Evald Ilyenkov
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Evald Vassilievich Ilyenkov (1924-1979) was a Marxist author.
Renowned Soviet philosopher who did important original work on the materialist development of Hegel's dialectics. His works include Dialectical Logic (1977), Leninist Dialectics and the Metaphysics of Positivism (1982) and The Dialectics of the Abstract and Concrete in Marx's Capital (1982). The latter two works were published posthumously as Ilyenkov committed suicide in 1979.
David Bakhurst writes in his article; "Meaning, Normativity and the Life of Mind" in Language and Communication, 17 (1), 33-51:
"Ilyenkov was important in the revival of Russian Marxist philosophy after the dark days of Stalinism. In the early 1960s, he produced significant work in two main areas. First he wrote at length on Marx‘s dialectical method (‘the method of ascent form the abstract to concrete’). This work, though it now seems obscure, has an important political sub-text: its critique of empiricism is aimed at the positivism and scientism that Ilyenkov thought prevalent in Soviet political and intellectual culture.
Second, Ilyenkov developed a distinct solution to what he called ‘the problem of the ideal’; that is, the problem of the place of the non-material in the natural world. The latter involves a resolute defence of the objectivity of ideal phenomena, which are said to exist as aspects of our spiritual culture, embodied in our environment. ... there are important continuities between Ilyenkov‘s ideas and controversies in Soviet philosophy and psychology in the 1920s and ‘30s, particularly ... with Vygotsky‘s socio-historical psychology.... .After the insightful writings of the early 1960s, his inspiration diminished as the political climate became more oppressive. ... He died in 1979, by his own hand.”
In an email message, Peter Jones, of Sheffield Hallam University, wrote:
"On the political angle, colleagues have mentioned the difficult circumstances under which Ilyenkov and his colleagues worked. Ilyenkov indeed suffered from the ministrations, censorship and repressive activity of the regime on different occasions and in different ways (although his work was also celebrated). But Ilyenkov was an absolutely sincere Marxist and communist (with a small c). His political and economic writings (none of which have so far appeared in English to my knowledge) posthumously published in the 1991 Collected Works volume show him as a trenchant Marxist critic of official soviet ideology and ‘socialist economics’ and there is no wonder these things were not published (or perhaps were not even submitted for publication) during his lifetime.”
An article, "Marx and the Western World," was published in English in a book of the same name in 1967, but this work is little known.
Text from The Marxists Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org/) under the terms of the Creative Commons Commons Deed (http://www.marxists.org/admin/legal/cc/by-sa.htm)
External Links
Archive of Writings in English at the MIA (http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/index.htm/)