G

Galaxy

The Milky Way, a cosmic system of more than 100,000 million stars, of which the Sun is one. The star clusters, nebulae, etc., of which it is composed, are knit by gravitation into a single complex system with a variety of forms of motion. Distances between neighbouring stars of the Galaxy are of the order of a few light years; the diameter of the Galaxy is about 100,000 light years.

Cosmic systems resembling the Milky Way and numbering from a few thousand million to several hundred thousand million stars each, and including gas (chiefly hydrogen) and dust, are also known as galaxies. Together, they are said to form the Metagalaxy. It was not until the 1920s that the asteroidal nature of galaxies was conclusively established, and therefore writers sometimes still use the traditional term, "extra-galactical nebulae".

Galich, Alexander Ivanovich (1783–1848)

Russian philosopher, aesthetician and psychologist; objective idealist. In his lectures (Petersburg University, 1817-21) and his Kartina cheloveka (Picture of Man), 1834, Galich maintained that individual thinking was governed by the laws of being. He stressed the prominence of sensations in the process of cognition, held that cognition developed by stages (hypothesis-concept-idea) and associated thinking with physiology.

In his Istoriya filosofskikh sistem (History of the Philosophical Systems)—books 1-2, 1818-19—he attempted to formulate objective laws governing the development of philosophy; opposed materialism, but commended the methodology of the experimental sciences. In his Opyt nauki izyashchnogo (Experience of the Science of Beauty), 1825, he was one of the first in Russia to advocate the aesthetics of romanticism and attacked the theory of imitating classicism.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)

Italian physicist and astronomer; proponent of scientific world outlook; defied blind worship of Aristotle and attacked dogmatic scholasticism; discovered the law of inertia and the principle of relativity, according to which uniform and rectilinear motion of a system of bodies does not reflect on the processes within the said system. This nullified the sterile scholastic physics of his time and paved the way for experimental science.

Galileo's astronomical discoveries, which corroborated the heliocentric system of Copernicus, delivered a death blow to religious dogma; the Roman Inquisition compelled him to abjure his "Copernican heresies". Galileo's world outlook was distinctly progressive. He believed the world was infinite, matter eternal and nature single, and maintained that nature was governed by the rigorous mechanical causality of immutable atoms obeying the laws of mechanics.

Observation and experience were for Galileo the points of departure in the cognition of nature. He considered cognition of intrinsic necessity to be the highest level of knowledge, but was unable to shake off the influence of religious prejudice and acknowledged divine origin. His principal work is Dialogo del due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632).

Gall, Ludwig (1794–1863)

Early German utopian socialist, influenced by French and English communist ideas; was personally acquainted with Fourier, some followers of Saint-Simon and Robert Owen. In his writings of 1825-28 (My Wishes and Actions, and others) Gall attacked the burgeoning capitalist system. He believed that co-operation by land-hungry peasants and artisans could slow down mass impoverishment, but did not suggest revolution or the expropriation of capitalists.

Gall's ideology is the socialism of the petty proprietor disgruntled by the proletarisation of society and unwilling to renounce the system based on private ownership. Gall founded a society for providing jobs and housing for destitutes in Trier, Germany. Emigrated to America, where he attempted to establish a socialist community. On failing, he returned to Germany.

Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand (1869–1948)

A leader of the Indian national liberation movement, founder of the ideology and tactics known as Gandhism. Philosophically, Gandhi was an objective idealist; his system identified God and Truth. He held that perception of the truth derived from moral self-improvement. His ethical views were based on the Jain (see Jainism) principle of ahimsa, the "law of love" and "law of suffering", and the principles of brahmacharya (practice of continence), aparigraha (non-covetousness), etc.

Gandhism's typical feature is its ethical treatment of socio-political problems, its "moralisation" of political acts. Gandhi's socio-political ideas are embodied in his concept of Satyagraha (literally, persistent seeking of truth), of which non-co-operation and civil disobedience (to imperialist domination) were the main forms. Gandhi opposed expropriation of the exploiting classes and denied the possibility of any radical revolutionary reorganisation of society. He held that social progress lay not in the growth of people's requirements, but in their self-imposed and voluntary restriction. He advocated Hindu-Muslim unity, campaigned against "untouchability", urged the emancipation of women and called for a national system of public education, etc. Was conferred the title of mahatma (great soul).

Gandhism is the official ideology of the Indian National Congress, the ruling bourgeois party of India.

Gassendi, Pierre (1592–1655)

French materialist philosopher, physicist, astronomer, cleric, and professor at a number of universities. Gassendi campaigned strongly against scholasticism and its perversion of Aristotle's teaching, and against Descartes's theory of innate ideas; revived the materialism of Epicurus, on which he based his own doctrine.

