N.O. Lossky and Dialectical Materialism

Abstract

The subject of the article is N.O. Lossky’s analysis of dialectical materialism from the point of view of the possibility of its development in the spirit of re­ligious ideal realism, similar to Lossky’s own philosophy. Lossky contrasts Marxist epistemology as a theory of reflection with the ontological epistemo­logy of intuitionism. At the same time, he contrasts the modern natural science concept with the philosophical understanding of matter as an objective reality. A desperately bold, even adventurous step is Lossky’s identification of the na­tural science concept of an “elementary particle” with the metaphysical concept of a substantial figure. The result of such operations is the substitution of the clas­sical pair of matter and consciousness for another – bodily and mental. Lossky further shows that the world as an organic whole organized by the Creator is alien to dialectics. Thus, thanks to identifying “matter” and “corporeality” and depriving existence of internal contradiction as a source of self-movement, Lossky was able to define dialectical materialism as a kind of naturalism. But he sees that the naturalism of Soviet philosophers preserves the possibilities of its movement towards ideal realism; they see the world as an integrity of diverse connections, consider consciousness an integral property of matter and highly appreciate the active role of the conscious factor in changing being.