Basic Cognitive Functions

Abstract

In the actual practice of philosophical discussion of epistemology, contemporary Soviet philosophers do not limit themselves to these four basic tenets. In general, it can be said that their discussion follows the common lines of classical psychologistic logic with departures due to the four, specifically Marxist-Leninist, tenets. This is to say that the originality of the dialectical-materialist theory of knowledge is pretty well exhausted by the theory of reflection, the theory of truth, the category of practice, and the ‘dialectic of the logical and historical’. What remains to be seen is how Soviet philosophers conceive the basic cognitive functions (this chapter) and the basic cognitive modes (Ch. V). Since most of these are carry-overs from traditional philosophies, we shall limit ourselves to an account of what changes they have undergone in the transfer — principally as a result of being integrated into the currently developing dialectical logic. These changes determine the peculiarly dialectical-materialist doctrine on methods and methodology (Ch. VI). Finally, we shall examine Soviet philosophy’s use of its own epistemological doctrines for criticism of contemporary Western (bourgeois) philosophy (Ch. VII) and for the construction of an account of knowledge in the history of philosophy (Ch. VIII).KeywordsTemporal BondPresent CircumstancePeaceful CoexistenceDialectical MaterialismDialectical ThoughtThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.