In his basic work, Syntagma philosophiae Epicuri (1658), he divided philosophy into three parts: (1) logic, in which he analysed the problem of the authenticity of knowledge and criticised scepticism and dogmatism; (2) physics, in which he expounded the atomistic theory and inferred the objectivity, uncreatability and indestructibility of time and space; (3) ethics, in which he attacked the ascetic moral code of the church and echoed Epicurus in maintaining that every kind of pleasure is a blessing in itself and every kind of virtue is a blessing so long as it provides "serenity".

Socially and politically, Gassendi advocated unrestricted monarchy, reflecting the compromise made by the bourgeoisie to absolute monarchy. Gassendi made important observations and discoveries in astronomy and is the author of works on the history of science. In the specific environment of the 17th century, Gassendi was progressive as philosopher and scientist, but his materialism was inconsistent, for he reconciled himself to religion and the church, recognised God as the creator of atoms and held that in addition to the materialistically conceived "animal soul", man also had a supra-sensory "rational soul".

Ghose, Aurobindo (1872–1950)

Indian philosopher, founder of the so-called integral Vedanta, which ostensibly reconciles materialism and idealism, mysticism and rationalism, pluralism and monism. In the early 20th century he took an active part in the Indian liberation movement.

His chief philosophical works are The Life Divine, The Human Cycle, and The Ideal of Human Unity. In these books elements of the different trends of the Vedanta interweave with those of idealistic Western schools, particularly Hegel, Bradley and Alexander. Ghose believed that in the course of human history there is a transition from "subconsciousness" to consciousness and "superconsciousness". He also believed that the solution of the riddle of history and the achievement of man's aspirations lie in the attainment of mystical "superconsciousness".

Ghose claimed to have discovered a "third way" of social development, as distinct from capitalism and socialism, and was in effect a bourgeois ideologist.

General Crisis of Capitalism

All-round crisis of the world capitalist system which encompasses the economic and the state system, politics, ideology, and also all other spheres of life in contemporary bourgeois society. The division of the world into two opposite systems, capitalist and socialist, is the decisive feature of the General Crisis of Capitalism.

"The breakaway from capitalism of more and more countries; the weakening of imperialist positions in the economic competition with socialism; the break-up of the imperialist colonial system; the intensification of imperialist contradictions with the development of state-monopoly capitalism and the growth of militarism; the mounting internal instability and decay of capitalist economy evidenced by the increasing inability of capitalism to make full use of the productive forces (low rates of production growth, periodic crises, continuous undercapacity operation of production plant, and chronic unemployment); the mounting struggle between labour and capital; an acute intensification of contradictions within the world capitalist economy; an unprecedented growth of political reaction in all spheres, rejection of bourgeois freedoms and establishment of fascist and despotic regimes in a number of countries; and the profound crisis of bourgeois policy and ideology—all these are manifestations of the general crisis of capitalism." (Programme of the CPSU.)

In its development the General Crisis of Capitalism has passed through several stages. The first stage began during the 1st World War, particularly as a result of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. The second stage began during the 2nd World War, especially as a result of the establishment of people's democracy in a number of European and Asian countries. The decisive feature of this period was the emergence of socialism beyond the bounds of one country and the formation of the world socialist system. The third stage of the General Crisis of Capitalism began in the second half of the 1950s; its specific feature is that it arose not in connection with a world war, but in conditions of the competition and struggle between the two systems, the break-up of imperialism's world colonial system and an increasing change in the relation of world forces in favour of socialism.

General Semantics

A trend of neo-positivism which arose in the United States in the 1930s. Alfred Korzybski was the founder of General Semantics. At present the International Society for General Semantics, founded in Chicago in 1942, and also the Institute of General Semantics, organised in Lakeville (USA) in 1947, serve as the organisational centres of General Semantics. ETC., a journal started in Chicago in 1943, is the official organ of General Semantics. In the opinion of the journal's founders, its name symbolises the general semantic understanding of the world as being in the process of eternal and instant change and the impossibility of reflecting it adequately.

The main proponents of General Semantics, in addition to Korzybski, are S. Hayakawa, Anatol Rapoport, and Stuart Chase. The main postulates of General Semantics and also its object of study were formulated by Korzybski in his book Science and Sanity. In his opinion, General Semantics is neither philosophy nor psychology, nor logic in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a new subject based on relations between people, facilitating a more effective use of man's nervous system. Korzybski treats the relationship of man and objective reality in an unscientific way, in the spirit of subjective idealism.

