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Vairasse, Denis

Author of the novel Histoire des sevarambes (1677-79), the first work in French literature propagating the ideas of utopian socialism. The main character in the novel is Sevrais, legislator of the Sevarambes, who considers that pride, greed, and sloth are the cause of social evils and abolishes all privileges of birth. He also abolishes private property and decrees that the land and all its riches belong to the people, labour being compulsory for all except the old and the sick.

The description of society before Sevrais' reforms makes Vairasse a forerunner of the theorists of natural law and the utopian socialists of the 18th century. The reformed land of Sevarambie is divided on the production principle into urban and rural osmasies, in which children are given an education combining general and vocational subjects. The Sevarambes elect their monarch, whose power is restricted by elected bodies, and the Sun is worshipped as the supreme ruler and divinity. The novel became widely known and gave rise to many imitations.

Vaiseshika

Sanskrit: visesa, particularity. A system of ancient Indian philosophy, first expounded by Kanada (Vaiseshika-Sutra, 3rd century B.C.). Considerably developed in the work of Prasastapada (4th century A.D.) known as the Padartha-Dharma-Sangraha.

Vaiseshika displays strong materialist tendencies. Everything that exists is divided into seven categories: substance, quality, action, universality, particularity, inherence, and non-existence. The first three exist in reality. The next three are logical categories, products of mental activity, an important role in cognition being played by the category of "particularity", which expresses the real variety of substances.

The world consists of substances possessing quality and action. Of these there are nine: earth, water, light, air, ether, time, space, soul, and mind. All material objects are formed of atoms of the first four substances. Atoms are eternal, indivisible, and invisible. They have no extent, but in combination with other atoms they make up all bodies that are extensive. The combination of atoms is guided by the world soul. Owing to the perpetual motion of the atoms the world, which exists in time, space, and ether, is periodically created and destroyed.

Atoms may be divided according to quality into four types, depending on their origin, and may give rise to four types of sensation: touch, taste, sight, and smell. The epistemology of Vaiseshika is similar to that of Nyaya and distinguishes four types of true and four types of false knowledge. The truth is arrived at through perception, deduction, memory, and intuition.

Value, Singular

A strictly definite, single meaning which ensures accuracy of a conclusion or prediction. The concept of singular value is widely applied in different spheres of contemporary scientific knowledge. In mathematics, for example, it characterises a function which accepts only one meaning for each meaning of an argument; it expresses a condition of definiteness and consistency of a conclusion in formal logic; in physics, one of the types of connection between cause and consequence (so-called Laplacian determinism).

Singular value is achieved by introducing a number of additional conditions which preclude other possible meanings (plural values). To understand singular value and plural values one must study them in connection with such categories of materialist dialectics as necessity and chance, possibility and reality, and others.

Values

Properties of material objects and phenomena of social consciousness which characterise their importance to society, to a class, and man. Material things represent different kinds of values because they are the objects of different human interests (material, economic, spiritual).

For example, a glass, being a drinking vessel, represents a material value, i.e., a use-value or good. A product of human labour, the glass as a commodity possesses economic value. If a glass is an object of art it also has aesthetic value, beauty. But in all these relations the glass appears not merely as a material object but also as a social phenomenon—an object of use, a commodity, a work of art—and is an object of human interest.

Similarly, phenomena of social consciousness, ideas are values. In them people express their interest in an ideological form. For example, the idea of communism embodies the interests, aspirations and desires of the masses, the will of the working people, and the practical aim of the Communist Parties. As the aim and object of aspirations, as a dream guiding the actions of the people, the idea of communism is a social ideal, or spiritual value.

In addition to material, economic and aesthetic values, there are also moral, legal, political, cultural, and historical values. Actions of people and social phenomena may represent moral good or evil (ethical values) and be an object of approval or condemnation. To direct and regulate the behaviour of people, society creates a system of moral concepts—ideals, principles, and assessments. These are also moral values.

