union with nonphilosophical theory and the practical political struggle against everything philosophy condemned only speculatively, if at all. As Marx said, "Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it." (1; 3, 142) Marx condemns the speculative attitude to mankind’s real problems on the part of a self-sufficient and self-satisfied philosophy. He rejects Utopian reflections on the future of mankind and uses his criticism of capitalist reality to search for a way to the future based on laws and history. Marx does not regard his criticism of reality as a force independent of reality. On the contrary, he 86 connects that criticism with the already emerging liberation struggle of the proletariat in bourgeois society. Denning the scientific significance of that partisan position, Marx says: "In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the world’s own principles." (1; 3, 144)

p Those theses of Marx make it easier to fully grasp his last thesis on Feuerbach: philosophers only tried to explain the world in various ways whereas the task is to change it. To counter the many non-Marxist interpretations of that thesis one should stress the following: Marx does not at all reject the need for a philosophical explanation of the world. He is against reducing the mission of philosophy to the interpretation of that which exists because such self- restriction opposes philosophy to the struggle for a radical transformation of reality. Thus the true meaning of this thesis is a categorical imperative: to make philosophy a theoretical substantiation of the need for the revolutionary transformation of the world.

p Once again, the second major aspect of the Marxist negation of traditional philosophies is rejection of the opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study of reality. It is clear from the history of science that such study is never completed, its results reflect reality only approximately. Still, pre-Marxian philosophy believed its mission was to create a system of final knowledge independent of the subsequent development of cognition. It is perfectly obvious that philosophy borrowed that ideal of absolute knowledge, usually opposed to natural science and history, from, paradoxically enough, science itself—meaning, of course, not science in general but its historically definite form. For over 1,500 years both philosophers and nonphilosophical scientists regarded Euclid’s geometry as a totally complete system of axioms absolutely independent of experience and requiring no further development. Nobody ever stopped to think that geometrical axioms reflected actual relationships only approximately. Nobody dared even assume that a different geometry might exist. One should, of course, remember that the level of cognition achieved was made an absolute also in formal logic which was believed to have essentially exhausted its subject. But formal logic was a part of philosophy—the part which, unlike others, 87 was usually never questioned. This explains why philosophers readily likened philosophical knowledge in general to that part of it which appeared already complete.

p Thus philosophical systems directly expressed the opposition of philosophy to nonphilosophical study. Descartes tried to deduce the entire system of possible philosophical knowledge from cogito. Spinoza built his system more geometrico. Kant was right in showing that cogito was not a fundamental without premises because it implicitly presupposed "an awareness of the existence of other things outside myself". (73; 3, 201) Kant contrasted Spinoza’s axiomatic method to the thesis he himself proved: axioms and definitions in the mathematical sense of the term are impossible in philosophy. But he still tried to build a system of pure reason as a system of complete and absolute knowledge. Sharing the illusions of his predecessors, he wrote about his philosophy: "This system is unalterable, and I hope it will remain so forever." (73; 3, 29) He expected to hand his system over to posterity "as capital not to be increased further." (73; 5, 22)

p Fichte rejected Kant’s dualism and returned to cogito. But he saw the latter not simply as an axiom but as activity through which the Ego regarded itself and the nonEgo, the object of its activity. Therefore Fichte viewed the deductions of the system’s major categories also as creative activity by the absolute Ego, as its self-development.

p Like Kant, Fichte believed his system to exhaust the subject of philosophical study—in other words, he thought his system was the system of all possible philosophical truths. Schelling labored under the same illusion—but with regard to his own system, of course. According to Schelling, absolute autonomy is an attributive characteristic of the true philosophical system which "answers for itself and conforms within itself". (95; 25)

