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Objectification and Deobjectification
Terms which designate characteristic distinctions of human labour. Objectification means the creation of a definite object by the passage of human active forces and capabilities from a form of motion to the form of an object; deobjectification means the transition of an object from its own sphere into the sphere and form of human activity, that is, the use of an object in the process of labour.
These concepts were applied in Hegel's philosophy to the extent that he "grasped the essence of labour" (Marx). But Hegel idealistically reduced man's labour activity solely to abstract spiritual labour, to thinking, and identified objectification with alienation. These concepts have a fundamentally different meaning in the description of labour given in Marx's early works.
Examining objectification and deobjectification in their unity as necessary aspects of labour activity, Marx revealed the place of labour in man's life, the fact that by his labour man actively remakes, humanises, the objective world (as a result of objectification, which expresses the active side of labour). At the same time man depends on the objective world, utilising it in his activity and coordinating this activity with objective laws (as a result of deobjectification, which expresses the dependence of man on the object).
All this enabled Marx scientifically to characterise the process of labour, to open a way to the dialectical materialist understanding of the relationship between the subject and the object and to solve problems of the theory of knowledge from positions of experience. One of the aspects of objectification and deobjectification—description of the labour process from the viewpoint of the interaction of human activity with its object and product—is preserved in developed Marxism and is reflected in terminology (for example, in Capital).
Objective
Pertaining to an object or determined by it. As applied to real objects, this concept means that objects, their properties and relations, exist outside and independent of man. As applied to ideas, concepts or judgements, it indicates the source of our knowledge, its material basis. Subjective dialectics reflects objective dialectics.
Recognition of objective truth underlies the materialist theory of knowledge. Proof of objective significance is obtained by comparing the idea or theory with the object of thought in the process of practical use of the object or of changing reality in conformity with the idea or theory.
Objective and Subjective Factors of History
Two kinds of conditions of social development. Objective factors are conditions which are independent of people and determine the direction, the bounds of their activity. Such, for example, are natural conditions, a given level of production, the historically urgent tasks and requirements of material, political, and spiritual development. Subjective factors are the activity of the masses, classes, parties, states, and individuals; their consciousness, will, ability to act, etc.
Objective factors always play a determining part, but their action is manifested only through the operation of subjective factors. The latter can play a decisive role only when the objective conditions for them have been prepared. The influence of subjective factors on social development rises with the transition from one socio-economic formation to another, more progressive formation.
The importance of subjective factors particularly increases in socialist society when, for the first time in history, the possibility is created for planned development in all spheres of social life and the mass of the people are drawn into the building of socialism and communism.
Objective Idea
The highest generic concept in idealism which not only possesses objective reality but also determines sensory being. According to how the relationship between the objective idea and objective reality is interpreted we distinguish:
(1) the dualistic theory of the objective idea, most consistently represented in the Megarian school which asserts that the essence of things is special ideal reality, in no way related to sensory being;
(2) the monistic theory of the objective idea which uses such concepts as the "imitation" of things by ideas, the "presence" of ideas in things, stressing the determining influence of the ideal world on the sensory world. In one form this monism (see Plato) speaks of the influence of the independent ideal world on reality. In another form (see Hegel) this monism denies any difference at all between ideas and things, and objective things are conceived as logical categories in their development;
(3) the emanation theory (see Stoics, and Neo-Platonism) which teaches that the primary substance (primary fire of the Stoics, Primary One of the Neo-Platonics) emanates into the entire sensory world, which arises and takes shape with the help of the objectively ideal primary principle.
Dialectical materialism denies the primacy of the ideal principle. The idea is a reflection of matter, that is, it has an objective content. Therefore, it is possible to speak of the real existence of ideas, which are recorded in different forms of social consciousness and are objective as regards their content and also in relation to the mind of the individual. But in this case, too, the objective idea is a subjective reflection of material reality, although it actively influences this material reality itself for the purpose of transforming and developing it.
Objective Reality
The material world in its entirety, in all its forms and manifestations. The concept of objective reality is relative. It is everything that exists outside the individual's mind and is reflected by it. But the individual himself with his mind will be objective reality in relation to other people, and so on. If abstraction is made of the individual view of the world, it may be said that objective reality coincides with reality in general.
