V. Shulyatikov. The Justification of Capitalism in West-European Philosophy. (From Descartes to E. Mach). Moscow, 1908

Written not earlier than 1908. Published in 1937 in the magazine Proletarskaya Revolyutsia, No. 8 Published according to the original.

...In intellectual circles a traditional atti-

tude has been established towards philosophy.... Philosophical ideas are presented with too little and too feeble connection with any sort of class substratum....

Very many Marxists adhere to the same view. They are convinced that a variegated medley of philosophical views is permissible in the ranks of the proletarian vanguard, that it has no great significance whether ideologists of the proletariat profess materialism or energeticism, neo-Kantian- ism or Machism....

...To maintain such a viewpoint means falling into a naïve, most grievous error.... Without exception, all philosophical terms and formulas

used by it ... serve |it| to denote social classes, groups, sections and their mutual relations. When

dealing with the philosophical system of this or

that bourgeois thinker, we are dealing with a pic- ture of the class structure of society, depicted by

means of conventional symbols and reproducing the social profession de foi of a definite bourgeois group....

...These pictures must not be accepted as being something that could he utilised and brought into line with the proletarian world outlook. That would mean falling into opportunism, trying to combine what cannot be combined....

... the first brilliant attempt at this sort of re-

appraisal took place as far back as several years ago. Comrade A. Bogdanov’s article “Authoritarian

Thought” undoubtedly opens up a new era

in the history of philosophy: after the appearance of this article, speculative philosophy lost the right to employ its two fundamental concepts of “mind” and “body”; it was established that these concepts

were formed against the background of authoritar- ian relations and the antithesis between them

reflected a social antithesis—the antithesis of the organising “top strata” and the executive “lower strata.” With amazing consistency bourgeois critics ignored the work of the Russian Marxist....

...In these circumstances, a social and genet- ic analysis of philosophical concepts and system

is not only desirable, but definitely necessary.

It is a task which is extremely difficult and com- plicated.... Contemporary fashionable systems, e.g.,

neo-Kantianism or Machism....

[9-10]...Our essay is not intended for a limited

circle of experts.... Demos is revealing an interest

in philosophy... our exposition is of a somewhat elementary character.... The viewpoint we are

defending .... can be more easily mastered if illustrat- ed not by unwieldy, but by economically selected material....

...Economic inequality arose; the organis- ers were gradually transformed into the owners of the instruments of production, which had once belonged to society....

[11-12]...Production relations of |“authoritar-

ian”| society... The primitive ||savage|| every- where begins to see the manifestation of organisa- tory will “...the executor is accessible to external

senses—this is the physiological organism, the bo- dy; the organiser is not accessible to them, he is presumed inside the body; this is the spiritual personality...”

...The concept of the mind acquires an in- creasingly abstract character.

...When in the history of Greek philosophy the famous question was raised: How is it possible for the multifarious transient phenomena of the material world to have been derived from pure, immutable, non-material substance? What is the relation of “being” to “becoming”?—it was not, contrary to the assertions of all kinds of historians of philosophy, the highest flight of noble human thought, a most altruistic effort aimed at solving the greatest mystery of the universe and thereby giving joy to the human race for all time. The matter was much simpler! To frame the question in that manner merely pointed to the fact that in the Greek towns the process of social stratifica-

tion had gone a long way, that the gulf between the “upper” and the “lower” strata of society had become deeper, and the old ideology of the organis- ers, corresponding to less differentiated social

relations, had lost its right to existence. Earlier, in spite of all the distinctions between substance

and the world of phenomena, the direct connection between them had not been doubted. Now, the

existence of this connection is denied. Substance and the world of phenomena are declared to be incommensurable magnitudes. Relations between them are only possible through a series of inter- mediary links. Or, in more philosophical language, we cannot establish their reciprocal relations either by means of the senses or by means of ordinary thought: to do so requires the assistance of some special “idea,” some special intuition.

...This very question—the question of the incommensurability of the mental and material “principles,” of the absence of a direct connection between them, was put forward and solved by the originators of the new philosophy....

...The spiritualistic sympathies of the Re- naissance and subsequent epoch are usually men- tioned in passing, but they are very character- istic.

...The medieval artisan, while being an organiser, at the same time fulfilled executive functions—he worked together with his appren- tices. The bourgeois manufacturer knows only one type of function: he is purely an organiser. In the first case, it is true, a basis is provided for that

dualistic “mode of presenting the facts” explained by Comrade Bogdanov; nevertheless, the anti-

thesis of organiser and executor is somewhat veiled. Hence the corresponding antithesis of mental and corporeal, active and passive, prin- ciples, in the sphere of ideology, could not take a sharp form....

