Vladimir Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical
Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy"
レーニン『唯物主義と経験-批判主義』(1908-1909)ノート
Vladimir Lenin's "Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical
Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy"
Contents - "Materialism and Empirio-criticism: Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy"
1. The Theory of Knowledge of Empirio-Criticism and of Dialectical Materialism - I
2. The Theory of Knowledge of Empirio-Criticism and of Dialectical Materialism - II
3. The Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism and of Empirio-Criticism - III
4. The Philosophical Idealists as Comrades-In-Arms and Successors of Empirio-Criticism
5. The Recent Revolution in Natural Science and Philosophical Idealism
6. Empirio-Criticism and Historical Materialism
Notes
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Does Objective Truth Exist?
| Does
Objective Truth Exist? |
( Chapter Two: The Theory of
Knowledge of Empirio-Criticism and of Dialectical Materialism. II ) |
| 1. Bogdanov declares: “As I
understand it, Marxism contains a denial of the unconditional
objectivity of any truth whatsoever, the denial of all eternal truths”
(Empirio-Monism, Bk. III, pp. iv-v). What is meant by “unconditional
objectivity”? “Truth for all eternity” is “an objective truth in the
absolute meaning of the word,” says Bogdanov in the same passage, and
agrees to recognise “objective truth only within the limits of a given
epoch.” |
|
| 2. Two questions are obviously
confused here: 1) Is there such a thing as objective truth, that is,
can human ideas have a content that does not depend on a subject, that
does not depend either on a human being, or on humanity? 2) If so, can
human ideas, which give expression to objective truth, express it all
at one time, as a whole, unconditionally, absolutely, or only
approximately, relatively? This second question is a
question of the relation of absolute truth to relative truth. Bogdanov
replies to the second question clearly, explicitly and definitely by
rejecting even the slightest admission of absolute truth and by
accusing Engels of eclecticism for making such an admission. Of this
discovery of eclecticism in Engels by A. Bogdanov we shall speak
separately later on. For the present we shall confine ourselves to the
first question, which Bogdanov, without saying so explicitly, likewise
answers in the negative—for although it is possible to deny the element
of relativity in one or another human idea without denying the
existence of objective truth, it is impossible to deny absolute truth
without denying the existence of objective truth. “. . . The criterion
of objective truth,” writes Bogdanov a little further on (p. ix), “in
Beltov’s sense, does not exist truth is an ideological form, an
organising form of human experience. . . .” Neither “Beltov’s
sense”—for it is a question of one of the fundamental philosophical
problems and not of Beltov—nor the criterion of truth—which must be
treated separately, without confounding it with the question of whether
objective truth exists—has anything to do with the case here.
Bogdanov’s negative answer to the latter question is clear: if truth is
only an ideological form, then there can be no truth independent of the
subject, of humanity, for neither Bogdanov nor we know any other
ideology but human ideology. And Bogdanov’s negative answer emerges
still more clearly from the second half of his statement: if truth is a
form of human experience, then there can be no truth independent of
humanity; there can be no objective truth. |
|
| 3. Bogdanov’s denial of
objective truth is agnosticism and subjectivism. The absurdity of this
denial is evident even from the single example of a scientific truth
quoted above. Natural science leaves no room for doubt that its
assertion that the earth existed prior to man is a truth. This is
entirely compatible with the materialist theory of knowledge: the
existence of the thing reflected independent of the reflector (the
independence of the external world from the mind) is a fundamental
tenet of materialism. The assertion made by science that
the earth existed prior to man is an objective truth. This proposition
of natural science is incompatible with the philosophy of the Machians
and with their doctrine of truth: if truth is an organising form of
human experience, then the assertion that the earth exists outside
human experience cannot be true. |
|
| 4. But that is not all. If truth
is only an organising form of human experience, then the teachings,
say, of Catholicism are also true. For there is not the slightest doubt
that Catholicism is an “organising form of human experience.” Bogdanov
himself senses the crying falsity of his theory and it is extremely
interesting to watch how he attempts to extricate himself from the
swamp into which he has fallen. |
|
| 5. “The basis of objectivity,”
we read in Book I of Empirio-Monism, “must lie in the sphere of
collective experience. We term those data of experience objective which
have the same vital meaning for us and for other people, those data
upon which not only we construct our activities without contradiction,
but upon which, we are convinced, other people must also base
themselves in order to avoid contradiction. The objective character of
the physical world consists in the fact that it exists not for me
personally, but for everybody [that is not true! It exists
independently of “everybody”!], and has a definite meaning for
everybody, the same, I am convinced, as for me. The objectivity of the
physical series is its universal significance” (p. 25, Bogdanov’s
italics). “The objectivity of the physical bodies we encounter in our
experience is in the last analysis established by the mutual
verification and coordination of the utterances of various people. In
general, the physical world is socially-co-ordinated,
socially-harmonised, in a word, socially-organised experience” (p. 36,
Bogdanov’s italics). |
|
| 6. We shall not repeat that this
is a fundamentally untrue, idealist definition, that the physical world
exists independently of humanity and of human experience, that the
physical world existed at a time when no “sociality” and no
“organisation” of human experience was possible, and so forth. We shall
now on an exposure of the Machian philosophy from another aspect,
namely, that objectivity is so defined that religious doctrines, ‘which
undoubtedly possess a “universal significance”, and so forth, come
under the definition. But listen to Bogdanov again: “We
remind the reader once more that ‘objective’ experience is by no means
the same as ‘social’ experience.... Social experience is far from being
altogether socially organised and always contains various
contradictions, so that certain of its parts do not agree with others.