Valuable ideas reflect some reality, are knowledge of some things, and, moreover, direct the activity of people, i.e., are of a practical nature. That is why in class society they bear a clear-cut class character. The struggle of the communist and the bourgeois ideologies is at the same time a struggle of opposite systems of values. The nature of values is studied by axiology.

Variable and Constant

Terms used in mathematics and logic. In mathematics, a variable is a quantity which may have different values and a constant is a quantity which maintains the same value. Descartes was the first to use these terms systematically.

In mathematical logic variables are used in formulating the laws of logic, axioms, and rules of inference of logical calculi, thus stressing their general nature. Variables in logic denote in this case arbitrary constant objects (statements, objects, predicates); such variables are called substantive. In logical calculi, variables may be regarded as objects defined in a special way; such variables are called formal. Symbols of logical operations, quantifiers, and others are logical constants.

Vavilov, Sergei Ivanovich (1891–1951)

Physicist, President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1945-51). His main works were devoted to physical optics, particularly the investigation of the nature of photoluminescence. He attached great importance to the philosophy and history of science and gave a dialectical-materialist interpretation of a number of revolutionary discoveries in modern physics, such as the corpuscular-wave dualism.

He also introduced the idea of a field as a particular form of matter, and named mathematical hypothesis as the principal research method in modern physics. He wrote interesting and profound studies of Lucretius, Galileo, Newton, Lomonosov, Faraday, Lebedev, and others.

Vedanta

Sanskrit: the end of the Veda, or Uttara-Mimamsa; Sanskrit: recent research. One of the orthodox systems of Indian philosophy, an objective-idealist philosophico-religious doctrine based on the teaching of the Upanishads. To this day Vedanta holds an important place in the philosophy of Hinduism.

Its first basic propositions were expounded by Badarayana in the Vedanta Sutras (3rd and 4th centuries A.D.). Further development took the form of commentaries on this work and on the Upanishads.

There are two trends in the Vedanta. One is the advaita (absolute non-duality), founded by Samkara in the 8th century. According to this trend, the world contains no other reality except God, which is indefinable, has neither condition nor quality. The conception that the Universe contains a variety of objects and phenomena results from lack of knowledge (avidya); in fact, everything except God is a pure illusion (maya). In advaita the path to knowledge is through intuition and revelation, whereas deduction and sensation play only a secondary role. The aim of individual effort is to comprehend the divine unity underlying the apparent diversity of things.

The second trend in the Vedanta is the Visistadvaita (differential non-duality), founded by Ramanuja (11th to 12th centuries). According to Ramanuja's teaching, there are three realities: matter, soul, and God. They are mutually dependent on one another: the individual soul rules the material body and God rules them both. Without God, soul and matter can exist only as abstract concepts. The aim of individual effort is to liberate oneself from material existence and this is achieved through spiritual activity, knowledge, and love of God, the latter being of particular importance. Advaita was closely connected with the worship of the God Shiva, and Visistadvaita with the God Vishnu.

Vedas

Sanskrit: knowledge. The four principal sacred books of ancient India: the Rg Veda, Atharva Veda, Sama Veda, and Yajur Veda, produced between the 10th and 5th centuries B.C. The term "Veda" includes also the Brahmanas (books expounding and interpreting the ritual of the Vedas), the Aranyakas (the "forest treatises"), explaining the mystical meaning of the vedic ritual and symbolism, and the Upanishads, treatises in which the worship and mythology of the Vedas are provided with a philosophical argument and where first place is given to discussion of God, man, and nature.

The term "Veda" is also used in the sense of "sacred book" or "supreme wisdom". Besides ancient religious concepts, the Vedas contain purely speculative sections dealing with the causes and aims of existence of the world and human behaviour.

Vekhism

An ideology of the Russian bourgeoisie. As the democratic and proletarian movement developed in Russia, the Russian bourgeoisie evolved as a political force, quickly manifesting what Lenin called its "congenital counter-revolutionism" (Vol. 15, p. 27).

In 1902, the former "legal Marxists" (see "Legal Marxism"), Struve, Berdyayev, and Bulgakov collaborated with avowed mystics in producing the Problemy idealizma (Problems of Idealism), a collection of articles aimed against materialism. Subsequent collections and the setting up of philosophico-religious societies culminated in the publication of the programmatic collection Vekhi (Landmarks) in 1909.

