R

Racialism

A reactionary theory, justifying social inequality, exploitation, and wars by the fact that people belong to different races. The insolvency of racialism lies in that it reduces human social natures to their biological, racial features and arbitrarily divides races into the "higher" and "lower" ones. In Nazi Germany racialism was the official theory which served to justify aggressive wars and mass annihilation. The rapid development of formerly backward peoples, particularly in the socialist countries, and the absence of racial antagonism among them have convincingly refuted racialism.

Radioactivity

Spontaneous disintegration of atomic nuclei due to irradiation of various kinds. We distinguish natural and artificial radioactivity (creation of radioactive isotopes). Today radioactivity is widely used in science (to define the age of minerals, etc.), in technology (atomic tracers), in armaments (atomic bombs), etc. The discovery of radioactivity (A.H. Becquerel, 1896) destroyed the belief in the indestructibility of the atom. A scientific, dialectical-materialist explanation of the discovery of radioactivity was given by Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism; he asserted that matter is inexhaustible and all bounds in the cognition of matter are relative.

Radishchev, Alexander Nikolayevich (1749–1802)

Russian writer and materialist, father of revolutionary thought in Russia; was born in St. Petersburg and studied at Leipzig University (1766–71). In the notes to his translation of Mably's Thoughts on Greek History (1773), he condemned autocracy as "the condition most alien to human nature". In "A Letter to a Friend Living in Tobolsk" (1782) Radishchev affirmed that the kings never waived their power for the sake of the "liberty" of the people. The ode Liberty (1783) glorified the "great example" of the English and American revolutions—the execution of the king by Oliver Cromwell and the armed struggle of the American colonies for independence.

In his work Zhitiye F.V. Ushakova (The Life of F.V. Ushakov), 1789, Radishchev declared that an uprising of the people driven to "extremity" was the earnest of liberation of "suffering society" and he cursed those who believed that an appeal to the monarchs would alleviate the lot of the people. The conception elaborated by Radishchev in these works, which gave further development to the idea of Enlightenment of the 18th century (first of all of Histoire philosophique du commerce des Deux-Indes of Raynal, and Diderot), was thoroughly substantiated by the data on Russian life, cited in Radishchev's main work—Puleshestviye iz Peterburga v Moskvu (The Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow), 1790.

This work shows the futility of attempts to help the people by means of liberal reformism and sets the task of instilling revolutionary ideas in the people as a condition for the imminent popular revolution. Radishchev's political ideas were based on a generalisation of the most important events of the 17th–18th centuries: the victorious bourgeois revolutions in the West and the fiasco of Catherine II's policies of "enlightened absolutism", which showed (with particular evidence after the peasant war of 1773–75) the futility of the peasants' hopes in those "at the top".

For the publication of The Journey Radishchev was condemned to death, the sentence being commuted to exile to Siberia (up to 1797). In exile Radishchev wrote the philosophical treatise O cheloveke, yego smertnosti i bessmertii (On Man, His Mortality and Immortality), 1792, in which, examining the problem of the supposed immortality of the soul, he contrasted two diametrically opposite systems of views: those of the French and English materialists of the 18th century (Holbach, Helvetius, Joseph Priestley) and the German idealists of the 17th–18th centuries (Leibniz, Herder, Mendelssohn).

Describing the arguments of the former as founded upon experience and proof, and considering the affirmation of the latter to be speculative, close to "imagination", Radishchev at the same time tried to apply dialectical ideas in the materialist system of proofs of the mortality of the soul, particularly Leibniz's idea that the "present is pregnant with the future". He adduced proof that nothing in man's life on earth indicates the possibility of the existence of the soul after his death. However from the position of limited metaphysical materialism Radishchev could not reinterpret the activity of human cognition, on which the representatives of German idealism speculated.

Disappointed to a certain extent in the outcome of the French Revolution and witnessing the repetition of Catherine II's ostentatious liberalism in the administration of Alexander I, Radishchev committed suicide.

Ramakrishna (1834–1886)

Public figure in India in the middle of the 19th century, reformer of Hinduism. Real name Gadadhar Chatterji. Ramakrishna advocated a single religion true for all mankind, the philosophical prerequisites of which were taken from the Vedanta and shakti-tantra. He tried to reconcile the different schools of Vedanta, representing them as different stages of the spiritual experience of yoga. Acknowledging as the supreme principle of being the absolute Shankara (nirguna brahman) free from any internal distinction, he at the same time rejected the concept that the world is illusory and defended the importance of public activities.

He understood the latter in a very narrow sense and reduced them essentially to philanthropy and concern for universal "spiritual perfection", in which he saw the key for overcoming the disasters of the iron age (kali-yuga), the features of which were the omnipotence of money, the dominance of foreign invaders, etc. In his pronouncements on kali-yuga he exposed the evil consequences of the British colonial administration and maintained a naive belief in the revival of science by means of faith. Ramakrishna's preaching did not go beyond a passive protest against colonial rule. Yet his preaching of a single religion in the India of those days with her numerous religious sects and doctrines—all of them survivals of feudal ideology—was a sort of appeal for national unity.

Rationalism

1. A teaching in the theory of knowledge, according to which universality and necessity—the logical attributes of true knowledge—cannot be deduced from experience and its generalisation; they may be deduced only from the mind itself: either from concepts innate in the mind (theory of innate ideas, of Descartes), or from concepts existing only in the form of the predispositions of the mind. Experience exerts a certain stimulating influence upon their appearance, but the character of absolute universality and absolute necessity is given to them by preceding experience and the judgements of the mind or a priori forms absolutely independent of experience. In this sense rationalism is in opposition to empiricism.

Rationalism came into being as an attempt to account for the logical peculiarities of mathematical truths and mathematical natural science. Its representatives in the 17th century were Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz; in the 18th century, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The limitation of rationalism lies in its denial of the thesis that universality and necessity came into being through experience. Rationalism absolutises the indisputable nature of these logical attributes, does not recognise the dialectics of transition of knowledge from the lesser universality and necessity to the greater and absolute ones. This limitation of rationalism was overcome by Marxism, which examines knowledge in its unity with practice.

2. Rational character of thought and world outlook. It tells not only on the theory of knowledge, but also on psychology, ethics, and aesthetics. In psychology, rationalism places in the forefront the intellectual psychical functions, reducing, for example, will to reason (Spinoza); in ethics, the first place is given to the rational motives and principles of moral activities, and in aesthetics, to the rational (intellectual) character of creative work. In all these cases rationalism means belief in reason, in the reality of rational judgement, in the force of argument. In this sense rationalism is opposed to irrationalism.

3. In theology, rationalism is a trend, according to which only those dogmas of faith are acceptable which the mind considers to be in conformity with logic and the "natural light" of the intellect.

Reactology

A mechanistic conception, regarding the psyche of highly developed animals and man as an arithmetical sum of reactions on external influences. It was current in Soviet physiology and psychology of the 1920s–30s. The term "reactology" was introduced by K.N. Kornilov, Ucheniye o reaktsiyakh cheloveka s psikhologicheskoi tochki zreniya (Teaching on the Reactions of Man from the Psychological Point of View), 1922. Like behaviourism, reactology left out of account the dependence of the external influences upon the internal situation, upon the whole system of the organism's higher nervous relations.

Reactology played a certain positive part in the struggle against idealist psychology and physiology. The mechanistic tendencies of reactology, however, often grew into idealism.

