A

Abelard, Pierre (1079–1142)

French philosopher and theologian. In the dispute about the nature of universals, which expressed the struggle between materialism and idealism, he supported the idea of conceptualism, which is close to materialism. He also polemicized against scholastic realism. Abelard's book Sic et Non demanded that religious faith be restricted to "rational premises" and revealed irreconcilable contradictions in the utterances of church authorities. Under medieval conditions this book was of progressive significance and was condemned by the Catholic Church as heretical.

Abilities

In a broad sense, psychic properties of the individual which regulate behavior and serve as the condition of activity. Potentially, abilities are represented by a system of conditioned and unconditioned connections adapted for the performance of some activity. The formation of this activity, in which abilities manifest themselves, is at once the formation of the relevant system of nervous connections. Abilities already formed become the points of departure for the development of abilities of a higher level. The most universal abilities of the individual are sensory capacities, which improve during the entire course of phylogenetic and ontogenetic development.

In the special sense, abilities stand for the set of psychic properties that fit the individual for a definite, historically developed type of professional activity. In contrast to animals, whose abilities are a synthesis of generic and individual experience handed down through the mechanism of biological heredity, man's abilities are a product of social development. Their formation implies the acquisition by the individual of the forms of activity worked out by mankind in the course of its socio-historical development. Thus, man's abilities depend not only on the activity of the brain, but above all on the level of historical development attained by mankind. In this sense, man's abilities are closely associated with the social organization of labour and the pertinent system of education.

In exploiting society, the formation of abilities in working people is retarded in every possible way. At the same time, the position of the exploited classes is usually "justified" on the plea that the working people lack highly developed abilities. The harmonious development of versatile abilities to give every man access to a variety of professions and forms of activity is one of the principal tasks in the building of communism.

The Absolute

Used in idealist philosophy to denote the eternal, infinite, unconditional, perfect and unchanging subject that is "complete in itself", has no dependence on anything else, contains within itself everything that exists, and creates everything that exists. In religion the Absolute is God; in Fichte's philosophy it is the ego; in Hegel's it is the universal principle, the absolute spirit; in Schopenhauer's it is will; in Bergson's it is intuition. Dialectical materialism rejects the concept of the Absolute as unscientific.

The Absolute and the Relative

As a philosophical category, the Absolute is unconditional, independent, irrelative, complete in itself, and immutable; the Relative describes a phenomenon in its relations and connections with other phenomena and its dependence on them. On the whole, matter in motion is not conditioned or limited by anything; it is eternal and inexhaustible, that is, absolute. The infinite number of kinds of matter, the concrete forms of its motion that are constantly replacing each other, are temporary, finite, transitory, relative.

Every thing is relative but is a part of a whole and in that sense contains within itself an element of the absolute; that which is relative in one connection is absolute in another. From this it follows that the difference between the relative and the absolute is also relative.

Absolute Idealism

See Idealism, Objective.

The Abstract and the Concrete

Before Hegel, the concrete was understood mainly as the sensually perceived multiformity of individual objects and phenomena, and the abstract as the product of the mind alone. Hegel was the first to make use of the categories of the abstract and the concrete in that specific philosophical meaning which was later to be developed in Marxist philosophy—the concrete is a synonym of dialectic interrelations, of dismembered wholeness; the abstract is not counterposed to the concrete but is a stage in the development of the concrete itself; it is the unrevealed, undeveloped concrete. Hegel compares the relation between the abstract and the concrete to the bud and the fruit, the acorn and the oak tree.

According to Hegel, however, the concrete describes only the "spirit", the thought, the "absolute idea". Nature and the social relations of people are an illusory "other-being", an abstract revelation of individual aspects or moments in the life of the absolute spirit.

In Marxist philosophy the subject or vehicle of the concrete is material reality, the universe of sensually perceived finite things and phenomena. The concrete of an object is the objective interrelations of its aspects, determined by the essential, law-governed relations that underlie them; the concrete of cognition is the reflection of those real interrelations in a system of concepts that structurally and genetically reproduce the objective content of the object being cognized.

The abstract in real life is the expression of the non-whole, of the not fully unfolded, not fully developed and limited nature of any fragment of the whole, since the fragment is taken in isolation, divorced from its intermediary connections and from its former and subsequent history. Abstract knowledge, therefore, is counterposed to concrete knowledge because it is one-sided, expresses only one particular aspect of an object isolated from its connection with other aspects, isolated from that which determines the specific nature of the whole.

The purpose of theoretical knowledge, therefore, cannot and must not be merely the reproduction of the sensual multiformity; nor can that purpose be served by the isolation of certain "absolute" logical connections. As soon as such connections are isolated, they lose their concreteness and their truthfulness. Scientific theoretical cognition consists of a thought process that proceeds from the sensual multiformity of the concrete and achieves the reproduction of the object in all its essentiality and complexity.

The method for the reproduction of a whole in consciousness is the ascent from the abstract to the concrete; this is the universal form in which scientific knowledge unfolds, the systematic reflection of the object in concepts. The ascent from the abstract to the concrete, being a means of linking up concepts, is an integral system which reflects the objective dismemberment of the aspects of the object of study and the unity of all its aspects, and presupposes an original movement from the concrete, perceived by contemplation, to the abstract. During this latter process, concepts are formed which reflect individual aspects and properties of the object that can themselves be understood only insofar as they are regarded as parts of the whole, determined by its specific content.

It is essential to distinguish the concrete which is the object of study, the starting point of the investigation, the sensual concrete, from the concrete which is the end-product, the result of the investigation, the scientific concept of the object, the thought concrete.

Abstract Art

A formalist trend in modern art that does not depict real objects. The theoreticians of abstract art, such as Michel Seuphor, call a work of art abstract if it does not contain anything reminiscent of or in any way reflecting observed reality. Abstract art is the logical culmination of cubism, futurism, and other formalist trends.

One of the earliest abstract pictures was painted by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) in 1910. Another Russian abstractionist, Kazimir Malevich (1878–1935), called his art "suprematism". Abstract art soon emerged in France (Robert Delaunay) and Holland (the De Stijl group, 1917; Piet Mondrian; Theo van Doesburg, and others). Since the Second World War abstract art has flourished in many capitalist countries, especially in the United States (Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and others).

Its epistemological basis is subjectivism and idealism, in which art is divorced from life and the rational and emotional, intuitive aspects of the creative process are in antithesis, as are art forms and their ideological content. Abstract art rejects the reproduction in art of typical images of people, real events and man's environment, thus making it impossible to express the meaning and purpose of life.

Abstract art replaces the beauty and drama of reality inherent in all true art with the expression of some mystic "spiritual reality", "intuitive energy", "vibrations of the human subconscious". It is typical of abstract art to completely destroy the artistic image through extreme distortion of real forms, turning images into a chaos of meaningless patches, lines, dots, planes, and three-dimensional figures.

Abstract Identity

See Identity.

Abstraction

Aspect or form of cognition which mentally isolates properties of an object or connections between its properties from the others. Both the process and its result are called abstraction.

In the process of abstraction, it is sometimes necessary to disregard certain of man's subjective limitations. It is impossible, for instance, to "count" the entire series of natural numbers, but if we disregard that impossibility, we obtain the abstraction of actual, that is, "counted", "completed" infinity.

The various concepts and categories—matter, motion, value—are the result of abstraction. All cognition is inevitably connected with processes of abstraction. Without them it is impossible to reveal the substance or penetrate into the "depth" of an object. The breaking down of an object, the isolation of its essential aspects and their all-round analysis in their "pure" form—all result from the mental work of abstraction.

Lenin said the following about the significance of abstraction for cognition: "Thought proceeding from the concrete to the abstract—provided it is correct—does not get away from the truth but comes closer to it. The abstraction of matter, of a law of nature, the abstraction of value, etc., in short all scientific, correct, serious, not absurd abstractions reflect nature more deeply, truly and completely." (Lenin, Vol. 38, p. 171.)

The nature of abstraction, and specifically what is to be extracted in each definite case, and which aspects of the object mental abstraction is to proceed from, are determined by the tasks of man's practical and cognitive activity and by the nature of the object being investigated. Practice is the criterion by which the true scientific nature of the abstractions introduced into science is judged.

Dialectical materialism provides a scientific explanation of the process of abstraction and its results. Idealism often speculates on the difficulties connected with the thought processes of abstraction. Lenin warned that the possibility of idealism is inherent even in the most elementary abstraction. The conversion of the products of abstraction, concepts and ideas, into the substance and primary principle of the universe is typical of idealist philosophy. Idealism regards abstraction as the result of the activity of the mind, disconnected from the objective world and human practice. Such a conception is typical of modern positivism and other idealist trends.

In dialectical logic, abstraction is also used to mean something one-sided and undeveloped as distinct from the concrete.

Academy of Plato

An ancient idealist philosophical school founded by Plato in 387 B.C. near Athens, took its name from the grove in which it met. The influence of the Pythagoreans became great in the Older Academy (Speusippus and others, 4th–3rd centuries B.C.), and Plato's views were systematized on the basis of the mystic theory of numbers. The Academy played an important role in the development of mathematics and astronomy.

The Middle Academy (Arcesilaus and others, 3rd century B.C.) was influenced by scepticism. The New Academy (Carneades and others, 2nd–1st centuries B.C.) developed the scepticism of the Middle Academy and opposed the teachings of the Stoics on the criterion of truth.

In its later period the Academy of Plato eclectically combined the teachings of the Platonic, Stoic, Aristotelian, and other schools. In the 4th and 5th centuries the Academy entirely accepted the doctrine of Neo-Platonism (Plutarch of Athens). The Academy of Plato was closed in 529 by Emperor Justinian.

A new Academy of Plato was founded in Florence during the Renaissance (1459–1521), which, from the Platonic standpoint, combated scholasticized Aristotle and translated and commented on Plato's writings (Marsilio Ficino).

Accident

A temporary, transient, non-essential property of a thing as opposed to that which is essential or substantial. The term was first used by Aristotle and became widespread in scholasticism and in the philosophy of the 17th and 18th centuries. Not used in Marxist philosophy.

Acosta (da Costa), Uriel

Uriel Acosta, born in Portugal between 1585 and 1590, died 1640. Dutch philosopher, rationalist; received a Catholic education. He fled to Holland in 1614 and renounced Christianity for Judaism. He soon opposed Jewish religious dogmatism and accused the Pharisees, rabbis, of distorting the Mosaic faith.

In 1623 he wrote a treatise Sobre a mortalidade da alma do homem in which he denied the immortality of the soul and life beyond the grave. He was twice excommunicated from the synagogue for his views (1623 and 1633). Persecuted by the rabbis and the Dutch authorities, he committed suicide. His Exemplar humanae vitae criticizes official religion and the idea of natural law supposed to be inherent in man; this law joins people together by mutual love and serves as the basis for distinguishing good from evil. Acosta's ideas influenced Spinoza.

Action, Immediate and at a Distance

Opposite concepts employed to explain the general character of the interaction of physical objects. The concept of immediate action states that an effect on a material object can be transmitted only from a given point in space to the immediately adjacent point and within a finite period of time. Action at a distance admits transmission from a distance with instantaneous speed, that is, virtually outside time and space.

After Newton, this conception was widely accepted in physics, although Newton himself realized that the forces of action at a distance, gravitation for example, were merely a formal device enabling him to give a limitedly correct description of observed phenomena. Final confirmation of the principle of immediate action came with the evolution of the concept of a physical field, the equations of which describe the condition of a system at a given point and moment as depending directly on the condition at the immediately preceding moment and adjacent point.

Activity (psychic)

Concept denoting the function of the subject in its interaction with the object. Activity is a specific relation of a living body to its environment; it mediates, regulates, and controls relations between the organism and the environment, notably metabolism.

Activity is impelled by need, aimed at the object which can satisfy this need, and effected by a system of actions. It presumes that the body has mental powers but at the same time constitutes the basic cause for the origin of these powers and the motive force of their development.

The elementary form of activity should be distinguished from its highest form. The former is typical of animals and consists in instinctive adaptation of the body to its environment. The latter, which stems from the former and transforms it, is exclusively an attribute of man. The distinctive feature of the highest form of activity is man's deliberate effort to transform his environment.

Human activity has a social character and is determined by the social conditions of life. The basic and historically primary form of human activity is labour, by which man alters the shape of what is given by nature and "also realizes a purpose of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must subordinate his will" (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 178).

Human activity may be internal or external. Internal activity consists of specifically human operations with existing objects affected by movements of arms, hands, fingers, and legs. External activity proceeds "in the mind" by means of "mental actions", wherein man operates not with existing objects and not through physical movements, but with their images. Internal activity plans external activity. It arises on the basis of external activity and realizes itself through it.

Development of labour causes a differentiation between theoretical and practical forms of activity. Practical activity is aimed directly at altering some situations. The purpose of theoretical activity is to establish the method of this alteration, to discover the laws that govern it. Theoretical activity develops under the influence of practical activity and facilitates the fulfilment of its tasks.

According to the range of man's needs, there also arises a range of concrete types of activity, each of which usually embraces elements of external and internal, practical and theoretical activity.

Actualization

Reveals only one aspect of motion—the transition of existence from a state of potentiality to a state of reality. In scholasticism, Aristotle's explanation of actualization was bound to lead to the non-dialectical recognition of a stationary source of motion external to real being—the prime mover, or God as pure act.

The idea of the transition from the potential to the real is most fully expressed in the categories of materialist dialectics. The concept of actualization is not used in Marxist philosophy.

Actuality

Whatever exists and develops, contains its own essence and laws, and the results of its own action and development. Such actuality is objective reality in all its concreteness. In that sense, actuality differs not only from the seeming, fancied, and fantastic, but also from the purely logical, reasoned, albeit entirely correct. It also differs from the merely possible or probable but as yet nonexistent.

Adequate

In the theory of knowledge, images and knowledge which correspond to the original object and are therefore authentic. The problem of the degree of adequacy—that is, the exactness, profundity, and fullness of reflection—and the process of obtaining the most adequate knowledge is connected with the problem of the correlation between relative and absolute truth and with the criterion of true knowledge.

Aenesidemus (1st century B.C.)