p Hegel made a brilliant attempt at building a system of dialectical idealism on the basis of a dialectical concept of development. He was right in stressing that it was precisely systems that had proven transient elements in past philosophies, because systems had been built by making an absolute of principles true only within certain bounds, outside which they are subject to dialectical negation. According to Hegel, philosophy is the self-consciousness of a definite historical era which is a necessary step in the self- 88 development of the "absolute spirit". Viewed from this angle, the transition to a new historical era also means the emergence of a new philosophy. But the philosophy of past eras is not simply forgotten. Freed from their historical limitations, the principles of past philosophies retain their significance for the entire subsequent development of philosophy. Therefore the negation of the preceding stage in philosophical development (we should remember, naturally, that Hegel refers mostly to the development of idealism) is also the assimilation of what has been accomplished and movement toward a new and higher stage of philosophical cognition. Truth is a process; it is knowledge in development, progressing from one definition to another, more specific definition, thus forming the developing system of categorial definitions. According to Hegel, "the true form in which truth exists can only be its scientific system". (64; 2, 6) Hegel thus arrives at a new concept of philosophical system; he rejects characteristics which his predecessors accepted as constituents.

p Hegel also tries to overcome the conviction that a philosophical system is deduced from an initial postulate. The system of categories in Hegel’s The Science of Logic is not simply a result of deduction; rather, deduction is regarded as a means of reproducing the objective process of development, interpreted as the self-development of the substantial spirit which becomes the subject-substance. Therefore, according to Hegel, the final result of a philosophical system is its beginning which, however, has completed its development, deployment and realization. It follows that all the previous philosophies must be regarded as moments of the system of true philosophy taking shape in history. "Thus philosophy," Hegel asserts, "is in development, and so is the history of philosophy." (64; 13, 42) This understanding of philosophy (and the history of philosophy) as a developing system is Hegel’s outstanding contribution to the development of philosophical knowledge.

p Nevertheless, Hegel does not break with the tradition he so rightly criticizes, refusing to apply the concept of a developing system to his own philosophy. Hegel justified this conflict with his own principles by asserting that his historical era is the final stage in the philosophical development of mankind. Hegel’s idealism theoretically predetermined the contradiction between his dialectical method and 89 metaphysical system; this contradiction entails a restricted retrospective interpretation of the development of philosophy. For, according to Hegel, philosophy is the self- consciousness of the divine absolute, and its temporal development merely reflects that which is always within it. The "absolute idea" comprehends itself through the intellectual activity of mankind in the course of world history, and development ceases as a result. Thus the history of philosophy, just as the philosophy of history, is a game the divine being plays with humans, the game Hegel mischievously calls the guile of world reason.

p Working on his system as an encyclopedia of philosophical sciences, Hegel inevitably comes to oppose natural philosophy to natural science, the philosophy of history to the science of history, the philosophy of law to law as a science, etc. Hegel’s speculative system is realized by making an absolute of the achieved level of scientific knowledge, with its inevitable gaps. But philosophy refuses to accept blank spaces on the map of the universe, it fills them out by natural-philosophical or philosophical-historical speculation.

p Contrary to Hegel’s expectations, his doctrine proves the fallacy of any metaphysical system-building, that is, of any claims to a system of complete philosophical knowledge. As Engels says, "Systematics impossible after Hegel. The world clearly constitutes a single system, i.e., a coherent whole, but the knowledge of this system presupposes a knowledge of all nature and history, which man will never attain. Hence he who makes systems must fill in the countless gaps with figments of his own imagination..." (8; 400-01) In this case systematics is a metaphysical philosophical system claiming exhaustive knowledge of the world as a whole. While rejecting these systems as Utopian, Engels also emphasizes that "the world clearly constitutes a single system", thus revealing the real ontological content of the concept of a system in philosophy. Viewed from this angle, the concept cannot be reduced to rationally grouping, classifying and making a system of knowledge. The proposition that the world is a single integral whole, a system, is not merely a statement, it is rather a philosophical generalization based on the cognition of qualitatively different fragments of the universe. This generalization is justified only if it does not contradict new knowledge.

