Theology of the Gospel of John the Theologian

Contents I • II • III • IV The editors give a place to this article in “Questions of Philosophy”, guided by the rule of providing freedom of expression of all philosophical opinions in the journal, although they do not consider the criticism of Stamler’s teachings presented by the author to be exhaustive and convincing and generally do not share the sociological point of view adopted by the author. Editorial. (Prof. Rudolf Stammler. Wirtschaft und Recht nach dor materialistischen Geschichtsauffassung. Eine socialphilosophische Untersuchung. Leipzig. 1896. VIII+608). Nach dem Gesetz, wonach du angetreten, So musst du sein, dir kannst du nicht entfliehen So sagten schon Sybillen, so Propheten Und keine Zeit und keine Macht zerstückelt Geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt. At the beginning of this year (1896) the book of the professor of Roman law in Halle, Rudolf Stamler, “Economy and Law from the Point of View of a Materialistic Understanding of History,” was published. This book is perhaps the most remarkable study in the field of sociology in recent times and will undoubtedly take pride of place in all sociological literature. As its title shows, it is devoted to the study of the so-called “materialist understanding of history,” in other words, the historical theory of K. Marx and F. Engels. Representing such an outstanding phenomenon in sociological literature in general, Stamler's book already undoubtedly occupies first place in the extensive critical literature devoted to the theory of social materialism. 1 Prof. Stamler comes to the conclusion that of all the social and philosophical teachings in circulation, or, better, in the complete absence of them, social materialism is the only theory that has serious philosophical significance; that, although it is not completed, in some parts it has not even been worked out and as a whole cannot be recognized as correct, nevertheless it - and it alone - provides the best incentive to establish true social and philosophical concepts. To trace this criticism and analyze the thoroughness of its argumentation is a rewarding task for a supporter of Marx’s historical theory, especially since, in general, Stamler’s research will bring, I think, much benefit to the further development of the historical philosophy of materialism. In any case - turning Stamler's verdict towards his own work - it provides a good reason for self-criticism of the teaching, this most useful and powerful type of criticism. In this article, we intend to introduce the public to some aspects of Stamler’s criticism, and then subject them to a feasible assessment. The inevitable brevity of a journal essay, and likewise the special area of ​​a philosophical journal, encourages us to dwell on only one, albeit basic, question raised by Stamler, a question of a philosophical nature, and to pass over in silence the abundance of valuable economic and legal research to which most of this extensive study is devoted. Stamler's book opens with an introduction in which he outlines the subject and tasks of social philosophy. Social science today is in a precarious position. The number of her observations is constantly growing. But any individual observation has value only in connection with the establishment of a general law, and any subsuming of an individual observation under this law exceeds what observation as such provides. Just as recognition of the universal applicability of the law of causality and universal regularity constitutes the condition for our knowledge of nature, so the lawful knowledge of social life presupposes in advance some conditions of knowledge, acceptance in advance of the existence of a pattern of social phenomena. What is this pattern? Is it identical with the pattern of natural phenomena or is it significantly different from it? This question has never been posed and resolved in social science. And it is not surprising: every researcher of social life is so overwhelmed with material from his special study that he does not have time to develop this problem; at best, he develops certain views for his home use, without deepening them so as to be able to defend their general applicability. 2 Meanwhile, this is not only an academic question. In our time, the aspirations of the fighting parties are justified by a certain view of social life, a certain understanding of its laws; only under this condition is a principled, honest struggle in defense of the ideas defended possible. “The struggle for a natural transformation of social life is evident; it can neither be hidden nor ignored—it is called a social question” (6). From all these considerations, the need for social philosophy, or scientific research into “what basic formal law is subject to the social life of people” becomes clear (7). “She asks about what has a necessary and universal applicability for the social existence of people. Its goal, therefore, is the knowledge of concepts and rules that are uniformly applicable to all social life. In its teaching, it must abstract from any special content of any historically given social existence and strive for a systematic understanding of the pattern that is generally characteristic of the social existence of people” (7). This requirement is not satisfied by either the philosophy of law or political economy. The first, seeking to establish the concept of law (the laws of Plato and φύσει δίκαιον of Aristotle, ius naturale sive divinum of the Catholic Church, ius naturale ac gentium of Hugo Grotius, the law of reason according to contrat social and the “universal conviction of the people” according to the historical school), further examines law from the side of its differences and its influence on other factors of the historical process. This is the same as if, for the natural study of nature, the last starting point was to take the concept of gravity (7). (A simpler example: to study sugar, take its whiteness as the starting point). Economists do no better, taking the concept of economy as their starting point and further determining its interaction with other factors of social life. (In our example: take sweetness as the starting point for studying sugar and define sugar by the interaction of sweetness and whiteness). Instead, we need to start with the concept of social life in general, as the last problematic object for us, and already in its main analysis, give a place to law and economics in social life as a whole. But a generally applicable pattern must be defined and critically substantiated for the whole of social life” (8). 3 How can this concept of universal law be established? The usual answer to this question, through a generalization of individual facts, is insufficient. Any such generalization, whether it is in the form of practical rules (Montesquieu, Machiavelli) or theoretical propositions, raises another question; In what sense should this generalization be understood and by what right is it made? After all, you can’t generalize in’s Blaue hinein. Thus, any generalization already presupposes a certain general view of social life. How is this synthesis of individual knowledge accomplished in order to establish the highest unifying point of view? Simple induction of a large number of facts cannot provide basic concepts and establish the basic regularity of the observed phenomena. The fundamental conditions of social-scientific knowledge need to be studied separately (1H). There is no doubt that the establishment of generally applicable rules for reducing individual observations to some unifying point of view is a matter of human consciousness. The unifying understanding of separate and changing phenomena, to which we apply the name of law, does not apply to us mechanically; it must be installed. And it is established by human consciousness. We must dissect by content and subject to objective-logical analysis those concepts and rules that are applied in social science in order to clarify its features as a science with a special subject and special content. Therefore, “whoever wants to establish the laws of people’s social life must first understand the general conditions of knowledge, under which all social science with its own characteristics necessarily stands.” If “the problem of social regularity is reduced to the task of establishing unity in the changing content of social life” (17), then the study of those unchanging universal conditions, thanks to which the basis for the study of social life is the idea of ​​it as a unity, should constitute the task of social philosophy. Obviously, this task is critical-cognitive, and not psychological. The solution to this problem is not accomplished arbitrarily, by the effort of pure reason; it is given by the very content of social life, although at the same time any special content of it is abstracted. Any knowledge begins with individual observations, and only with the accumulation of the latter is it possible to bring them under general laws. Therefore, social philosophy does not precede social science in time, but rather appears only at a certain height in the development of the latter; nevertheless, logically it constitutes the prius of any special social knowledge, as if its a priori form. “Therefore, the reproach that the basic law of social life, as a methodological principle of any scientific understanding, can be found in a completely a priori way, without any relation to the actual history of social life, has no meaning. Our method presupposes familiarity with historical social life. But within the limits of this knowledge we distinguish between the knowledge of individual data and the understanding of what has a universal and necessary applicability to all social knowledge.” 