Second Historical Approach: Notions of Philosophy and Relationships to Positivism in Marx, Engels and the Earlier Soviet Philosophers (up to World War II)

Abstract

Positivism was not the only anti-philosophical philosophic theory of the 19th Century. Marxism also contained ideas, rejecting philosophy as a speculative and necessarily contemplative explanation of the world; this was Marx’ doctrine of the Aufhebung of philosophy in revolutionary praxis. This and an outline of the subsequent history of philosophy’s role in Marxism-Leninism is the subject of the present chapter. Already Engels was not true to the basic thought of the young Marx on this central issue. Lenin and the Soviet philosophers between the wars completely abandoned the anti-philosophical side of Marx’ thought. This background is, of course, important for an understanding of the internal and external relations of Soviet philosophy with positivism: the Marxist Aufhebung theory brings it dangerously close to positivism but makes it in a sense immune to it.