Greek sceptic philosopher, a pupil of Pyrrho and a follower of Plato's Academy, who upheld scepticism. According to Aenesidemus, it is impossible to have any authentic knowledge of things because any assertion can be countered by an opposite assertion. It is best to renounce all assertions, because only in this way is it possible to attain inner satisfaction. One should act as everybody else usually acts, or as prompted by indispensable need. His philosophy was a product of the disintegration of classical Greek philosophy.

Aesthetic and Ethic

Specific aspects of man's relation to reality. The ethic expresses in moral evaluations—the good and the evil, the just and the unjust, duty, honour—the actions of individuals and groups. The aesthetic is a sensory embodiment of those aspects of objective social relations, including the assimilation of the forces of nature, which promote or do not promote the harmonious development of the individual, his free creation of the beautiful, his realization of the noble and heroic, his struggle against the ugly and the base.

The aesthetic also includes the subjective aspect—man's enjoyment of the free display of his creative abilities and powers, of the beauty of the products of his creative activity in all spheres of social and private life: labour, social relations, everyday life, culture. The arts are the fullest and most generalised expression of the aesthetic. They were singled out by the social division of labour from practical activity and made into an independent sphere of artistic creation.

The unity of the aesthetic and the ethic is an objective law, appearing both in life and in the arts. In the words of Belinsky, beauty is morality's own sister; if a work of art is truly artistic, it is moral by the same token. The unity of the aesthetic and the ethic is a most important principle of socialist realism. Positive artistic images reflecting the life of people, their nobility and beauty, command respect, love, and sincere admiration. Negative images arouse feelings of moral condemnation and disgust.

Hence, the unity of the aesthetic and the ethic is the basis of the educational and ideologically transforming role of the arts in social life.

Aesthetic Feelings

Emotional conditions arising in the process of aesthetic perception of the phenomena of reality or works of art. Since man's artistic attitude is ideologically emotional, it is neither exhausted by aesthetic feelings nor can it exist without them.

Aesthetic feelings are a product of human historical development, an active assimilation of the aesthetic properties of both reality and the arts. They arise as an apprehension of the beautiful, the noble, the tragic, or the comic, according to the type of aesthetic property. Works of art which materialize aesthetic feelings in images are an effective means of ideological or emotional education. They are meant to be a source of human joy and inspiration.

Aesthetics

The science of the law-governed aesthetic assimilation of the world by man, of the essence and laws of development and the socially transforming role of art as a special form of this assimilation.

Aesthetics originated about 2,500 years ago in the period of slave-owning society in Babylon, Egypt, India, and China. It was greatly developed in ancient Greece (Heraclitus, Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) and ancient Rome (Lucretius, Horace). Thinkers of the Renaissance (Petrarch, Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Dürer, Bruno, Montaigne) developed humanistic and realistic trends in the struggle against medieval mystic doctrines of "divine beauty".

The theoreticians of the Enlightenment (Burke, Hogarth, Diderot, Rousseau, Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder), and—continuing their tradition—Schiller and Goethe, affirmed that the arts are linked with real life; thus they combated the reactionary ideas of aristocratic aesthetics.

Kant, Schelling, and Hegel attempted to treat a number of aesthetic problems dialectically, though their theories remained idealistic and contradictory. Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, and Dobrolyubov overcame these contradictions in several respects. The revolutionary-democratic elaboration of aesthetics on the laws of realist art and its principles, ideological orientation and kinship with the people, and the struggle against "pure art", formed the theoretical basis of critical realism.

Thus, the history of aesthetics is a conflict between materialism and idealism reflecting the struggle of progressive and reactionary classes at each historical stage. Idealists considered aesthetic phenomena spiritually born; materialists sought their objective basis in nature and human life. Pre-Marxian materialism, being contemplative, could not create scientific aesthetics.

With the birth of Marxism, the materialist understanding of historical development and dialectical materialist epistemology spread also to aesthetics. This provided the basis for elaborating the cardinal problems of aesthetics and combating distortions.

The subject-matter of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics is determined by its aim—man's aesthetic assimilation of the world. Its specific subject consists of three inseparable aspects: the aesthetic in objective reality; the subjective-aesthetic, aesthetic consciousness; the arts.

Aesthetics studies the essence, regularities, and concrete manifestations of all these aspects in their dialectical unity.

Contrary to idealist and vulgar-materialist theories, Marxist-Leninist aesthetics holds that the objective basis of aesthetic assimilation is man's practical and purposeful creative activity. In this activity man's social essence and creative forces are harmoniously, comprehensively, and freely developed.

The main aesthetic categories—the beautiful and the ugly, the noble and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the vulgar—appear as peculiar manifestations of aesthetic understanding of the world in all fields of social existence.

The subjective aspect of aesthetic assimilation—feelings, tastes, evaluations, experiences, ideas, ideals—is regarded as a specific form of the reflection and embodiment of objective aesthetic processes and relations. Aesthetics studies the ways diverse aesthetic feelings arise in humans.

Marxist-Leninist aesthetics is the theoretical foundation of aesthetic education in socialist society.

Artistic creativity is part of aesthetics and its essential aspect. Marxist-Leninist aesthetics regards the arts as a unity of creative work according to the laws of beauty and artistic consciousness and reflection. It studies: the origin of the arts; their essence and relation to other forms of social consciousness; partisanship of the arts and their kinship with the people; their historical laws; the peculiarities of the artistic image; the interrelation of form and content; artistic method and style; the principles of socialist realism and its socio-transforming role.

The main tasks of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics are scientific analysis and generalisation of contemporary aesthetic processes and the solution of the problem of forming the comprehensively developed, harmonious individual of communist society.

Aesthetics and Technology

Concepts reflecting the closely related aspects of human activity. The aesthetic feelings of man were formed in the course of his labour activity, and the aesthetic aspects of labour were known to man long ago. The aesthetic qualities of the instruments of labour, of the surroundings, the form and colour of machines and instruments, the interior of the place of work, play an important role in production. The artistic principle should inspire labour and educate a communist attitude to it. Many products of technical creation possess aesthetic qualities, for they may express an ideological-emotional content as well as an aesthetic ideal. The technological and working qualities required of industrial products must be combined with aesthetic demands, and purposefulness with beauty.

The arts, too, cannot dispense with technology. The development of technology makes possible the appearance of new forms of art, cinema, and influences the most "ancient" of its forms: building machines in architecture, new materials and new methods of treating them in sculpture, new musical instruments, stage equipment. Technology plays also a great role in the dissemination of the arts: radio, television, polygraphy industry. Just as capitalist society is faced with the perspective of the aesthetic pauperization of humanity, which gave rise to the pessimistic theory of "the death of art", its incompatibility with scientific and technical progress, in the same way the society which is advancing towards communism is distinguished by ever deeper penetration of aesthetics into the realm of technology, and of the latter into the arts.

Affection

An experience that is powerful and tempestuous in its action but differs from mood or passion in being relatively brief—rage, horror. Affection is accompanied by jerky, expressive movements, specific mime and gesticulation, and vocal reactions: crying, shouting. Sometimes, on the contrary, numbness sets in. The outward expression of affection and its profundity depend to a great extent on individual peculiarities, in particular on the training of will and the typological features of higher nervous activity. A person in a state of affection is in the power of whatever caused it, "narrowed consciousness"; hence it interrupts the course of intellectual processes and disrupts control over behavior. Affection can be overcome only by considerable will-power, and more easily in the early stages.

Affectivity

A term used by Kant to mean the property possessed by things to affect the sense-organs. The concept of affectivity expresses the materialist aspect of Kantianism; sense experience is acquired only as the result of the action of "things-in-themselves" on the senses. This concept is counterposed in the Kantian system to the concept of transcendental apperception. Nevertheless, Kant still insisted that things are unknowable. The concept was criticised by the Neo-Kantians and all those who turned Kantianism into consistent idealism.

Agnosticism

A doctrine that completely or partially denies the possibility of knowing the Universe. The term was first used by the British scientist Thomas Huxley. Lenin laid bare the epistemological roots of agnosticism and said that the agnostic separates substance from its appearance, that he does not go farther than sensations, remains aloof from phenomena, and refuses to recognise anything apart from sensations as authentic. The attitude of compromise adopted by agnosticism leads its supporters into idealism.

Agnosticism emerged in the form of scepticism in Greek philosophy and was given its classic form in the philosophy of Hume and Kant. A variety of agnosticism is the theory of hieroglyphs. Agnosticism is widespread in contemporary idealist philosophy. The champions of pragmatism and positivism have rid Kantian philosophy of the "thing-in-itself" and attempt to prove the impossibility of knowing the world as it exists in itself. Agnosticism proceeds from an attempt to limit science, reject logical thought, and distract attention from cognition of the objective laws of nature and, especially, of society. Practice, scientific experimentation, and material production are the best refutation of agnosticism. If people cognise certain phenomena and then deliberately reproduce them, no place is left for the "unknowable thing-in-itself".

Agrippa

Roman sceptic philosopher, 1st–2nd centuries, to whom are ascribed five arguments, tropes, on the unknowability of the Universe. Agrippa's tropes touch on problems of rational knowledge and contain elements of dialectics, which Lenin mentioned.

Ajivika

A trend in ancient Indian philosophy denying the existence of the soul. Ajivika was originally connected with Buddhism, of which it was probably a variant, since it is first mentioned in early Buddhist canonical texts. The doctrine was fathered, according to tradition, by the wise man Markali Deva, believed to have lived in the 6th–5th centuries B.C. Ajivika is based on the atomistic theory which determines the other ideas and conceptions of the theory. According to Ajivika there are four varieties of atom, which make up the four elements of nature—earth, water, fire, and air; all atoms can combine. "Life" is not something atomic but is that which perceives and cognises combinations of atoms. The varieties of atoms and life constitute the five essences of which everything in existence is composed. Atoms are eternal, indivisible, were not created, and cannot be destroyed. One variety of atom cannot be transformed into another variety. Atoms can move in any direction. The properties of a body depend on the kind of atoms it is composed of, the number of them in a unit of volume, and the way in which they are combined. Ajivika was a realist, and, in general, a materialist theory that opposed the ancient Indian religions and Buddhist philosophy.

Akhundov, Mirza Fatali (1812–1878)

Azerbaijanian writer, enlightener, and public figure. Akhundov's world outlook was formed under the influence of progressive Russian social thought. He was a materialist who recognised the existence of only one material substance, which is its own cause and the basis of all processes and phenomena in the world. Akhundov's theory of knowledge proceeded from a recognition of the knowability of the world; he also defended the position of the sensualists.

His materialism was combined with atheism; he criticised Islam, stressed the incompatibility of faith and knowledge and the reactionary role of religion in the history of society. Akhundov was the founder of Azerbaijanian literature, dramaturgy, and theatre. He was a true patriot, a champion of the friendship of the peoples, and advocated the establishment of fraternal, international relations between the peoples of the Trans-Caucasus and the Russian people. Akhundov's main philosophical work was Three Letters of the Indian Prince Kamal-ud-Daula to the Persian Prince Jamal-ud-Daula and the Latter's Answers to Them.

Al Kindi (c. 800–879)

Arab philosopher, astrologer, mathematician, and physician, founder of Arabic Aristotelian philosophy, honored with the title of "The Philosopher of the Arabs". Al Kindi wrote commentaries to Aristotle's works (Organon, et al.) and a number of papers on metaphysics. His world outlook was based on the idea of the universal causal connection due to which everything, if completely understood, reflects the entire Universe as in a mirror. Orthodox believers in the Koran regarded Al Kindi as a heretic. Only fragments of his numerous writings have been preserved.

Alberdi, Juan Bautista (1810–1884)

Argentine statesman, writer, philosopher, and sociologist. His Bases para la Organización Política de la Confederación Argentina (1852) greatly influenced the state structure of Argentina and formed the basis of the country's Constitution. His famous book El crimen de la guerra was written under the impression of the horrors of the Paraguayan war (1864–70) and gave him a place in history as an impassioned champion of peace and fraternity on earth. He declared that aggressive wars were crimes. His understanding of war was influenced by the ideas of Grotius. Alberdi's weakness was his approach to the problem of war from the standpoint of law and Christian morality.

Albert the Great (b. 1193–1207; d. 1280)

German philosopher, naturalist, and theologian. He and his disciple, Thomas Aquinas, revolted against the interpretation of Aristotle's philosophy in the spirit of Averroism and against the progressive scholastic schools; he used Aristotelian ideas to elaborate a single philosophical-theological system. Apart from his purely philosophical writings (Summa Theologiae), Albert the Great wrote a number of treatises on natural history in which, side by side with biblical myths and fantastic legends, there are also direct observations of nature.

Alembert, Jean Le Rond d' (1717–1783)

French 18th-century Enlightener, philosopher, and mathematician, associate of Diderot, editor of the mathematics section of the Encyclopaedia. He attempted to expound the origin and development of human cognition and to classify the sciences mainly on the basis of Francis Bacon's principles. Philosophically, d'Alembert was an exponent of sensualism and opposed Descartes' theory of innate ideas. However, his sensualism was not consistently materialistic. He denied that thought is a property of matter and believed that the soul exists independently of matter. His views were thus dualistic. He also denied that things were cognizable. In contrast to other French Enlighteners, he maintained that morals do not depend on the social environment. He pronounced God to be the creative substance. Diderot criticised d'Alembert's inconsistent sensualism in his works, including Le Rêve de d'Alembert. Essai sur les éléments de philosophie (1759) was d'Alembert's main philosophical work.

Alexander, Samuel (1858–1938)

British neo-realist philosopher, author of the idealist theory of emergent evolution. He regarded space-time as being the primary matter of the Universe and identified it with motion.

A series of unforeseeable qualitative leaps causes the consecutive emergence of matter, life, the psyche, "tertiary values", "angels", and God from this space-time. Emergent evolution is guided by an ideal impulse which is perceived as a striving towards the new. Alexander's views contradict modern science. His chief works are Space, Time, and Deity (1920), Art and the Material (1925), and Beauty and Other Forms of Value (1933).

Alexandrian School of Philosophy

A school, 1st century B.C. to 6th century A.D., took its name from the city of Alexandria, founded by Alexander the Great; the term occurs in literature in two different meanings. First, it is used to mean the Judaic philosophy of Philo of Alexandria, who lived there in the 1st century B.C. and used the methods of stoic Platonism to interpret the Bible. This trend assumed Plato's ideas to be the basis of existence but understood them to be a creative fire that poured over the entire Universe, creating all living and inanimate things in it. All early Christian theology was strongly influenced by this stoic Platonism and was at first unable to apply purely monotheistic methods. Origenes and Clement, both with Alexandrian connections, were important proponents of this school of thought.