This "encyclopaedia of liberal apostasy", as Lenin called it, covered three subjects: (1) the struggle against the ideological principles of the whole world outlook of Russian and international democracy; (2) repudiation of the liberation movement; (3) an open proclamation of "flunkey sentiments" and a correspondingly "flunkey" policy in relation to tsarism (see Vol. 16, p. 124).

Vekhi attempted to set off the Russian philosophico-religious tradition represented by Yurkevich, Solovyov, and Dostoyevsky against materialism and atheism. Their alternative to the class struggle was defence of the personality in its search for "inward", "spiritual" liberation.

On the outbreak of the 1st World War the supporters of Vekhism became the most rabid of chauvinists, and the October Revolution found them in the camp of the monarchist counter-revolution. As emigres, the former Vekhi supporters opposed the tendency among certain emigre intellectuals ("smenovekhovtsy") to abandon the counter-revolution.

Characteristic features of Vekhism were the use of subtle forms of religion in the struggle against Marxism, the defence of extreme individualism in ethics, anti-intellectualism and subjectivism in philosophy, and its reactionary political connections.

Vellansky (Kavunnik), Danilo Mikhailovich (1774–1847)

Russian doctor and idealist philosopher, follower of Schelling. In his Prolyuziya k meditsine (Prolusion to Medicine), 1805, Biologicheskoye issledovaniye prirody (The Biological Investigation of Nature), 1812, Opytnaya nablyudatelnaya i umozritelnaya fizika (Experimental, Observed, and Speculative Physics), 1831, Osnovnoye nachertaniye obshchei i chastnoi fiziologii (The Fundamental Outlines of General and Particular Physiology), 1836, and other works, Vellansky evolved an idealist natural philosophy, thus pioneering in Russia the concepts of idealist dialectics (universal connection between phenomena, development in the form of the triad, conflict between polarities as the source of development, etc.).

Verification, Principle of

The basic principle held by logical positivists, according to which the truth of every statement about the world must ultimately be ascertained by comparing it with the evidence of the senses. The principle, as formulated in the Vienna Circle, is based on the thesis that knowledge cannot in the final analysis extend beyond the limits of sensory experience, a distinction being made between the direct verification of assertions specifically describing the data of experience, and indirect verification, by logical reduction of a proposition to directly verifiable statements.

The obvious philosophical weakness of the principle, which leads to solipsism and deprives of cognitive significance all scientific statements not tested by "direct experience", compelled the logical positivists to accept a watered-down version of this principle that demanded partial and indirect experimental verification of scientific statements; in this form it merely expresses somewhat inadequately the usual methodological requirement of science that theoretical propositions should correspond to the empirical facts.

Vernadsky, Vladimir Ivanovich (1863–1945)

Soviet scientist whose field of research took in geology, biology, and the study of the atom. Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. A professor at Moscow University 1898-1911, he was among the 124 professors and teachers of the university who resigned in protest against repressive measures taken by the tsarist authorities.

After this he continued his work in the Academy of Sciences, where he contributed to the emergence of geochemistry as a science and founded the new branch known as biogeochemistry. He developed the theory of the noosphere and was one of the founders of genetic mineralogy and radiogeology; he also worked in the field of crystallography, soil science, meteorite study, and the history and methodology of natural science.

His standpoint was materialist and he was spontaneously guided by some of the ideas of dialectics. He emphasised the importance of philosophy in scientific research and stressed the need for systematic elaboration of the logic and methodology of natural science. He wrote a number of substantial works on the history and theory of science, e.g., O nauchnom mirovozzrenii (On the Scientific World Outlook), 1902-03.

Vico, Giovanni Battista (1668–1744)

Italian philosopher and sociologist, professor at the University of Naples. He advanced the theory of the historical cycle. Though he recognised the existence of a divine principle from which the laws of history originated, Vico nevertheless pointed out that society must develop according to certain inner laws.

