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DOI 10.1007/s11212-005-1408-0
VESA OITTINEN
Starting explicitly with this standpoint, he stated his reasons for the dier-
entiation between the denition, which expresses the essence of the thing,
that is, the ideal shape [obraz] of the object, and the nominal-formal de-
nition, which expresses the more or less contingently grasped property of
this object, its external characteristic. He explained the dierence using the
example of a circle. The circle can be dened as a gure, where all the lines
drawn from the center to the circumference are equal. [] However, such a
denition does not at all dene the essence of the circle, but only some
of its properties(ibid.), and, moreover, a secondary, derived property.
Matters are dierent when the denition contains in itself the proximate
cause of the thing. In that case, the circle should be dened in the following
manner: a gure, produced by a line, one end of which is xed and the
other end moves (ibid.). This latter denition gives the manner in which the
thing is constructed in real space. There the nominal denition is brought
forth together with the real activity of the thinking body in accordance with
the real spatial contours of the object of the idea. In this case man has the
adequate idea, that is, the ideal shape [obraz] of the thing, and not only
signs, characteristics which are expressed in words 14
There are not two dierent and originally contrary objects of investigation,
body and thought, but only one single object, which is the thinking body of
living, real man (or other analogous being, if such exists anywhere in the
Universe), only considered from two dierent and even opposing aspects or
points of view [] It is not a special soul, installed by God in the human
body as in a temporary residence, that thinks, but the body of man itself.
Thought is a property, a mode of existence, of the body.17
Man, however, the thinking body, builds his movement on the shape of any
other body. He does not wait until the insurmountable resistance of other
bodies forces him to turn o from his path; the thinking body goes freely
round any obstacle of the most complicated form. The capacity of a thinking
body to mould its own action actively to the shape of any other body []
Spinoza considered to be its distinguishing sign and the specic feature of
that activity that we call thinking or reason.23
In a like manner, Ilenkov interprets Spinozas theory of truth
as a version of the activity theory. Activity forms the basis of
the process of cognition, just as in Leontevs psychology. Even
when man errs, he is active in a way, which corresponds strictly
to the form of the external thing. But in that case the question is
what the thing was . If it were trivial, imperfect in itself, i.e. fortuitous,
the mode of action adapted to it would also be imperfect. And if a person
transferred this mode of action to another thing, he would slip up. Error,
consequently, only began when a mode of action that was limitedly true was
given universal signicance, when the relative was taken for absolute.24
I say that we are acting (Nos tum agere dico), when anything takes place,
either within us or externally to us, whereof we are the adequate cause; that
is [] when through our nature something takes place within us or exter-
nally to us, which can through our nature alone be clearly and distinctly
understood. On the other hand, I say that we are passive (pati) as regards
something when that something takes place within us [], we being only the
partial cause (Eth. III. def. 2).
328 VESA OITTINEN
Here the nominal denition arose together with the real action of the thinking
body along the spatial contour of the object of the idea. In that case man also
possessed an adequate idea, i.e. an ideal image, of the thing, and not just
332 VESA OITTINEN
The gures are denite and discernible from each other only in
the imagination, because only in imagination is extension given
as nite and divisible [] In pure thought, on the other hand,
the geometrical relations have no parts nor distances.44 Even
Spinoza pointed to this, remarking in the corollarium and
scholium to Eth. II. prop. 8 how the geometrical gures exist
eternally as contained in the innite idea of God, but receive
their concrete geometrical properties only when they come into
the existence and thus pass from eternity to duration.
Thus, the geometrical ideas (which, as ideas, are immaterial
and have no extension) must become objectivated in a medium.
The idea of a circle in the mind has no spatial properties; it
must rst receive a perspicuous expression in an imaginary
space before it is possible to apply it in geometrical operations.