Secondly, there has always been a wider conception of the Alexandrian School in literature; it was made to include pagan Neo-Pythagoreanism and the eclectic schools of the first centuries and also the whole of Neo-Platonism, although that trend was current in Rome, Syria, and Pergamum as well as in Alexandria itself and had pagan as well as Christian forms. It is more correct to use the term Alexandrian School for the school of Philo and the Alexandrian Christian thinkers of the 2nd and 3rd centuries.

Algebra of Logic

A division of mathematical logic based on the use of algebraic methods for the study of logical objects—classes and propositions. The proposition expresses, on the one hand, a thought, judgement, and, on the other, a truth or a falsity, true or false. Thus the propositions, "The Volga falls into the Caspian" and "2×2=4" express different thoughts, but both express a truth, that is, they have truth-value truth. Algebra of Logic examines propositions exclusively from the standpoint of their truth-value and regards statements as equal if they have the same truth-value. It uses symbols. In addition to the symbols used for the propositions themselves, there are symbols for operations—conjunction, disjunction, implication, and negation—with the aid of which some expression in Algebra of Logic is transformed into others.

An expression is complex if it is formed from others by an algebraic operation and simple if the contrary is true. Two expressions are equal by interpretation if they have the same meaning irrespective of the combinations of the simple statements contained in them. Thus A→B is equal by interpretation to ¬A ∨ B because all four possible combinations of true and false as applied to A and B (true/true, true/false, false/true, false/false) give A→B the same meaning as ¬A ∨ B. A number of problems emerge from concepts introduced by Algebra of Logic, and its theory is devoted to the solution of them. Historically, it came into being as the algebra of classes and was only later interpreted as the algebra of propositions. The work done by V. Shestakov and C. Shannon has given Algebra of Logic extensive application in the theory of electric and contact-relay systems.

Algorism (or Algorithm)

A basic concept in logic and mathematics. The term algorism derives from the Latin transcription of al-Khwarizmi, the surname of Muhammad ibn Musa, the 9th-century Central Asian mathematician. Algorism is a set of instructions for the execution of a system of operations in a certain sequence which will give the solution of all problems of a similar type. The simplest examples of algorism are the arithmetic rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, the extraction of square roots, the finding of the greatest common measure for any two natural numbers. We are actually making use of algorism whenever we master a means of solving a problem of a general type, that is, one which can be used for a whole class with varying conditions.

Since algorism, as a system of instructions, is formal in character, a programme for a computer can always be evolved on the basis of it, and the problem solved mechanically. The solutions of a large group of problems by algorism and the elaboration of the theory of algorism are urgently required in connection with the development of computer techniques and cybernetics.

Alienation

A concept describing both the process and the results of converting, in definite historical conditions, the products of human and social activity (products of labour, money, social relations) and also man's properties and capabilities into something independent of them and dominating over them; also the transformation of some phenomena and relations into something different from what they are in themselves, the distortion in people's minds of their actual relations in life. The sources of the alienation idea can be traced to French and German enlighteners. Objectively, this idea expressed protest against the inhumane character of private property relations. This aspect of the problem was reflected in German classical philosophy, although here stress was laid on other aspects.

In the works of Fichte, alienation of the subject is the creation of the world by the abstract Ego. Hegel developed most fully the idealistic interpretation of alienation. The objective world appears as the "alienated spirit". The purpose of development, according to Hegel, is to overcome this alienation in the process of cognition. At the same time, Hegel's understanding of alienation contained rational surmises about some distinctive features of labour in an antagonistic society. Feuerbach regarded religion as alienation of the human essence and idealism as alienation of reason. By reducing alienation merely to consciousness, he found, however, no real way for its abolition, since he saw it only in theoretical criticism.

Marx devoted much attention to analysing alienation in his early works, especially in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844). He proceeded from the principle that alienation characterises contradictions at a definite stage in society's development. He associated the appearance of alienation with private property and an antagonistic division of labour. Thus understood, alienation embraces all human activities, because each kind becomes the monopoly of an isolated group of people whose activity is alien to all other members of society. Marx focused attention on the alienation of labour, with the help of which he characterised the system of capitalist relations and the position of the proletariat: the relation of the worker to the non-worker and their relation to labour and its products, the material character of social relations, the domination in society of "inhuman forces", the moral and physical degradation of the worker. Moreover, he disclosed the real ways for eliminating alienation, abolition of capitalist property. Recognition of the alienation of labour as the basis of all other forms of alienation, including ideological, made it possible to understand that distorted, false consciousness is a result of the contradictions in real social life. The dependence of theory on practice was thus established and, on this basis, philosophy was reconstructed. In his classical works of the 1850s and 1860s, Marx replaced the category of alienation used in his early works by a whole system of concepts, among which alienation also appears as a concrete characteristic of capitalism's relations of production.

All-Round Development of the Individual

An essential condition for the building of communist society. All-Round Development of the Individual implies harmonious development of spiritual qualities, moral purity, and physical perfection in the individual. The harmoniously developed individual has a scientific world outlook and profound knowledge. He is free from survivals of the past, treats labour as a prime and vital necessity, voluntarily observes the moral code of the builder of communism, and is highly developed physically.

Creation of the material and technical basis of communism and the development of socialist social relations into communist relations are the main premises for All-Round Development of the Individual. The Programme of the CPSU and other Party documents stress that it is an objective and natural process in socialist society. It is dictated above all by the needs of material production, inasmuch as modern technology requires versatile operators. The conditions for All-Round Development of the Individual are created by the achievements of socialism and the gradual transition to communism. All working people will have equal opportunities for creative labour and a free and equal choice of occupation, taking into account the interests of society. Increased leisure offers wide opportunities for developing the individual's gifts and talents. All-Round Development of the Individual is intimately connected with cultural and technical progress, elimination of the essential distinctions between town and country, between mental and physical labour. Lenin said it is essential "to educate school people, give them all-round development and an all-round training, so that they know how to do everything." Ability to perform many different types of work in communist society does not, however, rule out division of labour and specialization.

Alogism

The rejection of logical thinking as a means of arriving at the truth; alogism is the substitution of intuition, faith, and revelation for logic. It is used by reactionary philosophers to justify irrationalism, mysticism, and fideism. Alogism is refuted by man's entire social experience and by the history of science.

Altruism

Selfless service rendered to other people, readiness to sacrifice one's own interests for the sake of others. The term was introduced into philosophy by Comte. Altruism is the opposite of egoism. In bourgeois ethics, the concept of altruism merges with the religious moral teaching of love for one's neighbor, forgiveness; it ignores the social, class basis of morality. Only communist morality, which rejects violence and exploitation, can reveal the real nature of altruism as the harmonious unity of personal and social interests.

Amphiboly

A logical error resulting from the unclarity or ambiguity of a grammatical construction, particularly the use of one grammatical proposition or turn of speech with different meanings in the same passage. Amphiboly is to be distinguished from homonymy, or mistakes arising out of the ambiguity of individual words.

Analogue

A term used in the theory of knowledge to mean the ideal object (concept, theory, research method) that adequately reflects some material thing, process, or law. In modern philosophical literature, analogue is also used to mean a material object, including the various forms of human material experience, which is a real basis for any theory, any law in the theory of knowledge, or any rule of logic. For instance, the commonest, most usual relations between things constitute the objective basis for judgements, speculations, and other forms of thought. By finding an analogue, the genesis of some ideal phenomena is established, which is very important in the struggle against the various forms of idealism. The explanation of the specific nature of a methodological law, rule of logic, presumes the all-round analysis of their functions in a definite system of knowledge.

Analogue Simulation

The reproduction of the properties of an object under study by its analogue, specially constructed according to set rules. This analogue is called a model. If it has the same physical nature as the object, the model is constructed according to the principle of the physical analogue simulation; and if it has a different nature, then it is constructed according to the principle of the mathematical analogue simulation. In any case, its functioning is described by a system of equations similar to that system which describes the aspects studied in the original.

For the construction of a model, some analogy between the aspects and processes of the object and of the model is required. In cases where it is expensive, difficult, or impossible to study real objects, analogue simulation facilitates the analysis of the processes in the original. The advantages of a model are that it is easy to produce and that it is possible to arbitrarily and quickly change the model's working regime and characteristics, to affect the necessary measurements in laboratory conditions. Electronic simulation devices are now in particularly wide use. In this case, the model is an electronic scheme of the equation describing the real process. The methods of constructing such models are worked out in the theory of similarity and the theory of analogue simulation. The principle of analogue simulation is one of the foundations of cybernetics and is widely employed in calculating the trajectories of ballistic missiles, in the study of the working regime of machines and enterprises, in the building of "teaching" automatic machines, in the study of the behavior of biological objects, and even of man's mental activity. However, in analyzing the possibilities of these systems, one must not forget the limits of the analogy between model and object. To ignore these limits would mean to fall into gross technical and philosophical errors.

Analogy

The establishment of similarity in certain aspects, properties, and relations between dissimilar objects; conclusions by analogy are made on the basis of such similarities. The usual scheme of conclusion by analogy is the following: Object B possesses the properties a, b, c, d, e; object C possesses the properties b, c, d, e; it is, therefore, possible that object C also possesses the property a. Analogy is of great value in research work.

At the early stages of the development of society, analogy takes the place of observation and experiment, and conclusions are drawn from external and secondary aspects. Most of the natural philosophical constructions of the ancients were formed in this way. In its further development, analogy lost its significance as a means of explanation. It still retains, however, its role as a guide to the solution of problems. Christian Huygens, when he discovered an analogy in the behavior of light and sound, got the idea of the wave theory of light; James Maxwell extended the idea to the characteristics of the magnetic field. Viewed in isolation, analogy is not proof, because the conclusions are mere probability. It has to be used jointly with other forms of cognition.

To increase the probability of a conclusion by analogy, the following are required: (1) Analogy must be based on essential features and on the greatest possible number of common properties in the objects being compared; (2) there must be the greatest possible connection between the property on which a conclusion is being formed and the properties common to the objects; (3) Analogy must be used to establish the similarity of the objects in a definite connection and not in all respects; (4) since the immediate purpose of analogy is to establish the similarity of objects, it only points to differences, and must be supplemented by their investigation. In modern science, analogy is widely applied in the theory of similarity and is also used in analogue simulation.

Analogy of Being

The central methodological concept of Catholic philosophy. Everything having existence (material object, event, or idea) is similar to something else and at the same time unlike it. Catholic philosophy uses this principle to erect the hierarchic ladder of nature. According to scholastic metaphysics, insofar as similarity, uniformity, is primary and determining in Analogy of Being, only the outer, supernatural force, God, in whom all differences coincide, can be the cause, the primary source of the qualitative multiformity of being (Thomas Aquinas and the modern scholastics Erich Przywara and others).

In the concept of Analogy of Being, therefore, identity and similarity of objects and phenomena are made absolute and their qualitative differences are reduced to quantitative differences. This concept was introduced into medieval scholasticism. Modern scholastics declare the Analogy of Being to be the antipode of the dialectical unity of opposites (see Unity and Conflict of Opposites, Law of).

Analysis and Synthesis

In the most general meaning, these are the processes of mental or factual breaking-down of a whole into its component parts and the reconstitution of the whole from the parts. Analysis and Synthesis play an important role in the process of cognition and take place at every stage.

The centre of analytical and synthetical activity is the cortex of the cerebral hemispheres; such activity, however, arises and is carried out only during, and on the basis of, social production experience. In mental processes, Analysis and Synthesis occur as logical methods of thought that use abstract concepts and are closely connected with other mental operations—abstraction, generalisation, etc.

Logically, Analysis consists in mentally dividing the object being studied into its component parts and is a method of obtaining fresh knowledge. Analysis takes on different forms according to the nature of the object of study. A multiplicity of Analyses is a condition for the all-round cognition of an object. The breaking-down of the object into its component parts reveals its structure; the division of a complicated phenomenon into simpler elements enables the investigator to separate the essential from the non-essential and to reduce the complex to the simple; one form of Analysis is the classification of objects and phenomena. The Analysis of a developing process reveals its various stages, contradictory tendencies, etc. In the course of analytical activity, the mind advances from the complex to the simple, from the fortuitous to the inevitable, from multiformity to identity and unity.

The purpose of Analysis is the cognition of the parts as elements of a complex whole, the establishment of the connections between them, and the laws governing the developing whole. Analysis, however, leads to the isolation of properties not yet connected with the concrete forms of their manifestation; a unity that remains abstract is not revealed as unity in variety.

Synthesis, that is, the uniting in a single whole of parts, properties, and relations isolated by means of Analysis, going from the identical, the essential, to the different and varied, combines the common and the individual, unity and variety, into a living, concrete whole. Synthesis complements Analysis and is in indissoluble unity with it.

The dialectical-materialist concept of Analysis and Synthesis is the opposite of the idealist concept of them as mere thought methods unconnected with the objective world and with man's experience; metaphysicians isolate Analysis from Synthesis, counterpose them, and make absolute either of these two indissolubly connected processes.

In the history of philosophy, the opposition of Analysis to Synthesis goes back to the emergence of the analytical method in natural science and classical bourgeois political economy in the 17th and 18th centuries. By substituting the study of empirical reality for speculative constructions, this method then played a progressive role. When it was developed into an absolute philosophical method leading to the study of things outside their connections and development, the analytical method of investigation was turned into a metaphysical method of thought.

The development of science showed that the analytical method was the historical forerunner of the synthetic method, which is closely connected with it. From the point of view of their theoretical significance, once freed from their one-sidedness, both these methods become mutually conditioned logical processes satisfying the general requirements of the dialectical method.

Anarchism

A petty-bourgeois socio-political trend that is hostile to all authority, including the dictatorship of the proletariat, and counterposes the interests of petty private ownership to the progress of society based on large-scale production. Anarchism has its philosophical foundations in individualism, subjectivism, and voluntarism.