The main principles of General Semantics are the principle of non-identity, the principle of incompleteness, and the principle of self-reflection. These principles must underlie man's new orientation in the external world. They signify that in his daily life man must not identify words with things, must not assume that something can be fully knowable and, lastly, must take into account the fact that language reflects not only external objects but also man himself.

By elevating into an absolute the importance of language as a means of communication, some general semanticists seek to explain all vital problems, including the origin of wars and international tensions, as consequences of the incorrect use of language. They deny the objective content of general scientific concepts which are not accessible to direct sensuous verification. In recent years General Semantics has assumed a definite anti-Marxist and anti-materialist trend, although its proponents vehemently deny that their doctrine constitutes a philosophy.

Generalisation

A logical process of transition from the particular to the universal, from less general to more general knowledge (e.g., the transition from the concept of "heat" to the concept of "energy", from the geometry of Euclid to the geometry of Lobachevsky) and also the result of this process; a generalised concept, judgement, law of science, and theory. The obtaining of generalised knowledge signifies deeper reflection of reality and penetration of its essence.

In formal logic, generalisation of a concept is understood to mean transition from a narrow to a broader concept. At the same time, the content of a generalised concept is narrower, because specific features are excluded from it (see Concept, Volume and Content of). In proceeding from the concept "oak" to the concept "tree", for example, the specific features of the oak are discarded. The opposite process of generalisation is restriction.

Genetic Method

A method of investigation based on analysing the development of phenomena; came into existence when the idea of development took precedence in science (17th century), viz., differential calculus in mathematics, Lyell's theory in geology, the Kant-Laplace hypothesis in cosmogony, the theory of evolution in biology, etc. The Genetic Method was also adopted in philosophy, gradually ousting the then prevalent analytic method, and became one of the methods of contemporary mathematics and logic.

According to the Genetic Method we must determine (1) the initial conditions of development, (2) the main stages of development, and (3) the basic tendency or line of development. The chief purpose is to establish the connections between phenomena in time and to examine the transitions from lower to higher forms. The Genetic Method is superior to empirical analysis, because it proceeds parallel to actual development, the latter serving as the criterion of the validity of emergent ideas.

However, despite its advantages, the Genetic Method does not get to the bottom of all the complexities of the development process. If used alone, unsupported by other methods, it leads into error, distorts and simplifies the facts, and reduces itself to primitive evolutionism. In modern science the Genetic Method has established itself as an element of the dialectical method.

Genius

The highest degree of creative mental endowment; a person of such endowment. Considering the relative difference between genius and talent, works of genius may be defined as having extraordinary novelty, individuality and historic importance, for which reason they are preserved for all time in the memory of mankind. A man of genius is one who by virtue of his extraordinary endowment and labour expresses and satisfies vitally important social demands.

Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944)

Italian philosopher, professor at Rome University, Minister of Education in Mussolini's government. He attacked Marxism in his work, La filosofia di Marx (1899) and revised the doctrine of Hegel, removing from it the concepts of nature and the objective idea, and remoulding it into a system of "actualism", a subjective idealistic variety of Neo-Hegelianism.

Gentile described all existence as the fruit of the thinking mind in motion. Thought, he contended, is always actual and active, and its creative activity is not restricted by space or time. The matter which it produces is dead and inert, although it is in unity with thought. To escape solipsism, Gentile introduced the concept of the universal "I". Reality, he contended, is not identical with the conceptions of the individual mind, but is the pure thought of a supra-personal transcendental entity in the Universe, which overcomes all opposites in the process of coming into being.

Gentile's socio-political views evolved from liberalism to fascism. His subjectivism and voluntarism became the pillar of the ideology of the Italian fascists. His main works are La riforma della dialettica hegeliana (1913) and Sistema di logica come teoria del conoscere (1917).

Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Étienne (1772–1844)

French zoologist, member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. He advanced the idea of a "unified plan of structure" of the organic world, which was a progressive idea in his day. He recognised the influence of the environment on the development of organisms and the possibility of transmitting the changes occurring in them by heredity. His researches helped to prepare the way for the theory of evolution (see Darwin).

Geographical Determinism

A school in sociology which holds that the geographical environment (climate, soil, rivers, etc.) is the chief factor in social development; an essentially naturalistic and idealistic approach to history. First advanced by ancient thinkers, Plato, Aristotle and others, in opposition to religious and mythological views. Geographical Determinism, which took shape as a distinct school of thought in the 18th century under the influence of Montesquieu, was progressive so long as it opposed the church-sponsored feudal ideology which construed the divine preordination of social phenomena.