As much was true in Proclus who in his commentary to Euclid
called this indispensable medium the intelligible matter (h^ e
no^et^ e), a matter in which thought construes geometrical
e hyl^
gures by an imaginative movement (fantastik^ esis) of
e kin^
the point. The imaginative construction thus mediates between
thought and matter in a manner recalling Kants later sche-
matism.45
NOTES
1
The last Soviet Spinoza edition was published in 1957 (B. Spinoza, Iz-
brannye proizvedenija 12). Newer editions are already from the post-Soviet
period (e.g. Sochinenija, 12, St. Peterburg: Nauka 1999). This silence of
late Soviet philosophy regarding Spinoza stands in noteworthy contrast to
the 1920s when Spinoza and Spinozism were important discussion points
amongst Marxists. In fact, one could say that the doctrine of dialectical
materialism was to a large extent forged of the results of this Spinoza dis-
cussion. For details, see George L. Klines Spinoza in Soviet Philosophy,
London: Routledge and Kegan 1952, still an indispensable source on the
subject. Later, V.V. Sokolov seems to have acquired a virtually monopo-
listic position in the eld of Soviet Spinoza studies with his book Filosoja
Spinozy i sovremennost, 1964.
2
I. Vasilev, L. K. Naumenko, Tri veka bessmertija, in: Kommunist 5/
1977, pp. 6373. Ilenkov later published another popular article on Spinoza
(Operedivshij svoe vremja, in: Kurer JuNESKO, June 1977; reprinted in
Ilenkov 1991, p. 102 sqq.)
3
L.K. Naumenko, Monizm kak princip dialekticheskoj logiki, Alma-Ata
1968.
4
The pseudonym was revealed in the bibliography of Ilenkovs works,
which was attached to the posthumous collection of Ilenkovs articles,
Iskusstvo i kommunisticheskij ideal, Moskva: Iskusstvo 1984.
5
A.G. Novokhatko, Fenomen Ilenkova, in E.V. Ilenkov, Filosoja i
kultura, Moskva: Izd. politich. literatury 1991, p. 13.
6
E.V. Ilenkov, Kosmologiia dukha, in: Ilenkov, Filosoja i kultura, p.
415.
7
Ibidem, p. 416.
8
Ibidem, p. 430.
9
Spinoza explained this concept in his letter to G. H. Schuller of 29th of
July, 1675: facies totius Universi, quae quamvis innitis modis variet,
manet tamen semper eadem (B. de Spinoza, Opera, ed. by Carl Gebhardt,
Heidelberg: Carl Winter 1972 ., vol. IV, p. 278; Ep. lxiv).
10
Kosmologija dukha, ibidem, p. 431. Spinoza was, of course, not the sole
source of inspiration for Ilenkovs cosmological speculations; e.g. the
dialectics of Nature by F. Engels should be mentioned in this context as
well, as well as the tradition of the Russian cosmism.
336 VESA OITTINEN
11
Novokhatko ibidem, p. 13.
12
E.V. Ilenkov Idealnoe, in: Filosofskaja enciklopedija, tom 2, Moskva
1962, pp. 219, 220.
13
ibidem, p. 221.
14
ibidem, p. 222.
15
E.V. Ilyenkov, Dialectical Logic, Moscow: Progress Publishers 1977, p.
27; E.V. Ilenkov, Dialekticheskaja logika, Moskva: Politizdat, izd. 2-oe,
1984, p. 26 (hereafter the page numbers of the Russian second edition are
given in brackets).
16
Dialectical Logic, p. 29 [p. 27].
17
Ibid., p. 31 [p. 29].
18
Ibid., p. 33 [p. 30].
19
See Alex Kozulin, Psychology in Utopia, Cambridge/London: MIT Press
1984, p. 146 sqq.
20
On Ilenkov and Leontev as activity theorists cf. Janette Friedrich,
Der Gehalt der Sprachform. Paradigmen von Bachtin bis Vygotskij, Berlin:
Akademie Vlg. 1993, p. 17 sqq. According to Friedrich, Ilenkov explicates
the philosophical background of the psychology of Leontev.