The latter includes diverse material objects, their properties, space, time, motion, laws; diverse social phenomena—relations of production, the state, art, etc. All these are reflected by the human mind but exist independent of the mind. From this, however, we must not conclude that the concept of objective reality is broader than the concept of matter. Such an idea can arise if matter is divorced from its multifarious properties and forms of manifestation, without which it does not exist.
Motion, space, time, life, etc., are all properties or manifestations of properties and interactions of various kinds of matter differing in degree of complexity, which in their sum total forms the world as a whole or the entire objective reality (see Being).
Objectiveness
A concept denoting a phenomenon, action, state, etc., is connected with objects or is (becomes) itself an object; the being of something as an object, that is, real existence. For example, it is possible to speak of the objective (or material, which in this case is the same) characteristic of practical activity, since in this process men are engaged with objects and create objects as a result of that activity; one may speak of the objectiveness of the reflection of reality by man, that is, of the presence in the human mind of an objective content, inasmuch as that content is the reflection of objects of the material world, etc.
Recognition of man's objectiveness, his activity, the content of his consciousness, etc., distinguishes materialist from idealist philosophy. True, Hegel used the term "objectiveness". But with him objectiveness was merely the product (alienation) of the absolute spirit at certain stages of its development and must be removed, set aside, by the recognition of the fact that every objectiveness is the other being of the spirit, the concept, the idea.
Objectivism
A specific principle of approach to phenomena of reality which calls for abstention from critical appraisals and partisan conclusions on the alleged grounds that science is incapable of drawing such conclusions. A characteristic of objectivism is the refusal to analyse theoretical events from a class viewpoint. In the ideological struggle objectivism claims that class forces stand "above classes", represent the "entire nation", and are "non-partisan".
Exposing "narrow" bourgeois objectivism, Lenin demonstrated that Marxism abhors it, just as subjectivism, because Marxism deduces its partisan viewpoint in a scientific way, that is, leads scientific study to partisan conclusions and appraisals which correspond to the actual state of affairs (see Partisanship in Philosophy).
Occam, William of (d. 1349)
Medieval English theologian, scholastic philosopher, tutor at Oxford University and prominent nominalist (see Nominalism). An ideologist of the secular feudal lords who fought against the claims of the Catholic Church and papacy to world domination. Alongside Duns Scotus, a leader of the scholastic opposition to Thomism, Occam asserted that the existence of God and other religious dogmas could not be proved by reason and were founded solely on faith. Hence philosophy must get rid of theology.
Occasion
External, often casual event, circumstance, providing an impulse for other events. Occasion differs from cause in that it may be a fact of various kinds, not connected of necessity with other events, effects (see Causality). Occasion may give rise to one or another phenomenon only because the latter has been prepared by a regular and necessary course of development. By occasion we also understand a pretext, sometimes specially chosen, for any behaviour or action.
Occasionalism
A religious idealist doctrine of the 17th century (Cordemois, A. Gaulincx) trying to provide an explanation of the interaction of soul and body, to which the dualism of Descartes inevitably led by considering all psychic and physical phenomena and their interaction a result of the direct intervention of God. The French spiritualist Malebranche carried occasionalism so far as to see a divine act in every causality.
Occultism
From Latin occultus—hidden. A mystic doctrine of the existence of mysterious other-world forces with which chosen people supposedly establish contact. By its content occultism is close to theosophy.
Ogaryov, Nikolai Platonovich (1813–1877)
Russian revolutionary democrat, philosopher, publicist, and poet. With Herzen opposed tsarism and serfdom, the reactionary ideology of the Orthodox Church, autocracy and liberalism of the landowners and bourgeoisie. The ideological cooperation of Ogaryov with Herzen which began during their youth continued to the end of their life.
As students of Moscow University Herzen and Ogaryov organised a clandestine circle whose members studied political literature, including socialist writings. In 1834, Ogaryov, Herzen and other members of the circle were arrested and exiled. In 1850, Ogaryov was arrested a second time, in 1856, he emigrated and, together with Herzen, organised the publication of Russian revolutionary periodicals—Polyarnaya Zvezda (Polar Star), Kolokol (Bell), Obshcheye Veche (General Assembly), Russkaya Potayonnaya Literatura (Russian Secret Literature).