But in the mid-19th century it was used, as in the case of Buckle, to prove the alleged immutability of social inequality and colonialist expansion. Lev Mechnikov's theory, which considered rivers as the root factor in the origin and development of civilisation, is closely related to Geographical Determinism. Mechnikov argued that social development leads inevitably from tyranny to anarchy. The geographical school paved the way for the appearance, in the imperialist epoch, of geopolitics.

Geographical Environment

The aggregate of things and phenomena of animate and inanimate nature (the earth's crust, lower layers of the atmosphere, water, soil, flora and fauna) involved at any given time in the process of social production and constituting the objectively necessary medium for the existence and development of any society. The development of society also changes and widens the Geographical Environment.

In remote times men used little more than the natural sources of livelihood (wild plants and animals, fertile land, etc.). In the course of time, natural wealth comprising means of labour, i.e., mineral and power resources, came into play more prominently. Geographical Environment considerably influences the life of society, tending to retard or accelerate the development of countries and nations, and often stimulating the growth of specific economic branches.

In their natural state the elements of the Geographical Environment do not necessarily satisfy the growing requirements of production. For this reason, man transforms or changes them, and, therefore, acts as the most powerful agent in the transformation of the Geographical Environment. But the extent, nature and forms of change depend on the social system. The anarchy of production and the competition prevailing in capitalist society more often than not cause changes of Geographical Environment harmful to society.

In none but socialist society are men "rationally regulating their interchange with nature, bringing it under their common control ... achieving this with the least expenditure of energy and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature." (Marx, Capital, Vol. 3, p. 800.) The building of the material and technical basis of communism proceeds from effective and plan-regulated utilisation of all the elements of the Geographical Environment for the good of the people.

Geometrical Method in Philosophy

Widely used but inaccurate name for the axiomatic method of setting out philosophical theories; Spinoza was its most prominent exponent. He modelled his chief work Ethics, on Euclid's geometry, in the sense that he first presented the necessary definitions and axioms and then proceeded to prove the resultant theorems. In our time these theorems appear artificial, but it was Spinoza's purpose to stress the necessary interconnection between parts of the Universe, our knowledge of which is capable of proof.

Descartes, whose Discours de la méthode is clearly influenced by geometry, set a high value on the Geometrical Method. He went so far as to postulate that clarity and appearance, both notable features of geometrical axioms, are criteria of the validity of all knowledge. In his De la recherche de la vérité, Malebranche notes man's natural inclination to error and recommends the Geometrical Method for metaphysics, i.e., speculative philosophy, to make it possible to deduce all the consequences from its few self-evident propositions.

Geometry

The branch of mathematics which investigates spatial relations and forms and their abstractions. Its origin may be traced to the antique world (Egypt, Babylon, Greece), where it resulted from the demands of production (measuring land, surfaces, etc.). It was in Greece that geometry was first moulded into a deductive theory by Euclid.

In the 17th century Descartes introduced the concept of co-ordinates, which marked the origin of analytical Geometry. Applied to Geometry, methods of mathematical analysis discovered in the 17th century produced differential Geometry. Projective Geometry and descriptive Geometry were conceived in the 17th-19th centuries, to meet the need for depicting bodies on planes.

In the 19th century Lobachevsky made the revolutionary discovery of non-Euclidean Geometry. In the 20th century, under the influence of the theory of plurality, topology emerged, becoming a branch of mathematics in its own right; topology investigates the most general properties of continuous transformations in space.

At first, data obtained from man's immediate experience were the subject of Geometry. Then, as science advanced, Geometry inclined towards a higher degree of abstraction. At present, it is usual to employ the axiomatic method for the logical construction of a geometrical theory from elements given in abstract form. The development of Geometry was stimulated by the needs of natural science. Investigations of the logical foundations of Geometry, which helped to determine the nature of the axiomatic method, are of great epistemological importance. They have added precision to our knowledge of the relation of geometrical theories to the real world.

Geopolitics

A political doctrine justifying imperialist expansion with references to economic and political geography. Geopolitics was propounded by Friedrich Ratzel, a German geographer, shortly before the 1st World War; he viewed countries as organisms struggling for Lebensraum. Its other proponents were Halford Mackinder (Britain) and Admiral Alfred Mahan (USA). The term Geopolitics was first used by Rudolf Kjellén, a Swedish scholar, who, in his Staten som Lifsform used the arguments of Malthusianism and Social-Darwinism to justify the imperialist approach to geographical space.

