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Lifshits’ ontognoseology as a version of Lenin’s theory of reflection

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Abstract

In Soviet philosophy, two versions of Lenin’s theory of reflection are represented respectively by Mikhail Lifshits and Todor Pavlov. They both isolate and juxtapose two dialectical elements: reflection and creativity. Within this methodological dilemma, Lifshits’s ontognoseology is an original doctrine of our “mirror” attitude to the world whereby material being is the true subject, while man is a tool of its self-reflection.

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Notes

  1. This is expressed in the following way in Materialism and Empiriocriticism: “That the conception of “matter” must also include thoughts […] is a muddle, for if such an inclusion is made, the epistemological contrast between mind and matter, idealism and materialism, a contrast upon which Dietzgen himself insists, loses all meaning. That this contrast must not be made “excessive,” exaggerated, metaphysical” (Lenin 1972, quoted from the Internet version in: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/four8.htm).

  2. See Marx/Engels (1974, 540): “Das Auge ist zum menschlichen Auge geworden, wie sein Gegenstand zu einem gesellschaftlichen, menschlichen, vom Menschen für den Menschen herrührenden”.

References

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  1. Moscow State Institute of Culture, Moscow, Russia

    Elena Mareeva

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  1. Elena Mareeva
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Mareeva, E. Lifshits’ ontognoseology as a version of Lenin’s theory of reflection. Stud East Eur Thought 68, 295–305 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-016-9265-6

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