Realism, Medieval

A trend in medieval scholasticism, maintaining that universal concepts (see Universals) possess real existence and precede the existence of singular objects. Medieval realism continued Plato's line in the solution of the problem of the relation between the concept and the objective world, between the universal and the singular. Medieval realism served as the philosophical basis of Catholicism. Its prominent exponents were Anselm of Canterbury and Wilhelm of Shampo. Thomas Aquinas was close to this trend as well. The representatives of nominalism fought against realism. This struggle was a reflection of the two trends in philosophy—materialist (nominalism) and idealist (realism).

Realism, Naive

A spontaneous materialist understanding of the world inherent in every person, the conviction that all objects exist independently of human consciousness. But naive realism is not a consistent, theoretically conceived scientific world outlook. A false interpretation of naive realism is given by subjective idealism (see Berkeley, Mach, and others). The Machists, for example, claim that naive realism is a world outlook according to which man deals only with his sensations and the existence of a material world is of no importance to him.

Realism, Socialist

An artistic method presupposing a truthful, historically concrete reflection of reality taken in its revolutionary development. It originated at the beginning of the 20th century, in the conditions of the crisis of capitalism, the upsurge of the proletarian struggle and the preparation for the socialist revolution in Russia (Gorky's novel Mother and his plays, poems by Demyan Bedny and other proletarian poets). For the first time in world art, workers became the heroes of artistic works.

Being a logical continuation and development of the best realist traditions of past art, socialist realism is a new stage in man's artistic progress. Its essence is fidelity to the truth of life, no matter how stern it may be, this being expressed in artistic images from the communist angle. The chief ideological and aesthetic principles of socialist realism are as follows: devotion to communist ideology, service to the people and partisanship, close bonds with the working people's struggle, socialist humanism and internationalism, historical optimism, rejection of formalism and subjectivism, and of naturalist primitiveness.

To be equal to the tasks of socialist realism means to have a thorough knowledge of human life, thoughts and sentiments, to be fully responsive to human experiences and to be able to portray them in good artistic form. This is why socialist realism is a powerful instrument for educating people in a communist spirit. Based on the Marxist-Leninist world outlook, socialist realism promotes the artists' endeavours and helps them choose various forms and styles consistent with their individual inclinations.

Reality

The being of things as opposed to non-being, and also to other possible forms of being. In the history of philosophy reality was clearly distinguished from actuality in the other sense; reality was more often treated as the being of something essential in a given thing, as the being of itself, while actuality was understood as the presence of all the essential and the inessential in a given thing. Usually reality was considered the being of something to the exclusion of all the contingent in it, i.e., that which is not by necessity connected with the given being.

Reason and Intellect

The stages or the modes of thinking, propounded in some systems of pre-Marxian philosophy. By reason is usually meant the faculty to reason correctly, to make conclusions, to expound one's thoughts logically. By intellect is meant the capacity to find the causes and essences of phenomena, to investigate them comprehensively, to disclose the unity of opposites. The beginnings of this division are to be found in the teachings of Plato, Aristotle, Nicholas of Cusa. They occupy a special place in Kant's and Hegel's philosophy.

In Kant's opinion, sensations stem from the action of an unknowable "thing-in-itself" on the sense organs, are ordered by means of a priori forms of sensibility (space and time) and the reason (categories of unity, plurality, causality, possibility, necessity, and others). Reason imparts a form to sensuous contents and, therefore, cognises things not as they are, but as they appear. Further motion of cognition is possible with the help of the intellect, whose forms of synthesis are the ideas of the soul, the world, and God. In an attempt to cognise the objects of these ideas the human mind arrives at insoluble contradictions (antinomies). The way to the world of "things-in-themselves" is shut out also for the theoretical reason. There remains recourse to the "practical reason" and to broadening the world outlook at the expense of faith.

In Hegel's opinion, reason does not go beyond static definiteness, abstract identity, abstract universality, fixed opposites separated from one another (essence and appearance, necessity and chance, life and death, etc.). Discursive thought, however, is not enough, it is merely the necessary stage which allows one to rise higher, towards the intelligible forms of cognition. The dialectical negative-intelligible aspect of thought is the resolution by one-sided and limited definitions of themselves and their transition into their opposites. The speculative positive-intelligible aspect of thought contains in itself those resolved opposites beyond which discursive reason cannot go, and precisely in this it reveals itself as concrete and integral. Although rejecting Hegel's idealism, Marxism highly assesses the critique of metaphysics and dialectics, contained in his teachings on reason and intellect.

Reasonable Egoism, Theory of

A theory in ethics advanced by the Enlighteners of the 17th–18th centuries, based on the following principle: correctly understood private interest should coincide with social interest. In the ethics of Helvetius, Holbach, Diderot, Feuerbach the theory of reasonable egoism expressed the interests of the rising bourgeoisie in its struggle with ascetic religious morality and served as the ideological preparation for bourgeois revolutions. The Enlighteners proceeded from the possibility of a harmonious combination of private and social interests while preserving private property. In their view, the theory of reasonable egoism reflected the practice of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, free enterprise, private initiative, and their "social interest" was in fact the class interest of the bourgeois.

Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and other Russian revolutionary democrats used the theory of reasonable egoism to justify the struggle of the toiling masses. In their ethics private interest as the motive of human behaviour was filled up with social content. They saw the significance of life and the criterion of man's action in unselfish service of the people, in their emancipation from the chains of serfdom, in the revolutionary transformation of reality in the name of the "popular good". Although the theory of reasonable egoism played a historically progressive role, it was metaphysical, for it appealed to man in general, to his abstract "eternal" nature.

Red Shift (metagalactic)

Recession of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (of light or radio waves) emitted by galaxies. Specifically, the lines of the visible part of the spectrum are shifted to its red extremity, whence the name. Its most natural explanation is by reference to the Doppler effect, i.e., the result of galaxies moving away from each other. The red shift thus constitutes evidence that the Metagalaxy, or at least the observable part thereof, has been expanding over a period of milliards of light-years. This does not warrant the assumption of an "expanding" Universe, since the Metagalaxy, vast as it is, is but a small part of the Universe.

Reducibility

A form of expressing the necessary connection between elements of a logical or scientific theory in general. The moods of the figures of a syllogism were reduced to moods of the first figure by Aristotelian syllogistic. In mathematical logic, expressed in the form of a deductive theory, reducibility is an operation for obtaining axioms from the respective propositions of a theory. Reducibility establishes the rational ties between the propositions of a theory which have a different degree of community. Therefore it acts as a necessary moment in the development of a theory itself.

But attempts to reduce theories, differing in their concrete nature, to one another are always doomed to failure. For example, attempts to reduce the laws of higher forms of motion to lower, of complex to simple, have proved untenable, although each higher form of movement contains the lower as a subordinate element. The desire to explain the properties and laws of more complex systems by the laws of simpler systems is a characteristic feature of the metaphysical method of thinking. This naturally does not imply denial of the relative role played by the lower forms of motion in studying the higher forms.

Reflection

1. A basic concept of materialist epistemology. Dialectical materialism differentiates psychic reflection as a property of highly organised matter from the general property of reflection inherent in all matter. Psychic reflection arises as a result of the action of objects on the reflectory apparatus of animals and man, the analytically synthetic processing of the traces of that action and the application of the products of processing as substitutes, representatives, or models of objects. With the help of models of things and their properties a subject orients itself in the environment.