The emergence of Anarchism is connected with the names of Stirner, Proudhon, and Bakunin, whose utopian theories were criticised in the writings of Marx and Engels. Anarchism was widespread in France, Italy, and Spain in the 19th century.

Anarchism does not go further than general phrases against exploitation and lacks an understanding of the causes of exploitation and of the class struggle. The anarchists' denial of the political struggle objectively serves to subordinate the working class to bourgeois politics. In the struggle against Anarchism, the most important issue is the attitude of the revolutionaries to the state and the role of the state in general. The anarchists demand the immediate abolition of the state and do not admit the possibility of using the bourgeois state to prepare the proletariat for the revolution. Today Anarchism has a certain influence in Spain, Italy, and Latin America.

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (500–428 B.C.)

Greek philosopher, inconsistent materialist, ideologist of the slave-owning democracy. He was accused of atheism and sentenced to death but left Athens to save his life.

He recognised the infinite qualitative variety of the primary elements of matter (seeds of things), later known as homoeomeries, various combinations of which make up all existing things. The motive force that conditions the union and division of elementary particles was the nous, which he understood to be matter of the lightest and finest variety. Anaxagoras' cosmogony asserts that systems of celestial bodies emerge from the primary chaotic mixture of substances as a result of their vortical rotation.

Anaximander of Miletus (c. 610–546 B.C.)

Greek materialist philosopher, spontaneous dialectician, pupil of Thales; author of the first philosophical work in Greece, On Nature, which has not been preserved.

Anaximander introduced the concept of arche, the "primary principle," or beginning of all things, which he considered to be the apeiron. His cosmological theory placed the Earth, which had the shape of a flattened cylinder, in the centre of the Universe. Three celestial rings, solar, lunar, and astral, surrounded the Earth.

Anaximander was historically the first to propound the idea of evolution; man, like all other animals, evolved from the fish.

Anaximenes of Miletus (c. 588–525 B.C.)

Greek materialist philosopher, spontaneous dialectician, pupil of Anaximander. According to his theory, all things evolve from the primary matter, air, and return to it.

Air is infinite, eternal, and mobile. When it concentrates, it first forms a cloud, then water, and lastly earth and rock; when it rarefies, it turns into fire. Here Anaximenes gives expression to the idea of the transition from quantity to quality. The air embraces everything—it is the soul and it is the common medium of the endless worlds of the Universe.

Anaximenes taught that the stars are fire but we do not feel their warmth because they are too far away (Anaximander placed the stars nearer than the planets). His explanation of eclipses of the Sun and Moon was close to the truth.

Anichkov, Dmitry Sergeyevich (1733–1788)

Russian educationalist, philosopher; teacher of mathematics, logic, and philosophy at Moscow University; author of Rassuzhdeniya iz naturalnoi bogoslovii o nachale i proisshestvii naturalnogo bogopochitaniya (A Discourse from Natural Theology on the Beginning and Origin of the Natural Worship of God), 1769, in which he raised the question of the "natural" origin of religious beliefs.

Like the 18th-century French Enlighteners, Anichkov showed that religious beliefs arose when people were at the "barbaric" stage of development as a result of three causes: ignorance, fear, and imagination, when people were unable to explain the nature of the phenomena that surrounded them and ascribed everything incomprehensible to supernatural forces. He appraised the biblical legends and for this was persecuted by reactionary professors and by the church.

Anichkov was the author of a number of papers on philosophy: Slovo o svoistvakh poznaniya chelovecheskogo... (An Essay on the Properties of Human Knowledge), 1770; Slovo o raznykh prichinakh (An Essay on Various Causes), 1774, and others. In these papers, he developed ideas of materialist sensualism in the theory of knowledge and criticised the theory of innate ideas supported by the followers of Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff. His materialism, however, was not consistent; it was wrapped up in a mantle of deism; he criticised the pre-established harmony theory of the Wolffians, but himself made concessions to religion, admitting the possible immortality of the soul.

Animism

This is the belief in the soul and in spirits that affect the lives of people and animals, and exert an influence over the objects and phenomena of the surrounding world. Animist concepts emerged in primitive society. Primitive man imagined that things, plants, and animals possessed souls.

The chief reason for the emergence of Animism was the extremely low level of development of the productive forces, the consequent small store of knowledge, and man's inability to oppose the elemental forces of nature, which seemed alien and mysterious to him. At a certain level of social development, the personification of natural forces was a form in which they were mastered. Animist conceptions formed the basis of later religions; in principle, Animism is part of all religions.

Annihilation

Destruction, the reduction to nothing; in physics, it is the process by which particles and antiparticles are converted into other particles. The first Annihilation to be observed (in 1930) was that of an electron and a positron, which emitted photons when they collided. The reverse process also exists.

Other known particles are the nucleons (proton, neutron) and the antinucleons (anti-proton, anti-neutron), hyperon and anti-hyperon. The term Annihilation is not an exact one because the collision of the particles and anti-particles does not reduce them to nothing, but merely converts one form of matter into another; the total mass is retained, as are the energy, impulse, charge, and momentum of the system of particles.

The discovery of Annihilation is of great philosophical importance; it confirms the infinite variety of the forms of matter and motion, and refutes the idealist theory of the "disappearance of matter" and "the materialisation of energy"; it also disproves the metaphysical view that primary forms of matter are eternal and immutable.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109)

Theologian and philosopher, early scholastic. Anselm maintained that faith must precede knowledge—one must believe in order to understand; faith, however, can be based on reason.

In the dispute over the universals, Anselm professed extreme realism (see Realism, Medieval). He developed the "ontological" argument as proof of the existence of God (see Proof, etc.). As Archbishop of Canterbury, his persistent aim was the exaltation of the Catholic Church.

Antagonistic and Non-Antagonistic Contradictions

The basic contradictions typical of the development of society under various historical conditions. Antagonistic Contradictions are proper to all social relations in an exploiting society and are due to the irreconcilable interests of the hostile classes, social groups, and forces.

Contradictions of this type are resolved by the revolutionary class struggle and social revolution, which changes the social system concerned. It is typical of Antagonistic Contradictions that they become more acute and profound as they develop, and the struggle between them becomes a sharp conflict. The forms in which this conflict is resolved are determined by the specific historical conditions of the struggle. A clear example of Antagonistic Contradictions is the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in capitalist society, and also the contradiction between the imperialist states arising out of the competition between capitalist countries and their struggle for markets and spheres of influence. This is not a class contradiction, but it leads to violent struggles between the imperialists of different countries. These contradictions are causes of imperialist wars, wars for the redivision of the world, for markets, etc.

Non-Antagonistic Contradictions are those which exist not between hostile classes, but between classes and social groups which, side by side with contradictions, have basic interests in common. It is typical of these contradictions that their development does not necessarily lead to hostility, and the struggle between them does not produce a conflict. An example of this type of contradiction is that which existed in the Soviet Union before the construction of socialism between the working class, the vehicle of socialism, and the peasantry as a class of small proprietors.

Non-Antagonistic Contradictions are not resolved by a fierce class war, but by the planned gradual transformation of the economic and other conditions that give rise to the contradictions. Non-Antagonistic Contradictions, like all others, are also overcome by the struggle of the new against the old, of the progressive against the backward, of the revolutionary against the conservative. Changes in the nature and content of contradictions lead to changes only in the form of their resolution, but contradiction as a law of development does not disappear under socialism. "Antagonism and contradiction are not the same thing. The former disappears and the latter remains under socialism." (Lenin.)

Antecedent and Consequent

See Implication.

Anthropocentrism

A religious, idealist conception which places man in the centre of the Universe and makes him the ultimate purpose of all creation. Anthropocentrism is closely connected with teleology (see Teleology). The theories of Copernicus (see Heliocentrism and Geocentricism), Darwin, and other scientific discoveries helped to overcome anthropocentrism.

Anthropogenesis

The origin of man. Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel showed that man evolved from fossil apes. The motive force in anthropogenesis, as Engels showed, was the social labour of primitive man. This refutes the religious, idealist myths of the divine origin of man. Modern science confirms the social-labour theory of anthropogenesis.

The emergence and development of man is divided into a number of stages:

Australopithecus: bipedal locomotion, hunting, regular use of natural implements, and, later, the improvement and making of the implements.

The primitive horde, Pithecanthropus, Synanthropes, Neanderthals: the regular making of artificial tools. The emergence of social production conditioned the development of consciousness and speech and shaped the body of man. The making of man lasted hundreds of thousands of years (in South-East and Southern Asia, Anterior Asia and Africa).

The transformation of the primitive horde into primitive society and Neanderthal man into modern man.

Anthropologism

A typical feature of pre-Marxian materialism which regarded man as the highest product of nature and explained all the specific features and qualities of man by their natural origin. The unity of man and nature was stressed in opposition to the idealist conception of man and against the dualist separation of body and soul.

In the materialism of the 17th and 18th centuries, anthropologism was one of the arguments in favor of the bourgeois revolution, showing the incompatibility of the feudal social system and religion with the real nature of man. On the whole, anthropologism is merely an inaccurate description of materialism. It possesses the faults inherent in all pre-Marxian materialism, the chief of which is the failure to understand the social nature of man and his consciousness.

Anthropologism regarded all truly human traits and qualities as "abstract, inherent... in the individual" (Marx), i.e., apart from society and social experience. Anthropologism put the philosophical study of the "abstract man" in the foreground rather than the totality of social relations, the objective laws of social development, which actually create the human individual; this, in essence, is a biological approach to the study of man. Such an approach inevitably leads to idealism in the conception of history, since social phenomena are made to depend exclusively on the natural qualities of man.

Anthropologism is most fully developed in the works of Feuerbach and Chernyshevsky; some features of anthropologism were overcome by the latter owing to his active, revolutionary attitude to life. In modern bourgeois philosophy, anthropologism provides a basis for various forms of idealism which regard the objective world as something deriving from the nature of man. Anthropologism is an integral part of many trends in philosophy (existentialism, pragmatism, philosophy of life, see also the related entries), in sociology (anthropo-sociology, Social-Darwinism, see also the related entries), and also in psychology (see Freudism).

Anthropomorphism

The transfer of human shape and characteristics to the external forces of nature and attributing them to mythical beings (gods, spirits). Xenophanes realized that anthropomorphism was a peculiarity of religion; the significance of anthropomorphism in religion was revealed fully and with great profundity by Feuerbach. Anthropomorphism is connected with animism and totemism and occurs in most modern religions; in Islam and Judaism it occurs in a hidden form. In recent times, attempts have been made to purge religion of naive anthropomorphic conceptions (see Deism, Theism).

Anthroposociology

A reactionary racialist theory; it falsifies anthropological facts and establishes a direct connection between the social position of individuals and groups of individuals and the anatomical and physiological properties of man (size and shape of skull, height, colour of hair, etc.), and examines social phenomena from this point of view. It was founded by J. V. Lapouge (1854-1936), who accepted and developed the pseudo-scientific theory of J. Gobineau (1816-82) to the effect that the Aryans are the higher, aristocratic race, and that the nobility and the bourgeoisie belong to this race.

Anthroposociology depicts the class struggle as a struggle between races, and the growth of the workers' liberation movement as retrogression brought about by a reduction of the Aryan element; Lapouge showed that eugenic measures (see Eugenics), capable of moderating the "restless masses", were essential. Anthroposociology was one of the ideological weapons of the German Nazis and is preached by present-day racialists.

Anthroposophy

A mystical, decadent theory, a variation of theosophy. Anthroposophy is based on a conglomeration of religious and philosophical ideas borrowed from Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic mysticism, gnosticism, cabalism, freemasonry, and German natural philosophy. Its central feature is the deification of man's nature, supposed to be revealed only to the initiated.

Anthroposophy was founded on the eve of the First World War by the German occultist Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925) (Secret Science, 1910; Anthroposophic Theses, 1925). Anthroposophy is still current in the Federal Republic of Germany and also in Britain and the United States.

Anti-Communism

The chief ideological and political weapon of present-day imperialist reactionaries. Its main content is slander of the socialist system, the falsification of the policy and aims of the Communist Parties and of the doctrine of Marxism-Leninism.

In the economic sphere, anti-communism is manifested primarily by a denial of the socialist nature of the economic system of the USSR and the People's Democracies and an attempt to classify the economy of the socialist countries as state capitalism. In the political sphere, anti-communism consists of slanderous inventions about Soviet "totalitarianism" and about the aggressive nature of world communism. In the ideological sphere, it is the repetition of the clumsy invention of the "standardization of thought" under socialism.

These distortions of facts are crowned by the conception that social relations are "dehumanized" under socialism, that man is turned into an instrument for the achievement of certain aims of the "leadership", and that the program of scientific communism is utopian. "Anti-communism is a reflection of the extreme decadence of bourgeois ideology," says the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Bourgeois ideologists are unable to propose any sort of positive program that meets the interests of the masses. Hatred of communism is born of the fear of it, fear of social progress.

The purpose of the mass propaganda of anti-communism is to paralyze the revolutionary movement of the working people, sow distrust in the slogans and ideals of communism, and discredit and suppress all the genuinely democratic movements of the day. Anti-communism is not merely a totality of ideas. It is the actual political line of the most reactionary circles in the imperialist states, those circles that are trying to crown their anti-communist struggle with a nuclear war against the socialist countries. The growing successes of the world socialist system, the mounting struggle for peace, and the struggle against anti-communism in the capitalist countries themselves serve to show that anti-communism is fruitless and without prospects.

Anti-Dühring

The name under which Engels' Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science has gone down in history; it contains an exhaustive exposition of the three component parts of Marxism: Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Political Economy, and The Theory of Scientific Communism.

Anti-Dühring, wrote Lenin, analyzes "highly important problems in the domain of philosophy, natural science and the social sciences. It is a wonderfully rich and instructive book." (Vol. 2, p. 25.) Engels wrote the book to defend Marxist theory from the attacks of Dühring, a petty-bourgeois theoretician whose views were supported by some members of the young German Social-Democratic Party. At the request of Wilhelm Liebknecht, Engels began work in May 1876 on a series of articles against the new trend; the articles were published in Vorwärts, an organ of the Social-Democratic Party, although Dühring's supporters tried to prevent this. Marx read Anti-Dühring in manuscript and wrote the chapter on the history of political economy (Chapter X of Part II). The articles were published in book form in 1878 and were prohibited in that same year.

