Evald Ilyenkov's Philosophy Revisited,
edited by Vesa Oittinen.
Helsinki: Kikimora Publications, 2000.
372 p.; il. 21 cm.
ISBN: 9514592638

Contents Сoдepжaниe Inhalt

Opening words .......................................................................... 7
Ilkka Niiniluoto

The Paradoxes of Ilyenkov and the Soviet Philosophy ................. 9
Vesa Oittinen

The Living and the Dead in Ilyenkov's Philosophy ...................... 23
David Bakhurst

Диaлeктикa кaк лoгикa peфлeкcивнoгo мышлeния ............. 41
Ф. Т. Mихaйлoв

Evald Ilyenkov and Soviet Philosophical Culture ........................ 55
Evert van der Zweerde

Leontjew, Iljenkow und die Meschtscherjakow‑Debatte
—Methodologische Bemerkungen ............................................. 79
Wolfgang Jantzen

Ilyenkov and Foucault
—Paradoxes and Impossible Connections ................................. 97
Jussi Silvonen

Ascending from the Abstract to the Concrete
and Constructing a Working Hypothesis for New Practices ...... 111
Reijo Miettinen

Vygotsky, Ilyenkov and Mamardashvili:
Searching for the Monistic Theory of Mind
(Methodological Notes) .......................................................... 131
Nikolai Veresov

Foundationalism and Anti‑Foundationalism:
Seeking Enchantment in the Rough Ground .............................. 147
Jan Derry

Dialectics and Dialogue in Ilyenkov
—Comparison of Two Approaches ........................................ 159
Matti Vartiainen

Denken, Sprache und Form.
Iljenkow und Bühler—ein exemplarischer Vergleich ................ 173
Janette Friedrich

Semiosis and the Concept of the Ideal .................................... 189
Tarja Knuuttila

The dialectics of the Ideal and Symbolic Mediation ................. 205
Peter Jones

Social and Physical Form:
Ilyenkov on the Ideal and Marx on the Value‑Form ................ 229
Andrew Chitty

Ilyenkov and the Logic of Capital .......................................... 265
Pertti Honkanen

Bemerkungen zu “Die Leninsche Dialektik und die Metaphysik des
Positivismus”von E. W. Iljenkow ........................................... 281
Wladislaw Hedeler

Ильeнкoв и Cпинoзa ......................................................... 293
A. Г. Нoвoхaтькo

Iljenkow, Kant und die Dinge an sich .................................... 307
Vesa Oittinen

Прилoжeниe:
“НAУКAЛOГИКИ” ........................................................... 329
Э . В. Ильeнкoв

Contributors

David Bakhurst, Professor
Department of Philosophy, Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario, CANADA

Andrew Chitty, Dr.
University of Sussex
UNITED KINGDOM

Jan Derry, Dr.
School of Education, University of Birmingham
UNITED KINGDOM

Janette Friedrich, Dr.
Faculté de Psychologie, Université de Genève
SWITZERLAND

Judith Gregory, Dr.
Department of Informatics, Systamarbeid
University of Oslo, NORWAY

Wladislaw Hedeler, Dr.
Berlin, GERMANY

Pertti Honkanen, MA, journalist
Helsinki, FINLAND

Jantzen, Wolfgang, Professor
Osterholz‑Scharmbeck, GERMANY

Peter E. Jones, Dr.
Communication Studies, Sheffield Hallam University
UNITED KINGDOM

Tarja Knuuttila, Dr.
Institute of Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
University of Helsinki, FINLAND

Reijo Miettinen, Professor
Institute of Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research
University of Helsinki, FINLAND

Feliks T. Mikhailov, Academician, Professor
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Science
Moscow, RUSSIA

llkka Niiniluoto, Professor, Vice Rector
Institute of Philosophy
University of Helsinki, FINLAND

Aleksei G. Novokhatko, Dr.
Ilyenkov Archive
Moscow, RUSSIA

Vesa Oittinen, Docent, Dr.
Institute of Philosophy,
University of Helsinki, FINLAND/
Institute of Historical Studies
University of Umeå, SWEDEN

Jussi Silvonen, Dr.
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health
Helsinki, FINLAND

Matti Vartiainen, Docent, Dr.
Institute of Psychology
University of Helsinki, FINLAND

Nikolai Veresov, Dr.
University of Oulu
Kajaani Educational Research Unit, FINLAND

Evert van der Zweerde, Dr.
Department of Philosophy
University of Nijmegen, THE NETHERLANDS

OPENING WORDS

ILKKA NIINILUOTO

On behalf of the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, it is a great honour for me to open the Symposium on Evald Ilyenkov. The Symposium is a joint project of the Department of Philosophy (Faculty of Arts), the Center for Activity Theory and Developmental Work Research (Faculty of Education), and the Alexander Institute. It is thus a multidisciplinary enterprise in a positive sense. The main effort in planning and organizing the Symposiurn has been made by Dr. Vesa Oittinen to whom we are all most grateful.