p The concept of the world as a system develops, changes and accepts corrections; that is why it contains no dogmatic precepts. In other words, to recognize the world as a single system means to recognize the fact that cognition of the world system will never be completed. This incompleteness is both quantitative and qualitative because it also applies to separate fragments. That is exactly why not only in metaphysics and natural philosophy but also in the natural and social sciences it is impossible to present the (historically limited) knowledge achieved as a complete system of final truths. One must note that already in the 18th century the more advanced scientists contrasted systematic experimental study to the absolute character of their contemporary philosophical systems. For example, Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, a prominent ally of 18th- century French materialists, believed that a physicist must possess the "spirit of the system" (I’esprit de systeme), but that he must not succumb to the temptation of building philosophical systems that ignore facts which do not fit them and that lead to conclusions which do not follow from a theoretical analysis of the facts. Lavoisier was fully aware of the importance of the systematic method in natural science, and he himself was working on a system of elements. Nevertheless he held that the "spirit of the system is dangerous for the physical sciences" because it obscures study, instead of throwing light on its objects. (54; 708)

p Negation of any dogmatic absolute of some system of interrelated philosophical precepts does not place in question the possibility or necessity of the systematic unity of philosophical knowledge. Philosophical systems are not born of the claims of outstanding philosophers. They are the inevitable result of the process of cognition. Like any knowledge in general, philosophical knowledge is limited by at least the level of its own development. But this limitation is removed by subsequent development which, of course, is not free of limitations either. According to Engels, a philosophical system "springs from an imperishable desire of the human mind—the desire to overcome all contradictions". (3; ///, 342) But resolving all contradictions is as impossible as expressing infinity in figures. Still, this consideration does not impose any limits on the systematic development of philosophical knowledge. As soon as this 91 law is recognized, philosophy in the old, traditional sense of the word comes to an end. Hegel’s system completes the philosophical development that preceded it, pointing—- albeit unconsciously—the way "out of the labyrinth of systems to real positive knowledge of the world". (3; ///, 342)

p Thus Engels contrasts the concept of systematic cognition to the metaphysical concept of the philosophical (and scientific) system. The former does not merely group— rationally, methodically (or even methodologically, epistemologically)—the available knowledge, but cognizes the systems nature inherent in all objects of both natural scientific and philosophical cognition. Naturally, systems cognition and building a system (not only in philosophy but also in any specific science) are entirely different things. But if the object of cognition is a qualitatively definite system, the study is aimed at grasping that system. In that case the development of the system of knowledge is the progressive cognition of a certain system of phenomena. This system of knowledge is synonymous with science in the modern sense of the word.

p Hegel contrasts science to the gathering of information. He sees the scientific quality, truth and the systems approach as concepts of one category. "There can be nothing scientific about philosophizing without a system,’^^1^^” he says. (64; 6, 22) Therefore, here his understanding of philosophy as a science opposed to the traditional "passion for the truth" coincides with the concept of a dialectically understood philosophical system. The latter, once again, is a developing system of philosophical knowledge.

p According to Hegel, the next major characteristic of a true philosophical system is the unity of its component principles. This unity is only possible inasmuch as it rules out the making of an absolute out of special, particular principles and consequently opposing them to one another. Apparently, that is what he means by the following thesis: "A philosophy based on a limited principle distinct from others is falsely understood as a system: in actual fact, the principle of true philosophy is that it comprises all particular principles. (64; 6, 22-23) Contrary to what its critics believe, this thesis does not justify philosophical eclecticism. It refers to the dialectical negation of all particular principles from the standpoint of the universal principle—in Hegel’s view_? the fundamental idealist precept of 92 his monistic system. Working on an idealist system, Hegel proves that the incompatibility of various idealist doctrines stems from treating special, particular idealist precepts as absolutes. He tries to synthesize idealist doctrines in the belief that the dialectical negation of their special principles turns them into compatible elements of the true philosophical system.

p Hegel has summed up the history of idealist philosophy. But because of its idealist content, his system contradicts the dialectical concept of development. The "absolute spirit" demands that philosophical development be totally completed. Despite all dialectical reservations, the principle of identity of being and thought reduces being to the ontologically interpreted thought and thus rules out the epistemological principle of reflection. Knowledge appears as identical with being; the system of knowledge is interpreted as a system of being that deploys itself and comprehends its definitions. Hegel essentially ignores the subjective human character of cognition and consequently, the contradictions between each system of knowledge and its subject, the latter as a system independent of cognition. The resolution of these contradictions and the emergence of new ones are a very important aspect in the development of cognition, and that fact also escapes Hegel. But the reflection of reality, the distortion of its image and the overcoming (within limits, of course) of that distortion are important points in the dialectics of cognition, the dialectics of truth and error.