Sprites and hobgoblins may exist in the sphere of social experience of
a given people or of a given group of people-for example, the
peasantry; but they need not therefore be included under
socially-organised or objective experience, for they do not harmonise
with the rest of collective experience and do not fit in with its
organising forms, for example, with the chain of causality” (45). |
|
| 7. Of course it is very
gratifying that Bogdanov himself “does not include” social experience
in regard to sprites and hobgoblins under objective experience. But
this well-meant amendment in the spirit of anti-fideism by no means
corrects the fundamental error of Bogdanov’s whole position. Bogdanov’s
definition of objectivity and of the physical world completely falls to
the ground, since the religious doctrine has “universal significance”
to a greater degree than the scientific doctrine; the greater part of
mankind cling to the former doctrine to this day. Catholicism has been
“socially organised, harmonised and co-ordinated” by centuries of
development; it “fits in” with the “chain of causality” in the most
indisputable manner; for religions did not originate without cause, it
is not by accident that they retain their hold over the masses under
modern conditions, and it is quite “in the order of things” that
professors of philosophy should adapt themselves to them. If this
undoubtedly universally significant and undoubtedly highly-organised
religious social experience does “not harmonise” with the “experience”
of science, it is because there is a radical and fundamental difference
between the two, which Bogdanov obliterated when he rejected objective
truth. And however much Bogdanov tries to “correct” himself by saying
that fideism, or clericalism, does not harmonise with science, the
undeniable fact remains that Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth
completely “harmonises” with fideism. Contemporary fideism does not at
all reject science; all it rejects is the “exaggerated claims” of
science, to wit, its claim to objective truth. If objective truth
exists (as the materialists think), if natural science,
reflecting the outer world in human “experience,” is alone capable of
giving us objective truth, then all fideism is absolutely refuted. But
if there is no objective truth, if truth (including scientific truth)
is only an organising form of human experience, then this in itself is
an admission of the fundamental premise of clericalism, the door is
thrown open for it, and a place is cleared for the “organising forms”
of religious experience. |
|
| 8. The question arises, does
this denial of objective truth belong personally to Bogdanov, who
refuses to own himself a Machian, or does it follow from the
fundamental teachings of Mach and Avenarius? The latter is the only
possible answer to the question. If only sensation exists in the world
(Avenarius in 1876), if bodies are complexes of sensations (Mach, in
the Analysis of Sensations), then we are obviously confronted with a
philosophical subjectivism which inevitably leads to the denial of
objective truth. And if sensations are called “elements” which in one
connection give rise to the physical and in another to the psychical,
this, as we have seen, only confuses but does not reject the
fundamental point of departure of empirio-criticism. Avenarius and Mach
recognise sensations as the source of our knowledge. Consequently, they
adopt the standpoint of empiricism (all knowledge derives from
experience) or sensationalism (all knowledge derives from sensations).
But this standpoint gives rise to the difference between the
fundamental philosophical trends, idealism and materialism and does not
eliminate that difference, no matter in what “new” verbal garb
(“elements”) you clothe it. Both the solipsist, that is, the subjective
idealist, and the materialist may regard sensations as the source of
our knowledge. Both Berkeley and Diderot started from Locke. The first
premise of the theory of knowledge undoubtedly is that the sole source
of our knowledge is sensation. Having recognised the first premise,
Mach confuses the second important premise, i.e., regarding the
objective reality that is given to man in his sensations, or that forms
the source of man’s sensations. Starting from sensations, one may
follow the line of subjectivism, which leads to solipsism (“bodies are
complexes or combinations of sensations”), or the line of objectivism,
which leads to materialism (sensations are images of
objects, of the external world). For the first point of view, i.e.,
agnosticism, or, pushed a little further, subjective idealism, there
can be no objective truth. For the second point of view, i.e.,
materialism, the recognition of objective truth is essential. This old
philosophical question of the two trends, or rather, of the two
possible deductions from the premises of empiricism and sensationalism,
is not solved by Mach, it is not eliminated or overcome by him, but is
muddled by verbal trickery with the word “element,” and the like.