...In the worskhop of the medieval artisan there was no place for representatives of so-called

untrained, unskilled labour. Work is found for them in the manufacturing workshop. They consti- tute the “lower stratum.” Above them are other strata, other groups of workers, each differing according to the degree of skill. Among them certain organising layers are already formed. Going

further up the ascending scale, we see groups of administrators and technical managers of the enterprises. The owner of the enterprise is thus

“freed” not only from every kind of physical labour, but also from many purely organisational duties....

{19]...In contrast to the medieval thinkers, the

“fathers” of the new philosophy devote very much attention in their systems to the world of transient phenomena, make a detailed study of its structure

and development, the laws governing the relations between its parts; they create a natural philosophy. The very same “elevated” position of the leaders of the manufacturing enterprises which inspired in the fathers of the new philosophy the “pure” idea

of organising will, suggested to them, similarly, a mechanical explanation of the processes of mate- rial reality, i.e., the processes taking place among the organised mass.

The point is that the leader of the manufactur- ing enterprise is merely the final link in a fairly

long chain of organising links. In relation to him, the other organisers are subordinate and, in turn,

stand in opposition to him as organised persons. ...But insofar as their role differs from that of the chief leader, insofar as it consists in taking part in the technical work from which the chief leader is “freed,” to that extent their “mental” character is blurred and their activity is appraised as activity

of “matter”....

[21-22]...The bourgeois system in general is a two-faced Janus.... True, we find a definite formulation of dualism only in Cartesianism,— in the system created just at the dawn of the new economic era; true, subsequent philosophical systems, beginning with that of Spinoza, declare that the Cartesian counterposing of God and the world, of mind and body, is contradictory. ...The materialist and positivist systems of bourgeois philosophy, in turn, by no means testify to a triumph over the dualistic viewpoint. The differ-

ence between bourgeois metaphysics and the bourgeois “positive world outlook” is not as great as it may appear at first glance. ...The attack

made by materialism is not directed against the fundamental premise put forward by metaphysics; the concept of the organising will is not done away with by materialism. It merely figures under another name: for example, “force” takes the place of “spirit”....

[22-23]...In the seventeenth century, at the time of its “storm and stress,” the English bourgeoisie preached the doctrine that everything in the world should be explained as a motion of material particles taking place from mechanical necessity. The English bourgeoisie were laying the founda-

tions for large-scale capitalist economy.... They imagined the whole world in the form of an organisa- tion of material particles united in accordance with immanent laws....

[23-24]...In the second half of the eighteenth century, the French bourgeoisie flooded the book market with similar treatises.... But we know what is meant by the internal structure of enter- prises: it is the realm of matter and mechanical

processes. Hence the generalisation: man is a ma- chine, nature is a machine....

...The motion of matter is conditioned by itself, or rather by its own force (Holbach). The organisa- tory will, it is seen, has again become extremely transformed, but its presence is noted and is admitted to be absolutely essential.

The manufacturers did not act as revolution- ary representatives of “Sturm und Drang”....

...The organised require an organiser....

...The intermediary organisatory links—

“individual minds” can only fulfil their organising

role if there exists a superior organisatory centre. Only the latter brings them into contact with the proletariat—“matter”—within the framework of an organised whole, a manufacturing workshop....

...The Cartesian concept of man is nothing but the further propagation of a definite form of thinking, “a definite mode of presenting the facts, a definite type of their union in the psyche.“

We have seen that the world in Descartes’ system is organised on the lines of a manufacturing enter-

prise....

...We are dealing with the cult of mental labour.

...I am an organiser and, as such, can exist only by fulfilling organisatory and not executive functions: this is the meaning of the Cartesian

assertion, if it is translated into the language of class relations....

...The common, naïve viewpoint sees the external world as it appears through the prism of the senses....

...The concept of the worker as merely a saddler or merely a paper-hanger gives way to the

concept of the worker in general. Trade no longer constitutes the “essence” of labour-power....

...Time, Descartes explains, must not be a property of matter: it is “a mode of considered thinking,” a generic concept created by the latter....

[32-33]...Henceforth philosophy is the faithful servant of capital. ...The revaluation of philo-

sophical values was determined by changes in the organising upper strata and organised lower strata.