According to Vico's theory, every nation passes through three stages in its development: the divine, the heroic, and the human, which are analogous to the periods in the life of man—childhood, youth, and maturity. The state, which arises only in the heroic period, represents the domination of the aristocracy. This is replaced in the human period by a democratic society, in which freedom and "natural justice" are triumphant.

This, the peak of human development, is followed by decline. Society returns to its primary state, then upward movement is resumed and a new cycle begins. Vico extended his principles of historical development to language, law, and art. His main work was Principii d'una scienza nuova (1725).

Vienna Circle

A group forming the ideological and organisational centre of logical positivism. Developed from a study group organised in 1922 by Schlick at the department of the philosophy of inductive sciences, Vienna University. Its members included Carnap from 1926, F. Waismann, H. Feigl, O. Neurath, H. Hahn, V. Kraft, F. Kaufmann, and K. Godel. Associated with the group were P. Frank (Czechoslovakia), E. Kaila (Finland), A. Blumberg (US), J. Jorgensen (Denmark), A. Ayer (Britain), and others.

The Vienna Circle inherited the ideas of Machism. It also accepted many of the ideas of Wittgenstein, particularly the concept of logical analysis of knowledge, the doctrine of the analytical character of logic and mathematics, and the criticism of traditional philosophy as meaningless. Having achieved something in the nature of a synthesis between a Machist type of positivism and the concepts of logical analysis of knowledge, the Vienna Circle formulated the basic propositions of logical positivism in its fullest and clearest form.

In 1929, Carnap, Neurath, and Hahn published a manifesto entitled Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis. The Vienna Circle thus acquired a definite organised form and established international ties with other neo-positivist groups (it already had ties with the Reichenbach-Dubislav group in Berlin; see Neo-Positivism).

In 1930, the Vienna Circle in collaboration with Reichenbach began publishing the magazine Erkenntnis, and in the thirties its members worked energetically on the ideas of logical positivism. Towards the end of the thirties, owing to the departure from Vienna of a number of its members, the tragic death of Schlick and Hitler's invasion of Austria, the Vienna Circle ceased to exist. It has been succeeded by the logical empiricism of Carnap, Feigl, and others.

Vitalism

An idealist trend in biology, which attributes all the processes of life activity to the special immaterial factors said to be present in living organisms (entelechy; elan vital, vital force, etc.). The roots of vitalism go back to the teaching of Plato on the soul, which is supposed to spiritualise the animal and vegetable worlds, and to the teaching of Aristotle on entelechy.

As a conception vitalism took shape in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was advocated by G. Stahl, J. J. Uexkull, and H. Driesch, and is at present represented by L. Bertalanffy, A. Wenzl, and others. Citing the qualitative individuality of animate nature, vitalism separates the processes of life from material physico-chemical and biochemical laws. Exaggerated stress on the antithesis between animate and inanimate nature leads vitalism to deny the possibility of the emergence of the animate from the inanimate.

When the problem is posed in this way there is nothing for it but to ascribe the origin of life to divine causes or to assume its existence as eternal. Vitalism makes capital out of the as yet little investigated problems of biology, the chief objects of its attention being the problems of the essence of life, the wholeness and purpose of structure and function, embryogenesis, regeneration, etc. For example, the process of the embryonic development is regarded by vitalism as the urge of the embryo to realise a predetermined aim.

The history of the development of science is the history of the refutation of vitalism, a profound criticism of which is to be found in the works of Engels, Lenin, Haeckel, Timiryazev, Mechnikov, Pavlov, and others.

Vivekananda (1863–1902)

Real name: Narendra Nath Dutta. Indian idealist philosopher, pupil of Ramakrishna. Studied philosophy at Calcutta University (1880-84). In 1893, toured the USA, Britain and Japan preaching the ideas of Vedanta. Founded the Ramakrishna Mission in 1897.

