Abstract
The debate between the Dialecticians and Mechanists will soon celebrate its five-year anniversary. Dialectical Materialism and the Deborin School, a book by Comrade Stepanov, is a truly celebrated achievement in its form if not its contents. One cannot continue polemics in the spirit of this book, and not only because it has exhausted the entirety of printable abuse. The truth of a point of view is decided by the methodological analysis of a scientific problem and the historical achievements of science, and not by the “strength” of words used to support it. Unfortunately, Comrade Stepanov’s final essay contains even less concrete material than the previous ones and is not, as we shall try to demonstrate, on a par with the level of modern science, whose ardent defender Comrade Stepanov is. We see the main drawback of the book in its careful avoidance of all burning issues of modern natural science while making a hearty defence (who from?) for example, of the law of conservation of energy that has for a long time undisputedly been part of the arsenal of natural science.
TN: Translated from Pod Znamenem Marksizma (Under the Banner of Marxism), 1928, Nos 7–8. The article was in three sections. This chapter contains the first section, the next two chapters contain the second and third sections.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
TN: For more on Ivan Ivanovich Skvortsov-Stepanov, to give him his full name, see the Appendix. The book was published by Gosizdat, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928. Stepanov died of typhoid in October of the same year. This article by Hessen was referred to as a first part but a second part never appeared, presumably because of Stepanov’s death.
- 2.
TN: Latin proverb, well known from Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
- 3.
BH: See “Dialectical Understanding of Nature – Mechanistic Understanding” in the collection Dialectical Materialism and the Deborin School. TN: i.e. the book referred to in the opening paragraph.
- 4.
TN: Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire. The original is in Latin: “Quia est in eo/ virtus dormitiva/ cujus est natura/ sensus assoupire.”.
- 5.
TN: Hessen references a Russian translation. The text used here is taken from the English translation in Descartes (1983), Part II, paragraph 64, p. 77.
- 6.
BH: Whittaker (1910, p. 3).
- 7.
BH: Huygens, Traité de la Lumière, Paris, 1910, p 3. TN: English translation used here in Huygens (1969, p. 3).
- 8.
TN: This is a translation from Hessen’s Russian text. It appears to be a loose translation of Descartes (1983, p. 40): “That the nature of body does not consist in weight, hardness, color, or other similar properties; but in extension alone. By so doing, we shall perceive that the nature of matter, or of body considered in general, does not consist in the fact that it is hard, heavy, colored, or affects the senses in any other way; but only in the fact that it is a thing possessing extension in length, breadth, and depth,” and Descartes (1983, p. 41): “Therefore, the nature of body does not consist in hardness. In the same way, it can be shown that weight, color, and all the other properties of this kind which are experienced in material substance, can be taken away; leaving that substance intact. From this it follows that the nature of matter does not depend on any such properties but consists solely in the fact that it is a substance which has extension.”
- 9.
BH: Reden, I., p. 464. We would like to note that his mechanical worldview did not prevent du Bois-Reymond from being agnostic and sometimes leaning towards idealism. TN: A translation from Hessen’s Russian translation from the German is given. The German original is from two sources: “Es giebt für uns kein anderes Erkennen, als das mechanische, ein wie kümmerliches Surrogat für wahres Erkennen es auch sei, und demgemäss nur Eine wahrhaft wissenschaftliche Denkform die physikalisch-mathematische.” du Bois-Reymond (1886, p. 232). and “. . . die theoretische Naturwissenschaft ruht nicht eher, als bis sie die Erscheinungswelt auf Bewegungen letzter Elemente zurückführte, welche nach denselben Gesetzen vor sich gehen, wie die der gröberen, sinnfälligen Materie.” du Bois-Reymond (1886, p. 434).
- 10.
BH: Uber die Grenzen d. Naturerkenntniss, 1916, p. 22. TN: Again a translation from Hessen’s Russian translation from the German is given. It appears to be a loose translation of the passage from “The Limits of our Knowledge of Nature” translated into English in du Bois-Reymond (1874) as: “And voiceless and dark in itself, i.e., property-less, as the universe is on subjective decomposition of the phenomena of sense, so is it also from the mechanical stand-point, gained by objective contemplation. Here, in place of sound and light, we have only the vibrations of a primitive, undifferentiated matter, which here has become ponderable, and there imponderable.”
- 11.
BH: Speeches and works by James Clark Maxwell, 1901, Moscow, publication and translation by Marakuyev, p. 58. TN: The original English “Outline of Modern Molecular Science, and in particular of the Molecular Theory of Gases”, Niven (1965, p. 451) is given here.
- 12.
TN: Italics added by Hessen.
- 13.