Psychic reflection has two sides: (1) content of reflection or the image, and (2) the mode of its material existence, i.e., the ways the influences of objects are processed in the reflectory apparatus. The content of psychic reflection is characterised by two main features: (1) the relation of isomorphism existing between the imprint in the reflectory apparatus and a definite aspect of the object exerting the influence; in specific cases isomorphism appears in different kinds and levels of similarity; (2) the property of objectivity. The latter signifies that in the content of reflection the subject receives not the condition of his receptors, nerves and brain, as physiological idealists claim, but the content of the objects of the external world.

The objective content is directly viewed by the subject in the ideal form of reflection, i.e., in the form of an image of the object. Human knowledge qualitatively differs from the psychic reflection of animals by its social nature manifested in the existence of consciousness associated with language, and in active transformation of the external world. The general property of reflection inherent in all matter is akin to sensation because there is some isomorphism; but it is not identical with sensation because there is no objectivity: isomorphic imprints in inorganic nature are inert, i.e., they are not utilised as models, as instruments of orientation.

Owing to isomorphism between the influences and imprints in inorganic nature the general property of reflection is the genetic foundation, the prerequisite, for the appearance of psychic reflection. It is also the natural (physical) foundation of the process of man's knowledge of reality around him, since man in his cognitive activity, in discovering essential properties and relations of things, utilises, and relies on, the direct results of the interaction of things and mediated results.

2. A term widely used in pre-Marxist philosophy and denoting the reflection and investigation of the cognitive act. It holds different contents for different systems. Locke considered reflection as the source of special knowledge, when observation is directed towards the internal activity of consciousness, whereas sensation has external things as its object. For Leibniz, reflection is nothing more than attention to what happens in man himself. For Hume, ideas are reflection of impressions we receive from outside. For Hegel, reflection is a mutual reflection of one in another, e.g., in the essence of a phenomenon.

3. To reflect means to apply consciousness to one's self, to ponder upon one's own psychical state.

Reflection, Theory of

The materialist teaching on man's cognition of reality, the processes of reflection in living nature, technology and on the prerequisites of this reflection in inanimate nature. Apart from the problems of the theory of knowledge, which studies the ways and means of man's acquiring true knowledge, the universal logical forms (categories) and laws of cognition, the Marxist theory of reflection covers the problems concerning the natural scientific basis of man's cognitive activity, the origin and essence of his consciousness and also the property of reflection in inanimate nature.

With the appearance of cybernetics great importance attaches to the problem of applying this property in communications, automation, and telemechanics.

Consistent application of materialism to the solution of complex problems of cognition became possible thanks to the spread of materialist dialectics to the sphere of cognitive activity. In Marxist philosophy materialist dialectics is at the same time the theory of knowledge and dialectical logic. The terms theory of reflection and theory of knowledge are synonymous in Marxist philosophical literature when reference is made to their essence or to the range of problems relating to the specifics of human knowledge.

Reflexes, Conditioned and Unconditioned

Adaptive reactions of man and animals determined by the stimulation of receptors and the activity of the central nervous system at different levels. Unconditioned reflexes are inborn responsive reactions of the organism, and are the same among all individuals of the given species. They are characterised by a constant connection between the action on a receptor and a definite responsive reaction, ensuring the adaptation of the organism to relatively stable conditions of life. Unconditioned reflexes are effected as a rule by means of the spinal cord and the lower parts of the brain. Intricate complexes and chains of unconditioned reflexes are called instincts.

Conditioned reflexes are reactions in response to the stimulation of receptors acquired in the course of the organism's life; in higher animals and man conditioned reflexes are developed by the formation of temporary connections in the cerebral cortex and they serve as a mechanism of adaptation to the intricate changing conditions of the environment. According to modern ideas, the conditioned reflexes end not in action but in perceiving and assessing their results (see Feedback).

Sechenov was the first to point to the reflectory nature of the psyche. The objective method of conditioned reflexes evolved by I. Pavlov underlies the doctrine of higher nervous activity, in particular the doctrine of the two signal systems. This doctrine is one of the scientific foundations of materialist psychology and the dialectical materialist theory of reflection.

Reformation

A widespread anti-feudal and anti-Catholic movement in Europe in the first half of the 16th century, ushering in the beginning of Protestantism. The Reformation was the first immature bourgeois revolution in human history; the bourgeoisie in alliance with part of the noblemen came out against the ruling church. Starting in Germany, the Reformation engulfed a number of European countries and brought about the defection from the Catholic system of England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Finland, Switzerland, partially Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary.

The Reformation cheapened and simplified the church, raised interior personal faith above the external manifestations of religion, imparted divine sanction to the standards of bourgeois morality. In the countries where the Reformation triumphed, the church on becoming dependent upon the state, enjoyed less power than in Catholic countries, and this facilitated the development of science and secular culture as a whole. The national character of the new religion was in keeping with the process of formation of bourgeois nations.

In the Reformation the Christian-plebeian camp existed alongside with the noblemen's and burghers' camps. Its representatives came out not only against the clergy but also against the nobility; not only against feudal inequality, but also against inequality in property status. In this they based themselves on certain evangelical principles dating back to early Christianity (see Münzer). The Catholics' answer to the Reformation was counter-Reformation, which managed to prevent the further spread of Protestantism in Europe and to eradicate it in Poland and France.

Reformism

A political trend inside the workers' movement, which denies the necessity of class struggle, the socialist revolution, and the dictatorship of the proletariat, professes class collaboration and hopes by mere reforms to transform capitalism into a "welfare society". Reformism appeared in the last quarter of the 19th century. Its social basis is the bribed upper stratum of the working class, the so-called labour aristocracy. Reformism is closely connected with revisionism.

Contemporary Reformism is represented by the Socialist International, an international union of reformists; it was established in 1951. By 1962, it united 40 parties numbering more than ten-and-a-half million members. The root-evil of all social-reformist theories consists in that they try to combine what is incompatible: private ownership and social justice, social inequality and general prosperity.

Contemporary Reformism has no single integral world outlook. The theorists of Reformism (A. Philip, V. Eichler, P. Bonnel, I. Strachey and others) eclectically combine the ideas of neo-Kantianism, positivism, abstract anthropologism, and Christianity. Reformism maintains that dialectics is obsolete, advocates smooth evolutionism; it rejects materialism and declares the natural-historical and economic inevitability of socialism a myth: socialism is "deduced" from the sphere of the spirit, from the ethical ideas of the individual, which are beyond time and beyond classes.

The aesthetic traditions of socialism are betrayed; alliance with clericalism, the conciliation of science with religion have become the policy of Right Social-Democracy. A characteristic feature of the leaders of contemporary Reformism (Spaak, Brandt, and others) is outspoken anti-communism. "Anticommunism has brought social reformism to an ideological and political impasse. This is one of the main reasons for the crisis of Social-Democracy." (Programme of the CPSU.)

The crisis of Social-Democracy constitutes the natural consequence of the general crisis of capitalism, the result of the whole history of Reformism. The adoption of new programmes (1958-61) marked the end of the postwar evolution of Reformism, its growth into the system of capitalist relations. The exponents of Right socialism defend state-monopoly capitalism, support the aggressive ventures of imperialist reaction. Only the art of political pharisaism cultivated during decades, the relatively low level of class self-consciousness of the proletariat and the postwar economic "boom" keep them on the surface of political life at present.