Vivekananda attempted to bring the ideas of the Advaita Vedanta closer to the scientific principles of his day. Like Ramakrishna, he advocated a "single religion" based on the Vedanta. His public activities, however, went beyond the narrow limits of religious reform. He became a prominent figure in socio-political life, advocated struggle for national independence and condemned the Indian liberals' policy of appealing to the British authorities. He was thus the direct predecessor of the ideological leaders of the Indian national liberation movement in the early years of this century.

He defined four stages of social progress according to which varna (caste)—the Brahmins, the Kshatriya, the Vaisya or the Sudra—was in power. He described the bourgeois society of his day as the "kingdom of the Vaisyas", and the socialist society of the future as the "kingdom of the Sudras". Though he condemned imperialist oppression, racialism, and militarism, his socialism was utopian and petty bourgeois.

Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de (1694–1778)

French writer, philosopher, and historian, one of the leaders of the French Enlightenment. The son of a notary, Voltaire was educated in a Jesuit college. He was twice arrested (1717 and 1725) for his anti-feudal satires. Most of his life was spent outside France. Voltaire co-operated with Diderot in the compilation of the Encyclopaedia.

He was a deist (see Deism), and his view of the world was contradictory. Though a supporter of Newtonian mechanics and physics, he recognised the existence of God as the prime mover. The motion of nature proceeds according to eternal laws, but God is inseparable from nature; God is not a special substance but rather the principle of action inherent in nature itself. Voltaire was actually inclined to identify God (the "eternal geometer") with nature.

He criticised dualism and rejected the idea of the soul as a special kind of substance. Consciousness, according to Voltaire, is a property of matter inherent only in living bodies, although to prove this correct proposition he produced the theological argument that God endowed matter with the ability to think.

In contrast to the theological metaphysics of the 17th century, Voltaire insisted on scientific investigation of nature. Rejecting the Cartesian teaching on the soul and innate ideas, Voltaire regarded observation and experience as the source of knowledge and preached the materialism of Locke. The task of learning was to study objective causality. At the same time Voltaire recognised the existence of "ultimate causes" and maintained that experience pointed to the probable existence of a "supreme reason" and "architect" of the Universe.

His socio-political views were distinctly anti-feudal. Voltaire fought against feudalism, advocated equality before the law, and demanded property taxation, freedom of speech, etc. But he rejected criticism of private ownership on the grounds that society must inevitably be divided into rich and poor. The most reasonable form of state, according to Voltaire, was a constitutional monarchy ruled by an enlightened monarch. Towards the end of his life he tended to the view that the best form of state was a republic.

In his historical works he criticised the biblical and Christian view of the development of society and drew in broad outline a picture of the history of mankind. The "philosophy of history" (the term was his invention), is based on the idea of the progressive development of society independent of the will of God. But he interpreted historical change idealistically, as due to changes in ideas.

His struggle against clericalism and religious fanaticism was of great significance in his work, the chief target of his satire being Christianity and the Catholic Church, which he regarded as the arch enemy of progress. Nevertheless Voltaire did not accept atheism, and though he denied the possibility of any incarnation of God (Christ, Mahommed, Buddha, etc.), he considered that the idea of a vengeful god should be maintained among the people. This was one of the class limitations of his outlook.

Main works: Lettres philosophiques (1733), Traite de Metaphysique (1734), Elements de la philosophie de Newton (1738), Histoire Universelle (1769), etc.

Voluntarism

An idealist (mainly subjective-idealist) trend in philosophy and psychology which regards will as the initial basis of the Universe, counterposes it to the objective laws of nature and society, and denies the dependence of the human will on the environment. The term was introduced by the German sociologist Tonnies and the German philosopher Paulsen.

It took shape as a philosophical theory in the 19th century in the works of Schopenhauer, although elements of it are to be found in Kant and Fichte. E. Hartmann and Nietzsche were greatly influenced by the doctrine, which is one of the sources and a characteristic feature of the ideology of fascism.

In Russia voluntarism was typical of the Narodniks (see Lavrov, Mikhailovsky, etc.), who counterposed the actions of "lone heroes" to the objective laws of history. Between the 19th and 20th centuries voluntarism gained a foothold in psychology (see Wundt). Marxism-Leninism rejects voluntarism and points out the relative nature of free will, regarding human will as derived from the objective laws of the development of nature and society (see Objective and Subjective Factors in History).