New organisers, new organised—new concepts of God and spirit, new concepts of matter....

...All relations between mind and body are only through God. All relations between the intermediary organisatory links and the organised mass are only with the sanction of the supreme organiser!...

...The motion of matter and the activity of the mind are only two aspects of one and the same process. There can be no question of any interaction

between mind and matter.

...Experience, sensuous perception, is for him an imperative condition for cognising things....

...But ... when Spinoza died, as is well known, the fine fleur of the Dutch bourgeoisie with great pomp accompanied the hearse that carried his remains. And if we become more closely acquainted with his circle of acquaintances and correspondents, we again meet with the fine fleur

of the bourgeoisie—and not only of Holland but of the entire world. ...The bourgeoisie revered Spinoza, their bard.

Spinoza’s conception of the world is the song of triumphant capital, of all-consuming, all-cen- tralising capital. There is no being, there are no

things, apart from the single substance; there can be no existence for producers apart from the large- scale manufacturing enterprise....

Leibnitz’s God is the owner of an exemplar-

ily organised enterprise and is himself the supreme organiser....

...Hobbes’ materialism corresponded to the Sturm-und-Drang period of the English capitalist bourgeoisie. The way was paved for manufacture, 1)

quieter times began for the manufacturers: Hobbes’ materialism gave place to the half-hearted system of Locke. The further consolidation of the position 2) of manufacture determined the possibility of anti- materialist utterances. 3)

...“The attraction and repulsion of workers should take place without any obstacles”: in perceptual complexes there are decidedly no absolute elements. Everything is relative.

...His kinship to all the thinkers who appear

in the foregoing chapters is beyond doubt....

The position of philosophical scepticism adopted

by Hume corresponds precisely to such a conception of the capitalist organism.

...There arise systems of so-called objective idealism....

ⅹ ...objective idealists....

...But we know that in all the systems of bourgeois philosophy “matter” is regarded as the subordinate principle (even by the materialists

who, we repeat, note its subordinate position by introducing the concept of “force”)....

...It is merely one step from Fichte’s anti- thetical method and Schelling’s potentialising theory to Hegel’s dialectics. And in regard to the latter, after all that has been said in this chapter about the antithetical method, it only remains for us to make a few supplementary re-

marks. We have already made clear the “real background” of dialectics.

Hegel merely more fully substantiated the theory of development through “contradictions,”

which had been outlined by two other objective idealists....

[98-99]...The innovation made by Hegel em- phasises the following fact from the sphere of

“real” relations. The differentiation of functions and roles in manufacture reaches its maximum. A |stratification| takes place of each separate executive group and each separate organising group. The functions belonging to any one definite group are distributed among various, newly-formed

groups. Each group breaks up and new groups are formed from it. And the ideologist of the manufac- turers considers this breaking-up process to be the

process of the internal development of this or that “principle”....

...Speculative philosophy loses prestige in

bourgeois society. True, this does not occur all at once. But neither did the machine conquer the territory of industry all at once....

...How can the positive nature of the new ideological systems be explained? By the

|||simple||| law of contrasts, the simple endeavour “to do the opposite” of what constituted the “symbol of faith” of yesterday?...

Individualised “complexes”—Ivan, Peter, Jacob vanish. In their place there appears in the work-

the worker in general. “Matter” is given back the qualities that were expropriated from it....

...Matter is rehabilitated. Bourgeois so- ciety introduces the cult of the new idol—“environ- ment. True, in doing so, the fact is not lost sight

of that nevertheless matter remains matter, i.e., the organised mass, and, as such, cannot exist without a “manager.” And “force,” as a specialist in organisatory duties, is assigned to matter. Trea- tises about Stoff und Kraft (“matter and force”) are written....

A comparison between the most recent organisation of the factories and the internal structure of manufacture already a priori dictates the reply: the new variety of bourgeois philosophy should reproduce substantial features of the philos- ophy of the manufacturing epoch....

Neo-Kantianism gives way to a “turn” towards systems of “pre-Kantian” thought.

...“the object can never be separated from the idea, or the idea from the object....”

...The considerations that have been given are already sufficient to define Wundt clearly as a philosopher who sets himself the task of combating materialism or, to use the fashionable term, of “Überwindung des Materialismus,” “over- coming materialism,” and who, in so doing, does

not declare himself to be on the side of the school which is regarded as the traditional opponent of materialism....