Bogdanov’s denial of objective truth is an inevitable consequence of
Machism as a whole, and not a deviation from it. |
|
| 9. Engels in his Ludwig
Feuerbach calls Hume and Kant philosophers “who question the
possibility of any cognition, or at least of an exhaustive cognition,
of the world.” Engels, therefore, lays stress on what is common both to
Hume and Kant, and not on what divides them. Engels states further that
“what is decisive in the refutation of this [Humean and Kantian] view
has already been said by Hegel” (4th Germ. ed., pp. 15–16).[1] In this
connection it seems to me not uninteresting to note that Hegel,
declaring materialism to be “a consistent system of empiricism,” wrote:
“For empiricism the external (das Ausserliche) in general is the truth,
and if then a supersensible too be admitted, nevertheless knowledge of
it cannot occur (soll doch eine Erkenntnis desselben [d. h. des
Uebersinnlichen] nicht stattfinden können) and one must keep
exclusively to what belongs to perception (das der Wahrnehmung
Angehörige). However, this principle in its realisation (Durchführung)
produced what was subsequently termed materialism. This materialism
regards matter, as such, as the truly objective (das wahrhaft
Objektive).”[Hegel, Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im
Grundrisse [Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline],
Werke, VI. Band (1843), S. 83. Cf. S. 122.] |
|
| 10. All knowledge comes from
experience, from sensation, from perception. That is true. But the
question arises, does objective reality “belong to perception,” i.e.,
is it the source of perception? If you answer yes, you are a
materialist. If you answer no, you are inconsistent and will inevitably
arrive at subjectivism, or agnosticism, irrespective of
whether you deny the knowability of the thing-in-itself, or the
objectivity of time, space and causality (with Kant), or whether you do
not even permit the thought of a thing-in-itself (with Hume). The
inconsistency of your empiricism, of your philosophy of experience,
will in that case lie in the fact that you deny the objective content
of experience, the objective truth of experimental knowledge. |
|
| 11. Those who hold to the line
of Kant or Hume (Mach and Avenarius are among the latter, in so far as
they are not pure Berkeleians) call us, the materialists,
“metaphysicians” because we recognise objective reality which is given
us in experience, because we recognise an objective source of our
sensations independent of man. We materialists follow Engels in calling
the Kantians and Humeans agnostics, because they deny objective reality
as the source of our sensations. Agnostic is a Greek word: a in Greek
means “no,” gnosis “knowledge.” The agnostic says: I do not know if
there is an objective reality which is reflected, imaged by our
sensations; I declare there is no way of knowing this (see the words of
Engels above quoted setting forth the position of the agnostic). Hence
the denial of objective truth by the agnostic, and the tolerance—the
philistine, cowardly tolerance—of the dogmas regarding sprites,
hobgoblins, Catholic saints, and the like. Mach and Avenarius,
pretentiously resorting to a “new” terminology, a supposedly “new”
point of view, repeat, in fact, although in a confused and muddled way,
the reply of the agnostic: on the one hand, bodies are complexes of
sensations (pure subjectivism, pure Berkeleianism); on the other hand,
if we re-christen our sensations “elements,” we may think of them as
existing independently of our sense-organs! |
|
| 12. The Machians love to declaim
that they are philosophers who completely trust the evidence of our
sense-organs, who regard the world as actually being what it seems to
us to be, full of sounds, colours, etc., whereas to the materialists,
they say, the world is dead, devoid of sound and colour, and in its
reality different from what it seems to be, and so forth. Such
declamations, for example, are indulged in by J. Petzoldt, both in his
Introduction to the Philosophy of Pure Experience and in his World
Problem from the Positivist Standpoint (1906). Petzoldt is
parroted by Mr. Victor Chernov, who waxes enthusiastic over the “new”
idea. But, in fact, the Machians are subjectivists and agnostics, for
they do not sufficiently trust the evidence of our sense-organs and are
inconsistent in their sensationalism. They do not recognise objective
reality, independent of man, as the source of our sensations. They do
not regard sensations as a true copy of this objective reality, thereby
directly conflicting with natural science and throwing the door open
for fideism. On the contrary, for the materialist the world is richer,
livelier, more varied than it actually seems, for with each step in the
development of science new aspects are discovered. For the materialist,
sensations are images of the sole and ultimate objective reality,
ultimate not in the sense that it has already been explored to the end,
but in the sense that there is not and cannot be any other. This view
irrevocably closes the door not only to every species of fideism, but
also to that professorial scholasticism which, while not recognising an
objective reality as the source of our sensations, “deduces” the
concept of the objective by means of such artificial verbal
constructions as universal significance, socially-organised, and so on
and so forth, and which is unable, and frequently unwilling, to
separate objective truth from belief in sprites and hobgoblins. |
|
| 13. The Machians contemptuously
shrug their shoulders at the “antiquated” views of the “dogmatists,”
the materialists, who still cling to the concept matter, which
supposedly has been refuted by “recent science” and “recent
positivism.” We shall speak separately of the new theories of physics
on the structure of matter. But it is absolutely unpardonable to
confound, as the Machians do, any particular theory of the structure of
matter with the epistemological category, to confound the problem of
the new properties of new aspects of matter (electrons, for example)
with the old problem of the theory of knowledge, with the problem of
the sources of our knowledge, the existence of objective truth, etc. We
are told that Mach “discovered the world-elements”: red, green, hard,
soft, loud, long, etc. We ask, is a man given objective reality when he
sees something red or feels something hard, etc., or not?