The last decade was marked by a real decline in the role and influence of Reformism. The process of liberation of the working class from the influence of Reformism is going on uninterruptedly. The struggle with Reformism, the overcoming of the split in the working class is one of the urgent tasks of the communist movement. Exposing the treacherous role of the Right leaders of Social-Democracy, criticising the Right opportunist practice and the ideology of Reformism, the Communist Parties actively advocate co-operation with the Social-Democratic masses in the struggle for peace, democracy, and socialism.

Reichenbach, Hans (1891–1953)

Philosopher and logician, professor of physics at Berlin University. In his early works he analysed the epistemological nature of geometry and the logical structure of relativistic physics. In the twenties of this century Reichenbach was one of the organisers of the Society of Scientific Philosophy in Berlin, which, with the Vienna circle formed the basis for the movement of logical positivism. After the nazis came to power in Germany Reichenbach emigrated to the USA. He engaged in the analysis of causality, regularity, the relations of causality and probability, the working of statistical and dynamic laws, etc.

Although Reichenbach went over to logical positivism, nevertheless in some of his works (for example, Experience and Prediction, 1938) he was very close to materialism. As a logician Reichenbach was well-known mainly for his contribution to probability logic (The Theory of Probability, 1935) and for his investigations of the logical analysis of propositions expressing scientific laws (the so-called theory of nomological propositions).

Relation

A necessary moment in the interconnection of all phenomena determined by the material unity of the world. The Relation of things is as objective as the things themselves. Things do not exist outside Relation and the latter is always the Relation of things. The existence of each thing, its specific features and properties, and its development depend on the sum total of its Relations to other things of the objective world. The properties themselves, necessarily inherent in one process or another or in a thing, are manifested only in their Relations to other things and processes.

Development of a phenomenon leads to a change in its Relations with other phenomena, the disappearance of some Relations and the appearance of other Relations. On the other hand, changes in the sum total of Relations in which the given object exists may lead to a change in the object itself. Relations are as diverse as things and their properties.

It is necessary to differentiate internal Relations of different, particularly opposite sides of an object and its external Relations with other objects. Account should be taken, first, of the relative nature of differences in internal and external Relations, second, the passage of one into another, and, third, the fact that external Relations depend on internal Relations, manifest and reveal them.

Social Relations are of a special nature. Man enters into Relations with the things he creates, the objective world, and other people. As a result, in the world he is mastering he contemplates himself and begins to treat himself as a man (gains self-consciousness) only by treating another man as his own likeness. This is what explains, on the one hand, the social nature of human consciousness, and, on the other, the necessity of studying social Relations in order to know history.

In dialectical logic, "the relations (= transitions \= contradictions) of notions \= the main content of logic, by which these concepts (and their relations, transitions, contradictions) are shown as reflections of the objective world". (Lenin, Vol. 38, p. 196.)

In mathematical logic, Relations are opposed to properties like multiple predicates to a singular predicate (see Predicate). "More", "equal", "cause" are the examples of dyadic Relations. "Among" and others are triadic Relations. In formal logic, the theory of Relations was developed by De Morgan, C. Peirce, and E. Schroder. The logical theory of Relations studies the general properties of Relations and the laws governing them. A calculus of Relations related to a calculus of classes forms an essential section of the theory of Relations. This studies the connections between Relations and operations with them and establishes the laws by which some Relations can be deduced from others.

Relations of Production

One of the most important concepts of Marxist-Leninist social science, reflecting the objective material relations, existing in any society independently of human consciousness. They are formed between people in the process of social production, exchange, and distribution of material wealth. The Relations of Production are an indispensable aspect of any mode of production, for men cannot produce without uniting somehow for joint activities and mutual exchange of their activities.

The basis of the Relations of Production is the relation of the ownership of the means of production. With social, collective ownership the members of society are equal as regards the means of production, and in the process of production relations of collaboration and mutual help are formed between them. If ownership is private, relations of domination and subjection are inevitably established between men. Those who possess many implements and means of production may economically subordinate to themselves those who have few or no means of production.

Thus, on the basis of social and private ownership there emerged the two possible main forms of relations of production found in history: collaboration and mutual help or domination and subjection. Social ownership appeared in history in the form of the property of the clan, the tribe, the commune, public or state property, co-operative and collective-farm property, etc.; private ownership appeared in history in three basic forms: slave ownership, feudal ownership, and capitalist ownership, to which correspond the three main types of exploitation of man by man. Private ownership of producers, based on personal labour has existed and still exists today, but this form is always subordinated to the Relations of Production dominating in the society in question and gradually decays under their determining influence.

Besides the two main forms of Relations of Production, in periods of the fall of one and the rise of another socio-economic formation there emerged transitional relations of production. The peculiarity of these relations is that they combine in one economic structure economic relations of different types and even of different natures. For example, in the period of the decay of the primitive-communal system the remnants of tribal relations were combined in the patriarchal family with the rudiments of slave-owning relations. In the period of the decay of the slave-owning relations there arose in a number of countries the colonate, combining in itself the elements of slave-owning and feudal relations; in the period of the transition from capitalism to socialism some economic forms combine in themselves relations based on collective and private ownership (state capitalism, joint state-private enterprises, semi-socialist forms of the co-operatives in the village, etc.).

Relativism

An idealist theory of relativity, conventionalism, and subjectivity of human cognition. Asserting the relativity of knowledge, Relativism denies objective cognition, maintaining that our knowledge does not reflect the objective world. Such a point of view was already clearly expressed in Gorgias' philosophy, although with him Relativism had a positive significance for the development of dialectics. As a whole Relativism is common to the agnostic and subjective-idealist systems. It was, for example, one of the epistemological principles of "physical" idealism.

Dialectical materialism recognises the relativity of cognition only in the sense that its every historical stage is limited by a given level of development of the productive forces and of science, and not in the sense of negating objective truth. Some trends of contemporary philosophy use Relativism as a means of struggle against materialist philosophy (see Truth, Absolute and Relative).

Relativity, Theory of

A physical theory, according to which physical processes occur in a uniform way in all systems moving rectilinearly and uniformly relatively to one another (the special Theory of Relativity) and also with acceleration (the general Theory of Relativity). It follows from this that one can only judge of the movement of a system by the changes in the distances between the bodies forming this system and other bodies ("bodies of calculation"), whose presence alone imparts sense to the concept of movement. Einstein formulated the special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and the general Theory of Relativity in 1916.

Theory of Relativity proceeds from the so-called classical principle of relativity advanced by Galileo and Newton, according to which mechanical processes occur uniformly in the systems moving rectilinearly and uniformly relative to one another. The development of optics and electrodynamics led to the conclusion that this principle is applicable to the transmission of light, i.e., of electromagnetic waves (the velocity of light is independent of the movement of a system). This conclusion was explained by the special Theory of Relativity, which renounced the concept of absolute time, absolute simultaneity and absolute space.

Einstein postulated that time depends on the movement of a system and the intervals of time change in such a way that the velocity of light in the given system does not alter according to the movement. Spatial scales are also subject to change. A large number of physical conclusions were drawn from these premises. Usually they bear the name of "relativist", e.g., based on Theory of Relativity. They should not be confused with philosophical relativism, which denies the objective nature of scientific knowledge.

Of great importance is Einstein's conclusion that mass of a body is proportional to its energy. This correlation is widely applied in practice. In 1907-08, the conclusion was drawn from the Theory of Relativity that four-dimensional geometry should be used for a description of physical processes (see Multi-Dimensional Space, Minkowski).