p Lenin stresses that the image of reality which is being cognized is distorted not only in judgments, speculative conclusions and theories. The distortion of the object of study is rooted in the basic acts of cognition, in the very ability to cognize which is also the ability to err—because there is, of course, no special ability to err. (10; 38, 260) Overcoming that distorted reflection of reality and arriving at an adequate reflection of the object is a complex dialectical process. Hegel’s system has no place for it, because cognizing reason is idealistically interpreted as a substance that has become the subject, the absolute that possesses all possible knowledge.

p Since Hegel’s philosophy rejects the epistemological principle of reflection, it lacks a clear definition of the issue relating to the attitude of the systems of knowledge to 93 actual objects of study, which ai*e also systems. The concept of a system as an integral complex determining its components and itself determined by their interaction was first formulated by Marx in his study of the capitalist system of production relations. The significance of the preMarxian concepts of the system was quite limited and heuristic because they proceeded from the assumption that there existed immutable elements (similar to Democritus’ atoms). The study of a system was understood as an analysis of all possible combinations of immutable components. The whole was reduced to its component parts which determined it. Changes in the position of components— that is, structural changes—did not impart any new quality to them.

p The number of elements comprising each given system (or, more precisely, whole) was also regarded as immutable, established once and for all. The system itself was therefore considered balanced; the notion of a system in development appeared incompatible with the concept of a system. The question of a system’s origins was raised only occasionally—for example, by Kant (with reference to the solar system).

p Marx studies the laws of the development of the capitalist system in a totally different way. He examines the structural elements of bourgeois society as fundamentally different from the economic elements of the feudal system of production, despite the fact that the market economy, monetary commercial capital, profits, interest rates, rent and the like existed under feudalism too. For example, Marx describes commodity as an economic cell of the capitalist sytsem and not otherwise.

p Marx specially studies the expanded reproduction of the capitalist system, the transformation of its components, the resultant new qualitative characteristics of the capitalist system, new trends and contradictions, the concentration and centralization of capital—in other words, all the processes which determined, as proven later by Lenin, the evolution of the system of free capitalist competition into the system of monopoly capitalism, and subsequently statemonopoly capitalism. A continuation of Marx’s economic studies, Lenin’s theory of monopoly capitalism completes the substantiation of the historical inevitability of the transition from the system of capitalist socialization to the 94 socialist social system. According to Lenin, "socialism is merely the next step forward from state-capitalist monopoly. Or, in other words, socialism is merely state- capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the interests of the whole people and has to that extent ceased to be capitalist monopoly." (10; 25, 362) The history of the emergence and development of the socialist system has fully borne out that brilliant conclusion. Its predictive value is difficult to overestimate.

p The Marxist-Leninist economic analysis of capitalism is an exapmle of the systems approach which specifies, deepens and substantiates the dialectical-materialist theory of development. That is precisely what distinguishes it from the systems concepts which dominate today’s bourgeois sociology and usually negate the principle of development.

p The concept of system has now acquired universal significance. The systems approach is effectively applied to linguistics, biology, mathematics, mineralogy, logic, etc. The multitude of substantially different systems makes it increasingly difficult to offer a single comprehensive definition of the concept of system. Apparently, here we must also follow Marx’s instructions and regard a specific definition (in this case, of a system) as a unity of different, more or less abstract definitions. Thus the very definition of the system becomes a system too. We must proceed from this methodological position in discussing the issue of philosophical systems as well.