Ogaryov and Herzen were the founders of Russian peasant utopian socialism, of Narodism, whose theory Ogaryov elaborated in detail. The theory of communal socialism of Ogaryov and Herzen expressed the revolutionary demands of the peasant masses who strove for the complete abolition of big landownership and the overthrow of the rule of the landowners. Ogaryov was one of the founders of the underground revolutionary organisation Zemlya i Volya (Land and Freedom) in the 1860s, whose ideas he expounded in the article "What Do the People Need?" (1861) and other works.
Prior to 1840, Ogaryov adhered to idealist positions. Knowledge of the achievements of 19th-century natural science and the philosophy of French materialism, especially Feuerbach's Essence of Christianity enabled him to adopt philosophical materialism and atheism. Although Ogaryov paid tribute to anthropologism, the speculative character of Feuerbach's philosophy did not satisfy him. Together with Herzen he critically assimilated the philosophy of Hegel, especially his dialectics, drawing from it revolutionary conclusions and utilising it to justify a revolution in Russia.
Ogaryov voiced many profound ideas on the origin and development of consciousness, the relationship between absolute and relative truth and problems of contradiction in the development of nature and society. He elaborated the principles of materialist aesthetics, emphasising the social role of art and its kinship with the people, advocating lofty idea-content and resolutely rejecting the idealist theory of "pure art". Ogaryov was one of the predecessors of Russian Social-Democracy.
His main works are Russkiye Voprosy (Russian Questions), 1856–58; Yeshcho ob Osvobozhdenii Krestyan (More about the Emancipation of the Peasantry), 1858; Pamyati Khudozhnika (In Memory of an Artist), 1859; Chastniye Pisma ob Obshchem Voprose (Private Letters on a General Question), 1866–67.
Old Hegelians
The conservative wing of the school of Hegel in Germany in the 1830s and 1840s; they endeavoured to interpret his teaching in an orthodox Christian spirit. At first, the Old Hegelians (K. Hoschel, F. Hinrichs, G. Gabler) took advantage of the conflicting and inconsistent delineation between philosophy and religion in the Hegelian system to infer the synthesis of reason and faith. The later Old Hegelians (Ch. Weisse and I. Fichte, Jr.) developed their doctrine as a counterweight to radical Young Hegelians. They insisted on the need for "correcting" Hegel in the spirit of Schelling's "philosophy of identity" and the theodicy of Leibniz.
Ontology
- In pre-Marxist philosophy ontology, or the "First Philosophy", was the doctrine of being in general, being as such, independent of its particular forms. In this sense ontology is equivalent to metaphysics, a system of speculative universal definitions of being. Aristotle was the first to introduce the concept of such a doctrine. In the late Middle Ages, Catholic philosophers utilised the Aristotelian idea of metaphysics to construct a doctrine of being which would serve as philosophical proof of the truths of religion. This tendency was most fully elaborated in the philosophical theological system of Thomas Aquinas.
Since the 16th century ontology has been understood as a special part of metaphysics, the doctrine of the supersensuous, non-material structure of everything existing. The term ontology was coined by the German philosopher Rudolf Goclenius (1613). The idea of ontology received its final shape in the philosophy of Wolff which lost all connection with the content of the specific sciences and constructed ontology largely through abstract deductive and grammatical analysis of its concepts (being, possibility and reality, quantity and quality, substance and accident, cause and effect, etc.).
An opposite tendency was displayed in the materialist doctrines of Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke and the French 18th century materialists, inasmuch as the positive content of these doctrines, which were based on the experimental sciences, objectively undermined the concept of ontology as a philosophical subject of the highest rank, as "First Philosophy". Criticism of ontology by the German classical idealists (Kant, Hegel, and others) was dual: on the one hand, ontology was declared to be meaningless and tautological and, on the other, this criticism ended in the demand for a new, more perfect ontology (metaphysics) or its replacement by transcendental philosophy (Kant), a system of transcendental idealism (Schelling) or by logic (Hegel). Hegel's system anticipated in an idealist form the idea of the unity of ontology (dialectics), logic, and the theory of knowledge and indicated a way out of the framework of speculative philosophical constructions to real positive knowledge of the world (Engels).