Anti-Dühring consists of three parts: Philosophy, Political Economy, and Socialism. In the Introduction, Engels describes the development of philosophy and demonstrates the inevitability of the emergence of scientific communism. Part I outlines dialectical and historical materialism; it provides a materialist answer to the fundamental issue of philosophy, postulates the material nature of the world, the fundamental laws of the cognition of the world, time and space as forms of all being and the unity of matter and motion. Anti-Dühring deals with the forms of the motion of matter and with the classification of the sciences. Engels devotes considerable space to a description of dialectics, its basic laws, and the relation existing between dialectics and formal logic.

Anti-Dühring examines important problems in natural history from the standpoint of dialectical materialism—Darwin's theory, the role of the organic cell and the nature of life, the cosmogonic hypothesis of Kant. Engels also studies morality, equality, freedom and necessity, etc., from the point of view of materialist dialectics.

In Part II, Engels criticized Dühring's views on political economy, defined the subject matter and method of political economy, outlined Marx's theory of the commodity and value, surplus value and capital, ground rent, etc. He criticized the idealist force theory and showed the decisive importance of the economy in the development of society, explained the origin of private property and classes and showed the progressive role of force in a revolutionary epoch.

Part III is a brilliant essay on the theory and history of scientific communism, explains Engels' attitude to utopian socialism, provides a profound substantiation of the tasks and ways of the communist transformation of society, and outlines the Marxist theory on a number of basic questions of socialism and communism—on production and distribution of material values under socialism and communism, on the state, the family, the school, the elimination of the antithesis of town and country, between mental and manual labor, etc. Engels' Anti-Dühring is a model of the consistent defense of the world outlook and interests of the revolutionary proletariat, a model of Marxist implacability towards distortions in science and opportunism in politics. Engels' book is valuable as a textbook from which to study the world outlook of dialectical and historical materialism and as the ideological weapon of the working people.

Antilogism

A formula in logic that expresses the incompatibility of the premises of a categorical syllogism with the negation of its conclusion. The theory of antilogism is one of the variants of syllogistic theory. The theory of dialectics, its basic laws, and the relation existing between dialectics and formal logic are examined in Anti-Dühring with regard to important problems in natural history from the standpoint of dialectical materialism.

Antinomies, Semantic

Semantic antinomies arise in propositions whose object is expressions of a certain language. A representative of one of the main types of semantic antinomies is the liar antinomy, which is credited to Eubulides of Miletus (4th century B.C.). It can be formulated as follows: [The sentence in square brackets on this page is false.] If this proposition is true, then from its content it follows that it is false. But if it is false, then again it follows from its content that it is true. Thus, in violation of the logical law of contradiction, this proposition proves to be both true and false.

Another example of semantic antinomies is the antinomy of Grelling, based on the concept of the "heterological predicate." A predicate, i.e., a word expressing a certain property, is called heterological if it does not possess this property (for example, the word "tetrasyllable" is not tetrasyllable). An antinomy arises when applying this definition to the predicate "heterological": if it is heterological, according to the definition it does not possess the property it expresses, i.e., it is not heterological; if it is not heterological, then again, according to the definition, it must possess the property it expresses, i.e., it is heterological.

Antinomies of this kind arise in cases when the language in which the antinomy is constructed contains names for its own expressions and also predicates such as "true," "false," "heterological," etc. There are different methods for excluding semantic antinomies: one of them is to differentiate between a metalanguage and an object-language and to define corresponding predicates strictly in a metalanguage.

Antinomy

The appearance, in the course of reasoning, of two contradictory but equally well-founded inferences. The concept of antinomy was known in times of antiquity (Plato, Aristotle); Greek philosophers frequently used the term "aporia" in the meaning of antinomy (e.g., Zeno of Elea uses aporia to express the contradiction of judgments on motion and plurality). Some antinomies then current are now regarded as semantic.

Scholastic logicians devoted considerable attention to the formulation and analysis of antinomy. Kant used antinomy in an attempt to justify the basic thesis of his philosophy, according to which the intellect cannot go beyond the bounds of sensory experience and cannot cognize the thing-in-itself (res per se). Kant said that such attempts lead the intellect into contradictions, since they make it possible to prove both the assertion (thesis) and its negation (antithesis) in each of the following "antinomies of pure reason": The Universe is finite—the Universe is infinite. Every complex substance consists of simple parts—there is nothing simple in existence. Freedom exists in the world—there is no freedom in the world, only causality. The primary cause of the Universe (God) exists—there is no primary cause of the Universe.

Kant's antinomies are not the antinomies of modern formal logic, because the proof of the thesis and antithesis in them cannot be represented in the form of logically correct reasoning. Since the end of the 19th century, investigations into the logical foundations of mathematics have led to the discovery of a number of real antinomies (including some that were formerly known). Today they are usually subdivided into the antinomies in logic and set theory, and semantic antinomies.

Antinomy is not the result of an individual's subjective error; it is due to the dialectical nature of the process of cognition, and in particular to the contradiction between form and content. Any antinomy occurs within the framework of a certain formalization of the process of reasoning (perhaps not clearly perceived but always to be assumed in fact); it is evidence of the limitation of that formalization and shows the need for its rearrangement. The solution of an antinomy means the introduction of a new and fuller formalization, one that is more in accordance with the content being reflected. Antinomy cannot be excluded from cognition once and for all; nevertheless, each individual antinomy can be excluded by relevant changes in that method of formalization within which it appeared. Today various ways of excluding antinomies have been evolved that permit a more profound description of the dialectics of cognition and the role of logical formalization in it.

Anti-Particles

Material particles whose existence was forecast in 1928 by the relativist quantum theory and later discovered in cosmic rays (anti-electron, i.e., positron, 1932) and then obtained in accelerators (antiproton and anti-neutron, 1955). It has been established that, with few exceptions, every ordinary "elementary" particle has an anti-particle opposed to it, distinguishable by an opposite charge and other properties. This is a manifestation of the dialectically contradictory nature of the structure of matter.

These pairs of particle and anti-particle have the specific capacity of annihilating each other, i.e., of being transformed into other qualitatively different forms of matter. The preponderance of ordinary particles in the Universe around us has not yet been satisfactorily explained.

Antisthenes of Athens (c. 435–370 B.C.)

A pupil of Socrates, founder of the school of Cynics that developed the Socratic teachings and regarded as real only the knowledge of individual things. He criticized Plato's theory of ideas (as independently existing general conceptions) and asserted that only individual things exist.

Of greater importance was his criticism of civilization with all its achievements, his appeal to limit oneself to the most essential things, contempt for social-estate and class differences, and resultant unity with the democratic elements of the society of that time.

Antithesis of Mental and Physical Labor

The historically formed relations between people, in which mental labor is separated from physical labor, and the manual workers, i.e., producers, become the object of exploitation on the part of the ruling classes. This antithesis arises in the initial stage of the slave-owning society.

The division of labor itself, and in particular the separation of mental from physical labor, was at the time a progressive phenomenon, insofar as some of the people were freed from arduous physical labor and thus allowed to engage in the development of science, culture, etc. In the antagonistic socio-economic formations, this separation takes the form of social, class antagonism: engagement in mental labor becomes the privilege of the dominant classes, while physical labor falls to the lot of the exploited classes.

Under socialism, the liquidation of exploitation of man by man, the sharing in government and culture by the masses, the increasing transformation of labor into creative labor in which physical and mental activities are drawn closer to each other, etc., help overcome the antithesis between physical and mental labor. The enmity between the manual workers and the intelligentsia also disappears; the intelligentsia themselves, developing from among the working people, change their social character.

However, even under socialism there still remains an essential distinction between physical and mental labor. It lies in the distinct gap between the cultural and technical level of the intelligentsia, on the one hand, and of the working class and the peasantry, on the other, in the difference in the nature of their work. This difference precludes antagonism of interests and has an altogether different social content. The distinction between mental and physical labor gradually becomes obliterated in the process of communist construction.

The decisive condition for this obliteration is the creation of the material and technical basis of communism, the transformation of the very nature of labor, in which arduous physical work is to be replaced by machines. Production will demand workers of engineer-technician standard, with a high cultural and technical level. The shortening of the working day frees time for man's all-round physical and spiritual development. The old division of labor, which nailed a man to a particular specialty, will disappear; possessing a high degree of training, each will be able to choose his profession and pass from one profession to another. All this will mean the complete merging of physical and mental labor.

Antithesis of Town and Country

The historically formed relations express the extreme backwardness of the country in relation to the town in economy and culture, the antithetical contradiction between the basic interests of the working people of the countryside and those of the ruling exploiting classes. The antithesis between town and country is the upshot of the social division of labor. The economic basis of this opposition is the exploitation of the peasantry, leading to its ruin.

In socialist society, as a result of the liquidation of all kinds of exploitation and the transformation of agriculture on socialist lines, the antithesis between town and country disappears. The town, with its working class, acts as the friend and ally of the laboring peasantry, as its leader, helping to overcome its former backwardness. The character of agricultural labor changes, coming closer and closer to industrial labor. The culture of the countryside grows on an unprecedented scale.

At the same time, the presence of two forms of socialist ownership (public and collective-farm and cooperative) leads to the preservation of a substantial difference between town and country. The elimination of this difference and the consequent removal of the distinctions between the working class and the collective-farm peasantry is part and parcel of the building of communism. The concrete way of eliminating these distinctions is outlined in the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The main task is the creation of the material and technical basis of communism, which promotes the raising of collective-farm and cooperative property to the level of public property, the conversion of agricultural labor to a variety of industrial labor, the raising of the social and economic conditions and the standard of life of the countryside to the level of the town. However, even under communism some non-essential distinctions between industrial and agricultural labor will remain owing to their specific peculiarities.

Antonovich, Maxim Alexeyevich (1835–1918)

Russian materialist philosopher, publicist, and democrat; associated with Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. Graduated from St. Petersburg Theological Academy. He renounced a church career and from 1859 became a contributor to the journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary).

His articles—"Contemporary Philosophy" (1861), "Two Types of Contemporary Philosophers" (1861), "The Philosophy of Hegel" (1861), "The Unity of Nature's Forces" (1865), et al.—gave expression to the materialist views upheld by the editors of Sovremennik. Antonovich criticized Kant's apriorism and agnosticism, the Hegelians (Strakhov and Chicherin), Grigoryev's Schellingism, the religious, idealist views of Yurkevich, Gogotsky, Karpov, and others, the Slavophil theories and the eclectics of Lavrov and Mikhailovsky.

He fully realized the connection between the philosophical and political struggles. On the basis of the anthropological principle propounded by Feuerbach and Chernyshevsky, Antonovich demanded an improvement in the living conditions of the working people, the spread of literacy, and the granting of political liberties. In the struggle against liberalism, he showed the need for radical changes in the social system of Russia. He championed the aesthetic theory of Chernyshevsky and criticized the "art for art's sake" theory.

After the suppression of Sovremennik (1866), Antonovich continued his propaganda of materialism and natural science in the periodical press, using for this purpose the achievements of contemporary science (the work of Sechenov, Darwin, and others). In 1896, he wrote the book Charles Darwin and His Theory. In 1909, he opposed the Vekhi group of writers and called for a resurrection of the traditions of the literary criticism of the 60s (of Chernyshevsky and others).

Although Antonovich propagandized materialist ideas in natural science and upheld democracy, he at times simplified and vulgarized the ideas of his teachers, and his views were not as consistent as those of the revolutionary democrats. His materialism contained certain elements of dialectics but remained, in the main, speculative and metaphysical.

Apagogic Proof

A form of indirect proof, also known as reductio ad impossibile or proof by opposites. The following is a typical apagogic proof. Let B be the thesis to be proved and A₁, A₂...Aₙ the true facts by means of which the thesis is proved. It is agreed to consider that non-B, the logical opposite of B, is true and it is included in the facts of the proof.

From the series of facts thus obtained—A₁, A₂...Aₙ, and non-B—conclusions are formed until a situation is arrived at which logically contradicts one of the facts of the evidence. This contradiction of the original facts, provided the conclusion is correct, is possible only if the facts of the proof are false. Since A₁, A₂...Aₙ are undoubtedly true, the assumption of the truth of non-B was false; hence B is true.

Apathy

A state of indifference, limited activity, absence of any inducement to act (frequently the result of disorders of higher nervous activity). In the ethical theories of the Stoics, apathy is understood as impassivity, spiritual imperturbability, a state in which sensations do not interfere with the activity of the mind. According to the Stoics, apathy is the ideal state for contemplation.

It seems that Eastern religious and philosophical views, in particular the Buddhist and Jainist, on nirvana, or absolute tranquility as the highest state of the human soul, exercised an influence over the Stoics.

Apeiron

A concept introduced by Anaximander to denote boundless, indefinite, qualityless matter in a state of constant motion. All the infinite multiplicity of objects, all worlds, came into being by the isolation from apeiron of opposites (hot and cold, wet and dry) and their struggle.

The concept of apeiron was a step forward in the development of ancient Greek materialism, since it identified matter with concrete substances (water, air). According to the Pythagoreans, apeiron is the amorphous, boundless principle, which, together with its opposite (the limited), is the basis of everything which exists.

Apodeictic

That which is proved, beyond all dispute; a term used to mean absolute truth, which Aristotle used to denote a strictly essential, deductively evolved proof from absolutely true premises. He regarded syllogism as an instrument of apodeictic knowledge.

The term "apodeictic" is used to differentiate a judgment of necessity from a judgment of possibility (problematic) and a judgment of reality (assertoric).

Apologetics

A branch of theology which defends and justifies a dogma by means of arguments addressed to reason. Apologetics is included in the Catholic and Orthodox systems of theology, but Protestantism rejects it and proceeds from the primacy of faith over reason.

Apologetics includes proof of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the teaching of the signs of divine revelation (including miracles and prophecies), an analysis of the objections to religion and its various dogmas, and a theological analysis of alien faiths.

Apologetics possesses the internal defect of appealing to reason and at the same time asserting that the basic religious dogmas cannot be grasped by reason, i.e., apologetics is rational in form but irrational in content. Typical of apologetics are its refined sophistry, its extreme bias and dogmatism, obscurantism, and unscientific nature.