p If the concept of system has universal significance, it must be applicable to all philosophies. They are all systems, irrespective of the intentions of their authors or the ways they are set forth. Viewed from this angle, Kierkegaard’s, Nietzsche’s or Gabriel Marcel’s rejection of philosophical systems appears only as a subjective aspect of the issue which must not be confused with the objective, systematic content of their doctrines, no matter how they were set forth (as aphorisms, diary entries, etc.).

p Marxist philosophy was molded in the struggle against the metaphysical system-building which is inspired by the ideal of absolute knowledge, alien to the theory of development. Engels’ Anti-Dtihring is a graphic example of the Marxist struggle against that metaphysical tradition which dominated previous philosophy. But later Marxism also opposed the antidialectical, wholesale negation of the 95 systematic nature of philosophy. That negation is typical both of irrationalism and of most neopositivists who regard philosophy not as a theory but only as a method for analyzing statements. In Lenin’s words, "Marxism is the system of Marx’s views and teachings." (10; 21, 50) I repeat that both Marxism as a whole and each of its component parts is a system. The development of Marxism is a graphic illustration of a developing system.

p Thus the Marxist negation of traditional philosophical systems and philosophy in general in the old sense of the word substantiates a philosophical system of a new type. Marx and Engels created a dialectical-materialist philosophical system. As the Soviet philosopher F. V. Konstantinov rightly observes, their doctrine is "infinitely far from those philosophical and sociological systems which were built as systems of final and ultimate truths, that is, which claimed to have definitively solved all issues, whether there were enough facts for that or not". (26; 45) The understanding of a philosophical system as a system of both qualitatively and quantitatively immutable categories found its consummation in Kant’s table of categories. He interpreted the latter as eternal and immutable structural forms of thinking. That divorced them from the development of knowledge and thus turned them into purely subjective forms of knowledge with no objective content. Kant’s a priori approach was an inevitable logical conclusion from that antidialictical, formalistic understanding of categories. But the categories of logic to which he referred—just as philosophical and general scientific categories—are meaningful forms of knowledge: they comprise certain knowledge about reality which historically develops, becomes more comprehensive and reflects objective reality more adequately. Suffice it to point to the development of the category of causality which has clearly shown its meaningful character. Naturally, meaningful philosophical categories are concepts that are neither artificial nor academic distinctions.

p Hegel’s The Science of Logic justly raises the question about a system of developing categories. But his panlogism oversimplifies and distorts the development of categories, divorcing this process from the entire nonphilosophical development. Objective truths recorded in philosophical categories are obtained by the study of the entire diversity 96 of facts and not by the immanent self-development of understanding. Philosophical categories are historical stages in the development of cognition, they sum up in their own way the history of cognition. Like the categories of particular sciences (for example, the notion of mass in mechanics or of element in chemistry), philosophical categories approximately reflect objective reality.

p Hegel was right in criticizing the authors of 17th- century metaphysical systems for arbitrarily ascribing to being its fundamental, ontological definitions. Hegel argued that those definitions must be logically deduced as definitions of immanently developing being. Despite its dialectical approach, that position failed to lead Hegel to the historical understanding of the ontological. But epistemological historicism is necessary for a correct understanding of any knowledge (including the knowledge of the ontological definitions of being) as comprising a dual attitude: to the object of cognition and to the preceding level of cognition. In other words, cognition of an object both expresses a definite level in the development of cognition and is, to a certain degree, determined by the latter. That which cannot be cognized at one level of cognition becomes cognizable at a different historical stage. That is why all ontological definitions of objective reality should also be seen as limited by the level of knowledge attained, and therefore subject to change, correction, etc. Thus Marxist philosophy epistemologically interprets ontology and any knowledge at all, thus preventing it from becoming dogma and stimulating its further development.

p Marxist philosophy rejects both epistemological skepticism and the illusion that, unlike particular sciences, philosophy offers more authentic knowledge of reality. Since scientific philosophy proceeds from scientific data, it obviously cannot claim to possess some special knowledge that differs radically from scientific knowledge. It follows that scientific philosophy, like science in general, is a study, and its results reflect reality only approximately. Of course, one must remember that a philosophical study deals with those forms of universality, integrity and unity which particular sciences divide into parts, into limited fields of study. Thus those forms become more accessible to cognition. But the universalities, integrities and unities studied by philosophy are not abstract but concrete, divided 97 by particular sciences and united by philosophy. This means that philosophy strives to grasp the unity of qualitatively definite fragments of those system realities (nature, society, man, cognition, etc.) which, divided, are studied by individual sciences.

