The aesthetic realism of Mikhail Lifshits: art,history and the communist ideal

The aesthetics of Mikhail Lifshits may be characterised as a quest for pravda (truth/justice) in art. The article discusses his assessment of the fate of art in the communist revolution and his view on revolution through the prism of classical art. Pondering the metaphysical foundations of his realist aesthetics, Lifshits offered a naturalistic version of the theory of reflection based on the contradistinction of “big” and “small” being.     

Metamorphoses of the Ideal

For Evald Il’enkov, philosophy is a science of the ideal. Il’enkov spent his entire life researching the logical and historical metamorphoses of the ideal. In general, he considered the ideal as a relation between at least two different things, one of which adequately represents the essence of another. At various times Il’enkov explored quite a few ideal phenomena: forms of value and forms of property, personality and talent, language, music and fine arts, not to mention numerous categories of dialectics, ethics, and aesthetics. The article also addresses the problem: which of these phenomena is the most typical and adequate form of being of the ideal?.     

Spinoza in Late-Soviet philosophy

Studies in East European Thought - This article considers the history of Soviet Spinoza studies after World War II. V.V. Sokolov, editor of the last Soviet publication of Spinoza’s...     

The Russian Spinozists

The article deals with the history of Russian Spinozism in the20th century, focusing attention on three interpretations of Spinoza's philosophy – by Varvara Polovtsova, Lev Vygotsky,and Evald Ilyenkov. Polovtsova profoundly explored Spinoza'slogical method and contributed an excellent translation of histreatise De intellectus emendatione. Later Vygotsky andIlyenkov applied Spinoza's method to create activity theory,an explanation of the laws and genesis of the human mind.     

Anton Yasnitsky and René van der Veer (eds.): Revisionist revolution in Vygotsky studies

Studies in East European Thought - The authors of the volume under review proclaimed a “revisionist revolution” in Vygotsky studies. With the exception of the two chapters by Ekaterina...