In 1923-27 a study group organised by the German journal Geopolitik proclaimed Geopolitics a special science distinct from conventional political geography. Karl Haushofer and Erich Obst, the leaders of this group, applied Geopolitics to the political objectives of nazism. After the 2nd World War, Geopolitics won adherents in the United States (Nicholas J. Spykman, etc.), Canada (Thomas Greenwood), and particularly in Federal Germany (Carl Schmitt, Hans Grimm, Alfred Hettner, Adolf Grabowski, etc.).

Today, Geopolitics argues the need for inter-state imperialist blocs and seeks to prove the geographical causes of the rift between the communist East and the bourgeois West (the "continental" and "maritime" types of civilisation). Prominent among the contemporary geopolitical concepts is the so-called global approach to political geography which, as a rule, reflects imperialist claims to world domination.

"The German Ideology"

An early philosophical work of Marx and Engels written in 1845-46, criticising the idealism of the Young Hegelians and the limited nature of Feuerbach's materialism. The book was not published during the lifetime of Marx and Engels; it appeared for the first time in 1932 in the Soviet Union.

Developing further the ideas expounded in The Holy Family, Marx and Engels showed that idealism is associated with the classes hostile to the proletariat and that, in particular, the philosophy of the Young Hegelians reflected the cowardice and impotence of the German bourgeoisie. Marx and Engels criticised the metaphysical character and the contemplative nature of Feuerbach's materialism, they showed that in his views of history Feuerbach was an idealist and, therefore, like the Young Hegelians, was unable to understand the driving forces of social development.

The German Ideology presents a profound critique of bourgeois individualism and anarchism of Stirner and also of the reactionary, so-called "true socialism" of K. Grün, M. Hess, and others. Combating the enemies of the proletariat, Marx and Engels developed in The German Ideology the theory of scientific communism and proved that the proletariat based its activity on the objective laws of social development. They saw in the proletariat's struggle against the bourgeoisie, in the victorious communist revolution and the inevitable establishment of the communist system the necessary result of the operation of economic laws which exist independent of man's will.

The German Ideology gives the first detailed exposition of the materialist understanding of history: of the question of the socio-economic formation, the productive forces, and relations of production (the latter term was not used yet in The German Ideology), the relationship of social being to social consciousness, etc. In The German Ideology Marx and Engels expounded their world outlook, which by that time was, in the main, clearly defined. This book is a model of militant philosophical critique of ideology hostile to the proletariat, a model of communist partisanship in elaborating philosophical problems.

Gestalt Psychology

An idealistic trend in modern psychology; originated in Germany in 1912. The term "Gestalt Psychology" (Ger. Gestalt—shape, form) was first introduced by Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932); its most prominent exponents were Max Wertheimer (1880-1944), Wolfgang Köhler (b. 1887) and Kurt Koffka (1886-1941). Philosophically, Gestalt Psychology is based on the ideas of Edmund Husserl and Ernst Mach.

In contrast to associationist psychology, Gestalt Psychology considers what it styles as psychic structures, "organised wholes" or "Gestalts", rather than sensations, to be primary and basic in the workings of the mind. Their formation, according to Gestalt Psychology, is subject to the intrinsic faculties of individuals to create simple, symmetrical and closed or integral figures. This theory assumes the individual's isolation from his environment and his own practical activities. Ultimately, the Gestaltists ascribe the wholeness of the psychic structures to immanent subjective "laws"; in this they adhere to the idealistic standpoint.

Subsequently, the ideas of Gestalt Psychology (particularly the notion of "Gestalt") were applied to physical, physiological and even economic phenomena. Theoretically, Gestalt Psychology was disproved by Ivan Pavlov and many other physiologists and psychologists.

Gnostics

Adherents of a philosophico-religious school in the first centuries of Christianity who merged Christian theology with the religions of the ancient East, with Neo-Platonism and Pythagoreanism (see Pythagoreans); the Gnostics believed in a spiritual uncognisable prime cause which manifests itself in emanation and is counterposed to the material world, the source of "evil". The two leading Christian Gnostics were Valentinus of Egypt (2nd century) and Basilides of Syria (2nd century).

God

Imaginary conception of a supernatural omnipotent being, which is supposed to have created the world and to be ruling it; in Judaism Jehovah, in Islam Allah, in Christianity the Holy Trinity (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost), etc. Conceptions of a god form the basis of modern forms of religion, whereas in the early stages of the development of religion this conception did not exist (see Totemism, Fetishism, and Animism).