...Such an equalisation of the intermediary organising links and representatives of “physical” labour, the “lower executives,” is indicated in the

sphere of philosophy precisely by the endeavour to characterise “subject” and “object,” “psychical” and “physical,” as comprising an “indivisible” whole, the endeavour to reduce the antithesis between the phenomena mentioned to a cognitive

fiction. Avenarius’ theory on principal coordina-

tion, Ernst Mach’s theory on the relation of the psychical and physical, Wundt’s theory on ideas- objects—these are all theories of the same order....

...Hitherto, Wundt’s |monist| views could not be denied a certain consistency. Nor can he any more be suspected of idealist sym- pathies....

...Wundt takes just such a leap when, on the heels of his theory on “ideas-objects”, he puts forward his views on “psycho-physical parallel- ism”....

...“Attributes” are transformed into “se- ries,” but this reform, in essence, is more of a verbal character....

...Primacy is asserted for the spiritual principle....

[123-124]...Everything corporeal has necessarily

its psychical correlation. No single worker, however simple the function he fulfils, can produce any products, can find any application for his labour- power, can exist, without his being under the direct, detailed “guidance” of a definite organiser....

...But the psychical series constitutes the “orga- nisers,” and the “concomitance” of the latter signi- fies for the “physical series”—for the workers— nothing but dependence....

...Thus, according to Wundt, philosophy should transcend the bounds of experience, “supple- ment” the latter. The philosophical analysis needs to be continued until we obtain the idea of a unity which embraces both series that are independent of each other. Having expressed this view, Wundt immediately hastens to make an important reserva- tion for himself: he declares that we can conceive of the unity of the world either as a material unity

or as a mental unity: a third solution of the problem does not exist....

...Wundt refuses to give the name substance to his idea of universal unity. He defines it as the idea of pure reason, i.e., in the Kantian sense. Just as Kant’s God is the idea of the supreme “forming,” non-substantial principle, so also Wundt’s universal unity is the idea of non-sub- stantial unity, thanks to which all phenomena acquire vital meaning, indisputable value. In the light of this idea, there disappears the “empty and cheerless” philosophy which sees in the outward order of phenomena, in their mechanical connec- tion, the true essence of the latter. In its place we obtain the view of the cosmic mechanism as the external covering of spiritual activity and creation....

...In this connection, Wundt strongly emphasises the element of actuality. He reduces the idea of universal unity, of the “foundation of the world,” to the idea of a universal will....

...We shall not enter on an analysis of

his proposed formulation, nor shall we explain his theory of “voluntarism”....

...Consequently, the ideologists of the modern vanguard of the capitalist bourgeoisie cannot

speak of any “permanent” organised principles but, on the contrary, have to describe the latter as

something extremely changeable, something that is eternally in a state of motion....

...Wundt’s criticism had no crushing

force; it struck at an imaginary target. Wundt’s

appearance on the scene and the subsequent reac-

tion from the camp of Avenarius’ disciples did

not signify a conflict between the philosophies of two different classes or two large groups of one and the same class. The socio-economic background of the philosophical contest in question was, in

this case, the comparatively insignificant difference

between the most advanced and the somewhat less advanced types of modern capitalist organisa- tions....

...We should say more: the empirio-critic-

al philosophy should be understood primarily as an apologia for the idea in question. The concept of functional dependence is a denial of causal dependence....

[135-136]...Heffding’s conclusion must, in gen- eral, be considered correct. Only his reference to “motives of expediency” is unfortunate: these motives are vague and indefinite.

Avenarius, in this case, was merely making a concession to materialist phraseology, a conces-

sion determined by his social position. ...To many

people the views of the “parallelists” might appear to be materialist in comparison with vulgar spiri-

tualism. The same applies to the views of empirio-

criticism. The possibility of their coming close to materialism is particularly strong.... And wide sections of the reading public have formed the opinion that empirio-criticism is a materialist school of thought. More than that, even expert philosophers judge it erroneously: Wilhelm Wundt himself, the patriarch of modern philosophy, called it “materialism”. Finally, what is most interesting of all, the empirio-critics, too, while dissociating themselves from materialism, at the same time sometimes use its terminology, and sometimes even begin as it were to waver in their anti-material- ist views....

...Such is the real background that inspired empirio-criticism with the idea of classifying human cognition on the basis of the principle of “biological” classification. But this sort of “biol- ogy,” we repeat, has nothing in common with materialism...

[138-139]...dualism—according to Avenarius— is the fruit of a certain process of our abstracting thought—“introjection”....