By developing and generalising the Theory of Relativity Einstein arrived at the general Theory of Relativity. In classical mechanics acceleration has an absolute meaning, since it is accompanied by inertia which is absent in systems undergoing no acceleration. The force of inertia makes it possible to consider acceleration without any reference to a system of calculation relatively to which the acceleration takes place. Einstein held that inertia, being dependent on acceleration, is equivalent to the forces of gravity which cause similar acceleration of bodies in immobile systems or in systems moving without acceleration. Hence, even accelerated movement is not absolute: the movement of a system accelerated in the absence of the field of gravitation cannot be distinguished in terms of inner effects from the rest of the system or its uniform and rectilinear movement in the field of gravitation.

Essentially, the general Theory of Relativity is a new theory of gravitation. It is based on the assumption that four-dimensional space-time continuum in which the forces of gravity operate is subject to the correlations of non-Euclidean geometry. The correlations of non-Euclidean geometry on a surface can be graphically presented as common Euclidean correlations on curved surfaces. By analogy, Einstein regarded the deviation of geometrical correlations in four-dimensional space-time from Euclidean correlations as a curvature of space-time. He identified such a curvature with the action of the forces of gravity and the fields of gravitation. Gravitation is the curvature of space-time.

This assumption was borne out in 1919 by astronomical observations, which showed that the ray of a star, the prototype of a straight line, is curved in the vicinity of the Sun under the influence of gravitation. Unlike the special theory, the general Theory of Relativity has not so far acquired the nature of a complete and indubitable physical conception.

The philosophical conclusions of Theory of Relativity fully confirm the correctness of the ideas of dialectical materialism and of the assessments of the development of contemporary physics which were given by Lenin in his Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. The idealist and positivist trends in philosophy have tried to use the Theory of Relativity to substantiate their claim that science is subjective and that physical processes depend on observation. The actual meaning of Theory of Relativity is that physical processes are independent of the choice of the systems of calculation. In all systems these processes proceed uniformly. Theory of Relativity provides a picture of objective processes and is a more exact reflection of reality than classical mechanics.

Religion

A fantastic reflection in people's minds of external forces dominating over them in everyday life, a reflection in which earthly forces assume non-earthly forms. From the theological point of view (which philosophical idealism attempts to justify) Religion is linked with the eternal inner feeling of man, expressing his connection with some spiritual principle. Religion is a specific form of social consciousness, characterised by a unity of world outlook, feelings, and cult (ritual-magic ceremonies). The basic and decisive feature of Religion is belief in the supernatural.

Marxism considers Religion as a socially conditioned and hence historically transient phenomenon. In the course of a long historical period people did not know of any Religion. It came into being at a definite stage in the development of the primitive-communal system as the reflection of human importance before the awesome and incomprehensible natural forces. In a class society Religion is rooted for the most part in the helplessness of men in the face of elements in social development, in the exploitation and want of the masses. In the words of Lenin, Religion here is "one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, overburdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation." (Vol. 10, p. 83.)

With the victory of the socialist revolution Religion gradually loses its influence on social consciousness. Dissemination of the scientific communist world outlook among the people is gradually reducing Religion to naught. The final end of Religion and its elimination from human life is only possible in a developed communist society. However, the disappearance of Religion is not an automatic process; it presupposes persistent work of educating the masses in the spirit of atheism, extensive propaganda of natural-scientific knowledge and the Marxist world outlook.

A comprehensive treatment of the essence of Religion, and the attitude of the Communist Party towards Religion is given in Lenin's articles "Socialism and Religion", "The Attitude of the Workers' Party to Religion", and others.

Renaissance (philosophical)

A term used in the history of philosophy to denote the general sociological and philosophical doctrines that developed in Europe (primarily in Italy) during the period of feudal decline and the establishment of early bourgeois society (15th to early 17th centuries). While scholasticism remained the official philosophy in this period, the rise of humanist culture (see Humanism), the revival of the philosophical legacy of antiquity, and a series of important scientific discoveries enabled the progressive philosophy of the Renaissance to break free of theology and develop anti-scholastic trends.

These first showed themselves in ethics, bringing about a revival of the ethical doctrines of stoicism (Petrarch) and epicureanism (Laurentius Valla), which struck at the prevailing Christian morality of the time. The major role in the philosophy of the new age was played by natural philosophical conceptions (Nicholas of Cusa, Cardano, Telesio, Paracelsus, Bruno, Campanella, etc.), which testified to the collapse of the scholastics' picture of the world and their methods of explaining nature.

Although the transitional character of the Renaissance was evident in some of these conceptions (preoccupation with astrology, magic, alchemy, and other unscientific interpretations of the world), the general line of development of natural philosophy came to mean the increasing supremacy of the materialist understanding of the world, most typically expressed in the philosophical views held by Bruno.

The anti-scholastic direction of the philosophy of the Renaissance was even more apparent in the philosophical doctrines that grew up directly from the new natural science (particularly the heliocentric system of Copernicus), and depended less than natural philosophy on the philosophical systems of antiquity. The most important results of the scientific trends in the Renaissance were the methods of experimental mathematical investigation of nature, philosophically generalised in the works of Leonardo da Vinci and particularly Galileo, the determinist interpretation of reality, as opposed to its teleological interpretation by the scholastics, and the formulation (by Kepler in astronomy and Galileo, in mechanics) of genuinely scientific laws of nature free of elements of anthropomorphism.

The determining features of Renaissance philosophy were: metaphysical understanding of the ultimate elements of nature as absolutely unqualitative and inanimate in spite of the views of some natural philosophers; absence of a historical view of nature and, consequently, a deistic inconsistency which set a place apart for God in an infinite world (Galileo and, to a certain extent, Francis Bacon).

The vast socio-economic changes that took place in the new age were also reflected in much of the sociological thought of the time, particularly the characteristic view of society as a conglomeration of isolated individuals, which expressed the growing individualism of the bourgeoisie (see Machiavelli). The emergence and consolidation of national states were reflected in the new conceptions of state power as something completely independent of religious sanction and the authority of the church (Machiavelli, Bodin, and Modrzewski).

The Renaissance saw the appearance of utopian philosophers such as Münzer, who demanded the socialisation of property on the basis of the "holy scriptures", and the first attempts were made to outline a communist social system, which at that time could not but be utopian (see More and Campanella).

Revelation

A concept of religious idealist philosophy signifying supersensuous direct perception of truth accessible only to the chosen at a moment of mystic enlightenment. Idealist philosophers connected with Revelation are striving for truth and good. For those to whom Revelation is not accessible truth becomes an object of faith. Science rejects such an explanation, because it associates Revelation with blind faith in the supernatural. Revelation should be distinguished from intuition.

Revisionism

An opportunist trend, hostile to Marxism, but acting on behalf of it in the workers' revolutionary movement. It got its name from the fact that it reconsiders, revises the Marxist doctrine, its revolutionary programme, strategy and tactics. Revisionism appeared at the end of the 19th century, at a time when Marxism was victorious over all kinds of non-proletarian socialism and was spreading widely among the working masses. The main representatives of the old Revisionism (end of the 19th-beginning of the 20th century) were Bernstein and Kautsky in Germany, F. Adler and O. Bauer in Austria, the Right-wing Socialists in France, and others. In Russia the "economists", Mensheviks, and, later, after the October Revolution, the Trotskyites, the Bukharinites, sought to revise Marxism. Revisionism attempts to implant bourgeois ideology in the working-class movement, to accommodate Marxism to bourgeois interests, robbing it of its revolutionary spirit. The revisionists engage in the "bourgeois emasculation" (Lenin) of Marxism in all its component parts—philosophy, political economy, scientific communism. The replenishment of the working class by the petty bourgeoisie and the bribing of the higher strata of the proletariat—the so-called labour aristocracy—by imperialism, serves as the social basis of Revisionism.

