In this article you will get acquainted with a summary of Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism". This is an important work for the history of Marxist thought. Materialism and Empirio-Criticism is a philosophical work by Vladimir Lenin published in 1909. It was mandatory for study in all higher educational institutions of the Soviet Union as a landmark work in the field of philosophy of dialectical materialism, part of the curriculum called "Marxist-Leninist Philosophy".
Lenin argued that human perception correctly and accurately reflects the objective external world. The whole of Russian Marxism, whose philosophy is distinguished by a certain originality, is inclined to the same conclusion.
Fundamental contradiction
Leninformulates the fundamental philosophical contradiction between idealism and materialism as follows: “Materialism is the recognition of objects in themselves outside of consciousness. Ideas and sensations are copies or images of these objects. The opposite teaching (idealism) says: objects do not exist outside of consciousness, they are "connections of sensations".
History
The book, whose full title is Materialism and Empirio-Criticism: Critical Notes on a Reactionary Philosophy, was written by Lenin between February and October 1908, when he was exiled to Geneva and London, and published in Moscow in May 1909 by the Zveno publishing house. The original manuscript and preparatory materials have been lost.
Most of the book was written while Lenin was in Geneva, with the exception of one month spent in London, where he visited the British Museum library to access contemporary philosophical and natural science material. The index lists over 200 sources for the book.
In December 1908, Lenin moved from Geneva to Paris, where until April 1909 he worked on correcting evidence. Some passages were edited to avoid royal censorship. It was published in tsarist Russia with great difficulty. Lenin insisted on the rapid distribution of the book and emphasized that "not only literary, but also serious political obligations" were associated with its publication.
Background
This is one of the most important works of Lenin. The book was written as a reaction andcriticism of the three-volume work Empiriomonism (1904–1906) by Alexander Bogdanov, his political opponent in the party. In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris and expelled from the Central Committee, but he still retained an appropriate role in the party's left wing. He participated in the Russian Revolution and after 1917 was appointed director of the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences.
Materialism and Empirio-Criticism was republished in Russian in 1920 with an article by Vladimir Nevsky as an introduction. It subsequently appeared in more than 20 languages and acquired canonical status in Marxist-Leninist philosophy, like many of Lenin's other writings.
"Materialism and empirio-criticism" by Lenin: content
In Chapter I, "The Epistemology of Empirio-Criticism and Dialectical Materialism I," Lenin discusses the "solipsism" of Mach and Avenarius. This abstract (at first glance) remark had a great influence on the philosophy of Russian Marxism.
In Chapter II "The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism II" Lenin, Chernov and Basarov compare the views of Ludwig Feuerbach, Joseph Dietzgen and Friedrich Engels and comment on the criterion of practice in epistemology.
In Chapter III, "The Epistemology of Empirio-Criticism and Dialectical Materialism III," Lenin seeks to define "matter" and "experience" and considers the questions of causality and necessity of nature, as well as "freedom and necessity" and "the principle of economizing thought." Much time is devoted to this"Materialism and Empirio-Criticism" by Lenin.
In Chapter IV: "Idealist Philosophers as Co-Authors and Successors of Empirio-Criticism" Lenin examines Kant's criticism (both from the right camp and from the left), the philosophy of immanence, Bogdanov's empiricism, and Hermann von Helmholtz's criticism of the "theory characters".
In Chapter V: "The Last Revolution in Science and Philosophical Idealism," Lenin considers the thesis that the "physical crisis" has "disappeared from matter." In this context, he speaks of "physical idealism" and notes (on p. 260): "After all, the only property of matter, the recognition of which is associated with philosophical materialism, is the property of being an objective reality outside our consciousness."
In Chapter VI: Empirio-criticism and Historical Materialism, Lenin examines such authors as Bogdanov, Suvorov, Ernst Haeckel and Ernst Mach.
In addition to Chapter IV, Lenin turns to the question: "From what side did N. G. Chernyshevsky criticize Kantianism?"
What is empirio-criticism
This philosophy in its usual form was developed by Ernst Mach. From 1895 to 1901 Mach held the newly created chair of "history and philosophy of the inductive sciences" at the University of Vienna. In his historical-philosophical studies, Mach developed a phenomenalist philosophy of science that became influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. He initially viewed scientific laws as summaries of experimental events designed to make complex data understandable, but later emphasized mathematical functions as more useful.way of describing sensory phenomena. Thus scientific laws, although somewhat idealized, are more concerned with describing sensations than with reality, since it exists beyond sensations.