Apophansis

A proposition which Aristotle defines in this way: "Every sentence has meaning.... Yet every sentence is not a proposition; only such are propositions as have in them either truth or falsity." In classical logic, apophansis means no more than the affirmation or negation of something about something. When apophansis is used in conjunction with other statements for the purpose of drawing an inference, Aristotle uses the term "protasis" (premises).

Note: Not to be confused with "apophasis," which means negation.

Aporia

In ancient Greek philosophy, a problem which is difficult to solve owing to some contradiction in the object itself or in the conception of it. The arguments of Zeno of Elea on the impossibility of motion are called aporia (he did not use this term himself).

In the aporia "Dichotomy," it is stated that before moving any distance, it is necessary to cover half that distance, and before covering the half, a half of the half, and so on, to infinity. From this premise, the conclusion is drawn that motion is impossible. In the aporia "Achilles and the Tortoise," it is said that the swift Achilles can never catch up with the tortoise because by the time the runner reaches the place where the tortoise was at the start, the tortoise has moved forward, etc.

Zeno correctly noted the contradictory nature of motion but did not understand the unity of its contradictory moments and came to the conclusion that all motion is impossible. The term aporia first acquired a philosophical meaning in the works of Plato and Aristotle; the latter defined the term as "equality between contrary reasonings." Kant's antinomies are close to aporia.

A posteriori

The opposite of a priori; it is used to qualify knowledge obtained by experience.

Appearance

See Essence and Appearance.

Apperception

The dependence of every new perception on the previous experience of a man and on his psychic condition at the moment of perception. The term was introduced by Leibniz to mean "consciousness of consciousness"—self-consciousness as opposed to perception.

Approbative Ethics

An idealist theory of morality in which good is defined as that which someone has approved. According to who does the approving (God, man's moral sense, society understood as the totality of individuals), approbative ethics is subdivided into theological, psychological, and social approbative theories.

Examples of the first are the theories of Karl Barth, Emil Brunner (Switzerland), Paul Tillich, Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr (USA). The theory of man's moral sense developed as far back as the 17th and 18th centuries in England (Anthony Shaftesbury, Adam Smith, Hume), and was taken up in the 20th century by Edward Westermarck (Finland), Arthur Rogers (USA), and others. In its third form, the theory was elaborated by Émile Durkheim and Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, France. None of these theories has a scientific basis—they are voluntarist and subjectivist and deny objective criteria for morals.

A priori

In idealist philosophy, a priori is used to qualify knowledge obtained prior to and independent of experience, knowledge which is inherent in consciousness from the beginning as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, which results from experience. This contraposing of the two terms is particularly typical of Kant's philosophy; Kant stated that knowledge obtained by means of sensory perception is untrue and contraposed to it as authentic knowledge the a priori forms of sensation (space and time) and reason (cause, necessity, etc.). Dialectical materialism does not accept any form of a priori knowledge.

Aquinas, Thomas (1225–1274)

Italian Catholic theologian, Dominican monk and disciple of St. Albert the Great, was canonized in 1323. His objective idealist philosophy arose as a result of falsifying Aristotelianism and adapting it to the Christian religion. Thomas Aquinas emasculated the materialist ideas of Aristotelian philosophy and accentuated its idealist elements (doctrine of the immobile world prime mover and others). The doctrines of Neo-Platonism also considerably influenced Thomism.

In the dispute about universals, he held a position of "moderate realism," acknowledging universals of three types: before individual things (in divine reason), in things themselves (as universal in particular), and after things (in the human mind cognizing them). The main principle of Thomism is the harmony of faith and reason; Thomas Aquinas held that reason is capable of rationally proving the existence of God and rejecting objections to the truths of religion. Everything existing is fitted by Thomas Aquinas in the hierarchic order created by God. This doctrine of the hierarchy of being reflected the organizations of the church in the feudal epoch.

In 1879, the scholastic system of Thomas Aquinas was officially proclaimed the "only true philosophy of Catholicism." It is utilized by the ideologists of anti-communism to combat the Marxist scientific world outlook. Main works: Summa contra Gentiles, 1261–64; Summa Theologica, 1265–73.

Arcesilaus (315–241 B.C.)

Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Middle Academy. This was the second Academy, a feature of which was a transition from Plato's ideas towards scepticism. All that remained of Plato was a strong tendency towards various types of logical conceptions, which in this case boiled down to a destruction of dogmatic philosophy and the assertion only of concepts of probability.

In ethics also, Arcesilaus is distinguished by the weakening of Plato's enthusiast theory, which he reduced to imperturbability of the spiritual condition.

Areopagitics

A collection of four treatises ("On Divine Names," "On the Heavenly Hierarchy," "On the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy," and "On Mystical Theology") and ten epistles which for a long time were ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite (hence the name), a 1st-century bishop of Athens, but later found by scholars to be a falsification.

In Areopagitics there is a strong Neo-Platonic influence, although this trend did not exist in the 1st century. It also contains a developed church doctrine which, again, could not have existed in the 1st century. There are no references to this work in early Christian literature up to the 5th century. These arguments and others compelled scholars to date the appearance of the Areopagitics to the 5th century and to conclude that Dionysius the Areopagite was recognized as the author on account of his great authority in the early Christian Church. Some scholars attribute the authorship of the Areopagitics to Peter the Iberian, a Georgian bishop who was active in the East.

The Areopagitics is a systematic, planned medieval Christian doctrine; the center of all being is the incognizable godhead from whom gradually diminishing light emanations radiate in all directions, through the world of angels and through the domain of the church right down to ordinary people and things. The strong pantheistic elements in the teachings were progressive in comparison with the church doctrine. For the whole thousand years preceding the Renaissance, the Areopagitics was the most popular work of religious philosophy, and was one of the ideological sources of all medieval philosophy.

Argument

In logic—the proposition (or system of propositions) put forward in confirmation of the truth of some other proposition (or system of propositions); the premises of the proof, also known as the basis of the proof; sometimes the proof as a whole is called the argument.

In mathematics and mathematical logic, an argument is the independent variable on which the value of a function or predicate depends.

Aristarchus of Samos (320–250 B.C.)

Greek astronomer and Pythagorean, pupil of Strato. His geometrical measurements of the distances from the Earth to the Sun and the Moon revealed the falsity of Aristotle's geocentric system and led him to construct a heliocentric system. Aristarchus's system was not accepted in times of antiquity and remained forgotten until the days of Copernicus.

Aristippus (435–355 B.C.)

Philosopher, disciple of Socrates and founder of the Cyrenaic (hedonist) school. His writings have been lost. Aristippus combined sensationalism in the theory of knowledge with hedonism in ethics. He regarded pleasure as the highest purpose of life but held that man should not be subordinated to pleasure; he should strive for the intellectual enjoyment which is his greatest blessing.

Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)

Philosopher and encyclopedic scientist, founder of the science of logic and a number of other branches of special knowledge. Marx called him the "greatest thinker of antiquity." He was born at Stagira in Thrace and was educated in Athens at the school of Plato. He criticized Plato's theory of disembodied forms ("ideas") but was unable to overcome Plato's idealism completely, wavering "between idealism and materialism." (Lenin, Vol. 38, p. 286.) He founded his own school in Athens (the Lyceum) in 335 B.C.

In philosophy Aristotle distinguished: (1) the theoretical aspect—dealing with being, its components, causes, and origins; (2) the practical—dealing with human activity; and (3) the poetic—dealing with creativity. The object of science is the general, that which can be attained by the mind. The general, however, exists only in the sensually perceived individual and is cognized through it; the condition for the cognition of the general is inductive generalization, which is impossible without sensual perception.

Aristotle recognized four prime causes: (1) matter, or the passive possibility of becoming; (2) form (essence, the essence of being), the reality of that which in matter is only a possibility; (3) the beginning of motion; and (4) aim. Aristotle regards all nature as successive transitions from "matter" to "form" and back. In matter, however, he saw only the passive principle and attributed all activity to form, to which he reduced the beginning of motion and its aim. The ultimate source of all motion is God, the "Unmoved Prime Mover."

Nevertheless, Aristotle's objective idealist theory of "form" is, in many respects, "more objective and further removed, more general than the idealism of Plato, hence in the philosophy of nature more frequently materialism." (Lenin, Vol. 38, p. 282.) "Aristotle comes very close to materialism." (Ibid, p. 287.) Aristotle's formal logic is closely connected with the theory of being, the theory of knowledge, and the theory of truth, because in logical forms he saw at the same time forms of being.

In the theory of knowledge, Aristotle differentiated between the clearly established (apodeictic) and the probable, which belongs to the sphere of "opinion" (dialectics). Nevertheless, he connects these two forms of knowledge by language. Experiment, according to Aristotle, is not the last stage in the verification of "opinion," and the higher postulates of science are ascertained directly for their truth by the mind and not by the senses. However, the speculatively accessible higher axioms of knowledge are not inherent in our minds and presume activity—the collecting of facts, the direction of thought towards facts, etc.

The ultimate purpose of science is to define the subject, and the condition for it is the combining of deduction and induction. Since there is no concept that can predicate all other concepts and, consequently, different concepts cannot be generalized in a single common family, Aristotle showed the categories, i.e., the higher families, to which all other families of truly existing things belong. In cosmology, he rejected the theory of the Pythagoreans and developed a geocentric system that gripped all minds until the days of Copernicus, the creator of the heliocentric system.

In ethics, Aristotle regarded contemplation as the highest form of mental activity. This was due to the separation of the physical labor of the slaves from mental leisure, the privilege of the free, which was typical of the slave-owning state of Greece. According to Aristotle, the model of morality was God, the most perfect of philosophers, "thought thinking itself."

In his theory of society, Aristotle showed that slavery had its roots in nature. The highest forms of state authority were those that precluded the selfish use of power and those under which the authorities served the whole of society. Aristotle's waverings in philosophy account for the duality of his later influence; the materialist tendencies played an important part in the development of progressive ideas in the philosophy of feudal society, and the idealist elements were expanded by medieval churchmen, who made Aristotle's theories "a dead scholasticism by rejecting all the searchings, waverings and modes of framing questions." (Lenin, Vol. 38, pp. 368–69.) Lenin studied Aristotle's Metaphysics (his basic work) and greatly appreciated "the living germs of dialectics and inquiries about it…," naive faith "in the power of reason, in the force, power, objective truth of cognition." (Ibid.)

Art

A specific form of social consciousness and human activity which reflects reality in artistic images and is one of the most important means of aesthetical comprehension and portrayal of the world. Marxism rejects the idealist interpretations of art as a product and expression of the "absolute spirit," "universal will," "divine revelation," or subconscious conceptions and emotions of the artist. Labor is the source of artistic creation and also of the earlier process of shaping man's aesthetic sentiments and requirements.

The first traces of primitive art date back to the late Paleolithic epoch, approximately from 40,000 to 20,000 B.C. Among primitive peoples, art bore an immediate relation to labor, but subsequently this relation became more intricate and mediated. Changes in the socio-economic structure of society underlie the subsequent development of art. The people have always played a great part in the development of art. Its diverse bonds with the people have been consolidated in one of its specific features, namely, national character.

A form of reflection of social beings, art has much in common with other manifestations of society's spiritual life: science, technology, political ideology, and morals. At the same time, art has a number of specific features which distinguish it from all other forms of social consciousness.

Man's aesthetical relation to reality is the specific subject matter of art, and its task is the artistic portrayal of the world. It is for this reason that man, as the vehicle of aesthetical relations, is always in the center of any work of art. The subject matter of art (life in all its multiformity) is mastered and presented by the artist in a specific form of reflection—in artistic images which represent the interpenetrating unity of the sensory and logical, concrete and abstract, individual and universal, appearance and essence, and so on. Artistic images are created by the artist on the basis of his knowledge of life and his skill.

The object and form of reflection of reality in art determine its specific function—to satisfy the aesthetic requirements of people through the creation of beautiful works which can bring man happiness and pleasure, enrich him spiritually, and at the same time develop, awaken in him the artist, capable in the concrete sphere of his endeavor to create according to the laws of beauty and to introduce beauty in life. It is through this aesthetical function that art displays its cognitive significance and exercises its powerful ideological and educative influence.

Marxism-Leninism has demonstrated the objective nature of artistic development, in the course of which the main types of art—literature, painting, sculpture, music, theatre, cinema, etc.—have taken shape. The history of art is the history of ever deeper artistic reflection of reality, extension and enrichment of the aesthetical cognition, and transformation of the world by man. The development of art is inseparably bound up with the development of society, with changes in its class structure.

Although the general line of art is the improving of methods for more profound artistic reflection of reality, this development is uneven. Thus, even in antiquity, art attained a high level and in a certain sense acquired the significance of a standard. At the same time, the capitalist mode of production, immeasurably higher than that of slave society, is hostile, to use Marx's expression, to art and poetry, because it abhors lofty social and spiritual ideals. In capitalist society, progressive art is associated either with the period of emergence of capitalism, when the bourgeoisie was still a progressive class, or with the activity of artists who are critical of this system (critical realism). Ideological and artistic decline (formalism; abstract art) are features of contemporary reactionary art.

The highest aesthetical ideal is embodied in the world outlook and practical activity of the working class and in the struggle for the communist remaking of the world. It is this ideal that underlies the art of socialist realism. Soviet art is discharging its mission proclaimed by the 22nd Congress of the CPSU—to promote the molding of the harmonious personality of the members of communist society, the architect and builder of the new world.

Art, Content and Form of

Two sides of art or an artistic work that determine each other, of which content plays the leading part. The content of art is diverse reality in its aesthetic specifics, chiefly man, human relations, and social life in all its concrete manifestations. Form is the internal organization and definite composition of an artistic work, created with the help of artistic media of expression for the purpose of bringing out and portraying content.

The main elements of content in a work of art are its subject and idea. The subject is brought out by a range of life's phenomena which are reflected in the given work. The idea expresses the essence of the portrayed phenomena and the contradictions of reality, their artistic and emotional appraisal from the positions of an aesthetic ideal, leading man to definite aesthetic, moral, and political conclusions.

The form of works of art is multifaceted. Its basic elements include plot, artistic language, composition, and the artistic media of expression (word, rhyme, rhythm, sound intonation, harmony, color, line, drawing, light and shadow, volume, tectonics, mise-en-scène, etc.). In contrast to formalism, which divorces form from content, and naturalism, which identifies the two, Marxist aesthetics regards the inseverable unity and balance of content and perfected form as an important criterion of artistry.

