Materialism and Empirio-criticism

Materialism and Empirio-criticism (Russian: Материализм и

эмпириокритицизм, Materializm i empiriokrititsizm) is a philosophical work
by Vladimir Lenin, published in 1909. It was an obligatory subject of study in
all institutions of higher education in the Soviet Union, as a seminal work of
dialectical materialism, a part of the curriculum called "Marxist–Leninist
Philosophy". Lenin argued that human perceptions correctly and accurately
reflect the objective external world.

Lenin formulates the fundamental philosophical contradiction between

idealism and materialism as follows: "Materialism is the recognition of 'objects
in themselves' or objects outside the mind; the ideas and sensations are copies
or images of these objects. The opposite doctrine (idealism) says: the objects
[1]
do not exist, outside the mind '; they are 'connections of sensations'."

Contents
Background
Chapters summary
Front cover of the first edition of Lenin's
Philosophers and scientists cited Materialism and Empirio-criticism,
Immanentist published in Moscow in 1909 under the
Russian Machists pseudonym "Vl. Ilyin."
See also
Notes
Further reading
External links

Background
The book, whose full title is Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy, was written by
Lenin from February through October 1908 while he was exiled in Geneva and London and was published in Moscow in May 1909
by Zveno Publishers. The originalmanuscript and preparatory materials have been lost.

Most of the book was written when Lenin was in Geneva, apart from the one month spent in London, where he visited the library of
the British Museum to access modern philosophical and natural science material. The index lists in excess of 200 sources for the
book.

In December 1908, Lenin moved from Geneva to Paris, where he worked until April 1909 on correcting the proofs. Some passages
were edited to avoid tsarist censorship. It was published in Imperial Russia with great difficulty. Lenin insisted on the rapid
distribution of the book and stressed that "not only literary but also serious political obligations" were involved in its publication.

The book was written as a reaction and criticism to the three-volume workEmpiriomonism (1904–1906) by Alexander Bogdanov, his
political opponent within the Party. In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris and expelled from
the Central Committee, but he still retained a relevant role in the Party's left wing. He participated in the
Russian Revolution and after
1917, he was appointed director of the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences.
Materialism and Empirio-criticism was republished in Russian in 1920 with an introduction attacking Bogdanov by Vladimir
Nevsky. It subsequently appeared in over 20 languages and acquired canonical status in Marxist–Leninist philosophy
.

Chapters summary
In Chapter I: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism I, Lenin then discusses the "solipsism" of Mach and
Avenarius.

In Chapter II: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism II, Lenin, Tschernow and Basarov confront the
views of Ludwig Feuerbach, Joseph Dietzgen and Friedrich Engels and comment on the criterion of practice in epistemology
.

In Chapter III: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism III, Lenin seeks to define "matter" and
"experience" and addresses the questions of causality and necessity in nature as well as "freedom and necessity" and the "principle of
the economy of thought".

In Chapter IV: The philosophical idealists as collaborators and successors of empirio-criticism, Lenin deals with left and right Kant
criticism, with the philosophy of immanence, Bogdanov's empiri-monism, and the critique of Hermann von Helmholtz on the "theory
of symbols."

In chapter V: The latest revolution in science and philosophical idealism, Lenin deals with the thesis that "the crisis of physics" "has
disappeared matter". In this context he speaks of a "physical idealism" and notes (on p. 260): "For the only" property "of matter to
whose acknowledgment philosophical materialism is bound is the property of being objective reality
, outside of our consciousness."

In Chapter VI: Empiriocriticism and Historical Materialism, Lenin discusses authors such as Bogdanov, Suvorov, Ernst Haeckel and
Ernst Mach.

In an addition to Chapter IV, Lenin addresses the question: "From what side did N. G. Chernyshevsky criticize Kantianism?"

Philosophers and scientists cited

Lenin cites a broad range of philosophers:

Immanentist
Richard Avenarius
Ernst Mach
Richard von Schubert-Soldern

Russian Machists
Jakov Berman
Osip Helfond
Sergei Suvorov
Pavel Yushkevich

See also
Anti-Dühring
Empirio-criticism
Vladimir Lenin bibliography

Notes
 1. W. I. Lenin: Materialism and empirio-criticism. Critical remarks about a reactionary philosophy
. Publisher for foreign
language literature, Moscow 1947. p. 14.

Further reading
Robert V. Daniels: A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev
, 1993, ISBN 0-
87451-616-1.

External links
Materialism and Empirio-criticismby Vladimir Lenin at the Marxists Internet Archive

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