Vorovsky, Vatslav Vatslavovich (1871–1923)

Marxist publicist, revolutionary, and Soviet diplomat. Joined the Bolsheviks in 1903. Much of his work was devoted to spreading and popularising Marxist ideas among the workers and to fighting against their distortion and vulgarisation.

His biographical works on Marx, Pismo iz Berlina (Letter from Berlin), 1908; Karl Marx, 1917, etc., expound the philosophical, economic and political views of the founders of Marxism. In "Kommunistichesky Manifest" i yego sudba v Rossii (The "Communist Manifesto" and Its Fate in Russia), 1907, and K istorii marxisma v Rossii (On the History of Marxism in Russia), 1908, he describes the spread of Marxist teaching in Russia and examines in detail the translations of the Manifesto into Russian; he himself translated the Communist Manifesto, Marx's speech in court on February 7, 1849, and his Critique of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right.

A number of his articles deal with the problem of spontaneity and consciousness in the working-class movement, the attitude of the Party to the trade unions, the agrarian problem and the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia, and the critical analysis of neo-Kantian, Machist, and religious mystical ideology ("Letter to the Editors of Zhizn", 1901; "The Rebels and the Reckless", 1906; "Was Herzen a Socialist?", 1920, etc.).

Vorovsky was one of the first Marxist literary critics. He stressed the social meaning of works of art, the organising role of revolutionary ideals in art, and the class origin of social pessimism and decadence (O burzhuaznosti modernistov [On the Bourgeois Nature of the Modernists], 1908; Bazarov and Sanin, 1909; Maxim Gorky, 1910; Leonid Andreyev, 1910, etc.)

Vulgar Evolutionism

A theory inferring that development is simply an increase or decrease of the original properties of a phenomenon; denies leap-like development and conversion of quantitative into qualitative changes, transformation of one quality into another; it is the antipode of dialectics. Vulgar evolutionism is the philosophical foundation of reformism and opportunism, and is today the methodological basis for the bourgeois theories of the "transformation" of capitalism into socialism. In biology, vulgar evolutionism is represented by the so-called theory of preformationism.

Vulgar Sociologism

An oversimplified interpretation of social phenomena; distorts historical materialism by exaggerating such factors of social development as machines, forms of production management, economics, politics, ideology. In a narrow sense it is an oversimplified conception of the class purport of ideology.

In philosophy, as represented by Bogdanov and V. Shulyatikov, and in aesthetics and literary criticism, as represented by V. Shulyatikov, V. Pereverzev and W. Fritzsche, vulgar sociologism denied the relative independence of ideology and inferred all ideological forms directly from the mode of production. It produced a crude interpretation of the connection between the creative work of writers and the classes, the class struggle.

The contention that language was a class and superstructural phenomenon (by N. Marr and his followers) was a variety of vulgar sociologism in linguistics. Lenin described vulgar sociologism as an example of extreme vulgarisation, a caricature of materialism in history.

Vvedensky, Alexander Ivanovich (1856–1925)

Russian philosopher and psychologist, Neo-Kantian. Professor at St. Petersburg University (1888), President of the St. Petersburg Philosophical Society (1899). Carrying Kant's ideas a stage further, he deepened the dualism of faith and knowledge, soul and body, etc.

In his work O predelakh i priznakakh odushevleniya (On the Limits and Characters of Animation), 1892, he asserted that the spiritual life of others has no objective distinguishing characters and cannot, therefore, be known ("Vvedensky's psychophysical law"). In Psikhologiya bez vsyakoi metafiziki (Psychology Without Metaphysics), 1914, he attempted to justify a psychology that confined itself merely to describing mental phenomena.

His logic is consistently idealist (Logika kak chast teorii poznaniya [Logic as Part of the Theory of Knowledge], 1909). He was an opponent of atheism (Sudba very v boga v borbe s ateizmom [The Fate of Faith in God and the Struggle Against Atheism], 1922).