The successors of the old Revisionism—the contemporary leaders of the Right-wing Socialist parties—have finally deserted Marxism and gone over to the bourgeoisie. In the strict sense of the word, contemporary Right-wing socialism can no longer be called Revisionism and in Marxist literature it is designated as reformism. By contemporary Revisionism is meant the Right-opportunist trend, which appeared in later years (particularly in 1956-58) in some of the Communist parties of capitalist countries (Gates, Bittelman in the USA; A. Giolitti in Italy; Lefebvre in France, etc.) and in the Communist parties of some socialist countries (Yugoslavia, Hungary, Poland, GDR). A clearcut characteristic of the main features of contemporary Revisionism is given in the Programme of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. "Right opportunism, which is a reflection of bourgeois influence, is the chief danger within the Communist movement today. The revisionists, who mask their renunciation of Marxism with talk about the necessity of taking into account the latest developments in society and the class struggle, in effect play the role of pedlars of bourgeois reformist ideology within the Communist movement. They seek to rob Marxism-Leninism of its revolutionary spirit, to undermine the faith which the working class and all working people have in socialism, to disarm and disorganise them in their struggle against imperialism. The revisionists deny the historical necessity of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They deny the leading role of the Marxist-Leninist party, undermine the foundations of proletarian internationalism, and drift to nationalism."

In philosophy the revisionists distort the main principles of dialectical and historical materialism, substituting for them a set of ideas taken from contemporary bourgeois philosophy and sociology. They replace materialist dialectics by sophistry and eclecticism and propagate subjectivism. At the same time the revisionists belittle the significance of the conscious activities of the masses, the role of the subjective factor in history. They adopt the position of vulgar materialism, counting on the spontaneous "transformation of capitalism into socialism". Characteristic features of Revisionism are distortion of the fundamental problem of philosophy, denial of the division of the philosophical trends into two camps—materialism and idealism, renunciation of the principle of partisanship in ideology, the divorce of theory from practice. Contemporary Revisionism does great harm to the Communist and working-class movement, seeks to sow disorder among the Marxist-Leninist parties, to disrupt the socialist camp, to lure the working class away from the revolutionary struggle against imperialism. Revisionism has suffered a decisive rebuff and has been ideologically defeated. However, at the present time the struggle against it, like the struggle against dogmatism, constitutes one of the most important tasks of the Communist parties.

Revolution, Bourgeois

A type of social revolution concerned mainly with resolving the contradictions between the productive forces and the feudal or semi-feudal economic and political system. The category includes revolutions in the colonies and dependent countries against imperialism and feudal survivals. The historical function of Bourgeois Revolution is to get rid of the obstacles to capitalist development. The fact that some revolutions of this type may carry out certain anti-capitalist measures does not alter their general character, since they leave intact the foundation of bourgeois society, namely, private ownership of the means of production. History has recorded many bourgeois revolutions in various countries at various times. The process of liquidating feudalism, which began in the 16th century (the Great Peasant War in Germany, the Revolution of the Netherlands), has not yet reached completion (e.g., the numerous bourgeois revolutions in the colonies and dependent countries of Africa, Asia, and Latin America). There is bound to be, therefore, a great variety of specific forms of Bourgeois Revolution and of the forces that motivate it.

Whereas in the period that preceded the rise of monopoly capitalism the leading role in Bourgeois Revolution belonged entirely to the bourgeoisie, in the period of imperialism the influence of the proletariat on the course and results of Bourgeois Revolution has sharply increased; in a number of cases the leadership passes to the proletariat (Russian revolution of 1905, the new democratic revolution in China). The most general way of classifying Bourgeois Revolution is to divide them into upper-crust bourgeois and bourgeois-democratic revolutions. The upper-crust Bourgeois Revolution is carried out under the leadership of the bourgeoisie without any wide participation by the people and does not lead to deep-going social changes, for example, the 1867-68 revolution in Japan, the Young Turk Revolution and various contemporary revolutions in Asian and African countries, which have proceeded no further than the winning of national sovereignty.

A special form of Bourgeois Revolution is found in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Its features are active participation of the proletariat and the peasantry, a linkup with the agrarian revolution and the peasant movement for fundamental reform of land relations, and action by the masses with demands differing from those of the bourgeoisie. There are several types of bourgeois-democratic revolutions, each with its distinctive historical role and motive forces: (1) the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the period of struggle against feudalism which took place under the leadership of the bourgeoisie and ensured its economic and political domination, e.g., the French Revolution of 1789-94; (2) the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the early period of imperialism and the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism. The proletariat acting in alliance with the peasantry becomes the leader of this type of Bourgeois Revolution, which clears the ground for the accelerated development of capitalism and creates the conditions for the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution, e.g., the February 1917 revolution in Russia; (3) the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the second stage of the general crisis of capitalism (the revolutions in the People's Democracies); (4) the bourgeois-democratic revolutions in the colonies and dependent countries during the third stage of the general crisis of capitalism, known as the national-democratic revolutions. Successful revolutions of this type lead to the setting up of independent National Democracies.

Revolution, Social

A turning point in social life, signifying the overthrow of the obsolete and the establishment of a new progressive social system. In contrast to the theorists of the liberal bourgeoisie and opportunism, who regard social revolution as fortuitous, Marxism-Leninism teaches that revolutions are the necessary, natural result of the development of class society. The epoch of social revolutions completes the process of evolution, the gradual ripening in the womb of the old society of the elements or prerequisites of a new social system. Social Revolution resolves the contradiction between the new productive forces and the old relations of production, destroys the obsolete relations of production and makes way for the further development of the productive forces. It is as a result of revolutions that the requirements of the law that the relations of production conform to the character of the productive forces are fulfilled.

The old production relations are strengthened by their bearers—the ruling classes, who safeguard the existing order by means of state authority. Hence, in order to clear the way for social development, the progressive classes must overthrow the existing state system. The basic problem of every revolution is the problem of political power. The transfer of power from the hands of the ruling reactionary class into those of the revolutionary class is accomplished through a sharp class struggle. Revolution is the highest form of the class struggle. During revolutionary epochs the broad masses of the people, who formerly stood aloof from political life, rise to a conscious struggle. That is why revolutionary epochs always signify great acceleration of social development. Revolutions must not be confused with so-called palace coups, putsches, etc. The latter forcibly change the top governing section, replace individual persons or groups within the same class in power.

The character of revolutions is determined by the social tasks they accomplish and by the social forces that participate in them. In this respect the socialist revolution differs radically from all previous revolutions, for it produces more profound changes in the life of the people: abolishes the exploiting classes and eradicates all forms of exploitation of man by man. An example of such a revolution is the Great October Socialist Revolution. The uneven economic and political development of the capitalist countries in the period of imperialism leads to revolutions breaking out at different times in different countries. From this it follows that the transition from capitalism to socialism on a world scale is bound to constitute a whole historical epoch. During this period one country after another falls away from the capitalist system, further deepening the crisis of that system.