4 A knowledgeable person will not be left in doubt who inspired the perspective of social philosophy developed here as a special scientific discipline: the powerful influence of Kant and critical philosophy in general is obvious here. This masterful application of the principles of critical philosophy to social science consists of Stamler's serious merit, which in itself entitles him to the gratitude of science. 5 Of all existing teachings, the so-called materialist understanding of history most satisfies this demand. By placing all social phenomena in causal dependence on changes in the social economy, the materialist understanding of history introduces unity and regularity into the chaos of constantly changing phenomena of social history. For the first time, it not only talks about their regularity, but also really tries to give a clear concept of this regularity. “It is based on the correct idea that the history of the social life of people only becomes a science if it comprehends, arranges, and evaluates individual facts from the universally applicable point of view of fundamental (grundlegend) unity; It is not the exact collection of isolated facts that makes a good historian, but their correct synthesis into a universally applicable pattern” (23). The materialist philosophy of history understands the whole of social development as a natural process, subject to natural laws, and it is necessary to distinguish individual expressions of these laws (for example, the law of development immanent in capitalist society in its opposite) from the general law, the generally applicable unity - the dependence of social life on the social economy. Demanding the unity of law, which corresponds to the unity of the subject, in turn conditioned by the unity of space and time, it is in full agreement with Kant’s criticism of knowledge, who established these unities as postulates of our reason. 6 What characterizes the theory of social materialism as such is the idea that this single pattern is the pattern of economic phenomena. Thus, the principle of social materialism is this: the whole of social life is a unity that is cognized on the basis of the laws of world mechanics, that is, under the category of causality; the regularity of social life is the regularity of economic phenomena; knowledge of this pattern is knowledge of the causal emergence of economic phenomena. In the sense of the complete dominance of the law of causality, social development is a natural process, like all other processes of nature. The objections made so far against the theory under consideration are insignificant. They are in the nature of guerrilla battles, capable of causing partial damage, but absolutely unable to decide the fate of the battle. It was usually proved that such and such facts arose not on the basis of production relations, but, say, political and legal ones. The social materialist can willingly concede all this to his critics: let them be content, if they can, with an easy victory. According to the teachings of social materialism, relations of production do not directly determine each individual historical fact, but only in the final analysis. Opponents of social materialism should object to its main epistemological principle - the knowledge of social phenomena under the category of causality, according to the principles of world mechanics, meanwhile this principle is partly consciously, partly unconsciously accepted by them. And if we identify the regularity of social phenomena with the concept of their causal occurrence, then how can we avoid the conclusion that in the end all naturally known phenomena depend on the social economy? “The existence of a home comes down to the material needs of man; they form the final basis for architecture. Although in the intricate factual state of affairs, when choosing the facade of a house under construction, one or another special motive may be at work, but whoever traces the course of development of architecture as a whole and presents it with scientific completeness and exhaustive clarity from the side of the causal moments that determine it, he will hardly fail to recognize that in the final basis, economic conditions were the decisive factors” (77). It is therefore not a contradiction for the social materialist to admit that there are facts which do not directly arise from economic relations; but for his critics, who share with him a mechanical understanding of social facts, it is only inconsistency not to recognize social materialism - a position with which it is difficult to disagree. The reproaches that Stamler makes against the materialistic understanding of history are as follows. Although social materialists talk about the dependence of social development on the development of economic phenomena, they never say what these phenomena are; what should be understood by the movements of the matter of social life, by economic relations, social economy, social mode of production, and finally, they do not answer what can be called social and what is the main feature of social science. In this respect, this theory is not at all finished (ist unfertig). Most of these reproaches seem fair to us. The materialist understanding of history needs further development in terms of its form, in the sense of critical development and objective-logical clarification of the concepts it uses. 7 A significant part of Stamler's book is devoted to the analysis of these concepts; presentation and critical assessment of this analysis will not be included in the scope of our article. 8 Stamler's second accusation is of a different kind. He finds that the materialistic understanding of history has not been developed (nicht ausgedacht). Namely, it has not been proven that social regularity and causal understanding of social phenomena are one and the same. This leads to some other accusations, which we will touch on below. It is permissible to note that, although, indeed, the concept of social regularity, as we have already said, has not been the subject of special socio-philosophical research, nevertheless, in favor of the adoption of a causal regularity for social phenomena there is a praesumptio juris, namely, the unity of the world order, conditioned by the unity of space and time, and, hence, the universal application of the law of causality. Kant contributed most to the establishment of this presumption with his criticism of knowledge. Stamler now has to challenge this presumption. Let us recall that, according to the condition, Stamler will lose his scientific battle with the materialist understanding of history if the presumption remains in force. We need to defend this teaching, therefore, in an apagogical way, not proving our point of view, but only showing the impossibility of another. Now let's see whether Stamler succeeds in challenging the assumption of the unity of the world order for the field of social phenomena. But before turning to the very question of regularity, we have to dwell on Stamler’s definition of the concept of “social” and, hence, the subject of social science. This definition plays a large role in his own theory. Stamler poses the question: “What is the constant feature that defines the concept of people’s social life as a special subject of scientific consideration? It is necessary to establish a solid criterion, in the presence of which the term: the social life of people - denotes a clear concept that would seem suitable to become the subject of special scientific research. Under what necessary condition, I ask, does the concept of social life, what is social life, have any meaning and significance at all? (83). We are talking, obviously, about a critical establishment of the concept of social life, about finding such, in Kant’s language, a constitutive feature, without which the very concept of sociality disappears. It is hardly worth dwelling on the existing attempts to define society (Spencer and Rümelin). In the indicated epistemological sense, the question was first posed and solved by Stamler. Apparently, to determine social life there is no other sign than the physical cohabitation of people. But this is not enough: something makes social coexistence different from physical coexistence alone (although this opposition can be made, of course, only in abstraction, because historically any physical cohabitation of people has always been at the same time social). The point that distinguishes social coexistence from physical coexistence is the external regulation of human relationships (“social äusserlichgeregelt”). Thus, external regulation constitutes a sign of sociality, therefore, the moment due to which a special object of sociology is created. External regulation (composed of legal and conventional norms and characterized by the sign of compulsory implementation) constitutes a form of social life; the matter of social life is the joint activity of people aimed at satisfying their needs, to which the content of life is reduced without a trace. Stamler calls the joint activities of people aimed at satisfying needs social economy. About a third of Stamler's book is devoted to the detailed development and practical application of the points of view barely outlined here. According to our task, we must refrain from presenting and critically assessing these arguments, but let’s move straight to the main question - about the basic pattern of social phenomena. 