- Attempts to construct a "new ontology" on an objective idealist basis have been made in the 20th century as a reaction to the spread of subjective idealist trends (see Neo-Kantianism, Positivism). In the new ontological doctrines ("transcendental ontology" of Husserl; "critical ontology" of N. Hartmann, and "fundamental ontology" of Heidegger), ontology is regarded as a system of universal concepts of being conceived with the help of supersensuous and superrational intuition. The idea of the "new ontology" has been taken up by a number of Catholic philosophers, who are trying to "synthesise" the "traditional" ontology coming from Aristotle with Kantian transcendental philosophy and to pit their own ontology against the philosophy of dialectical materialism.
Operational Definitions
Definitions which indicate experimentally reproduced operations, the objective results of which are accessible to direct empirical observation or measurement. Most often operational definitions are used as a means for partial empirical interpretation of scientific concepts. Here is a simple example: "If a litmus-paper is placed in a liquid, that liquid is an alkali only if the paper turns blue." One and the same scientific concept can be given several operational definitions, indicating different empirical situations of applying the given concept (see Hypothetico-Deductive Theory). An exaggeration of the role of operational definitions and their elevation into an absolute are characteristic of operationism.
Operationism
A subjective idealist trend in contemporary philosophy which is a synthesis of logical positivism and pragmatism. It was founded by Bridgman. The main thing in operationism is the idea of operational analysis, according to which the meaning of any concept can be determined only through a description of the operations employed in using and testing this concept; the latter is identical to a corresponding set of operations. Concepts not connected with any operations are considered meaningless. Operationism includes among them many concepts of materialism.
Operations are "instrumental" or thinking ("paper and pencil" operations and "verbal" operations). Sentences are formed by combining operationally defined concepts, and sentences are combined to form theories. Operationism inevitably arrives at subjective idealist conclusions; if in concepts we cognise only our operations of measurement, then recognition of the objects themselves independent of the measurement procedures will be meaningless. P. W. Bridgman says explicitly: "Things are a construction of ours."
Opinion
In ancient philosophy, imperfect, subjective knowledge, as distinct from authentic, objective knowledge, truth. Already the Eleatics sharply differentiated between truth based on rational knowledge and opinion based on sensory perception and the appearance of things. With the atomists, opinion is the result of "images" projected to man; phenomena perceived through senses exist in opinion, whereas atoms and the vacuum exist in reality.
The sophists erased the boundary between opinion and truth ("everything is as anybody believes it to be"), which led them to the extreme subjectivism and relativism. According to Plato, opinion is divided into conjecture and belief and applies to sensory things, whereas knowledge has spiritual entities for its own subject. For Aristotle, opinion is the empirical method of knowledge, whose subject-matter can change and become false, since it is classed among the accidental and individual. Aristotle distinguished opinion from scientific knowledge, which has for its subject the essential and the universal.
Opposite
A category expressing either of the sides of contradiction. The unity of opposites, the diametrically opposed sides or tendencies, makes up a contradiction which is the motive force, the source of development of things. The concept "opposite" is used also to characterise the degree of development, growth and ripeness of a contradiction. In contrast to differences, in which contradiction is not yet matured and still exists largely "by itself", opposite means a developed contradiction which has come to a head, has reached a higher stage of its development, when the conflict of opposites and tendencies arrives at the final place of its development and solution.
Optimism and Pessimism
Two opposite attitudes to the course of events. Optimism is manifested in belief in a better future. Extreme metaphysical optimism was advocated by Leibniz who held that the existing world is the best of all possible worlds. Such a view leads to denial and, ultimately, to the justification, of evil, misfortune, and calamities in life.
Scientific optimism, based on Marxism-Leninism, follows from the knowledge of the objective laws of social development. Meliorism, a view that the world could be improved by human effort, is a type of optimism. This term was coined in the 19th century by the French philosopher J. Sully and the English novelist George Eliot. But meliorists think that the world can be improved only through individual perfection, through enlightenment. In contrast to meliorism, Marxist theory proceeds from the principle that revolutionary activity of the people in conformity with the cognised laws of social development is the determining factor in society's progressive development.
