Reply to V. G. Fridman

The editors of UFN have allotted me space in this issue only for a very brief reply to V. G. Fridman. In view of this, I am compelled to leave the analysis of his position for a special article, and for the present to draw the readers’ attention to the following:

1. V. G. Fridman’s attempt, in substantiating the conception of “two concepts” of matter, to rely on the works of V. I. Lenin—as is quite understandable—has proved untenable: the numerous quotations from V. I. Lenin’s work Materialism and Empirio-criticism naturally did not help him, as he himself is forced to acknowledge (p. 624).

2. He has not in fact carried out the promised “analysis of V. I. Lenin’s principled position” (p. 624); this is no accident: an analysis of V. I. Lenin’s views “in substance” does not lead, and cannot lead, to the conception of two concepts of matter which V. G. Fridman defends.

3. V. G. Fridman’s attempt to give a “physical definition of matter” “at the present stage” (p. 625) shows as clearly as possible that the proponents of this conception are dragging science back into the pre-Marxist past.

4. Having declared that the conception of two concepts of matter is the key to resolving the crisis of physics, and having left this declaration without any attempt to substantiate it, V. G. Fridman at the same time confused the question of the essence of the crisis of physics, since he stated that V. I. Lenin supposedly considered the crisis of physics “in two respects”: the crisis of physics in the physical respect and the crisis of physics in the philosophical respect (p. 624).

5. The letter shows that V. G. Fridman still has not understood wherein lies the harm of the conception of two concepts of matter, according to which, alongside the concept of matter as a philosophical category—the only scientifically and uniquely possible one—there also exists a physical concept of matter. This shows that he does not observe and does not analyze those ideological processes which have taken place among some Soviet physicists in recent decades.

Since this misunderstanding is exhibited by certain other circles of physicists as well, it appears necessary to examine the questions raised by V. G. Fridman in greater detail.

I must ask the reader to wait until the publication of an article in which everything said here will be substantiated.

S. Suvorov