THE PROBLEM OF THE SYSTEMATIC NATURE OF PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE FORMATION OF A SCIENTIFIC WORLDVIEW

A. A. FURMAN

In connection with the tasks of forming a scientific worldview, the question arises of the fundamental possibility of giving the worldview a logical form and of systematizing its basic principles. Difficulties arise in the very formulation of the problem. Is a system of philosophical concepts that formulates a worldview possible at all, and are there any theoretical criteria for its completeness and integrity? In discussing these problems, the need becomes apparent to overcome one-sided conceptions of the systematic nature of philosophical knowledge. In the understanding of the systematic nature of philosophical knowledge in bourgeois philosophy, tendencies of three kinds have taken shape: logical dilettantism, alogism, and logical dogmatism.

Logical dilettantism is characterized by a tendency toward the systematization of philosophical knowledge on the immediate basis of notions formed in ordinary consciousness, in the empirical cognition of nature and society. A characteristic feature of these notions is their logical undifferentiatedness, the absence of precise logical formulation. Logical dilettantism often appears in militant forms, characterized by the attempt to reduce the logicality of philosophical knowledge to the spontaneously formed connections of empirical notions about the external world. A vivid critique of logical dilettantism, retaining its significance in our time as well, was given by A. I. Herzen. The dilettante is irritated by the logical rigor, definiteness, and formal articulation of philosophical knowledge. The dilettante attempts, by sociological, pedagogical, psychological, linguistic considerations, to conceal his unwillingness and inability to give a logical form to the worldview. Such views characterize the basic features of many conceptions of the system of philosophical knowledge widespread in bourgeois philosophy. Logical dilettantism proved incapable of providing a scientific understanding of the criteria for classifying philosophical categories. In literature marked by the influence of logical dilettantism, there is neither any consistent conception of the basic criteria for classifying concepts nor any consistent classification of concepts according to one of the criteria. Characteristic in this respect is the classification

Hartmann’s categories. N. Hartmann distinguishes between general categories and special categories. The general categories include substratum and relation, form and matter, unity and difference, internal and external, and so on. Special categories pertain to various domains and strata of being. Thus, the categories of the inorganic world are space and time, process and state, substantiality and causality. To these also belong the categories of interaction, of the dynamic system, and of dynamic equilibrium. Organic nature is characterized by the categories of adaptation, purposiveness, metabolism, self-regulation, and self-reproduction. In this classification there is no definite criterion for delimiting the categories¹.

Many unresolved problems in the understanding of the systematic character of philosophical categories still remain in our philosophical science. At the All-Union Symposium on Materialist Dialectics in 1966, it was noted in this regard that, until very recently, insufficient attention had been paid in our philosophical literature to the study of the interrelations of the basic laws of dialectics and to the creation of a logically coherent system of the basic categories of dialectics. In the textbook literature on dialectical materialism that has appeared in our country in recent years, one can find the most diverse schemes for constructing the course, the most varied order in the exposition of the basic laws and categories of dialectics. These considerations are expressed by A. P. Sheptulin². The solution of the tasks of systematizing the laws and categories of materialist dialectics proves possible only on the basis of overcoming any influences of logical dilettantism. But at the same time there arise the tasks of overcoming positivist conceptions of the systematic character of philosophical knowledge.

Positivist conceptions of the systematic character of philosophical knowledge proceed from a critique of logical dilettantism and from a critical attitude toward logical dogmatism, characteristic of the trends of objective idealism. The positivist understanding of the systematic character of philosophical knowledge is contradictory. Positivism claims to pose and solve the tasks of logical analysis of the basic philosophical principles and categories. Thus, for B. Russell, for example, characteristic are complaints that the views of the ordinary person on the world are unappealing, vague, and internally contradictory. Demands are put forward that philosophy make them critical, precise, and logical. “In the process of solving this task, philosophy turns—as J. Bernal put it—into something like higher grammar, into something so pure and exact that the adherents of this trend have come with a sigh to the conclusion: everything more complex than a sentence consisting of three words is beyond human understanding”³. Neopositivism arrives at a one-sided interpretation of the tasks of the logical analysis of philosophical knowledge. The hypertrophy of the demand for logical analysis is characterized by the attempt to reduce the system of philosophical knowledge to a formal-sign system, and thereby the very program of the logicization of philosophical knowledge is impoverished. Thus arises a denial of the logical character of philosophical knowledge, alogism. The tendency of alogism leads to far-reaching conclusions concerning the understanding of the mutual relations of worldview and logic, worldvi—