The conceptions of tribal and national gods came into existence with the collapse of the primitive-communal system, the development of tribal associations, and the rise of classes and the state. The conception of a single and omnipotent Almighty God, deity, the Lord of Heaven, took shape as a "copy of the single oriental despot". (Engels.)

Theology resorts to idealism to prove the existence of God philosophically, to embellish and cloak this idea in pseudo-scientific terms, to present God as an absolute idea, a universal will, a kind of impersonal rational principle. That the idea of God and all attempts to defend it are groundless and reactionary was made perfectly clear by Marxism and corroborated by the whole development of the natural and social sciences. "God is," wrote Lenin, "(in history and in real life) first of all the complex of ideas generated by the brutish subjection of man both by external nature and by the class yoke—ideas which consolidate that subjection, lull to sleep the class struggle". (Vol. 35, p. 128.)

God-Building

A religious-philosophical trend in Russia which arose after the defeat of the revolution of 1905-07. Among its leaders were Lunacharsky, V. Bazarov, Yushkevich; Gorky was also associated with the God-builders for a time (Ispoved [Confession], 1907, and Razrusheniye lichnosti [Destruction of the Personality], 1909), but broke with the movement under the influence of Lenin.

The aim of God-Building, which was closely linked with the philosophy of Bogdanov, was to unite scientific socialism with religion and create a so-called religious atheism, that is, a religion without God. The God-builders regarded even Marxism as primarily a religious system that would show men the way to a new life. The ideas of the trend were much advocated in the school which Bogdanov and others set up on Capri in 1909.

Although the God-builders belonged to the Social-Democratic Labour Party and opposed God-seeking, their theories had nothing in common with Marxism; they reflected the ideological wavering of the part of the working class that was influenced by petty-bourgeois ideology. Lenin and Plekhanov were sharply critical of God-Building. "Both in Europe and in Russia," Lenin wrote, "any, even the most refined and best-intentioned defence or justification of the idea of God is a justification of reaction." (Vol. 35, p. 128.) By the outbreak of the 1st World War God-Building had already ceased to exist as a trend.

God-Seeking

A religious-philosophical trend in Russia that set out to "inoculate the people with or strengthen the hold of religion on them in new forms" (Lenin). It originated at the beginning of the 20th century in the form of religious meetings (St. Petersburg, 1901-03) and in the magazines Novy Put (The New Way), and Voprosy Zhizni (Problems of Life), etc.

The ideas of God-Seeking became particularly popular among bourgeois intellectuals after the defeat of the Russian revolution in 1905-07. They were widely discussed in literature and at the Philosophico-Religious Society, which was revived in 1907. The advocates of God-Seeking, such philosophers and writers as Berdyayev, D. Merezhkovsky (Ne mir, no mech [Not Peace but the Sword], 1908, etc.), N. Minsky (O svobode religioznoi sovesti [On Freedom of the Religious Conscience], 1902, and Religiya budushchego [Religion of the Future], 1905), and S. Bulgakov, called for a "new attitude" to the Christian gospel and preached a "religious reformation."

They maintained that the aim of life was to seek God, that the purpose of history was the realisation of God in humanity, the creation of a divine humanity, that is, a social organisation founded on religious principles. Man could achieve this aim, the kingdom of God, only through love, humility, and patience. The God-seekers upheld irrationalism and mystical knowledge, considering revelation the most reliable means of discovering the truth.

The theory of God-Seeking was aimed primarily against the Marxist teaching on society and was based on the philosophico-theological theories of Solovyov. Lenin, Plekhanov, and other Marxists exposed the reactionary nature of all philosophic brands of religious mysticism, including God-Seeking. With the resurgence of the revolutionary movement in 1910-12 the influence of God-Seeking among intellectuals dwindled and disappeared altogether after the October Revolution of 1917.

Gödel, Kurt (1906–1978)

Austrian logician and mathematician; resolved many key problems in mathematical logic. Associated with the University of Vienna in the 1930s, moved to the United States in 1940.

Gödel proved (1931) the incompleteness of the formal systems, for example, those assuming the formalisation of the arithmetic of natural numbers. Such systems, he showed, invariably contained propositions which, within their own framework, were both unprovable and undeniable. Gödel's exposition stimulated research in the limitations of the formal systems by Alonzo Church, Stephen Cole Kleene, Tarski, A. Mostowski, P. Novikov, and others, which culminated in the fundamental philosophical deduction that complete formalisation of scientific knowledge is impossible.

Gödel also devoted himself to metamathematics, constructive logic, the theory of recursive functions, etc. In the 1930s, Gödel's philosophical views were strongly influenced by neo-positivism; subsequently, he came to oppose subjectivism.

