Valentin Asmus

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Valentin Asmus (1894-1975) was a Russian philosopher. He was one of the small group who continued the classical European philosophical tradition through the early Soviet times[1]. He was an independent thinker and unorthodox Marxist[2], with interests in the history of philosophy and aesthetics.

He graduated from Kiev University in 1919, then moved to Moscow in 1927[3]. At this period he attacked the views of William James[4]. In the mid-1920s, he was a theorist of literary Constructivism[5].

Through his wife Irina, he became a friend of Boris Pasternak, from about 1931[6]. His major work Marx and Bourgeois Historicism (1933) was influenced by György Lukács[7]. At this point an opponent of formal logic, he changed position and wrote a text book on it. There is a story of his being summoned to see Stalin, and required to give logic lectures to Red Army generals[8].

He was Professor at Moscow State University from 1942 to 1972[9]. In the 1960s he edited Plato, with A. F. Losev.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Bakhurst, David (1991). Consciousness and Revolution in Soviet Philosophy: From the Bolsheviks to Evald Ilyenkov (Modern European Philosophy). Cambridge University Press, p. 5. ISBN 0521407109. 
  2. ^ PostSoviet Russian Philosophy
  3. ^ Barnes, Christopher (2004). Boris Pasternak: A Literary Biography. Cambridge University Press; New Ed edition, p. 5. ISBN 052152072X. 
  4. ^ Grossman, Joan Delaney; Rischin, Ruth (2003). William James in Russian Culture. Lexington Books, p. 7. ISBN 0739105272. 
  5. ^ Makaryk, Irena R. (1993). Encyclopedia of Contemporary Literary Theory: Approaches, Scholars, Terms (Theory / Culture). University of Toronto Press, p. 18. ISBN 080206860X. 
  6. ^ Marsh, Rosalind (1998). Women and Russian Culture: Projections and Self-Perceptions (Studies in Slavic Literature, Culture, and Society, V. 2). Berghahn Books, p. 168. ISBN 1571819134. 
  7. ^ Delanty, George (2006). Handbook of Contemporary European Social Theory. Routledge, p. 159. ISBN 0415355184. 
  8. ^ Bazhanov, Logic and Ideologized Science Phenomenon (Case of the URSS), in Sica, Giandomenico (2005). Essays on the Foundations of Mathematics and Logic 1. Polimetrica, p. 51. ISBN 978-88-7699-014-4. 
  9. ^ van der Zweerde, Evert (1997). Soviet Historiography of Philosophy: Istoriko-Filosofskaja Nauka (Sovietica). Springer, pp. 89-90. ISBN 079234832X.