Evald Ilyenkov was born in Smolensk in 1924. He started his studies at the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature in the University of Moscow. After the World War he continued his studies and defended in 1953 his candidate thesis on the questions of dialectical logic in Marx's economic works. From 1953 to his untimely death in 1979 he worked at the Institute of Philosophy in the Academy of Science of the Soviet Union.

Ilyenkov's study of the dialectics of abstract and concrete in Marx's Capital appeared in 1960. Combining his interest in the history of philosophy with contemporary debates, he published in 1968 his doctoral dissertation on “the question of the nature of thought”.

Ilyenkov's book on Dialectical Logic appeared in Russian in 1974, and as an English translation in 1977. In this work, he tried to combine the Marxist‑Leninist theory of knowledge with methodological questions about special scientific disciplines. In his posthumous work, he discussed Lenin's conception of materialist dialectics.

Ilyenkov's works had a profound impact on Soviet philosophy and his studies influenced also a generation of Western Marxism. Today Ilyenkov would be 75 years old. His voluntary death already for twenty years ago prevented him from seeing the decline of Soviet Union, followed in the Western Marxism by the flight back to historical studies in Hegel and eventually to disappointed postmodernism. I will not make any guess at the judgment that Ilyenkov might have given about the present state of the world. But during this conference we shall hear several assessments of the significance of his work and its continuing relevance. I am very impressed by the programme which includes papers both by Ilyenkov's close friends, his followers in the study of human actions, and his admirers in contemporary theories of language, semiotics, and aesthetics.

Coming myself from the Anglo‑Saxon tradition of analytic philosophy, I should like to make a personal remark. In the late 1970s I read an English translation of Ilyenkov's article The Concept of the Ideal, which I found strikingly similar to Karl Popper's conception of the World 3 of human social constructions. In 1981 I read a Finnish translation of Ilyenkov's essay on the genesis of human personality through concrete action and interaction with the material and social environments. Both articles defend very interesting views which are materialistic in an enlightened way but at the same time critical of vulgar interpretations of materialism. Ilyenkov's views on the development of human personality continued the great tradition of cognitive psychology in the Soviet Union. One can understand that his independent views gave emphasis and a voice to ideas that were not very fashionable in the Soviet philosophy in the 1970s but make him a most interesting object of study among contemporary philosophers and psychologists.

More generally, when the new Millennium is starting, it will be worthwhile and rewarding to assess and re‑evaluate the achievements of philosophers and psychologists who worked in the tradition of Marxist dialectics both in the Soviet Union and other countries. It is no doubt that their publications contain parts that strike us as dogmatic errors. But just like in the study of medieval philosophy, we are now able to distinguish the genuine philosophical ideas from the particular theologically or politically correct form in which they were dressed in the historical context. The symposium on Evald Ilyenkov is an example of such efforts of reconsidering the history of contemporary philosophy.

INTRODUCTION: PARADOXES OF ILYENKOV AND THE SOVIET PHILOSOPHY

VESA OITTINEN

The Helsinki symposium on 7th‑8th of September 1999 was held just 20 years after the death of Evald Vasilyevitch Ilyenkov (1924‑1979), demonstrating that the legacy of this perhaps most original of the Soviet philosophers is still relevant. However, it is noteworthy that in many contributions to this symposium Ilyenkov's relation to Marxism was altogether ignored. Even where his work was seen in continuity with the tradition of Marx's thought, the focus was on the most unorthodox aspects of Marxist philosophy, despite the fact that Ilyenkov regarded himself not only as a Marxist, but as a Marxist‑Leninist who was writing such texts as The Leninist Dialectics and Metaphysics of Positivism (1980, English edition 1982) from a very “orthodox” perspective. There are, in fact, many paradoxes, not only in the way Ilyenkov's philosophy was and is received, but in that philosophy itself. As an introduction to this symposium volume, I would like to address some “neuralgic points” of Ilyenkov's thought and Soviet philosophy in general.   [fragment, p. 9]

"The Concept of the Ideal" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"The Universal" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"From the Marxist-Leninist Point of View" by E. V. Ilyenkov

"Humanism and Science" by E. V. Ilyenkov

“Lenin and the Hegelian Conception of Thinking”
by Evald Ilyenkov

Galvano Della Volpe on E. V. Ilyenkov

"On Trends in the Status of Dialectical Logic: A Brief Study of Lefebvre, Ilyenkov and Wald"
by Claude M. J. Braun

Merab Mamardashvili: Selected Bibliography & Web Links

Salvaging Soviet Philosophy (1)