view and science. A worldview, the positivists maintain, by its very nature cannot be logical, cannot be rationally argued and logically formulated. On the basis of considerations of this kind, any systematicity of philosophical knowledge is denied; the possibility of the existence of philosophy as a scientific theory of worldview is rejected; the possibility of elaborating a scientific worldview is denied. In this connection, the denial of the cognitive significance of the traditional logical classifications of concepts becomes characteristic. Thus, the cognitive significance of distinguishing concepts of things, relations, and properties is constantly called into question. The struggle against conceptions of alogism occupies an important place in the history of Soviet philosophical thought. In our philosophical literature of the 1920s, under the general influence of Proletkult ideas, there was a tendency toward a critical revaluation of the logical systematics of philosophical categories, toward denial of the tasks of logical analysis of philosophical knowledge. Such views are encountered right up to the most recent period. Thus, some authors reject the scientific significance of the logical subdivision of categories into substantial, relative, and attributive categories. V. S. Bibler called the subdivision of philosophical categories contained in V. P. Tugarinov’s book The Correlation of the Categories of Dialectical Materialism “scholastic.” V. P. Tugarinov did indeed allow elements of arbitrariness in assigning particular categories to definite groups. However, the very idea of subdividing categories into substantial, relative, and attributive ones has deep roots in the development of logic. The underestimation, or any belittling, of the tasks of the logical systematization of philosophical knowledge is an obstacle to the theoretical substantiation of a worldview. Overcoming such a conception proves to be a necessary condition for solving the tasks of forming a scientific worldview. But at the same time the tasks of combating logical dogmatism also arise.

Logical dogmatism is characterized by an extensive program of the logical systematization of philosophical categories. In the course of criticism of logical dilettantism, however, another, opposite tendency takes shape, consisting in the hypertrophy of the logical system of philosophical knowledge. Logical dogmatism receives characteristic expression in the philosophy of the modern age in Leibniz’s doctrine. Leibniz considers it possible to assert: “The logic of our reasoning encompasses everything in the world.” He advances the task of determining the number of all truths possible and comprehensible to man. In connection with this it is asserted: “If the human race exists long enough, the time will come when literally nothing can be said that would not have been said before.” Logical dogmatism receives its most extreme manifestations in Hegel’s philosophical system. Hegel dogmatized dialectics. Dialectical regularities are traced by him only in thought, and even here they are understood one-sidedly. Hegel hypertrophies the laws of development. The manifold dialectical laws are reduced by him to contradiction, which in reality exhausts neither the dialectical content of development nor the laws of dialectics as a whole. Such a hypertrophied dialectic of contradiction has been adopted in our own day by Maoist theoreticians. Dühring was the epigone of Hegelian dogmatics in the understanding of the systematicity of philosophical knowledge. System-building constitutes a characteristic feature of logical dogmatism as a whole.

The dialectical-materialist understanding of the systematicity of philosophical knowledge is formulated on the basis of overcoming one-sided

conceptions of logical dilettantism, alogism, and logical dogmatism. The task of organizing philosophical knowledge is posed here as the problem of systematizing the laws and categories of materialist dialectics on the basis of Lenin’s philosophical legacy. The problem of systematizing the laws and categories of materialist dialectics is advanced in the works of V. I. Lenin in direct connection with the task of substantiating the inner integrity of Marxism. V. I. Lenin undertakes the systematization of the theoretical heritage of Marxism and, in his works, clarifies the character of the component parts of Marxism, their mutual relations, and reveals the role of dialectics in ensuring the inner integrity of Marxism. Lenin’s program for systematizing the elements of dialectics determined the main directions in the development of Soviet philosophical thought. At present, a concrete understanding of the systematic character of philosophical knowledge is taking shape.^4,5) First of all, a scientific formulation is given to the problem of systematizing the basic philosophical concepts. In discussing these questions, earlier philosophers did not, in general, single out a definite problem in their understanding. The very fact that there exists a large and complex theoretical problem in the understanding of the system of the laws and categories of dialectics makes it impossible to construct any exhaustive and finally established system of the elements of dialectics. What may therefore be at issue is a historically limited system of laws and categories, corresponding to the established scientific picture of the world and expressing its dialectical features.

