Previous Improvements of Materialism

                                                                                        Ravil Kalmykov 

Monism and determinism have composed the methodological basis of materialism for a long time, however by virtue of stagnation in their development they became a real hinder for materialism. Well-known materialists perceived it for certain, and attempted in various times to introduce different "improvements" to the doctrine. So, in a counterweight to the charges with objectivism, the  idea of a subjective source of "secondary qualities" of John Locke, the anthropology of L.Feuerbach, the concept of "practice" and « learning consciousness » in dialectical materialism and the modern concepts of emergentist materialism have appeared. However all these attempts of reforms practically only made the pill a bit sweeter, not removing the main problem.

In the theory of cognition of John Locke external (sensations) and internal (reflexion) origins were thought as a source of human cognition. He stood up for the idea of the mutual autonomy of the material and intellectual worlds and stated that in the phenomenon of "secondary qualities" the special role of the subjective factor appeared. However his subjective - objective parallelism concentrated only in the sphere of epistemology and had no ontological roots. Not having any way-out to the ontology he has simply withered.

All remarkable dignities of anthropology of Feuerbach also rested on an irresistible problem of an ontological underlying reason of autonomous behaviour and human intellection. The principle of general-purpose interaction, being used in its naked loneliness, categorically did not suppose such "liberties" and tore them away without a trace.

Created by K.Marx and V.Lenin, the concept of the learning subject could be to the point if it    was considered in connection with the activity of the subject of private life. However to introduce it was impossible for the same, already mentioned above reason. Thus, the ontological status of the learning subject as helplessly hung in air. Appearing in a science about sources of human knowledge, it disappeared completely in a science about being.

Their concept of practice was offered by a similar mode in a full separation from the concept of the practical subject. Thus the attention of the authors concentrated only on objective aspects of practical activities … someone not clear and abstract, that’s why practice and labour started to act as certain powerful mysterious and abstract semi- objective categories, seeking to crush under itself everything that was human and social. That there is, for example, the statement: « It was LABOUR that created a man from an ape »! However all this monumental theoretical structure had any weight only especially within the framework of sociology, in the ontology there was not anything created which would correspond to this.

Within the framework of the modern «emergentist materialism» (M.Bunge, J.Margolis, R.U.Sperry) the availability for a number of natural entities, especially for a cultural developing person, such especial systemic property which qualitatively defines it as a wholeness and misses for elements composing it, was recognized. Actually it is one of versions of a development of a well-known phenomenon of originating of systemic properties, which something like a vitalism in a new way. Such reasonings would have any sense in case they were reinforced by something ontologically original.     

So, all the mentioned "improvements" had no supports in the ontology assigning the systemic basis for any philosophy, therefore they should be referred to category of off-system cosmetic measures. And one more generalization: remodelling every time started from the private sciences or special sections of philosophy and as a result rested on an obsolete ontology which did not give them a chance to develop and niped them in the bud. From here comes a transparent conclusion about the necessity to start a reform of materialism from ontology.

Today it is clear for everybody, that the principle of the generalpurpose interaction, taken one in a naked kind, does not uncover the deep essence of the majority of situations researched by philosophy. Evidently, before any two material formations will start to interact, they are required to become apparent themselves in the capacity of separate natural entities. Thus, in a balance weight and in addition to a principle of interaction necessarily there should be introduced another principle revealing a nature of "individuality", "isolation", and a local (private) natural autonomy. The autonomy at the same time can have a different nature: spatial, material-field, structural, energy-power, the functional, information. As in the materialism all should happen under the supervisory control of the determinism it is possible to assume safely, that in the basis of all these versions there should always be a local causative autonomy.

The situation could be corrected only recently, with appearance of the concept Ring Determinism. Within the framework of this concept on arena the new important factor leaves: the local internal causative action circulating in entrails of each separate body or an organism on a close circuit. This factor is ontologically equitable with customary external factors, and their diverse interaction just generates properties of a self-preservation, self-organization and self-development, that are characteristic for separate natural formations.

All those fair things, about which the former remarkable thinkers wrote, are uncovered in light of the new concept by quite apparent mode. The writer will try to stay explicitly hereinafter on each aspect affected by them and to demonstrate that surprising singleness with which all this now is solved.