Godwin, William (1756–1836)

English political thinker and man of letters; exponent of petty-bourgeois equalitarian utopianism. He was a dissenting minister as a young man and became a consistent rationalist in the early 1780s.

Godwin gave primacy to the influence on men of the social environment and morals. He advocated abolition of the right of property and political authority. His ideal was a society of independent producers organised in small communities. He favoured the communist principle of distribution according to requirements. However, Engels described Godwin's views as antisocial. Godwin influenced anarchistic doctrines.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749–1832)

German poet, naturalist and thinker; his philosophical views greatly affected the development of European theoretical thought. Goethe championed the idea that theory and experience are one. "First came the cause" is the basic principle of his approach to the world and cognition. He was convinced of the objectiveness of the laws of nature, the mover of the development of which is locked within it.

Goethe was eager to supplement Spinoza's concepts, which he interpreted pantheistically (see Pantheism), with the idea of development. Interaction of the positive and negative ("ascent" and "polarities"), Goethe held, is observable in every phenomenon; this interaction gives rise to new qualities. Goethe's ideas about the creative character of negation embodied, in particular, in the image of Mephistopheles (Faust) are very valuable.

Goethe considered motion the basic form of the existence of matter. However, unable to explain the multiplicity of forms of motion, he arrived at hylozoism, that is, acknowledgement of an eternally vital power, entelechy. Although Goethe's views are inconsistent and often contradictory, they may be described as close to materialistic. Goethe's realistic aesthetics and his dramatic works and poetry exercise a strong influence on the theory and practice of world art.

Gogotsky, Sylvestr Sylvestrovich (1813–89)

Russian idealist philosopher, professor at Kiev Ecclesiastical Academy (1841-51) and Kiev University (from 1851). Gogotsky deliberately adapted his philosophical views to the Orthodox faith and political reaction. He assailed materialism as a doctrine leading to atheism, and considered it the purpose of philosophy to represent the ideas of God as the rational and creative first cause of the natural and spiritual world.

Gogotsky believed knowledge of God to be innate and acquired through faith. He held that the idea of God is inseparable from human cognition, which is secondary and derives from internal experience, from immediate conviction, that is, faith. Antonovich and Pisarev demonstrated the unscientific essence of Gogotsky's writings. Gogotsky's Filosofsky leksikon (4 vols., 1857-73) is one of the earliest attempts made in Russia to compile an encyclopaedia of philosophy.

Good, The

Any object or phenomenon that satisfies a definite human need, that corresponds to human interests or aspirations and in general exercises a beneficial effect on society, a class or a person. If a given object is a Good it means that it has a positive value. The opposite to Good is evil, that is, anything that has a negative social significance.

Material Goods are to be distinguished from spiritual Goods. Material Goods satisfy man's material needs for food, clothing, housing, etc. Material Goods, or wealth, include the means of production—machines, industrial buildings, materials, and so on. Spiritual Goods comprise knowledge, the achievements of human culture, moral good as expressed in man's moral actions, etc. The highest Good is man himself, the creator of all material and spiritual values.

Many Goods have a class character. What is a Good for the exploiters may be an evil for the exploited. This is an expression of the clash of class interests.

Good and Evil

Ethical categories which express a moral appraisal of social phenomena and human conduct. Good is what society (or a given progressive class) considers moral and worthy of imitation, the reverse being true of Evil.

The exploiting classes present their conception of Good and Evil as "eternal" and universal, basing their claim on the commandments of God or metaphysical principles. One of the most influential idealist systems of morality is that of Kant. According to the Kantian theory, Good is what conforms to the moral law, which is inherent in every rational being and does not depend on the conditions in which a man lives (see Categorical Imperative).

The materialist trend in the interpretation of the problem of Good and Evil, of moral conduct, was already developed in ancient philosophy. The hedonism of Aristippus and Epicurus asserts that pleasure alone is intrinsically Good. This ethical theory was developed by the French materialists of the 18th century, particularly Helvetius. Although pre-Marxist materialism held that the source of man's moral conduct lay in human nature, in a man's conditions of life and upbringing, it also claimed that the notions of Good and Evil are eternal.

The characteristic features of present-day bourgeois ethics are its attempts, on the one hand, to find grounds and justification for exploitation of the working people and the population of the colonies, and, on the other hand, to deny the importance of moral judgements in general (see Logical Positivism in Ethics).