In the understanding of the systematic character of philosophical knowledge, the dialectical-materialist principle of reflection has decisive significance. In the light of this principle, the systematic character of human knowledge as a whole, and of philosophical knowledge in particular, appears as a reflection of the systematic character of the external world. At the same time, the principle of reflection is directly connected, in the understanding of the tasks of organizing scientific knowledge, with the requirement of the unity of the historical and the logical. In accordance with the unity of the historical and the logical, the question of the system of philosophical concepts cannot be resolved on the basis of any abstract theoretical considerations, but only on the basis of a generalization of the experience of the development of scientific cognition. V. I. Lenin expresses, in this connection, the idea that categories are stages of cognition. At different levels of cognition, different systems of concepts are formed, and only the study of the conceptual apparatus of various fields of knowledge can provide an answer to the question of the character of the basic philosophical categories.

The problem of systematizing philosophical knowledge appears in materialist dialectics as the question of the existence of such a generalizing principle as could be laid at the foundation of the system of philosophical knowledge. Such a principle is not any a priori construction in Dühring’s sense, but merely characterizes certain general regularities of the external world. The principle of reflection is, in our opinion, that generalizing principle on the basis of which the system of laws and categories of materialist dialectics is constructed and by which the very possibility of systematizing philosophical knowledge is thereby determined. In the light of the unity of the historical and the logical, it becomes clear that the study of the structure of knowledge is possible only on the basis of

^4) V. V. Agudov. Marxist-Leninist Principles of the Formation and Development of Philosophical Categories in Their System. Scientific Notes of Gorky University named after Lobachevsky, issue 3, 1970.

^5) V. P. Sagatovsky. On the Question of the System of Categories. Problems of Philosophy, 1968, No. 9.

certain idealized assumptions about the subject matter of knowledge and the principles for distinguishing its basic elements. Accordingly, it proves impossible to distribute categories in any single plane network, or to arrange them along some multistage ladder. The system of categories could rather be represented as a tree-like, branching structure. The complexity of such a structure testifies to the complexity of the problem of systematizing categories; however, it in no way removes the very formulation of the problem. Taking such considerations into account clarifies the cognitive significance of logical classifications of concepts. Thus, according to their logical features, concepts that characterize the attributes of matter may be subdivided into substratal, structural, and functional concepts. The laws of cognition and the laws of thinking are characterized by corresponding groups of concepts. The existence of certain groups of philosophical concepts proves to be as indisputable a fact as the existence, in chemistry, of natural groups of chemical elements. But just as the fact of the existence of natural groups of chemical elements was known before D. I. Mendeleev’s discovery of the periodic law, so too Marxism proceeds from already established logical conceptions of the basic philosophical concepts. In Marxist-Leninist philosophy, no new logical systems of categories are constructed; rather, the nature and dialectic of the mutual relations of already established groups of categories are disclosed. The existence of definite groups of concepts means, at the same time, that concepts have a definite meaning only when correlated with one another within a definite system.

The logical systematicity of philosophical knowledge thus receives, in Marxist-Leninist philosophy, a dialectical generalization, is regarded as a reflection of the systematicity of the external world, and is disclosed on the general basis of the theory of reflection. Thereby the possibility is argued for solving the tasks of the logical substantiation of a worldview within the framework of philosophy as a relatively independent domain of knowledge, acting as a scientific theory of the worldview.

1. See: collection The Problem of Possibility and Reality. “Nauka,” 1964, p. 45. ↩

2. A. P. Sheptulin. “The Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU and the Tasks of Teaching Philosophy in Higher Educational Institutions.” Philosophical Sciences, 1971, No. 4. ↩

3. J. Bernal. Science and Society. Moscow, IIL, 1953, p. 7. ↩