But the antithesis of the “external” and “inter- nal” world is the purest fiction.

An analysis of this antithesis is extremely important; it should lead to substantiating the monist world outlook. Commentators of Avenarius’ system of philosophy strongly stress this point. “By exposing the impermissibility of introjection,” one of them says, “two aims are achieved....”

... the subordinate organiser, if his “abso- lute” viewpoint is adopted, i.e., if he is regarded as an organiser independent of the “will” controll- ing him, is confronted also merely by a “thing,” or “body,” in the shape of the workers. But let us take another case: for the supreme “will,” the subordinate organiser is not only one who is orga- nised, but one who organises.... The former “object,”

now converted into “subject,” “organises” matter: man assimilates a tree, but a tree transformed, the “notion” of tree....

[141-142]...“the fullness of human experience” is also proved in Avenarius’ theory of principal co-ordination....

...In Avenarius, like in Wundt, the “series” turn out, in essence, to be “incommensurable.” And instead of the materialist world outlook that one would expect after the categorical state- ments about “the fullness of experience,” views are expressed testifying to the idealist sympathies of empirio-criticism...

But Wundt and Avenarius part company on the road of idealist constructions. The author of The System of Philosophy reveals a fancy for “Kantian” motives. The author of The Human

Concept of the World proclaims views which bring him close to the position once taken by Berkeley.

Let us hasten to make a reservation. We do not at all intend to assert that the works of the Bishop of Cloyne determined Avenarius’ viewpoint, that they had a direct influence on him. But the simi- larity of the idealist positions of both philosophers is indubitable. The afore mentioned theory of

principal co-ordination, taken as a whole, is evi- dence of this similarity.

With the same straightforwardness as Berkeley, Avenarius presents the thesis that there are no objects outside the subject. Each “thing” must necessarily “be related” to the central nervous system, which plays the role of functional centre....

...The supreme “leader” does not figure,

not even in the shape of the Kantian idea of reason, Kant’s “form,” or in the shape of Wundt’s “univer- sal unity.” Nevertheless, he is there, and is moreover the chief element of the philosophical system. All phenomena are regarded precisely from his

point of view. His “invisible” presence is postulated

by the unusually high appraisal of the organisatory principle, presented parallel with the conception of organised organisers. And in the general picture of the world resulting from Avenarius’ philosophic- al discourses, it is precisely the organisatory

character of the organising factors that comes

into the forefront....

For Avenarius the world represents an agglom- erate of central nervous systems. “Matter” is absolutely deprived of all “qualities,” whether a “primary” or “secondary,” which at one time were considered its inalienable property. Absolutely everything in matter is determined by the “spirit” or, to use the terminology of the author of the

Critique of Pure Experience, by the central nerv- ous system....

The viewpoint of idealism in the style of Berkeley is put forward with great consistency

by the author of the Critique of Pure Experience....

...Mach’s theory of the “ego” as a logical symbol....

Mach, like Avenarius, knows two “series”—the psychical and the physical (two kinds of combina- tions of elements). As with Avenarius, these series are incommensurable and at the same time represent nothing but a fiction of our thought. Alternately, the monist and the dualist viewpoint is put forward: alternately the intermediary orga- nisatory links are described as the organised, and

as the organising principle. And, as with Avena- rius, in the final analysis the dictatorship of “the organisatory will” is proclaimed. An idealistic picture of the world is drawn: the world is a com- plex of “sensations.”

...Mach’s objection cannot be called valid. The central concept of his philosophical system, the famous “sensation,” is by no means a denial

either of the organisatory principle or of the supreme organisatory principle.... Mach was prompt- ed in his criticism of the conception of the “ego”

by the view of the subordinate organisers as the organised “mass”....

[148-149]...Besides dealing with the specula- tive constructions of Wundt, Avenarius and Mach, we could, for example, subject to analysis the views of such prominent representatives of

modern West-European philosophy as Renouvier, Bradley and Bergson.

The sphere of philosophy is a veritable “Bastil- le” of bourgeois ideology.... It is necessary to bear

in mind that, for their part, the bourgeous ideolo- gists are not sleeping, but are strengthening their position. At the present time, they, are even im- bued with the conviction that their position is absolutely impregnable. The “idealist” sympathies of certain literary writers who take their stand under the banner of Marxism, in turn, create particularly favourable soil for such a convic- tion....

XI. Wundt |Ostwald| . . . .107 |not in the book