Marxist-Leninist ethics rejects the metaphysical interpretation of Good and Evil. "The conceptions of good and evil have varied so much from nation to nation and from age to age that they have often been in direct contradiction to each other" (Engels, Anti-Dühring, p. 131). At the same time the concepts of Good and Evil have their objective source in the development of society. Men's actions may be appraised as Good or Evil, according to whether they promote or hinder the satisfaction of the historical needs of society (see Morality).

Gorgias (483–375 B.C.)

Greek sophist of Leontini, Sicily, a proponent of slave-owning democracy. Supplemented the relativism of Protagoras with rationalistic agnosticism. His postulates have come down to us in the rendering of Plato and other authors.

In his work, On Nature or on That Which is Not, Gorgias proceeds from the philosophy of the Eleatic school to set out three propositions: nothing is real; if anything were real, it would still be uncognisable; if anything were cognisable, it would still be inexpressible.

Gramsci, Antonio (1891–1937)

Marxist theoretician, founder of the Italian Communist Party; sentenced for his revolutionary activities by a fascist court (in 1928) to 20 years' imprisonment. Gramsci played a prominent part in exposing mechanistic philosophy, the ideological basis of Right deviationism, widespread in some of the Communist Parties of Europe in the 1920s.

His main writings are contained in his Quaderni del Carcere. He devoted himself to problems of historical materialism and took an interest in aesthetics, sociology, the history of philosophy, etc. His studies on the history of Italian culture and his criticism of Catholicism are of considerable interest. He dealt with the relation of basis to superstructure, of the proletariat to the intelligentsia, the cultural revolution and the role of ideology in social development.

Gramsci battled against idealistic sociological and philosophical trends, especially that of Croce, and propagated Marxism-Leninism.

Granovsky, Timofei Nikolayevich (1813–55)

Russian historian and sociologist, professor at Moscow University (1839-55), a prominent exponent of Westernism (see Westerners, Slavophiles). His views were strongly influenced by Stankevich, Belinsky and Herzen; he also had a good grasp of the German classical philosophers.

According to Granovsky, the historical process is rigorously governed by objective laws. He defines objective law as an ideal, a moral goal, in the attainment of which personalities are likely to play a leading role. However, he does not deny the masses "a certain historical weight." Hence, he denounces fatalism, which he describes as a doctrine that relieves individuals of moral responsibility.

Granovsky's views on historical development (containing elements of dialectics) evolved from idealism towards naturalism. He believed that history should borrow the methods of research employed in natural science. His explanations of social phenomena attach considerable weight to geographical conditions. Granovsky was an advocate of constitutional monarchy and expounded liberal views in opposing serfdom in Russia. He exercised a beneficial influence on Russian society and Russian historiography.

Gravitation

A kind of physical interaction which is expressed in the mutual attraction of two bodies. According to the law of Gravitation first formulated by Newton, each mass is attracted toward every other mass with a force directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

The theory of Einstein provided a deeper explanation of Gravitation. The study of immediate action and action at a distance, which caused numerous debates among philosophers (see Relativity, Theory of), arose largely out of research into the nature of Gravitation.

Great Numbers, Law of

A general principle by which the combined effect of a large number of accidental factors produces, for a very large class of such factors, results almost independent of chance. In some conditions this law may be quantitatively evaluated (see Probability, Theory of).

The first accurate, though limited, formulation of these conditions and the quantitative evaluation to be deduced from them was given by Bernoulli (1713). His theorem was generalised by Poisson (1837), who was the first to use the term "Law of Great Numbers." The theorem was given its most generalised form and proved by Chebyshev in 1867. The theorems pertaining to this law have their greatest practical use in statistics and statistical physics.

Grotius, Hugo (Huig de Groot) (1583–1645)

Dutch jurist, sociologist and statesman; a prominent exponent of the bourgeois theories of natural law and social contract. Grotius believed that the law and the state are of earthly rather than divine origin. The state, he said, came into being as a result of agreement among men.

His theories helped to free the theory of the state and law from the influence of theology and medieval scholasticism. His most celebrated work is De Jure Belli et Pacis (1625).

Gurvitch, Georges (1894–1965)

French sociologist, was born in Russia, emigrated to France after 1917. His main works are La vocation actuelle de la Sociologie (1950) and Déterminismes sociaux et Liberté humaine (1955). He founded so-called dialectical hyperempiricism (microsociology), which claims to examine comprehensively all aspects of social reality in all its "strata," "levels," "dimensions and aspects," and all its "contradictions."

Gurvitch's concept is unhistorical, formal and idealistic, because it describes as "pseudo-problems," and thus rejects, the concepts of a single determinative basis of society, objective sociological laws, and the concepts of society and progress. Gurvitch is associated with the World Peace Movement.