heiss93
9th November 2010, 03:18
J. M. Bocheński, the Polish Neo-Thomist philosopher, edited the Journal of Soviet Thought for 40 years, which despite its strong anti-communism is probably one of the best sources on developments in Soviet philosophy.
His article on Soviet Scholasticism, was actually somewhat sympathethic to Soviet materialism, and he dismisses unreflective kneejerk anti-Sovietism. At least he takes Soviet thought seriously.
J. M. Bocheński is strongly anti-Hegelian, and believes Hegel to be the most anti-Aristotle philosopher in history. He argued that any tendency of Soviet thought to pick up the Hegelian influence of western marxism would make Soviet philosophy less realist. He believed the Hegelian side of dialectical materialism to be entirely anti-materialist. In this he was somewhat similar to fellow Polish dissident Kolokowski who argued that Hegel could not be turned on his head.
J. M. Bocheński argued that existentialist, subjectivist, positivist, and phenomenologist philosophers which denied the existence of objective reality were the domiant philosophies of the 60s with only Soviet and neo-Thomist philosophy defending the objective essence of reality as opposed to only sense-appearance.
The main similarities he emphasized between Soviet materialism and thomism was epistemological and ontological realism, and a complex interactionist account of the mind-body problem, as opposed to reducing the mind to mechanistic matter. The Soviets are only atheists because they assign the traditional property of God, self-movement, to matter.
Ironically, Gramsci decades earlier had also noticed the similarities between Catholic naive realism and Soviet materialism, comparing Marxist common-sense defense of matter, to the Catholic priests mocking atheists by suggesting that the table was not really there.
His article on Soviet Scholasticism, was actually somewhat sympathethic to Soviet materialism, and he dismisses unreflective kneejerk anti-Sovietism. At least he takes Soviet thought seriously.
J. M. Bocheński is strongly anti-Hegelian, and believes Hegel to be the most anti-Aristotle philosopher in history. He argued that any tendency of Soviet thought to pick up the Hegelian influence of western marxism would make Soviet philosophy less realist. He believed the Hegelian side of dialectical materialism to be entirely anti-materialist. In this he was somewhat similar to fellow Polish dissident Kolokowski who argued that Hegel could not be turned on his head.
J. M. Bocheński argued that existentialist, subjectivist, positivist, and phenomenologist philosophers which denied the existence of objective reality were the domiant philosophies of the 60s with only Soviet and neo-Thomist philosophy defending the objective essence of reality as opposed to only sense-appearance.
The main similarities he emphasized between Soviet materialism and thomism was epistemological and ontological realism, and a complex interactionist account of the mind-body problem, as opposed to reducing the mind to mechanistic matter. The Soviets are only atheists because they assign the traditional property of God, self-movement, to matter.
Ironically, Gramsci decades earlier had also noticed the similarities between Catholic naive realism and Soviet materialism, comparing Marxist common-sense defense of matter, to the Catholic priests mocking atheists by suggesting that the table was not really there.