This hoary philosophical query is confused by Mach. If you hold that it
is not given, you, together with Mach, inevitably sink to subjectivism
and agnosticism and deservedly fall into the embrace of the
immanentists, i.e., the philosophical Menshikovs. If you hold that it
is given, a philosophical concept is needed for this objective reality,
and this concept has been worked out long, long ago. This concept is
matter. Matter is a philosophical category denoting the objective
reality which is given to man by his sensations, and which is copied,
photographed and reflected by our sensations, while existing
independently of them. Therefore, to say that such a concept can become
“antiquated” is childish talk, a senseless repetition of the arguments
of fashionable reactionary philosophy. Could the struggle between
materialism and idealism, the struggle between the tendencies or lines
of Plato and Democritus in philosophy, the struggle between religion
and science, the denial of objective truth and its assertion, the
struggle between the adherents of supersensible knowledge and its
adversaries have become antiquated during the two thousand years of the
development of philosophy? |
|
| 14. Acceptance or rejection of
the concept matter is a question of the confidence man places in the
evidence of his sense-organs, a question of the source of our
knowledge, a question which has been asked and debated from the very
inception of philosophy, which may be disguised in a thousand different
garbs by professorial clowns, but which can no more become antiquated
than the question whether the source of human knowledge is sight and
touch, healing and smell. To regard our sensations as images of the
external world, to recognise objective truth, to hold the materialist
theory of knowledge—these are all one and the same thing. To illustrate
this, I shall only quote from Feuerbach and from two textbooks of
philosophy, in order that the reader may judge how elementary this
question is. |
|
| 15. “How banal,” wrote
Feuerbach, “to deny that sensation is the evangel, the gospel
(Verkündung) of an objective saviour.”[Feuerbach, Sämtliche Werke, X.
Band, 1866, S. 194-95.] A strange, a preposterous terminology, as you
see, but a perfectly clear philosophical line: sensation
reveals objective truth to man. “My sensation is
subjective, but its foundation [or ground—Grund] is objective” (S.
195). Compare this with the quotation given above where Feuerbach says
that materialism starts from the perceptual world as an ultimate
(ausgemachte) objective truth. |
|
| 16 Sensationalism, we read in
Franck’s dictionary of philosophy,[Dictionnaire des sciences
philosophiques [Dictionary of the Philosophical Sciences], Paris,
1875.] is a doctrine which deduces all our ideas “from the experience
of sense-organs, reducing all knowledge to sensations.” There is
subjective sensationalism (scepticism and Berkeleianism), moral
sensationalism (Epicureanism),[2] and objective sensationalism.
“Objective sensationalism is nothing but materialism, for matter or
bodies are, in the opinion of the materialists, the only objects that
can affect our senses (atteindre nos sens).” |
|
17. “If sensationalism,” says Schwegler in his history of philosophy,[Dr. Albert Schwegler, Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss [Outline History of Philosophy], 15-te Aufl., S. 194.] “asserted that truth or being can be apprehended exclusively by means of the senses, one had only [Schwegler is speaking of philosophy at the end of the eighteenth century in France] to formulate this proposition objectively and one had the thesis of materialism: only the perceptual exists; there is no other being save material being.” |
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18. These elementary truths, which have managed to find their way even into the textbooks, have been forgotten by our Machians. |
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| https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/two4.htm |
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