9 “Regularity is the basic unity.” We only came to know the subject when we achieved unity in the diversity of perceptions. We call the correct repetitions of certain phenomena reduced to a certain unity laws. All individual laws are possible only on the basis of the assumption of a universal law of nature, without which each individual law would not have cognitive value and could not be proven. But the identification of the concept of regularity with the concept of the law of causality is a liberty (Unart) of modern word usage. Causality is only one of the conditions of experience, which is why it is wrong to consider it exhaustive of all these conditions. Particularly for the field of social science dealing with human action, this transfer of the method of the natural sciences has done much harm. The question must be specifically raised and resolved: is one causal point of view appropriate in social science, and, if not, what other pattern can be put forward next to causality? First, Stamler analyzes the regularity of human actions in general, in order to then apply the points of view developed here to the regularity of social phenomena. If regularity is the unity of our ideas, then the statement that this unity is the unity of a causal connection would be reliable if all ideas about human actions stood exclusively under this unity. In reality this is not the case. I can imagine my actions in two ways: as a causally determined (kausal bowirktes) event in the external world or as something that must be produced by me (von mir zu bewirkendes). The first idea falls under the causal regularity of the external world; in the second there is no confidence in the causal necessity of this particular action; it can only really happen if I produce it. The content of these two classes of ideas is irreconcilable in any unifying point of view. “Just as this is possible in relation to the future actions of the representer himself, so any future action of a third person, of course, can be represented by him in two ways” (332) - either as an event of the external world subject to causal dependence, or as a result of his own action. Causal understanding is completely inapplicable to this second class of our ideas; therefore, next to the unity of causality, there must be a special unity of goals that a person sets for himself, striving to produce this or that action. “A goal is an object that must produce (ein zu bewirkendes Objekt). The idea of ​​such an object is called will." Will is, therefore, not a mystical dark force, but only a direction of consciousness. It is given as soon as there is an idea of ​​the goal in the indicated sense. So, along with the causal understanding of events, there is a teleological understanding of them, and the difference between these types of understanding is due to the difference in the content of the corresponding ideas. This difference has epistemological significance. What is introduced into the concept of goal is not a special type of causality - psychological, for “as soon as a goal is equated with psychological causation (Ihering’s point of view), exclusively the law of causality reigns” (355) - we are talking about a special way of considering human actions. In one case they are presented as causally determined events of the external world, in another case - as our actions, as a product of the activity of our will. One point of view excludes the other; their combination constitutes an internal contradiction; each exists on its own, in abstraction from the other. But isn’t the idea of ​​an object that we must produce a false idea, like dreams, illusions, hallucinations, etc., so that it cannot take place next to the law of causality? This doubt is formally possible. But it is the only one that can be presented against teleological consideration. The impossibility of the latter would be proven only if it could be established that the law of causality necessarily embraces all experience, and any other consideration would thereby become outside experience. This situation cannot be proven. Experience can never end, and therefore cannot encompass all (Totalität) possible knowledge. Since experience, as knowledge of what happens according to the law of causality, cannot completely cover the entire totality of events, then it always remains possible to imagine future events as having to be produced by us. Modern natural science has not put forward a single law by which future human actions could be known, by which they could be represented with causal necessity, and thus the possibility of their teleological consideration would be excluded. But, although no such laws have been set forth, perhaps the law of causality has an unconditional, absolute meaning and does not tolerate competition? This uncritical idea, characteristic of many natural scientists, is completely untrue. The law of causality is a condition of the possibility of our experience, and nothing more. “Causation is nothing more than a universally applicable formal method (Art und Weise) by which the phenomena given to us in view are coordinated for a unifying understanding” (362). “A causal connection is not a connection between things that belongs to them in themselves (an und für sich) and thereby becomes completely outside of possible experience - it is a connection between our ideas.” The law of cause and effect designates only a formally unifying way to coordinate the diversity of existing phenomena. If we ignore these latter, then the concept of causality loses all meaning. In order for the law of causation to come into effect, it is necessary that empirical material be present, that phenomena be given that must be located for the purpose of scientific understanding according to this law of necessary causation. From here it obviously follows that this law does not apply to the idea of ​​future only possible actions and to the thought of choosing between them. The content of these just named representations means the exact opposite of the content of those that we can understand as “phenomena” (363). “Human actions are subject to consideration according to the law of causality only when they have become phenomena of the sensory world, when they are inherently presented as material for scientific processing, or when their necessity can be foreseen on the basis of a law established for some other area of ​​experience. This may be, but it is only a possibility and, moreover, one of two. Why can the possibility of representing future human actions not as being (erscheinende), but as having to be produced (zu bewirkende) be excluded by a rule that is valid only for the objective knowledge of phenomena?" (ibid.). Now two questions arise: what could this law of will be? And how does this pattern relate to the specific fulfillment of the goal? The first of these questions does not need to be formulated this way: is there no lawful cognition of objects outside of experience? This possibility is completely excluded. However, scientific knowledge of objects in exactly the same way as it is accomplished in experimental science naturally cannot take place when setting a goal (Zwecksetzung). Stamler claims that for the latter a second and special type of law is valid, that in the series of its representations a special form of consciousness is expressed (364). “The regularity in the setting of the whole must be the highest unifying point of view, under which all individual acts of setting goals stand and are made understandable in their teleological particularity (Eigenart). Just as every individual scientific experience that wants to be true (wahr) depends on the general law of possible