The goal she (physical science) has set for herself is the simplest and most economical abstract expression of facts. When the human mind, with its limited capacity, tries to reflect the rich life of the world of which it is a part, it has every reason to act economically.
Philosophical clarification
By mentally separating the body from the changing environment in which it moves, we are really trying to free the group of sensations to which our thoughts are attached and which are relatively more stable than others from the flow of all our sensations.
Mach's positivism also influenced many Russian Marxists such as Alexander Bogdanov. In 1908, Lenin wrote the philosophical work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (published in 1909). In it he criticized Machism and the views of the "Russian Machists". Lenin also cited in this work the concept of "ether" as the medium through which light waves propagate, and the concept of time as an absolute.
Empiriocriticism is a term for a strictly positivist and radically empirical philosophy, founded by the German philosopher Richard Avenarius and developed by Mach, which claims that all we can know are our sensations and thatknowledge must be limited to pure experience. This thesis is also heard in Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism.
Criticism of other philosophical schools
In line with empirio-critical philosophy, Mach opposed Ludwig Boltzmann and others who proposed an atomic theory of physics. Since no one can directly observe things the size of atoms, and since no atomic model was consistent at the time, Mach's atomic hypothesis seemed unfounded and perhaps not "economical" enough. Mach had a direct influence on the philosophers of the Vienna Circle and the school of logical positivism in general.
Principles
Mach is credited with a number of principles that define his ideal of physical theorizing - what is now called "Mach physics".
The observer must be based solely on directly observed phenomena (in accordance with his positivist inclinations). He must completely abandon absolute space and time in favor of relative motion. Any phenomena that appear to be related to absolute space and time (such as inertia and centrifugal force) should be considered as arising from the large-scale distribution of matter in the universe.
The latter is singled out, in particular, by Albert Einstein as the Mach principle. Einstein called it one of the three principles underlying the general theory of relativity. In 1930, he stated that he "considers Mach the forerunner of general relativity", although Mach, before his death, would apparently have rejectedEinstein's theory. Einstein knew that his theories did not fit all of Mach's principles, and no subsequent theory fulfilled them despite considerable efforts.
Phenomenological constructivism
According to Alexander Riegler, the work of Ernst Mach was a forerunner of constructivism. Constructivism believes that all knowledge is built, not acquired by the student.
Dialectical materialism - the philosophy of Marx and Lenin
Dialectical materialism is a philosophy of science and nature developed in Europe and based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
Dialectical materialism adapts Hegelian dialectics to traditional materialism, which explores the subjects of the world in relation to each other in a dynamic, evolutionary environment, as opposed to metaphysical materialism, which explores parts of the world in a static, isolated environment.
Dialectical materialism accepts the evolution of the natural world and the emergence of new qualities of being at new stages of evolution. As Z. A. Jordan, “Engels constantly used the metaphysical understanding that the highest level of existence arises and has its roots in the lower one; that a higher level represents a new order of being with its own irreducible laws; and that this process of evolutionary progress is governed by the laws of development, which reflect the basic properties of "matter in motion as a whole."
The formulation of the Soviet version of dialectical and historical materialism (for example, in Stalin's book "Dialectical andhistorical materialism") in the 1930s by Joseph Stalin and his associates became the "official" Soviet interpretation of Marxism.
"Materialism and empirio-criticism" by Lenin: reviews
What about the reviews of this work? This work was warmly received by Russian Marxists and is regarded by many as one of Lenin's main works. This book is very much loved by modern communists. Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", reviews of which are still being written, had a very great influence on Marxist thought.
Reviewers emphasize that in this work Lenin revealed the reactionary nature of empirio-criticism, emphasized its outdated character and the bourgeois spirit of positivism as such. Positivist pseudo-materialism, according to Lenin, was created to serve the interests of the bourgeoisie as a class, as well as to level the role of the clergy in order to put them at a disadvantage compared to the bourgeoisie.
At the same time, Lenin is praised for emphasizing the evolutionary nature of dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism, according to many reviewers, is an evolutionarily higher philosophy than positivism, and aims at the prevalence of new labor relations than those supported by positivist philosophers.