p All those reflections about the dialectical-materialist understanding of philosophy as a system can be illustrated by an example borrowed from Engels. In his Dialectics oj Nature he summed up the discussion of the infinite and its cognition and wrote: "The infinite is just as much knowable as unknowable." (9; 235) Does that mean that philosophy is fated to remain halfway on the road to the truth? Exponents of Nicolai Hartmann’s "new ontology" and many other bourgeois philosophers say yes. But the meaning of that quotation from Engels is totally different. First, it refers to the inexhaustibility of the infinite: everything that remains unknown in it is also infinite. Second, Engels sees the cognition of both the finite and the infinite as an essentially single process. According to him, "All real, exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the individual thing in thought from individuality into particularity and from this into universality, in seeking and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory." (9; 234)

p The unity between the cognition of the particular, transitory, and finite and that of the universal, eternal, and infinite can be found both in each particular science and in philosophy, since the latter is the most common form of the theoretical integration of knowledge, a specific summing-up of the history of cognition. That determines the historical boundaries of the scientific-philosophical system of knowledge. Since those boundaries are cognized and overcome by generalizing new scientific data and new historical experience, philosophy develops and rises to a new, higher level of knowledge. Smug complacency is alien to that forward movement; philosophy is forever on the go.

p Thus Marxist philosophy rejects any claim of absolute knowledge, but it differentiates between the latter and absolute truths—specific knowledge which can deal not only with the unique and particular but also with the universal. The specific is the unity of different definitions. Absolute truth is specific truth, or unity of relative truths. According to Lenin, "Each step in the development of science 98 adds new grains to the sum of absolute truth, but the limits of the truth of each scientific proposition are relative, now expanding, now shrinking with the growth of knowledge." (10; 14, 135)

p Relative truth is objective; therefore, to a certain degree (to be determined) it is also absolute truth. That explains why, for all its inevitable errors, the history of cognition is also the cognition of the absolute. But, according to Engels, "The infinity of the thought which knows the absolute is composed of an infinite number of finite human minds, working side by side and successively at this infinite knowledge, committing practical and theoretical blunders, setting out from erroneous, one-sided, and false premises, pursuing false, tortuous, and uncertain paths, and often not even finding what is right when they run their noses against it." (9; 234) Still, despite the relative, contradictory and incomplete nature of any knowledge, cognition of the absolute is an actual process. To quote Engels again, "All true knowledge of nature is knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and hence essentially absolute." (9; 234) In developing philosophy as a scientific-philosophical system of seeing the world, Marxism admits the qualitative change in the place that philosophy occupies in the system of philosophical knowledge. In this connection bourgeois philosophers bemoan philosophy’s fate, claiming that its role is constantly declining. But it is only the role of idealist philosophy that is being eroded. The part Marxist-Leninist philosophy plays in the system of developing scientific knowledge is growing, and it increasingly relies on joint research by philosophers who share the same views. The forms of scientific cooperation in philosophy are essentially similar to those of research in modern science. Such a philosophy is an open system—open, naturally, to real and not alleged philosophical accomplishments.

Philosophical generalizations of the world outlook and methodology stimulate integration of scientific knowledge in today’s democratic commonwealth of the sciences. Philosophy assimilates the achievements of the natural and social sciences. Particular sciences assimilate the results of philosophical development. Philosophical problems arise in almost every field of fundamental scientific research. Essentially new problems concerning both special scientific issues and those of philosophy, and the view of the world 99 emerge in the borderline areas separating philosophy from particular sciences. Scientific philosophy becomes social consciousness not only in content but also in the way it functions. Could it be that the future holds an even greater recognition of philosophy as a science, as a developing system of knowledge about science and the view of the world?