21
J.A. Budilowa, Philosophische Probleme in der sowjetischen Psychologie,
Berlin: Deutscher Vlg. d. Wiss., 1975, p. 225.
22
Dialectical Logic, p. 35 [p. 31].
23
Ibid., p. 47 [3839]. The rst sentence of the citation reads in original:
Chelovek mysljashchee telo stroit svoe dvizhenie po forme ljubogo
drugogo tela.
24
Ibid., p. 58 [pp. 4445].
25
Ibid., p. 58 [p. 45].
26
Ibid., p. 69 [p. 51].
27
Ibid., p. 59 [p. 45].
28
Ibid., p. 260 [the locus does not appear in the second Russian edition]
29
Ibid., p. 261 [p. 170].
30
Ibid., p. 263 [p. 172].
31
Ibid., p. 263 [p. 172].
32
Ibid., p. 27 [p. 26].
33
Actually, its title was Uchenye ob emocijakh; published for the rst time in
L. S. Vygotskij, Sobranie sochinenii v shesti tomakh, vol. 6, Moskva: Peda-
gogika 1984, pp. 91365.
34
It can be disputed, whether the Leontev school should be seen as a
continuation of Vygotskijs ideas. Indeed Vygotskijs last work on the
interconnections of thought and language seems to indicate that he had
begun to search for new path and left the Marxist-inspired activity par-
adigma behind but this question need not concern us here. On Vygotskij
and Leontev, see for example Janette Friedrich, Die Legende einer ein-
heitlichen kulturhistorischen Schule in der sowjetischen Psychologie L.S.
Vygotskij versus A.N. Leontev, in : Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie
5/1991, pp. 536546.
EVALD ILENKOV AND SPINOZA 337
35
Cf. for example the citation from Ilenkov given in Footnote 23 above!
36
Spinoza uses Descartes concepts of Thought and Extension: they are
reciprocally dened as negations of each other. Thought is non-extensional,
Extension is not Thought.
37
Spinoza in Principia philosophiae Cartesianae, pars I, def. 2.
38
The proposition states: Unumquodque unius substantiae attributum per se
concipi debet. In the scholium Spinoza explains that as the attributes ex-
press the reality or being of the substance and none could be produced by
any other, they must be conceived in the same manner as the substance is
conceived, and each is independent of the others.
39
Dialectical Logic, p. 35 [p. 31].
40
Ex. gr. circulus [] sic esset deniendus: eum esse guram, quae de-
scribitur a linea quacunque, cujus alia extremitas est xa, alia mobilis, quae
denitio clare comprehendit causam proximam; B. de Spinoza, Tractatus de
intellectus emendatione, in: Opera, ed. Carl Gebhardt, Heidelberg: Carl
Winter 1972 ., vol. II, p. 35.
41
Dialectical Logic, p. 264 [p. 172].
42
Karl Schuhmann, Methodenfragen bei Spinoza und Hobbes: Zum
Problem des Einusses, in: Studia Spinozana, vol. 3, 1987, p. 72.
43
B. de Spinoza, Tractatus de intellectus emendatione, in: Opera, vol. II, p.
37.
44
Schuhmann, op. cit., p. 70.
45
The principle of the geometrical imagination in Proclus and Spinoza and
schematism in Kant are the same: where there are two totally dierent
principles, there has to be a mediating instance. Kant expressed the task
thus: Nun ist klar, dass es ein Drittes geben musse, was einerseits mit der
Kategorie, andererseits mit der Erscheinung in Gleichartigkeit stehen muss
und die Anwendung der ersteren auf die letzte moglich macht. Diese ver-
mittelnde Vorstellung muss rein (ohne alles Empirische) und doch einerseits
intellectuell, andererseits sinnlich sein (KrV B 177).
46
Dialectical Logic, p. 69 [p. 51].
REFERENCES
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