Besides socialist revolutions the national liberation revolutions and various kinds of democratic liberation movements are of great significance during this epoch. These revolutions destroy the crumbling colonial system of imperialism, and deal further blows at its rears. "Socialist revolutions, anti-imperialist national liberation revolutions, people's democratic revolutions, broad peasant movements, popular struggles to overthrow fascist and other despotic regimes, and general democratic movements against national oppression—all these merge in a single world-wide revolutionary process undermining and destroying capitalism." (Programme of the C.P.S.U.) In the present-day epoch the world capitalist system as a whole has already ripened for the social revolution of the proletariat. However, in each individual country the possibilities of development of the revolution depend upon a number of conditions. Depending upon concrete historical conditions, and first of all upon the strength of the working class and its allies on the one hand, and upon the degree of resistance of the reactionary classes, on the other, the revolution may be realised by peaceful or by armed means.

Revolution, Socialist

A radical transformation of society, marking the transition from capitalism to socialism. Socialist Revolution replaces the production relations of domination and subjugation based on private ownership by relations of co-operation and mutual assistance, and thereby abolishes all exploitation of man by man. The fundamental principles of the Socialist Revolution were elaborated by Marx and Engels, who discovered the laws of social development. They proved that Socialist Revolution was a natural result of society's development and described it as the historic mission of the proletariat. They inferred the necessity of destroying the bourgeois state machinery and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat to build socialism. Socialist Revolution begins in the absence of any ready forms of the new mode of production and is, therefore, creative in nature. The construction of a new society takes a definite length of time, which Marx defined as a special period of transition from socialism to communism (its first phase). The dictatorship of the proletariat serves as the instrument for building the new society. The conclusion on proletarian dictatorship is the chief element of Marx's revolutionary theory.

By analysing the imperialist stage of capitalism, Lenin carried Marxism forward and enriched it with some vastly important, fundamentally new propositions: the possibility and necessity of the proletariat gaining victory first in one or several countries, which necessitates the co-existence of countries with different socio-economic and political systems; the revolution first breaking the weakest links in the chain of the world capitalist economy; the hegemony of the proletariat and the growth of national bourgeois-democratic revolutions into socialist revolutions; the link between the struggle of the workers in the advanced capitalist countries and the national liberation movement of the peoples in colonies; the revolutionary situation; skilful combination of objective and subjective factors; the multiformity of the Socialist Revolution, and a number of other propositions.

Socialist construction in the U.S.S.R. and other countries has shown that the leadership of the revolution by the working class and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the alliance of the working class and the peasantry, the abolition of capitalist property, the socialist transformation of agriculture, planned economic development, cultural revolution, abolition of national oppression, defence of socialist gains, and proletarian internationalism constitute the main regularities of Socialist Revolution. Depending on the level of the development of the productive forces, the combination of national peculiarities, the general cultural level of the people, their historical traditions, the alignment of class forces in the country and in the world, these regularities determine the specific features of the transition from capitalism to socialism in the country concerned. Thus, depending on these conditions, the revolution may be peaceful or armed. Marxism-Leninism holds that the sharpness and intensity of the class struggle depend on the strength of resistance by the reactionary bourgeoisie to the majority of the people, on the use of force by this bourgeoisie.

In our time the theory of Socialist Revolution has been developed further, yielding a number of new conclusions: on the need for favourable conditions to accomplish a revolution by peaceful means; on the possibility of non-capitalist development in backward countries and the establishment of national democracy; on the possibility of transitional stages in the struggle for proletarian dictatorship; on the union of all democratic movements opposing the tyranny of the financial oligarchy in one mighty anti-imperialist torrent.

Revolutionary Situation

The sum total of the objective conditions, expressing the economic and political crisis of a given social system and determining the possibilities of a social revolution. As pointed out by Lenin, the Revolutionary Situation is characterised by the following principal symptoms: impossibility for the ruling classes to maintain their supremacy in an immutable form. For a revolution to break out it is usually not enough that the "lower strata do not want" to live in the old way; another condition is that "the upper strata cannot" live so. The want and misery of the oppressed classes must be unusually pressing. There must be a considerable rise in the activity of the masses, who allow themselves to be robbed quietly in a "peaceful" period, but in stormy times are driven to independent historical action both by all the circumstances of the crisis and the "upper strata" themselves (see Lenin, Vol. 21, p. 214).

The mere presence of a Revolutionary Situation is not enough for the victory of the socialist revolution. Besides the objective conditions there must also be subjective conditions, i.e., ability of the revolutionary masses to fight bravely and selflessly, the presence of an experienced revolutionary party, carrying out a correct strategical and tactical guidance. The Marxist theory of the Revolutionary Situation rejects petty-bourgeois adventurism and putschism in approaching the problem of revolution. It opposes revolutions being "pushed on" artificially, particularly with the aid of wars.

Rickert, Heinrich (1863–1936)

German idealist philosopher, who, together with Windelband, was the leader of the Freiburg school of neo-Kantianism. He considered the object of investigation to be the study of the possibilities and methods of cognition in various fields. He devoted special attention to the methodology of the historical sciences and philosophical investigations. Rickert maintained that there are two methods in science: generalised abstraction in the natural sciences, and individualised abstraction in the historical sciences. The first method, involving an infinite variety of objects, allows the formulation of a system of universal concepts and laws; the second permits the establishment of relations between certain events and phenomena and moral "values", the ideal essences of the Platonian type, freely chosen by man. The ethical views of Rickert exerted considerable influence upon contemporary sociology. Rickert's main works are: Der Gegenstand der Erkenntnis (1892), Die Grenzen der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung (1896), and Main Problems of Philosophical Methodology, Ontology, and Anthropology (1934).

Robinet, Jean-Baptiste (1735–1820)

French materialist philosopher. The main sources of his views were the teachings of Locke and Condillac, but he was also influenced by Leibniz's ideas. Robinet recognised material substance which is infinite in space and time. The diversity of nature is ruled by the principle of universal unity and harmony determined by the causal relation of things. In the understanding of causality Robinet made concessions to Hume's conception.

Robinet was an adherent of hylozoism; he considered the animalcules, the tiniest living creatures, as the elementary bricks of the Universe. The inconsistency of Robinet's materialism is expressed in his recognition of a god who created the world from material substance. According to his theory of knowledge, sensations are the source of knowledge, including theoretical thought. He distinguished three kinds of cognition: sensation, discourse, and intuition, and three corresponding types of truth: sensory, demonstrative, and intuitive. He considered ideas as the copies of objects, and criticised Plato's idealism, limiting sensory cognition to external phenomena, but his conviction of the unlimitedness of human cognition distinguished his views from the theories of agnosticism. His main work: De la nature (1761-66).

Romance

A specific socio-psychological and aesthetic striving and mood, penetrating both human activity and the creative art of some artists. Maxim Gorky derived the necessity for the organic inclusion of revolutionary Romance in the artistic method of socialist realism from the fact that the source of Romance is in the reality reflected by art, in the heroic life of the proletariat and of the brave fighters for freedom and happiness, in the creative labour of the builders of a classless society. Our reality is heroic and hence romantic. Revolutionary Romance is a particular aesthetic form for bringing out the struggle between the new and the old in social development, by employing a feeling for the new and by clearly realising the prospects and aims of social development. Revolutionary Romance is an artistic form of historical prevision, the embodiment of the artist's vision born by life itself and directed towards its transformation.

