Evald Vassilievich Ilyenkov (18 February 1924—21 March 1979) was a Marxist author and 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. February 18 is the 49th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1924 (MCMXXIV) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... March 21 is the 80th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (81st in leap years). ... This page refers to the year 1979. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... The word author has several meanings: The author of a book, story, article or the like, is the person who has written it (or is writing it). ... Soviet redirects here. ... A philosopher is a person devoted to studying and producing results in philosophy. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Broadly speaking, a dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a disagreement. ... Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. ...

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.” Lev Vygotsky Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (November 17 (November 5 (O.S.)), 1896—June 11, 1934) was a Russian developmental psychologist, discovered by the Western world in the 1960s. ...

In an email message, Peter Jones, of Sheffield Hallam University, wrote: Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a university in Sheffield, England. ...

"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.

References

• Text from The Marxists Internet Archive under the terms of the Creative Commons Commons Deed

External links

• Archive of Writings in English at the MIA
• Biography including Archive of Writings in English/Russian