Cosmology of the Spirit. An attempt to give a basic outline of the objective role of thinking matter in the system of universal interaction (A Philosophical-Poetic Phantasmagoria based on the principles of dialectical materialism) Cover Image

Kosmologia ducha. Próba stworzenia ogólnego zarysu obiektywnej roli myślącej materii w systemie światowych interakcji (filozoficzno-poetycka fantasmagoria, wsparta na zasadach materializmu dialektycznego)
Cosmology of the Spirit. An attempt to give a basic outline of the objective role of thinking matter in the system of universal interaction (A Philosophical-Poetic Phantasmagoria based on the principles of dialectical materialism)

Author(s): Ewald W. Iljenkow
Subject(s): 19th Century Philosophy, Contemporary Philosophy, Marxism, History of Communism
Published by: Uniwersytet Adama Mickiewicza
Keywords: dialectical materialism; cosmology; Hegel; Spinoza; Engels; matter; life; thought; entropy;

Summary/Abstract: Evald Ilyenkov’s “Cosmology of the Spirit” was written in the 1950s, but published posthumously only at the end of 1980s as it was too heretical to be published during the author’s lifetime. The text was heretical not because it was “dissident” or critical of the Soviet Union where the philosopher lived all his life, but because of its enormously speculative and hypothetical nature. Addressing the physicist idea of the “thermal death of the universe,” and creating an original combination of the Hegelian dialectics and Spinoza’s notion of the attribute, Ilyenkov claims that thought (and the seemingly contingent emergence of “thinking life”) is a necessary attribute of matter, as it is able to prevent the terminal entropic collapse.

  • Issue Year: 2021
  • Issue No: 41
  • Page Range: 19-48
  • Page Count: 30
  • Language: Polish