Art for Art's Sake ("Pure Art")

A principle of idealist aesthetics, put forward in contrast to the realistic demand for high idea-content and partisanship in art. Its theoretical sources date back to the thesis of Kant that aesthetic judgement is of no practical interest. This principle spread in the 19th and 20th centuries; in the struggle against realism, its proponents advocated the internal "self-aim" and "absolute nature" of art, which supposedly aims only at purely aesthetic pleasure.

Denial of the cognitive, ideological, and educative significance of art, and of its dependence on the practical requirements of the age, inevitably leads to the claim that the artist is "free" of society and bears no responsibilities to the people, i.e., to extreme individualism.

Artistic Method

A historically determined, specific way of reflecting being and reality and expressing man's aesthetic attitude to the world; a method of understanding and portraying reality in artistic images. An artistic method is a means of embodying and asserting a definite aesthetic ideal. Every artistic method involves selection, generalization, and assessment of life's facts and phenomena.

The nature and trend of one artistic method or another, the degree of its capability to understand and mirror in artistic images the life of the people, the relationship between the individual and society, etc., depend on the sociopolitical and spiritual conditions of mankind's development at each given historical moment, on the objective role of one class or another in the life of society, and the attitude of society to art.

Every artistic method is closely connected with a world outlook which, being progressive or backward, exerts a positive or adverse influence on the work of the artist. But this is an intricate, dialectically contradictory relationship in which, as Engels demonstrated in the case of Balzac, the artist, owing to the power of his realistic method, may overcome some of the limitations of his subjective views. Socialist realism is a qualitatively new artistic method brought into being by the epoch of the struggle for socialism and communism. It differs from preceding methods in art (classicism, romanticism, critical realism, and others) by portraying life in the light of the struggle for the triumph of the communist ideal.

Asceticism

A way of life, the basic features of which are extreme abstinence and the greatest possible rejection of comforts for the achievement of a lofty moral or religious ideal. In ancient Greece, the term asceticism was first applied to exercises in the virtues. It is also an important element of Brahmanism and Buddhism.

In the first centuries of Christianity, an ascetic was one who spent their life in solitude and self-mortification, in fasting, and praying. The early Christian and medieval ideal of asceticism underwent a change at the time of the Reformation. Protestantism demanded "worldly asceticism." Early peasant and proletarian movements also called for asceticism as a form of protest against the luxury and idleness of the ruling classes.

Marxist ethics regards asceticism as an irrational and unjustifiable extreme, resulting from incorrect conceptions of the ways leading to a moral ideal. The Programme of the CPSU is based on the principle: "Everything for the sake of man, for the benefit of man." Marxism, however, condemns the opposite extreme—lack of restraint in satisfying one's needs, unnecessary luxury, and the reduction of life to the pursuit of enjoyment (hedonism).

Association

The nexus between elements of the psyche, which causes the appearance of any one of them to call forth, under certain circumstances, other connected elements. An example of association in its simplest form is the repetition of the letters of the alphabet in proper sequence.

Association emerges in the course of the interaction of subject and object as one of the elementary products of that interaction and reflects real connections between things and phenomena. It is a necessary condition for mental activity. The physiological basis for the existence of association was discovered by Ivan Pavlov; it is the mechanism of the formation of temporary neural nexus, i.e., the formation of a nerve path between different areas of the cerebral cortex (in humans and higher animals) and the short-circuiting of the excitations of those areas. Association is the basis of all the more intricate formations of man's psyche.

Associationist Psychology

Various trends in psychology that use association as their main principle. The pre-history of the subject goes back to Hobbes, Locke, and Spinoza; as a rule, each of the trends is divided into materialist and idealist branches.

Hartley and later Priestley, following Hobbes, developed the materialist tradition; they explained psychological activity by the general laws of association and maintained that such activity is conditioned by cerebral oscillations. The idealist aspect of associationist psychology reduces psychological activity to the association of subjective conceptions and is based on Hume's phenomenalism (Hume spoke of "clusters of impressions") and on Herbart.

Associationist psychology took final shape mainly in Britain in the 19th century (J.S. Mill, James Mill, Alfred Benn) and combines the materialist and idealist wings through mechanism (psychological atomism, mental chemistry, etc.). In the 20th century, associationist psychology continued in behaviorism, which greatly exaggerates the mechanistic tendencies inherent in it.

Astronomy

The science of the position, motion, structure and development of celestial bodies and their systems, and other forms of cosmic matter. Astronomy is divided into a number of disciplines, each of which is again subdivided. Astrometry, for instance, includes spherical, geodesic, navigational, and other branches of practical astronomy and deals with the problems of measuring the positions and sizes of celestial bodies. Astral astronomy studies the laws of the spatial distribution and motion of stars and their systems. Radio astronomy, which has developed since the Second World War, studies various cosmic objects by observing the radio waves they emanate. Astrophysics studies, among other things, the physical properties of cosmic matter (bodies, dust, gas) and fields; cosmogony studies problems connected with their origin and development and cosmology studies the general laws of the structure of the Universe as a single connected whole, as an all-embracing system of cosmic systems.

Astronomy extends to a tremendous degree in time and space the experimental field in natural science and human knowledge in general. Thanks to astronomy the human mind is able to penetrate billions of light years into outer space and hundreds and thousands of millions of years in time into the past and the future. Astronomy's objects are gigantic natural physical laboratories where the most varied processes are under way, processes that cannot yet be reproduced under terrestrial conditions, or, if they can, only on a tiny scale. Thermonuclear reactions, for instance, were first discovered in the stars and later reproduced on Earth (so far only as uncontrolled explosions); particles in cosmic rays have energies that are not yet attainable in the most powerful accelerators; in space, too, we can observe matter in a state of super density or extreme rarefaction, gravitational and electromagnetic fields of enormous extent and power, explosions and blasts on a terrific scale, etc.

Astronomy extends the experimental field of physics into boundless space, but itself relies first and foremost on physical science and its means and methods. Until quite recently astronomers were almost completely confined to observation and could not mount experiments. Since 1957, however, when the USSR launched the first artificial Earth satellite and paved the way for space exploration, the situation has changed. Extra-terrestrial observation (measurements in interplanetary space, photographing of the reverse side of the Moon, etc.), and even visits to other celestial bodies and the mounting of experiments there have become possible.

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences and more than any other natural science has served to elaborate and spread correct, materialist views of nature. Since it deals with heavenly bodies, astronomy has not infrequently been treated with suspicion by the church and churchmen and has met with their savage counteractions, which went so far as to attempt, by torture and death at the stake, to check the cognition of the Universe. The clerics and their idealist supporters are today forced to take into consideration the great authority of natural science; they still try to distort the data of astronomy to adapt them to justify religion.

Ataraxia

A state of spiritual tranquility and imperturbability which, according to some Greek philosophers, was attainable by a wise man. The road to ataraxia, according to Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius, was in the cognition of the Universe, the overcoming of fear and liberation from alarm. The sceptics (Pyrrho and others) taught that ataraxia is achieved by abstention from making judgements, and indifference to what is going on, to joy and sorrow (apathy). Marxist ethics rejects the contemplative attitude to life, and, consequently, rejects ataraxia as an ideal, especially the ataraxia of which the sceptics spoke.

Atheism

A system of views rejecting faith in the supernatural (spirits, gods, life beyond the grave, etc.). Atheism explains the sources of religion and the reasons for its emergence, criticizes religious dogmas from the standpoint of a scientific study of the Universe, exposes the social role of religion and shows how religious prejudices are to be overcome. Atheism emerged and developed as scientific knowledge increased. At every stage in history, atheism reflected the level of knowledge reached and the interests of the classes that used it as an ideological weapon. The philosophical basis of atheism is materialism. The positive content and the defects of each form of atheism are conditioned by concrete social and economic conditions, the level of development of science and of materialist philosophy. Atheism's struggle against religion is closely connected with the class struggle.

Atheism took shape as a system of views in slave-owning society. There were considerable atheistic elements in the works of Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, Epicurus, Xenophanes. They explained all phenomena by natural causes, their approach was naive and speculative and combined rejection of religious faith with recognition of gods. In the Middle Ages, when the church and religion were dominant, atheism made little progress. Bourgeois atheism was of great significance in undermining the rule of religion—Spinoza, the French materialists, Feuerbach, and others. The exposure of the reactionary nature of the church by bourgeois atheists played an historical role in the struggle against feudalism and facilitated its abolition.

Bourgeois atheism, however, was inconsistent and limited, was enlightening in character and was not addressed to the people but to a narrow circle. The Russian revolutionary democrats were militant and consistent atheists. Atheism acquired its most consistent form in Marxism-Leninism. The interests of the proletariat and its position and role in society coincide with the objective trends of social development owing to which Marxist atheism is free from the class limitations that were typical of pre-Marxist forms of atheism. The philosophical basis of Marxist atheism is dialectical and historical materialism. Marxist atheism is militant in character. For the first time in history, it provides an all-round criticism of religion and shows ways and means of completely overcoming it. Marxist atheism states that religion can be completely overcome only when all its social roots have been destroyed in the course of communist construction. The experience of the USSR, where atheism is practiced on a mass scale, proves the correctness of these postulates. In the course of communist construction, a new man is educated, a man who is freed from religion and other survivals of the past and equipped with a scientific, atheist world outlook.

Atom and Atomic Nucleus

The atom is the smallest particle of a chemical element, a complicated system consisting of a heavy central, positively charged nucleus surrounded by an envelope of light, negatively charged particles moving in orbits about the nucleus and known as electrons. The atomic nucleus is also intricate in its structure; it consists of neutrons and protons (elementary particles) that together are known as nucleons. The atom is something like one hundred millionth of a centimeter in size and its nucleus is ten thousand times smaller.

The value of the charges on the nucleus is equal to the number of protons and coincides with the number of electrons in the atom; this is the serial number of the given element in Mendeleev's periodic table. Almost the entire mass of the atom is concentrated in the nucleus. The existence of the atom as an integral formation is subject to the quantum laws, which explain the stability of the atom, the peculiar nature of the motion of the electrons determined by the duality of their corpuscular-wave nature, the spasmodic changes in the energy of the atom during transition from one stable state to another, the laws of the interaction of atoms, etc.

Atoms can combine by the interaction of their electronic envelopes; this provides the basis for various manifestations of the chemical form of the motion of matter. Chemical changes do not affect the atomic nucleus. The stability of the nucleus depends on the simultaneous action of opposite forces—on the one hand these are the electrical forces of repulsion of identically charged protons and, on the other, the special forces of attraction that exist between all the particles of the nucleus, the specific nuclear forces which operate only over short distances. The mass of the nucleus is always less than the total mass of the particles of which it is constituted. This is explained by the release of a certain amount of energy when the nucleus is formed whereby the mass is correspondingly reduced (according to the relationship between energy and mass discovered by Einstein).

Atomic nuclei can split or combine with one another. The transformation of nuclei (conversion of chemical elements, radioactivity) is accompanied by the release of a tremendous amount of energy. The atoms of different elements are linked by profoundly dialectic mutual bonds. Atoms and atomic nuclei are the "nodes" in the general series of increasingly intricate forms of matter and make their appearance at definite stages in the development of matter.

The development of the atomic theory played a considerable role in the development of philosophy, natural science, and technology (atomistics). The achievements of modern physics—the discovery of the complex structure of the atom, the conversion of one atom into another (radioactivity), etc.—created a veritable revolution in natural science that led to a review of former conceptions of the structure and properties of matter and to materialism adopting a new form. In particular, the qualitative specifics of the microcosm were discovered as they are manifested in the unity of the opposite corpuscular-wave properties of matter; the infinite number of properties of any, even the "simplest" particle of matter was discovered, etc. All this served as a fresh confirmation of the truth of dialectical materialism.

The practical use of atomic energy is not only one of the greatest scientific and technical problems that is being in many respects successfully solved, but is also one of the most acute problems in the life of modern society. The peaceful use of atomic energy opens up before mankind the broadest prospects for the development of the forces of production.

Atomic Fact

One of the basic concepts of logical empiricism. The atomic fact is not divisible into component parts but consists of a combination of the things and objects of thought. Atomic facts are independent of each other. The existence (or non-existence) of one atomic fact is not proof of the existence (or non-existence) of another. Thus, mutual bonds (links) and the unity of the Universe are denied, and the process of cognition is confined in practice to the description of the atomic fact. This metaphysical concept grew up as a result of the transfer to the external world of certain properties of the "atomic" (elementary) sentences that play an important part in mathematical logic. In essence the concept of atomic fact is related to Mach's "world elements".

Atomistics

The theory of the discrete structure of matter (from atoms and other microparticles). Atomistics was first formulated in the ancient Indian philosophical theories of Naya and Vaisakha, but was formulated more fully and consistently in the philosophy of Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and Lucretius. Atoms were regarded as the ultimate, indivisible, tiniest, in substance infinitely small particles. They differ in weight, velocity, and mutual disposition in bodies, owing to which different properties arise. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, atomistics was elaborated in the writings of Galileo, Newton, Lomonosov, Dalton, Butlerov, Mendeleev, Boyle, Avogadro, and others, and became the physico-chemical theory of the structure of matter.

Atomistics has almost always been a basis for materialist conceptions of the world. The old atomistics, however, was to a considerable extent metaphysical, since the idea of discreteness was made absolute and the presence of an ultimate, unchanging state of matter, the "primary bricks" of the world edifice, was recognized. Modern atomistics recognizes a multiplicity of molecules, atoms, "elementary" particles, and other microobjects in the structure of matter, their infinite complexity and their faculty for conversion from one form into another. The existence of various discrete microobjects is regarded by atomistics as a manifestation of the law of the transition from quantitative to qualitative changes; the reduction of distances in space is due to the transition to qualitatively new forms of matter. Modern atomistics considers matter to be not only discrete but also continuous. The forces of interaction between microparticles are carried across continuous fields—electromagnetic, nuclear, etc., which are inseverably connected with the "elementary" particles. The spread of interaction in the fields occurs in the form of immediate action (action, immediate and at a distance). Modern atomistics denies the existence of ultimate, unchanging matter and proceeds from the recognition of the quantitative infinity of matter.