TN: German original: “Qualitative Unterschiede dürfen wir der Materie an sich nicht zuschreiben, denn wenn wir von verschiedenartigen Materien sprechen, so setzen wir ihre Verschiedenheit immer nur in die Verschiedenheit ihrer Wirkungen d. h. in ihre Kräfte. Die Materie an sich kann deshalb auch keine andere Veränderung eingehen, als eine räumliche, d.h. Bewegung.” Helmholtz (1847, p. 3) (Introduction).
- 14.
TN: English translation from “Gustav Magnus, In Memoriam” in Helmholtz (1884, pp. 17–18).
- 15.
BH: Vortrage, p. 375, Russian translation in the collection “Philosophy of Science”, Physics, pt.1, p. 51. TN: English translation from “The Aim and Progress of Physical Science” in Helmholtz (1995, p. 211).
- 16.
BH: i.e. mechanical
- 17.
BH: Letter to Silas W. Holman, 1898, in Thompson (2005, p. 1047, n 1).
- 18.
BH: These quotations cover W. Thomson’s statements between 1847 (the date of Helmholtz’s essay on conservation of forces) and 1898.
- 19.
BH: Stepanov, Dialectical Materialism and the Deborin School, p. 97.
- 20.
BH: M. Planck, Physical essays, p. 39. TN: It is not clear which source Hessen is using. A translation from the Russian is given here. The original is in Planck (1960, p. 31): “. . . the search of the mechanical conception for a uniform world picture has been brought to a somewhat ideal completion. Hertz’s mechanics does not really represent physics as it is, it is physics as it might be, a sort of confession of faith for physics.”
- 21.
BH: Same, p. 39. Readers will notice that both M. Planck and Hertz speak “Deborin’s language” about simple homogeneous material points. TN: Again a translation from the Russian original is given. An English version is in Planck (1960, pp. 31–32): “. . . all Nature, from the mechanical point of view, can be completely explained by assuming movements of simple, similar particles, which build up the whole of the physical universe.”
- 22.
BH: An essay by R. Millikan in Scientia, 1926. TN: Original English from Millikan (1927).
- 23.
BH: “The energy conservation (and transformation) law that I defend under the name of the mechanistic understanding of nature . . . .” (Stepanov, “Dialectical materialism and the Deborin school”, p. 96).
- 24.
TN: i.e. vitalism.
- 25.
TN: i.e. Robert Mayer’s 1845 article: “Die organische Bewegung in ihrem Zusammenhange mit dem Stoffwechsel. Ein Beitrag zur Naturkunde.”.
- 26.
BH: Descartes formulated the law of the conservation of energy as a general philosophical premise, as a law of the conservation of motion.
- 27.
BH: Stepanov, p. 12.
- 28.
TN: See Dialectics of Nature, Engels (1988, p. 531).
- 29.
BH: Stepanov, “Dialectical materialism and the Deborin school”, p. 103.
- 30.
BH: K. Marx, A contribution to the critique of political economy, Moskovski Rabochi, 1923, p. 11. TN: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/appx1.htm. The English translation is used here.
References
Descartes, R. (1983). Principles of philosophy (V. R. Miller & R. P. Miller, Trans.). Dordrecht: Reidel.
du Bois-Reymond, E. (1874). The limits of our knowledge of nature. Popular Science Monthly, 5. (J. Fitzgerald, A. M. Trans.).
du Bois-Reymond, E. (1886). Reden von du Bois-Reymond. Leipzig: Von Veit and Co.
Engels, F. (1988). Marx Engels collected works (Vol. 25). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Helmholtz, H. (1847). Über die Erhaltung der Kraft, eine physikalische Abhandlung, vorgetragen in der Sitzung der physikalischen Gesellschaft zu Berlin am 23sten Juli 1847. Berlin: G. Reimer.
Helmholtz, H. (1884). Popular lectures on scientific subjects (E. Atkinson, Trans.). London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Helmholtz, H. (1995). In D. Cahan (Ed.), Popular and philosophical essays. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Huygens, C. (1969). Treatise on light. New York: Dover.
Millikan, R. (1927). Conceptions in physics changed in our generation. Scientia, 41(180), 255–264.
Niven, W. D. (Ed.). (1965). The scientific papers of James Clerk Maxwell (Vol. II). New York: Dover.
Planck, M. (1960). A survey of physical theory. New York: Dover.
Thompson, S. (2005). Life of Lord Kelvin (Vol 2.). American Mathematical Society – Chelsea, Providence, Rhode Island. Reprint of Macmillan (1910).
Whittaker, E. (1910). A history of the theories of Aether and electricity. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Hessen, B. (2021). Mechanical Materialism and Modern Physics (Section 1). In: Talbot, C., Pattison, O. (eds) Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931. History of Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70045-4_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70045-4_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70044-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70045-4
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)