Pessimism is a view that events go from bad to worse, it is expressed in depressed moods, lack of faith in the triumph of good and justice. Pessimism was posited by the German reactionary philosophers Schopenhauer and E. Hartmann and the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi. Pessimism is inherent in existentialism. As a rule, classes outliving their age turn to pessimism.
"The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State"
The work written by F. Engels in 1884. Basing himself on the data of Morgan's book, Ancient Society, as well as on other data of science, Engels investigates in this work the essential features of the development of the primitive-communal system. He shows the changes in the forms of marriage and the family in relation to the economic progress of society, analyses the process of the decay of the tribal system (quoting as examples the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons) and the economic causes.
The growth of the productivity of labour and the division of labour underlying this process led to exchange, private property, the disintegration of the tribal system, and the formation of classes. The appearance of class contradictions called into life the state as an instrument for defending the interests of the ruling class.
Engels' book demonstrated that: (1) private property, classes, and the state did not always exist, but appeared at a certain stage of economic development; (2) the state, in the hands of the exploiter classes, is only an instrument of coercion and oppression of the people; (3) the classes will disappear as inevitably as they appeared in the past. With the disappearance of classes the state inevitably disappears. Engels' book is a valuable contribution to the Marxist teaching on society and is still an important manual for the study of historical materialism.
Orphism
A trend in ancient Greek mythology which arose in the 8th century B.C. and was associated with the worship of the mythical poet Orpheus and the God Dionysus. The teaching of Orphism was the world outlook of the ruined peasants and slaves opposed to mythology, the world outlook of the aristocracy. In mythology, life in the other world was considered a continuation of life on earth and the soul was regarded as a kind of corporeal being. Orphism, however, associated life in the other world with bliss, and life on earth with suffering; the sojourn of the soul in the body was viewed as its fall from the other world.
The ideas of Orphism expressed a protest against man's conversion into a slave, into a speaking tool. The slave associated his liberation with the soul leaving the body which belonged to the master. Orphism exerted great influence on emerging philosophy, particularly ancient Greek idealism.
Ortega y Gasset, José (1883–1955)
Spanish philosopher, subjective idealist (held an intermediate position between Nietzschean philosophy of life and contemporary existentialism). He focussed attention on social problems. In his works, La deshumanización del arte, 1925, and La rebelión de las masas, 1929, Ortega expounded the main principles of the doctrine of "mass society".
Ortega gave the name of "mass society" to the spiritual atmosphere which formed in the West as a result of the degeneration of bourgeois democracy, bureaucratisation of social institutions, and the spread of money-exchange relations to all forms of contacts between individuals. A system of social ties arises in which each man feels himself to be an insignificant actor performing a role imposed on him from the outside, a particle of an impersonal element called the mob. Ortega criticises this spiritual situation "from the right". He considers it to be the inevitable result of the released democratic activity of the masses and sees a way out in the creation of a new aristocratic elite of men capable of making a voluntary "choice", guided solely by the direct "life impulse", a category close to the Nietzschean "will to power".
Ortega regards rationalism as an intellectual style of "mass society". He advocates a return to pre-scientific forms of orientation in the world, to the ancient uncorrupted "love of wisdom".
Orthodoxy
A variety of Christianity (cf. Catholicism, Protestantism) which spread mainly in the countries of Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Balkans.
Orthodoxy was finally formed as an independent trend in the 11th century as a result of the difference between the ways of development of feudalism in the West and in the East of Europe. The differences in dogmas are the following: recognition of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father alone, infallibility of the Church as a whole (but not of the head of the Church), immutability of dogmas, denial of purgatory, etc. Cult and canonical differences include the worship of icons, obligatory marriage for the secular clergy, a special (Byzantine) form of church hymn, etc. Orthodoxy has no single centre, but consists of fourteen independent (autocephalous) orthodox churches. Principled conservatism is highly characteristic of Orthodoxy.
Russian Orthodoxy served the autocracy with faith and truth, was one of its pillars and completely dependent upon it. From the time of Peter the Great to 1917 the Russian Orthodox Church was part of the state machinery. It was hostile to the revolutionary movement. After the October Revolution (particularly since the 1930s and 1940s) this counter-revolutionary policy of the Russian Orthodoxy changed, under the pressure of the believers, into loyalty to Soviet government.