experience, so not every legitimate (berechtigte) setting of individual goals must be determined and understood through the highest law of goal, which (law) means the final and generally applicable unity for every goal setting” (365). Every individual goal grows from empirically given material, from the special conditions under which it is delivered; in this sense, the goal setter must adhere to reality. But between these goals we distinguish between legal and illegal, just as we distinguish between true and erroneous ideas, teachings, etc. “The legitimate setting of a goal and the correct (gerechtfertigte) choice is one that, in its particular case, corresponds to the generally applicable law of the goal. To prove legality, a general premise is needed here, which sets out in formal universality the conditions for the legitimate setting of a goal and imparts to an individual goal the property of objective correctness. Thus, it must be a goal that does not bear the features of a special, randomly determined concrete goal, in other words, a goal that has absolute meaning, an unconditional goal.” (366). Want (das Wollen), as the idea of a result that must be produced (von zu bewirkendem Erfolge), posits its object outside of already known experience, outside the course of causally necessary events; therefore, it has the right and duty to attach decisive importance to the question of lawfulness to the idea of an absolute final goal.” So, “that goal is legitimate, the direction of which corresponds to the central goal (Zielpunct), obligatory for all individual goals and which corresponds to the unifying point of view in the field of specific goals.” As stated, such a goal is an absolute, empirically undetermined goal. This unconditional goal is unrealizable in the world of experience; otherwise it would not be applicable to any specific purpose. But here we are not talking about its experimental implementation; what is meant here is that point of view of fundamental unity which must be established for particular subjective purposes. “This unity lies in the thought of a goal, in achieving which a person is guided not by a subjective private goal, not by a random aspiration or a specific personal desire.” This law of goal setting is only an idea that cannot be fully consistent with experience, but which nevertheless has regulatory significance for human waves. To want, free from any empirical conditioning, to choose one’s goals so that they are directed towards the absolute goal, this is an expedient pattern, 10 which we designate in our language as ought (Sollen) (368). “Freedom cannot mean here: freedom from the law of causality under empirically given conditions, for such an ostensibly free cause would be incomprehensible within the limits of scientific knowledge of phenomena; it means freedom from subjectivity in setting goals, free will, i.e., objectively obligatory (objectivgültige) goal setting” (368). Such free will is good (guter) will. So, there are two highest unities for human understanding (Einsicht): the knowing consciousness and the goal-setting will (371–72). Both of them stand equally (gleichberechtigt), one next to the other, for each of them denotes the main unifying way of coordinating ideas. It goes without saying that the law of expediency is not only not always applied, but even in relatively rare cases. Moreover, for each individual case, the absolute goal does not stand in all its purity, but in the form of some ethical teaching. The teachings of ethics are as changeable at different times and among different peoples as the teachings of the natural sciences. But just as the latter strive for objective truth by establishing regularity and unity in the perceptions they receive, so in individual ethical teachings the general law of goals is fulfilled - freedom of will from subjective desires and its direction along a certain objective scale, and through this the desire for an absolute goal is fulfilled. What is the application of the law of expediency to reality? Is it not destroyed by the inexorable law of causality that permeates the entire world? Of course, “since human action is considered as an external event, it represents a natural phenomenon, the movement of which is just as necessarily subject to the law of causality, like any other change in nature. There is no other way of scientific knowledge of specific phenomena and events other than through the necessary law of cause and effect” (381). Therefore, “freedom in execution (im Vollbringen) does not exist.” “Free will does not mean an inexplicable force which, standing outside of space and time, supernaturally intervenes in the causal connection of earthly things; freedom here does not mean independence from the law of causality, but only from the subjective content in setting goals” (ibid.). “You must think as if you can - this is the first practical application that can be made from the idea of ​​​​freedom” (ibid.). What immediate practical significance does this idea have? “The whole question of setting goals almost always arises only from this empirical state of affairs. In concrete terms, it is always a question of empirically given possibilities between which one must choose. Here it is necessary to make a choice from the right point of view, ultimately, according to the general law of the will, according to which the objective justification of the goal is exclusively carried out. Therefore, it remains beyond any doubt that the choice of decision of the will depends on whether the determining point of view lies in the direction of good, and whether the choice is logical or not” (381–2). Stamler explains this idea with a parallel between the attitudes toward nature of a scientifically educated person and an ignoramus. Although the actions of both are determined by the empirically given conditions in which they are performed, they will be different, because for the first, the impressions of the external world will be processed according to the basic concepts and rules of science, for the second, superstitions take the place of these concepts. Also with choice: we have a struggle of subjective motives, given empirically, but the goal will be chosen according to the presence or absence of the point of view of expediency. Thus, “it is not the empirical event as such, not the external effect in itself that is subject to critical evaluation on the scale of good and evil, but the way in which goals are set in the willing” (385). The idea of ​​good is acquired, obviously, empirically, and therefore according to the law of causality. But this does not in the least change free will in its systematic meaning, as a universally applicable law of goals, according to which they can receive their objective justification. After all, the acquisition of a new scientific truth undoubtedly has its own reasons; but this obviously has nothing to do with the question of the truth or falsity of the system. Questions of the system have an undeniable logical advantage over questions of genesis. This relation between the point of view of genesis and system must be strictly carried out everywhere: every human idea, delusional and true, can be explained from the point of view of its causal origin; but which of these ideas is true is not decided by the genesis of both; the decisive question here is whether it is consistent with other ideas on the basis of the laws of possible experience. In the same way, in the question of ends, a similar supreme law of unity must be in force, which decides in each individual case whether it is natural, whether it is good or evil. Thus, the pattern constitutes a necessary logical prius in the field of scientific knowledge and goal setting. “It itself, this pattern, of course, does not appear within specific phenomena as the phenomenon itself; therefore, logically it cannot be the consequence and action of individual phenomena, but independently and independently opposes what happens in reality. The unconditional possibility of difference between the objectively grounded content of our ideas, the property of objective correctness in cognition and will, is a quality of a certain part of the content of our judgments that did not itself arise causally and does not fit the concept of separate concrete cognition. Since the law of being and will is independent of actual events and even itself imparts to these latter the right direction, then for its obligatory nature (Geltung) and meaning it is indifferent: to how many people it is actually known (in ihrem Erkenntnis haben); how they obtained it and, in particular, whether they would be able to understand the law and the possibility of its correct application” (889). “For the truth of the provisions of cosmic physics, it is completely indifferent from what time they have been the property of human knowledge, and how many people possess this knowledge. And if, out of ignorance, someone asserts that the sun revolves