Romantic School

The first mature expression of romanticism. It existed in Germany at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Its efflorescence was in the years 1798-1800 when a close collaboration was established in Jena between the literary critics Friedrich and August Schlegel, Karoline Schlegel, the poets Tieck and Novalis, the philosophers Schelling and Friedrich Schleiermacher. The journal Athenaeum was published during this period (1798). The Romantic School came out against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, opposing to its "soulless rationality" the cult of feeling and creative ecstasy, which, they maintained, reveals the mysteries of nature more profoundly than the tedious work of the scientist. The romanticists saw as the motive force of cognition the experience of the contradiction between the finite and the infinite, the aspiration for the infinite, the frustration born of the unattainability of the infinite, an ironical attitude towards oneself and one's creation.

The exponents of the Romantic School maintained love, a mystical cult of nature, artistic creative work, religious experience, to be the means of possible access to the infinite. They idealised the feudal-Catholic past, some of them went over to Catholicism and became ideologists of the Restoration. The Romantic School later appeared in France, Poland, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the USA.

Romanticism

An artistic method in European art which replaced classicism in the 20s-30s of the 19th century. It arose from two different sources: a) the liberation movement of the people, awakened by the French revolution of 1789, the struggle of the people against feudalism and national oppression; b) the frustration of broad social circles with the results of the revolution of the 18th century. This determined the formation of two trends in artistic Romanticism. One of them was the reaction to the victory of the bourgeois system, expressing at the same time fear of revolutionary and popular movements. As a rule, criticism of capitalism was here one-sided and reactionary, seeing only its dark sides and not seeing the progressive element which was brought about by the victory of the new system. This trend found a way out of the socio-historical contradictions in the creation of illusory ideals which were an apology for the medieval past. Hence the attachment of the romanticists (Tieck, Schlegel, Novalis, Zhukovsky, Kaulbach, and others) to unusual situations and fantastic images.

The other basic trend of Romanticism had a progressive revolutionary direction, expressing the protest of the wide social circles against the bourgeois, as well as against the feudal system, against reactionary politics. Although the aesthetic ideals of this trend of Romanticism were also occasionally utopian, while its images were often distinguished by their duality and inherent tragicalness, they nevertheless expressed a certain understanding of the contradictions of bourgeois society and interest in the life of the broad masses of people, and were directed towards the future. Among the artists of progressive Romanticism were Byron and Shelley, Hugo and Sand, Mickiewicz and Petőfi, Ryleyev and Kuchelbecker, Géricault and Delacroix, Bryullov and Rude, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Berlioz and Liszt.

Roscelin, Joane (c. 1050–1112)

Scholastic from Compiègne (France). He is known for his polemics with Anselm of Canterbury and Abelard and for his heretical interpretation of the Trinity as a complex of three separate gods. This tritheist teaching was condemned by the church and Roscelin was compelled to renounce it at a council in Soissons (1092). He was one of the founders of the nominalist tradition in medieval philosophy. As testified by Anselm, Roscelin affirmed that general conceptions are only names, titles, merely "vibrations of the air" (flatus vocis). In reality, according to Roscelin, there exist only single sensorily perceptible things. Among his works only a letter to Abelard has been preserved.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712–1778)

Representative of the Left wing of the French Enlighteners. Rousseau became famous as a philosopher, sociologist, and aesthetician, author of artistic works of world value, and one of the theoreticians of pedagogy. Main philosophical and sociological works: Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes (1755) and Le contrat social (1762).

He advocated deism. Alongside with the existence of God, Rousseau also recognised the immortal soul. He taught that matter and spirit are two eternally existing principles. In the theory of knowledge he adhered to sensationalism, although he also maintained that moral ideas are innate. As a sociologist Rousseau took a radical position. He severely criticised feudal class relations and the despotic regime, and supported bourgeois democracy and civil liberties, the equality of people irrespective of their birth. Rousseau saw the causes of inequality in the establishment of private property. At the same time he stood for the perpetuation of small property.

Being an exponent of the theory of social contract, Rousseau held, in opposition to Hobbes that in the "natural state" there was not only no war of everybody against everybody, but that friendship and harmony reigned among people. In his work Émile ou De l'éducation (1762) Rousseau severely criticised the old feudal class system of education and demanded that education should aim at the training of active citizens, who respected labour. Rousseau's pedagogical views were petty-bourgeois; his ideal was the honest handicraftsman. The founders of Marxism-Leninism highly appraised the historical role of Rousseau, noting at the same time his idealism and bourgeois limitation.

Rural Commune

A form of economic association which arose at the last stage of the primitive-communal system. As distinct from the earlier primitive communes, the Rural Commune rests not on a consanguine basis. Marx pointed out that the "rural commune is becoming the first social group of free people not connected by sanguine ties" (Archives of Marx and Engels, Book I, Russian edition, p. 284).

By its nature the Rural Commune is dual. It combines two elements: (1) private ownership of all the means of production (except the land) and individual production and individual appropriation, and (2) collective ownership of the ploughland (regularly divided for individual, private use), meadows, forests, and pastures. All peoples had the Rural Commune. As a survival of the old social relations it continued to exist in the slave, feudal, and even capitalist societies.

Ruskin, John (1819–1900)

English aesthetician and critic. Studied, and then taught at Oxford University (1869–1884). His idealist outlook was greatly influenced by Carlyle. From the position of conservative romanticism Ruskin criticised bourgeois society, its parasitism and depraved morals; he saw "the main root" of unjust wars in the "will of the capitalists". Ruskin's ideal was patriarchal-handicraft production, which he sought to revive.

Ruskin considered the education and moral upbringing of people as a means of deliverance from social disasters, assigning a great role to art in this cause. The aesthetic feeling is innate in man. Art originates from the "imitative instinct" and the instinctive desire to embody or describe something; but the objective basis is the divine beauty of nature, untouched by man. Perfect art reproduces the beauty of reality and through it man is morally uplifted. Ruskin exerted great influence on the cultural life of England.

His main works: Modern Painters (1843–1860, in five volumes), The Stones of Venice (1851–1853, in three volumes), Lectures of Art (1870), The Art of England (1883).

Russell, Bertrand (1872–1970)

English philosopher, logician, public figure. Russell contributed considerably to the development of modern mathematical logic. He developed the logic of relations, perfected the language of logical symbols. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russell, together with Whitehead, following Frege, made attempts to elaborate the logical basis of mathematics. He wrote a large number of philosophical works on natural science problems.

Russell maintains that philosophy draws its problems from natural science, and that its task is the analysis and explanation of the principles and concepts of natural science, that the essence of philosophy is logic, the logical analysis of language. Russell is justly regarded as the most prominent representative of modern neo-positivism. In the solution of the fundamental problem of philosophy Russell's outlook underwent evolution from objective to subjective idealism.

Man, according to Russell, has to do with sense data. What man perceives is a "fact" or a complex of "facts". Facts cannot be considered as physical or psychical; they are neutral. According to Russell, what is empirically corroborated should be ascribed not to the sphere of pure physics, but to physics plus the corresponding section of psychology. Psychology is an essential component of every empirical science. In the theory of knowledge Russell is an agnostic: denying the materialist theory of knowledge, he suggests the philosophy of scepticism in its place.

At the present time Russell is an active participant in the movement for general disarmament, his articles and speeches against war and for peace serve the cause of human progress.

Ryle, Gilbert (1900–1976)

English philosopher, one of the leaders of the so-called linguistic philosophy, professor of philosophy at Oxford. For Ryle the task of philosophy is merely to solve problems arising from the imperfect understanding of our means of knowledge. He maintained that in a number of cases the grammatical form of expression of thoughts is bound to confuse us and leads to what are called errors of category. In his main work The Concept of Mind (1949) Ryle advances a conception very close to behaviourism.