I've been reading and thinking of answers to queries. This is a very
difficult area because many of the terms used have different meanings to
those in common usage. It's difficult to respond quickly.
However a quick reply can be made to Helena's request for info on Ilyenkov.
I've copied a paragraph from an article by David Bakhurst below. I have
heard Felix Mikhailov (a close friend and colleague speak on Ilyenkov) talk
about the very difficult conditions that they were working under. When
meeting to discuss philosophy they would know that within their group there
would be a member of the KGB. As a result writings cannot be taken at face
value given the difficult climate in which they were produced. Jan
Jan Derry
www.edu.bham.ac.uk/SAT/Derry.html
Helena writes,
Where can I find out who Ilyenkov was, why he was writing this in 1977,
whose work was he arguing with, who was his audience, etc?
David Bakhurst writes in his article; ‘Meaning, Normativity and the Life of
Mind’ in Language and communication, 17 (1), 33-51
‘Ilyenkov was important in the revival of Russian Marxist philosophy after
the dark days of Stalinism. In the early 1960s, he produced significant work
in two main areas. First he wrote at length on Marx’s dialectical method
(‘the method of ascent form the abstract to concrete’). This work, though it
now seems obscure , has an important political sub-text: its critique of
empricism is aimed at the positivism and scientism that Ilyenkov thought
prevalent in Soviet political and intellectual culture. Second, Ilyenkov
developed a distinct solution to what he called ‘the problem of the ideal’;
that is, the problem of the place of the non-material in the natural world.’
The latter involves a resolute defence of the objectivity of ideal
phenomena, which are said to exist as aspects of our spiritual culture,
embodied in our environment. …there are important continuities bewteen
Ilyenkov’s ideas and controversies in Soviet philosophy and psychology in
the 1920s and ‘30s, particularly…with Vygotsky’s socio-historical
psychology. ….After the insightful writings of the early 1960s, his
inspiration diminished as the political climate became more oppressive. … He
died in 1979, by his own hand.’
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