around the earth, then our scientific judgment boils down to the fact that this idea is not true, and this is another and completely indifferent question for our objective judgment, whether he would have been able to know this better, and what circumstances involved him in error. In the same way, our guiding judgment about human aspirations and will is objectively possible only from the point of view of the generally applicable unity of a subjectively unconditioned goal. But whether or not those acting in general can proceed from the correct point of view when discussing their desires is a completely separate question. That cannibalism is bad and illegal is an objective judgment, the correctness of which is completely independent of the consideration of whether the Caribs have the opportunity to understand this judgment or not” 11 (390). This is the pattern of the goal. Now Stamler again turns to social philosophy, in particular to the materialist understanding of history, and critically analyzes some of its provisions. According to this teaching, the process of historical development is accomplished by contradictions, social conflicts, and this is the dialectical nature of history. Social conflict does not mean a brutal struggle for power and wealth, but an internal contradiction that exists in the social organism and receives only external expression in the struggle of classes. This internal contradiction usually arises between the productive forces of a given era and the outdated legal order, between matter and the form of social life. But form, law, depends on matter, social economy; therefore, the first must necessarily yield to the second, the conflict receives its resolution. Two questions arise: in what sense does law depend on the economy, and what is closer to this dependence? And then: in what sense is the need for a certain resolution of this social conflict asserted here? Answering the first question, it is necessary to establish in advance that there is no direct mechanical causal connection between law and economics - otherwise there could be no talk of a conflict, although it is possible to trace the causal emergence of a separate legal provision, but this will not bring us any closer to resolving the issue. If anyone observes the training of recruits, maneuvers, etc., will he say that the reason for all this is the defense of the fatherland? Of course, experience has taught the wise rule: vis pacem, para bellum, nevertheless, the last word on the way military exercises depend on the defense of the fatherland will be the relation not of cause and effect, but of means and ends. The same consideration applies to law. Law must produce a certain form of social coexistence; it is a means to achieving human goals. Therefore, if anyone decided to be content with just a causal consideration of the emergence of certain legal provisions, he would lose sight of the very concept of law, for “this concept, no matter how variable its content, includes the idea that a certain state of human coexistence must be achieved” (901). That the materialist understanding of history imagines the dependence of economy and law precisely as a means and an end is evident, among other things, from the following consideration: if we were talking about causal dependence, then it would be possible to affirm the connection between a given economy, to which the outdated law no longer corresponds, and the new, future law; Meanwhile, this dependence is asserted in relation to the existing, outdated law and the given economy. This dependence can only be thought of in the form of a means-end relationship; namely, the old law, an instrument invented by people, does not serve its purpose well, it must be discarded as worthless. In this sense, Stamler interprets the main idea of ​​social materialism; the formula in which he expresses this understanding of social materialism is this: “legal order is a means to strengthen production and in this has its ultimate goal” (403). What, then, is social conflict? It can only consist in the discrepancy (Inkongruenz) between the form and matter of a given social being, the contradiction between economics and law. The scale by which it is possible to determine the existence of a conflict constitutes the purpose of law, which is already known. Internal social conflict exists when social phenomena that have arisen in a given human society contradict the ultimate goal of the law corresponding to them (411). At this point, due to lack of space, we will interrupt the presentation of Stamler’s remarks regarding the materialist understanding of history in order to return to some of them at the end of the article. Now let’s return to his own deduction and briefly outline the main points of the further development of his thought. Stamler considers two provisions to be established on the basis of previous considerations. “Firstly, a clear understanding that the basic pattern of social life must be sought in a unifying point of view, according to which the form of people’s social existence is determined” (449). If the very concept of sociality is determined by the sign of external regulation, then “the unifying understanding that should determine the law of social life lies in the unity of this regulatory form” (ibid). This is also, according to Stamler, the point of view of the materialist understanding of history. Secondly, “the regularity of social life, which consists in a unifying point of view for every possible form of it, can only be found in the idea of ​​expediency” (450). “The special essence of the form of social life of people lies in its property of regulation. Social regulation carries within itself the inherent idea that it must produce (bewirken) a certain cohabitation (Zusammenleben) of people; that a certain social economy must be created, which could not be as it is without the presence of this social regulation. So, whoever seeks the general laws of social life must establish unity for the purpose of formal regulation. The principle of social regularity is the highest unifying point of view, which is applicable (Geltung besitzt) to all conceivable goals of the social order” (451). The solution to this problem is the final goal of social philosophy. There must be a discipline that clarifies what actually needs to be understood by a generally binding social truth, what the property of social regularity consists of, and under what conditions this quality is applicable to social aspiration. In this sense, the philosophical understanding (Einsicht) of social life can be called social nomology." What could be a universally binding, highest goal for social life? For what generally obligatory final purpose do people use the instrument of social regulation? “The achievement of certain specific goals in itself can never provide a generally applicable law for human society. For every goal that is pursued and must be fulfilled by a social community always exists through people and for people. A goal, taken as an independent (eigenes) thing, is only an abstraction, does not exist in itself independently: there are always only the goals of people, set by them and pursued by them. Therefore, the unifying (einheitliches) highest goal of social coexistence can only lie in the generally applicable method (Art) of regulation itself, but not in the special content of this or that goal” (456). 12 The state does not have an a priori goal of a specific content (kein inhaltliches a priori). So, if no goal of a specific content can be an absolute goal in itself, then it can only be a formal goal. The absolute law of the will was: Handle frei, that is, act freely from subjective, egoistic motives when setting goals; the same rule applies to social life. “A society of people who freely want (frei Wollender) is the absolute ultimate goal of social life” (525). This is the idea of ​​a society in which the goals of each of its members coincide with the objectively correct goals of the other; such a regulation of joint existence and labor, which each legally subordinate must approve (zustimmen), as far as he decides freely from subjective desires. 13 The idea of ​​a society of freely willing people is the only regulative principle which gives an objective justification for social endeavor or regulation and which gives reliable guidance to the legislator. Stamler devotes many bright pages to the development of this idea, the pathos of which can in some places be compared with the pathos of Kant’s moral teaching. It is obvious that the ideal put forward by Stamler, and together with the law of social life, is unattainable; once achieved, it would cease to be an ideal. Consequently, the social question is also insoluble. 