Contemporary Orthodoxy has completely preserved all its anti-scientific ideas and concepts. Religious mystical philosophy (Khomyakov, Berdyayev, Lossky, V. V. Zenkovsky, etc.) is the theoretical basis of Orthodoxy.
Osipovsky, Timofei Fyodorovich (1765–1832)
Russian materialist thinker, professor of mathematics, and rector of Kharkov University, from which he was dismissed by reactionaries for his progressive views (1820).
As a materialist philosopher he criticized Kant's philosophy and his assertion about the a priori origin of the truths of geometry. On the whole, his materialist views do not go beyond metaphysical mechanistic materialism. The scientist was influenced by Cartesian ideas which made him exaggerate the methodological role of mathematics and overestimate the importance of the analytical method in cognition. Osipovsky actively fought against mysticism and highly valued the role of education and science. However, in his views on religion he remained a deist.
His main philosophical works: On Space and Time, 1807; A Discourse on the Dynamic System of Kant, 1813.
Owen, Robert (1771–1858)
Utopian socialist, exponent of English socialist thought. Was born into the family of an artisan and earned his own living from the age of ten. From 1791 to 1828 participated in capitalist enterprise and managed large factories.
He knew the negative aspects of the capitalist system better than other utopian socialists and sharply criticized them under the conditions of the industrial revolution. Owen engaged in philanthropic activity and was the father of factory legislation. Subsequently, his criticism was spearheaded against private property, religion which sanctifies it, and bourgeois marriage. He was a rationalist and atheist with some deviations towards deism.
Owen held that the social system exerts decisive influence on man; interpreted history in an idealist way as gradual progress of human self-knowledge; saw the root of social evil in people's ignorance. Owen attached exceptional importance to education as one of the measures preparing a "new moral (i.e., socialist) world". He introduced many valuable ideas in the theory and practice of pedagogy.
By 1820, his main ideas had been shaped into a system which Owen began to call socialist. Its principles were common ownership and labour, a combination of mental and physical labour, all-round development of the individual, equality of rights. His socialist teachings combined industrial and agricultural labour, the latter being given preference. He conceived the future classless society as a free federation of self-governing communities, each uniting from 300 to 2,000 people. Owen laid the main emphasis on distribution.
Failing to understand the need for a social revolution, he relied on bourgeois governments to transform society. He organized labour communes (New Harmony in the United States from 1825 to 1829 and Harmony Hall in Britain from 1839 to 1845) and also exchange markets, all of which failed. Owen was the only great utopian who associated his activity with the destinies of the working class. Early in the 1830s he actively participated in the British trade union and co-operative movements; his ideas at that time anticipated syndicalism to a certain extent. Owen was always a supporter of the working class, although he did not understand its historical role.
Ownership
A historically conditioned form of appropriation of material wealth, expressing the relationships between people in the process of social production. The form of ownership is a manifestation of the relationship of classes and groups to the means of production. The development of the forms of ownership is determined by the development of the productive forces. A change in the mode of production leads to a change in the form of ownership. At the same time, the various forms of ownership constitute stages in the growth of the division of labour.
Historically, society has known two basic forms of ownership, public and private. The primitive-communal system and socialism are characterized by public ownership. Private ownership, which arises with the development of exchange, dominates the slave-owning system, feudalism, and capitalism. The nature of private ownership varies in these three formations. Associated with private ownership are the division of society into classes and the appearance of class and national antagonisms. The dominant form of ownership predetermines the domination of a definite class. The abolition of private ownership and the organization of society on the basis of public ownership lead to the elimination of the antagonisms and the obliteration of class distinctions.
Ownership, Personal
The owning of articles of personal use. As distinct from private ownership of the means of production, personal ownership will always exist. Recognition of personal ownership does not, however, imply recognition of its unlimited extension.
Under socialist conditions the extension of the sphere of personal ownership presents a certain danger because this extension may become a brake on social progress by fostering the private-ownership mentality, and may lead to the petty-bourgeois corruption of individuals. Under complete communism the extension of personal ownership will become entirely meaningless, since the principal source for the satisfaction of personal requirements will be the public consumption funds and everyone will receive from society according to his needs.