Attention

Mental state in which a person directs and concentrates his cognitive and practical activity on a definite object or action. Involuntary attention to an object (an orientate reflex in the physiological sense) is evoked by the peculiar features of the object itself, such as newness, mutation, contrast, power of effect (e.g., bright light, powerful sounds). Deliberate attention is determined by a conscious aim. Deliberate attention, which is peculiar to man, has developed in the course of centuries of labor. Of labor Marx wrote: "Besides the exertion of the bodily organs, the process demands that, during the whole operation, the workman's will be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This means close attention." (Marx, Capital, Vol. I, p. 178.)

Attribute

An inalienable quality possessed by a thing without which the thing cannot exist or cannot be conceived. Aristotle distinguished attribute from accident. Descartes regarded attributes as the basic qualities of substance. For this reason, the attribute of a corporeal substance is to him its dimensions, while thought is the attribute of a spiritual substance. Spinoza considered dimensions and thought to be the attributes of a single substance. The 18th century French materialists regarded dimension and motion as the attributes of matter, and some of them (Diderot, Robinet) added thought. The term is used in modern philosophy.

Augustine, Saint (354–430)

Bishop of Hippo (North Africa), Christian theologian and mystic philosopher, held views close to Neo-Platonism, and was a prominent patristic. His world outlook had a well-defined fideist character based on the principle "Where there is no faith there is no knowledge, no truth". His views constituted one of the sources of scholasticism. In his De Civitate Dei (The City of God) Augustine developed the Christian conception of world history comprehended fatalistically, as pre-ordained by God. He counterposes his "City of God", the universal rule of the church, to Civitas terrena, the City of Earth, the "sinful" secular state. This doctrine played an important part in the struggle of the Papacy against the feudal lords. Augustine considerably influenced the subsequent development of Christian theology. Augustinism is still widely used today by both Catholic and Protestant clerics.

Authority

An ethical concept denoting the universally recognised influence of an individual, a system of views or an organization deriving from certain qualities or services performed. Authority may be political, moral, scientific, etc., depending on the sphere of influence. A system of authority is an essential condition for the development of socio-historical practice.

Authority plays an important part in the conditions of socialist construction, when all the working people are drawn actively into the affairs of society. The abuse of authority may, in the final analysis, lead to a loss of confidence in the authority or to blind worship of it, which develops into the personality cult. The 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union stressed the vast difference between the authority of leaders and the personality cult, and showed that authority must be won by unselfish service to the people and the Party, by persistent labour and a profound knowledge of the task in hand. To retain authority one must listen to public opinion, keep in touch with the masses and rely on their experience. Criticism and self-criticism constitute the condition that prevents authority from developing into the personality cult.

Autogenesis

An idealist trend in biology and medicine that regards phylogenesis and ontogenesis as resulting solely from internal, autonomous factors. This school divorces the organism from the environment and considers the mystical "principle of perfection" and other immaterial causes to be the motive force determining the development of organisms. Supporters of autogenetic concepts (the German botanist Nägeli, the Swiss zoologist Agassiz, the American biologist Cohen, and others) regarded the evolution of living organisms as a predetermined, teleological process. Autogenesis is close to vitalism.

Automat

Any technical device that performs some process, action or operation (e.g., a mechanical operation, production control, etc.) without the direct participation of man. Very simple automats were known in antiquity. Automatic machine tools became widespread in the 19th and 20th centuries. Automats with feedback and capable of maintaining a process as required under changing conditions have been developed in the last few decades. The development of cybernetics and electronic computing techniques has led to the production of automats that maintain a process under optimal conditions.

The development of modern automats shows that they are not only capable of replacing the muscular power of man but can undertake a number of functions usually carried out by the human brain—they can select the sequence and direction of actions, carry out intricate calculations and draw logical conclusions, "remember" information, gather experience, "learn", and so on. This opens up a wide field for the automation of some aspects and processes of mental labour. The theoretical study of automats belongs to the field of cybernetics and modern logic.

These sciences automate any devices for the processing of information. The theory of "abstract automats" studies idealized devices with several inlets by which the information is fed in and several outlets for the processed information. The processed information depends on that fed into the automat and the state of the automat at the moment the information is received. The states of automats depend on information retained from the past—they are its "memory". In a real automat there can be only a finite number of these states, i.e., its "memory" is finite (finite automat). An abstraction of the finiteness of the "memory" gives rise to the concept of an automat with a "memory" of infinite volume; an example of this is the Turing machine abstraction, which plays an important role in the development of modern logic.

Automation

The performance of production, management, and other socially necessary processes without the immediate participation of man. Automation is the highest stage in the development of technology and is marked by the appearance of automated lines of machine tools (in the 1920s of the 20th century); this was followed by automated shops and factories using (from the 1950s) modern computing and controlling machines. Automation does not eliminate the human element which is necessary to give general guidance and exercise control over the work of the machine (adjustment, programming, feeding raw material, repairs), although as automation develops the machines will more and more perform these functions themselves. It makes for a considerable increase in the productivity of labour and in the output of goods, reduces costs and improves quality. Control over a number of processes (in atomic power engineering, in space exploration, etc.) can be done only automatically.

Extensive automation in industry has important economic, political, and cultural consequences. These differ radically under capitalism and socialism. Under capitalism automation leads to mass unemployment, the transfer of workers to jobs that require lower skills and are lower paid; it increases economic depressions and crises and greatly aggravates the contradictions of bourgeois society. The introduction of automation by capitalists serves the purpose of obtaining super profits and is extremely uneven. Under socialism and communism automation serves to lighten the labour of man and create abundance, and leads to a constant improvement in living standards and culture and to the conversion of labour into a primary necessity for man. The Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union envisages a constantly growing automation of production processes as an essential condition for the creation of the material and technical basis of communism. Automation improves labour conditions, helps remove the distinctions between mental and physical labour and raises the cultural and technical level of the working people. By considerably reducing the length of the working day it gives people in a communist society an opportunity to apply their efforts to science, art, sport, etc.

Avenarius, Richard (1843–1896)

Swiss philosopher of the subjective idealist school, one of the first exponents of empirio-criticism, professor of Zurich University. The central feature of his philosophy is the concept of experience which is supposed to reconcile the opposites—consciousness and matter, the psychic and the physical. Avenarius criticised the materialist theory of knowledge which he described as introjection, i.e., incorporating the external world into the psyche. He also supported the theory of principal co-ordination of subject and object, i.e., the dependence of the latter on the former. That Avenarius's views were groundless and incompatible with the facts of natural science was shown by Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (vol. 14). Avenarius's major work is Kritik der reinen Erfahrung (1888-1890).

Averroes

See Ibn Rushd.

Averroism

The teachings of Averroes (see Ibn Rushd) and his followers, a trend in medieval philosophy; its supporters held that the world is eternal and the soul mortal and upheld the theory of twofold truth. Averroism was brutally persecuted by the church. Averroism acquired considerable influence in France (Siger de Brabant) in the 13th century as a progressive philosophical trend opposed to the ruling dogmatism of the church; it was also influential in Italy (the Padua school) from the 14th to 16th century.

Avicenna

See Ibn Sina.

Axiology

The branch of philosophy dealing with values. The Marxist theory of values is fundamentally opposed to bourgeois axiology which took shape at the beginning of the 20th century (Rickert, M. Scheler, and others) and, as a rule, ignores the social nature of values. Non-Marxist theoreticians, therefore, reach subjectivist or objective-idealistic conclusions in axiology.

The neo-positivists, for instance, deny altogether the real existence of property values in the object, asserting that the good and the beautiful are merely the expression of our subjective attitude to the object being appraised. Objective idealists consider value to be some sort of supernatural entity belonging to an extra-spatial, extrasensory world. The Marxist approach to the theory of values is based, first, on the recognition of the objective character of social, scientific, moral, aesthetic, and other values; secondly, on the denial of the extra-historical nature of values and an understanding of their dependence on historical conditions, class relations, etc.; thirdly, on the consideration of the dialectical relations between the relative and the absolute in the development of values. From the Marxist point of view, man and human happiness, and freedom achieved in struggle against all forms of oppression and in building communist society, constitute the supreme values.

Axiom

A proposition in any scientific theory that is so constructed that it is taken as the starting point and does not have to be proved for that theory and from which (or from the totality of which) the remaining propositions of the theory are deduced in accordance with set rules. From times of antiquity to the mid-19th century an axiom was regarded as intuitively obvious or a priori true. This conception lost sight of the conventional nature of axioms deriving from many centuries of human practical cognitive activity. Lenin wrote that man's practical activity required the repetition of logical figures myriads of times in the human mind, in order that these figures could become axioms.

The present-day understanding of the axiomatic method does not require axioms to be obvious a priori. Axioms must satisfy one condition—all other propositions of the given theory are derived from them and from them alone. The truth of axioms selected is determined when interpretations (see Interpretation and Model) of the given system are found; if such interpretations exist or, at least, may be assumed in principle, axioms must be accepted as true (see Postulate).

Axiom of the Syllogism

The basic principle of the syllogism which Aristotle formulated as "all that is predicated of the predicate will be predicated also of the subject". Aristotle often used the term "belongs to" instead of the term "is predicated of", and considered the expression "A is predicated of B" to be identical with "B is included in A". Thus the axiom of the syllogism may be interpreted as content (intensively) and as volume (extensively). In traditional logic, the significance of the axiom of the syllogism is revealed in the reduction of all syllogisms to the first syllogistic figure (see Syllogistic). In modern formal logic, the problem of the axiom of syllogism is handled in the context of a broader axiomatization of syllogism.

Axiomatic Method

A deductive method of building up a scientific theory in which (1) for a given theory a number of propositions acceptable without proof are selected (axioms); (2) the concepts they contain obviously cannot be defined within the framework of the given theory; (3) rules are elaborated for the deduction and definition of the given theory, which permit the necessary transition from some propositions to others and introduce new terms (concepts) into the theory; (4) all the remaining propositions of the given theory are deduced from (1) on the basis of (3).

The first ideas of the method appeared in Greece (Aristotle, Euclid). Later attempts were made to analyze various branches of science and philosophy axiomatically (Newton, Spinoza, and others). These analyses were an intensive (substantial) construction of a given theory (and of no other); attention was paid mainly to the intuitive definition and selection of obvious axioms. Beginning with the second half of the 19th century, when there was an intensive elaboration of the problems involved in establishing the bases of mathematics and mathematical logic, the axiom theory came to be regarded as a sort of formal system establishing the relation between its elements (symbols) and describing any number of objects that satisfied the axiom.

The main attention was focused on the non-contradiction of the system, its completeness and the independence of axioms, etc. Since symbolic systems may be studied independently of any content they may have or in connection with it, a distinction is made between syntactical and semantic axiomatic systems. This distinction made it necessary to formulate two types of basic requirements for them—syntactical and semantic (syntactical and semantic non-contradiction, completeness, independence of the axioms, etc.). An analysis of the formalized axiomatic systems led to the conclusion that it is impossible to construct a general axiomatic system (Gödel). Axiomatization is only one of the methods of the organization of scientific knowledge. It is usually carried out after the theory has been built up with sufficient content and its aim is greater precision in expounding the theory, particularly in deducing all the consequences from the assertions that have been accepted. During the last 30 or 40 years great attention has been paid to the axiomatization, not only of mathematical subjects, but also of certain branches of physics, biology, linguistics, etc. In studying natural sciences (in general, any non-mathematical science) the axiomatic method takes the form of the hypothetic-deductive method (see also Formalization).

Axiomatic System, Independence of

A characteristic of axiomatics (see Axiomatic Method). If not a single axiom underlying a deductive system can be inferred by the rules of deduction of this system, such a system of axioms is called independent. Otherwise, the system of axioms is dependent. A study of any axiomatic system from this point of view is important not only for simplifying axiomatics. It may be important in principle. Thus, establishment of the independence of Euclid's fifth postulate in the system of axioms of geometry facilitated the development of non-Euclidean geometries.

Axiomatic Theory, Completeness of

Requirement that in all axiomatically constructed theories the truth of each proposition should be proved (i.e., deduced from axioms) for the given system. Because of the distinction between syntactic and semantic axiomatic theories (see Axiomatic Method), requirements for completeness differentiate: there are requirements for syntactical completeness in a strong sense (all propositions belonging to a system are deducible or disprovable in it), and in a weak sense (after adding to the axioms a proposition not deducible in this system, it becomes a contradictory one), requirements for semantic completeness in respect to certain models (each proposition corresponding to a true statement in a given model is deductible for the system), etc.

In the process of investigating sufficiently rich axiomatic theories (arithmetic, for example), proof was found (K. Gödel in 1931, and the subsequent results) that they were incomplete in principle, i.e., they contain propositions which are not capable of proof or disproof in their framework. By virtue of this, completeness is not an absolutely indispensable condition for successful axiomatization: theories which are to a certain degree incomplete possess practical value.

Axiomatic Theory, Non-Contradiction of

A condition which must be fulfilled by any axiomatic theory and according to which a proposition P and its negation not-P cannot be simultaneously deduced within the framework of the given theory. In view of the difference between the syntactic and semantic aspects of axiomatic theories (see Axiomatic Method), non-contradictoriness is formulated in two ways: a theory is syntactically non-contradictory if a proposition and its negation are not simultaneously deduced in it; a theory is semantically non-contradictory if it has at least one model, i.e., a certain sphere of objects satisfying the given theory. Of all the conditions for axiomatic constructions (see Axiomatic Theory, Completeness of; Axiomatic System, Independence of) non-contradiction is the leading one: its violation makes the theory invalid, because it becomes possible to prove any proposition in it.

Ayer, Alfred (1910–1989)

Neo-positivist, professor of metaphysics at Oxford University (since 1959). Acquired recognition for his book Language, Truth and Logic (1936) in which he propagandises the ideas of the Vienna Circle. In his later writings (The Foundations of Empirical Knowledge, 1940; Thinking and Meaning, 1947; The Problem of Knowledge, 1956, and others) he deviates somewhat from the orthodox form of logical positivism and comes strongly under the influence of linguistic philosophy. In these books he attempts to investigate philosophical problems (the authenticity of knowledge, the relation between material objects and "sensory data", etc.) from the positivist position by analyzing the relevant concepts, translating them into "logically clear" terminology.