14 Resolving it would mean that “the absolute, empirically not determined goal, the idea of a society of freely willing people, is contained within the framework of limited and conditioned experience. But we are not talking about achieving an unconditionally ideal state, but about achieving an objectively correct social life, social existence, which, under its special specific conditions, would have the formal property of regularity. And this possibility is there, it can become a reality if only we want it: good thoughts bring good deeds!” (640). The theorist's task is over, and Stamler transfers his work to a practical social politician. The strength of any building, even if it was erected with such diligence, love and art as the building of Stamler’s social idealism, is determined by the strength of its foundation. This foundation is epistemological, the doctrine of purpose, of the expedient lawfulness of the will, therefore criticism must focus on this foundation, and, by the force of things, adhere to the field of epistemology. The essence of Stamler’s teaching is that there are two “directions” of consciousness - knowledge and will and, accordingly, two unities of ideas - causality and expediency. Both of these unities are combined, however, in a single consciousness and constitute types of understanding, “Einsicht”. Kant established the unity of transcendental consciousness as an inevitable condition for the possibility of experience. The unity of space and time is based on it, hence the unity of the subject, the unity of the law, the unity of the world order. If you destroy the unity of consciousness and the identity of the knowing self, no experience becomes possible. “The permanent and abiding self (of pure apperception) is the correlate of all our ideas” (Kr. d. reinen Vern., ed. Kehrbach, p. 133). 15 This position of the critique of knowledge, the most essential and not disputed by anyone, is undoubtedly recognized by the Kantian Stamler. But how does this work in practice? What does the expression “directions of consciousness” mean? After all, these directions are characterized by exclusivity and intransigence. As Stamler repeats more than once, causality and purposiveness constitute two contradictory points of view that cannot coexist simultaneously in the same consciousness. However, the identity of consciousness excludes such a contradiction - therefore, these are either two different consciousnesses, if both points of view are equal, as Stamler claims, or one point of view is subordinate to the other - then there is nothing new in the whole concept. These are the provisions that I consider decisive for Stamler’s entire theory. The unity of transcendental consciousness cannot tolerate two irreconcilable and at the same time equal points of view. Recognition of such a possibility constitutes Stamler's πρῶτον φεῦδος and is epistemological non-sens. In these words the questio juris of Stamler's theory is resolved; Let us now examine the questio facti, the details of his argument. Undoubtedly, among other ideas, we also have an idea of ​​the object of our action; it is accompanied by a characteristic idea of ​​choice and a sense of freedom from causal dependence. But the mere fact of the existence of a known idea is not enough to give it epistemological significance. The area of ​​mental life is rich in experiences of all kinds (a vast sphere of emotions) and the ideas corresponding to them. But in order to raise an idea to the level of a condition of knowledge, to give it, therefore, the meaning of not only subjective experience, a sign of objectivity is necessary. Objectivity is obligatory for every human consciousness - a property, obviously, of completely social origin. Can the property of objectivity be attributed to the idea of ​​the object of our action and choice? We agreed that these ideas are in our minds at every given moment. But can we imagine our past actions in exactly the same way? Without forcing our consciousness, we must answer this question in the negative. We can imagine our past life only as a series of causes and consequences, following each other with a fatal, inexorable necessity. We can lament and regret the mistakes we have made (for all these actions, as Schopenhauer aptly noted, are still our actions - consciousness on which the sense of moral responsibility, the pangs of remorse, etc. are based), but this does not change anything in their causal conditionality. The consciousness of freedom of choice, the idea of ​​an object as the object of our action, exists only for the present, every moment, every second irrevocably receding into the abyss of the past. I am writing these lines with the aim of influencing public opinion; I have an idea that I might not write them. But they are written, and I only have the opportunity to understand why I wrote them, but the idea of ​​freedom of choice has disappeared. All this is valid for people's past actions. But if a living person retains a subjective sense of connection with his past actions, then what significance does the category of purpose have for dead people? After all, we are not talking about the present, which is only a short, passing moment of human life, we are talking about history, about events that lie before us in their complete whole. The human mind cannot approach these events except with the category of causality. But can even we living people approach each other with the category of expediency? Do we apply any category other than causality to the actions of other people? (I remind you once again: ethical assessment is a completely special thing; here, in matters of epistemology, there can be no talk of it). Does our mind calm down until it finds the reasons for the at first incomprehensible act of our neighbor? Are not our ideas about good and evil people based on the idea of ​​a strict causal connection between them and their actions, and is this not where our likes and dislikes are rooted? There is no need that we are dealing here with a special type of causality - psychological; it is important for us to establish that this is causality: its concept is uniform. The category of causality permeates all our ideas about other people and all our relationships towards them. Not only that. For a person accustomed to paying close attention to his inner life and analyzing his mental states, there is no more alarming state than one for which he cannot account for the reasons. Even in his own inner life, man strives to shake off the feeling of freedom from causal dependence and to free himself from the corresponding idea of ​​choice: he strives to arrange his inner life as a series of motives and actions, 16 and feels calm only when he knows how he will act in a given case, without hesitation, that is, without choice. Let's summarize. We asked the question whether the idea of ​​the subject of our action and choice can be recognized as objective. It turned out that it is applicable only to the real life of the subject himself; but even here motivation tends to supplant it. It is not at all applicable to the past actions of the subject himself, to the past and present actions of other people, to all the actions of inanimate people, that is, to the entire human history. And if a certain idea is characteristic only of an individual consciousness and is not at all shared by the consciousness of other people, this means that this idea is subjective and has no objective meaning. It not only has no epistemological significance, but, together with all other subjective experiences, such as feelings of pain, fear, joy, love, etc., can form the subject of a special science, not epistemology, but psychology. P. Natorp speaks about this beautifully: “objective science does not care at all about aspirations and activities (Streben und Thätigkeit), it knows only events (Geschehen) and the dependence of events, abstract relationships of laws. Aspirations and activities are completely “subjective”, therefore, psychological concepts; whoever transfers them into objective science turns it into mythology. 17 In itself, such mythology may have true and serious scientific foundations; This is how interesting it is for psychology and finds its justification in it.” (Paul Natorp. Einleitung in die Psychologie nach der kritischeun Metlhode. Freiburg inB. 1888, p. 28). The reference to the incompleteness of experience, as proof of the possibility of establishing a new unifying point of view, a new condition of knowledge, is a very unsuccessful argument. The incompleteness, even the infinity of experience is proven precisely on the basis of the already established conditions of knowledge and, in particular, the law of causality. If the series of causes, by its very concept, is infinite both in one direction and in the other, both towards the beginning and towards the end, then, obviously, experience can never end; the progress of science consists in a wider penetration into the connection of things, in a more harmonious and simpler systematization of scientific concepts, as required by the “architectonic” nature of our mind, in the desire to get closer to its unrealizable “ideal”. But all these provisions are proven precisely by the properties of those conditions under which the possibility of all knowledge stands. And from the fact that, given the existing conditions of cognition, experience can never end, it is in no way possible to draw conclusions about the possibility of new conditions of cognition, just as it is impossible to conclude from the fact that our field of vision is limited that it is possible to see beyond the eyes. 18 Thus, although, undoubtedly, everything that Stamler says about causality is true, he does not prove the possibility of a new condition of knowledge. How should we imagine the object of the law of will in its relation to experience? On this issue, Stamler is lost in unoriginal contradictions arising from the very essence of the matter. 