Alexander Bogdanov: From Monism to Tectology

Abstract

The article discusses Alexander Bogdanov’s path from his early philosophic work, formed under the influence of Ernst Mach, Richard Avenarius, and Wilhelm Ostwald and dubbed by him “empiriomonism,” to the oeuvre of his life—the universal organization science of tectology (or tektology). In his papers and letters, Vladimir Lenin was always blaming Bogdanov for his failure to abandon his empirio-critical views and for attempting, again and again, to “drag” them (in Lenin’s wording) into every new work that was issuing from his pen. The question is: Was Lenin right about this, or should we trust Bogdanov, who maintained that he had long grown out of this early stage and that philosophy was no longer of interest to him (moreover, with the emergence of tectology, philosophy should, according to him, simply become extinct as a human activity)? The article provides arguments in favor and against either viewpoint. Understanding of these viewpoints is important to our appreciation of Alexander Bogdanov’s creative legacy.