19 He says that the idea of ​​purpose and the possibility of choice lies within the boundaries of experience; at the same time, it is not answered by a phenomenon that exists in time and space, “the phenomenon of the sensory world.” But all experience, without remainder, consists of phenomena constituted by space and time; that which is beyond time and space is beyond experience. This, at least, is the philosophical concept of experience, and Stamler does not give a new concept. He thus goes astray from the right path of criticism of Kant's knowledge; the object of the law of the will, contrary to his assurances, is a super-experienced, super-sensible, seusu stricto (et malo!) metaphysical concept. The situation is no better with the parallel that our author draws between the laws of knowledge and will. He will construct the concept of the law of will in the image and likeness of the causal law, and he draws this parallel down to the smallest detail. This construction undoubtedly does honor to his scientific imagination, but its significance entirely depends on the solution of the fundamental question of the possibility of a special law of expediency. There are also some particular difficulties. So, for example, the parallel between truth and error, on the one hand, and legal and illegal goals, on the other, between erroneous and correct understanding of the laws of nature and compliance and non-compliance with the law of goals, does not speak in favor of the latter. In fact, in the first case, an objective criterion remains - that objective connection of things in relation to which a pattern is established, and with this criterion one can appeal to the consciousness of other people and thus achieve an objective judgment; Meanwhile, when setting a goal, everything is limited to the inner world of the subject setting the goal. The law of the general goal, not fulfilled here, is not fulfilled anywhere, and the law itself, therefore, turns into an empty abstraction, an imaginary quantity. This feature of the law of expediency was already noted in the cited review by Simmel. We will not examine this parallel further, considering the principled discussion to be decisive. But before leaving the law of purpose entirely, let us make two more remarks. Even if, together with Stamler, we admit the possibility of two directions of consciousness and, accordingly, two ways of understanding one’s actions, then nothing can prove the preference of one way of understanding over another. After all, he himself says that causal understanding is one of two possibilities. What could force me not to use one of these possibilities at all or prevent me from arbitrarily alternating them both? This is the first thing. The second remark concerns the true nature of the law of expediency. What, in fact, is this teaching essentially? Ethics ni plus, ni moins. It goes without saying that ethics cannot be placed alongside epistemology. Insofar as it concerns its foundation (I use Schopenhauer’s terminology), it forms part of psychology (personal and collective). Its normative part, or principle, must be based entirely on this foundation, since ethics is only formal, like Kant’s teaching of Christian morality, and on the surrounding social situation, since certain specific content can be embedded in it. In other words, here the distinction between the genetic and the systematic point of view, as aptly noted by Stammler, must really be valid here. 20 But both the justification of ethics is accomplished by the human mind precisely through its cognitive “property,” just as precisely as knowledge of the external world, that is, by thinking according to the principle of identity, - ergo, the law of sufficient reason. Let us note by the way that all of Stamler’s argumentation, right down to the law of expediency, is built on the same principles. Here we part with “good will” to return to the field of social science. The bridge from ethics to sociology is Stamler’s doctrine of teleology in law, which he sees even in the materialistic understanding of history. We need to show that the teleological understanding of law cannot be derived from the materialist understanding of history, and that the connection between law and economy should be thought of not in the category of expediency, but in the category of causality. Stamler is wrong when he says that social conflict from the point of view of Marxism is a contradiction between outdated law and the new economy. The contradiction lies deeper, in the economy itself. Contradictory elements constitute the very essence of modern economics. What stimulates production is private property, free competition, on the other hand it also retards it (overproduction, crises). However, the very fact of the existence of private property proves that the positive aspects of its action (in the sense of the development of productive forces) still outweigh the negative ones. Anyone can be convinced of this by even glancing briefly at the monstrous growth of national wealth in capitalist countries during the 19th century. And at the same time, from the very beginning of the century, ominous symptoms of the negative effects of the capitalist form of production began to appear - crises. In the advanced countries of capitalism, the growth of national wealth has become relatively slower (England); when it stops completely - or almost completely - then it can only be said that the law has become completely outdated and is retarding the development of the economy, and then it will fall by itself. In a word, “not a single social formation perishes before the productive forces develop, for which it provides sufficient scope, and new, higher, relations of production never come into being before the material conditions of their existence in the bosom of the old society mature” (Marx, “Cr. Some Positive Pos. Ec.”, Prev. XI). Thus, the contradiction in the modern economy is irremovable and cannot be eliminated until the economy itself develops to such an extent that the negative side of the current economic system begins to outweigh the positive; then the modern order will turn into its negation. Consequently, changes in law here follow the causal sequence of economic changes. The dependence of law on the economy should be thought of in terms of the category of causality: changes in the economy are accompanied by changes in law. The causal relationship between law and economy must be imagined by analogy with the relationship between the existence of a species and the organs useful to it; law appeared because without it the social economy could not exist, therefore, the social existence of man would be impossible, and therefore the general existence or survival of the species homo sapiens. And only a certain right can correspond to a certain state of the economy. This is the same functional adaptation as in natural selection. Modern natural science, in the teaching of Darwin, tore away the mirages of teleology in which the earlier doctrine of the origin of species was clothed, and explained the latter according to the principle of causality, according to the principles of world mechanics. 21 The materialist understanding of history continued this work of Darwin (if not chronologically, then logically), extending the principle of causal interpretation to human history and to the relationship between law and economics. One can evade this interpretation only if one also sees a teleological principle in Darwinism. 22 So, we refuse to think of the relationship between economics and law according to the principle of purpose - it fits completely into the category of causality. By this we remove the bridge that Stamler builds from the doctrine of the lawfulness of the will to the doctrine of social idealism. This first premise of the teaching has been sufficiently discussed above, and there is no need to dwell on it here. It is obvious that if both premises are invalid, then the conclusion is invalid. In addition, just as in the doctrine of the lawfulness of the will, and in the doctrine of social idealism, we cannot understand the necessity of a single teleological consideration; The causal may also exist alongside it. Therefore, from Stamler’s point of view, it is possible to simultaneously adhere to social materialism and idealism. Zwei Seelen wohnen – ach! in meiner Brust! Our attitude to Stamler's theory has been sufficiently clarified. Based on the position that the unity of transcendental consciousness is the main condition for the possibility of any experience, that with the recognition of the possibility of “two directions” of consciousness in the understanding of social phenomena this unity is radically violated, we must admit that the existence of two unifying points of view - the laws of concept and will - is epistemologically impossible. And if we recognize the unity of consciousness, we will thereby prove the unity of the cosmos, the universal significance of the law of causality, the unity of the laws of social phenomena and the phenomena of the external world, in a word, we recognize in full force the presumption that Stamler intended to challenge, and with the preservation of which, by his own admission, only a materialistic understanding of history is possible and necessary. 23 Of the many critical remarks of secondary importance that Stamler makes regarding social materialism, I will dwell on only one, not because of its significance, but because variations on this theme are a very common phenomenon in our literature. “The characteristic error of the materialist understanding of history and its practical application,” says Stamler, “is that it evades the inexorable alternative—to dwell exclusively either on causally understanding knowledge or on goal-setting will, postulating a naturally necessary course of social development, but at the same time considering it possible to encourage it, facilitate it, and reduce its disasters. This is a cruel quid pro quo! Whoever knows (erkennt) that a certain result will occur with inevitable natural necessity, he can no longer contribute to the occurrence of this result. In the idea of ​​assistance and encouragement lies the idea that the way it can happen with intervention, the event is not recognized as naturally necessary. This contradiction cannot be avoided: once it is scientifically known that a certain event will necessarily occur in a completely definite way, it still makes no sense to want to promote precisely this particular method of its occurrence. It is impossible to found a party that would consciously promote a precisely calculated lunar eclipse (433). In this case, only fatalistic expectation remains” (435). First you need to deliver the reproach to the address. According to the meaning of Stamler's teaching, a fatalistic expectation remains for anyone who considers social phenomena from the point of view of causality. And since from a different point of view - expediency - while only Stamler (and his probable followers) are considering them, the reproach will be applied equally to eclectics, and to subjective sociologists, and to Marxists (although in our literature fatalism is for some reason made the privilege of Marxism alone), and - we will add from ourselves - to Stamler himself, since he is a subject of Erkenntniss and in this capacity is in discord with the “free” subject des Willens. This is an old reproach to supporters of the doctrine of the unfreedom of human will and the determinism of human actions. This question has been discussed so often that there are quite a few comments here. Undoubtedly, “everything that happens, from great to small, occurs with equal necessity. Nothing can happen differently than what actually happens. Past and present actions are determined, future actions are predetermined” (Riehl, I. p., p. 241). But what does this necessity mean, this law of human action, “geprägte Form, die lebend sich entwickelt”? This is us ourselves, our thoughts, feelings, aspirations, passions - in a word, our entire subjective life. The human mind, in abstraction from the living and feeling person himself, recognizes all these phenomena as pre-eternally determined. But does this regularity impose any limitation on the freedom of human actions in the sense of their dependence on something other than their own human nature? In this regard, there cannot be a more unfortunate example than the comparison of the pattern of human actions with the pattern of lunar eclipses. The law of the eclipse of the moon is something external, alien, extraneous, to which human consciousness must relate as an object, while our own self is a subject, which in its immediate consciousness posits itself as the root cause, actively interfering in the external world. And man is right in this consciousness, since he is truly an independent, original cause among the causes of the external world. The idea of ​​the regularity of human actions was initially borrowed from the regularity of phenomena in the external world, and only from here this concept was extended to “spontaneous” human actions. But to this day, the idea of ​​this pattern bears traces of its historical origin, as something external that constrains our freedom. In fact, only the idea of ​​the laws of human actions makes it possible to be truly free, i.e. reasonable, purposeful activity and excludes indifferentism, this mother of chaos and darkness, as Kant puts it. The law of social development does not say what will come out without our actions, but from our actions. And every reasonable person will agree that you can act energetically more often when you know that the matter will be crowned with success than when you act at random. These are all truisms, and there is no need to dwell on them any further. Turning to the idea of ​​a materialist understanding of history about the possibility of expedient intervention in the “natural” course of events, we, while remaining on the same point of view, must pose the following question: does the law of development of human society cover this intervention, or does it act as a deus ex machina to disturb the natural order of things? May be. Some representatives of social materialism also encounter some inaccuracies of expression that can give rise to misunderstandings. But the essential features of this teaching are as follows. Necessity reigns in the world and in human life, and this necessity, expressed in the animal world in the struggle for existence, in the life of human societies finds its expression in the dependence of all social existence on the social economy. This dependence is known sub specie aeternitatis, as Spinoza puts it: it is valid for all times of the existence of human society. But different eras of the development of society are characterized by a special law of this dependence: if in certain eras the laws of economic development acted, incomprehensible to man, and therefore directed his actions contrary to his knowledge and will, then at a certain stage of development the same economic evolution leads to the fact that people begin to understand the nature of these forces and intelligently adapt their actions to them. The growth of consciousness in the social relations of people is fatally determined by the development of social economy; therefore, it is the law of social development, being a necessary correlate of economic evolution. The collective form of production, growing organically from the present, as a sine qua non, presupposes the conscious action of people. So, interference in the natural course of development, which Marxists talk about, is not a violation of the law, it is its implementation. The formula of a materialist understanding of history embraces this intervention. But the materialistic understanding of history promises success only to those conscious human actions that are consistent with the law of development of a given society. Consequently, the immediate practical conclusion that can be drawn from it is the obligation to study the social structure and social development of a given society. It pushes, therefore, not to passive admiration for the inevitable and inexorable course of things, but to its rational understanding. In the light of this understanding, a person can expediently and intelligently direct his actions and waste his strength in a mad struggle with history, trying to turn it in the other direction, because fata volentcm ducunt. nolentem trahunt. I always retain this term used by Stamler to designate the “materialistic understanding of history,” since it more successfully expresses the essence of this teaching than the term “economic materialism,” which is dominant in our literature. The words “generally applicable” here and in the following presentation convey the words: Allgemeingültigkeit, allgemeingültig. In a general logical form, this point of view is expressed by Wundt in the following words: “things are given to us as complexes of properties and states. Therefore, that view, which strives to reduce the concept of an object to its actual content, considers its task completed, declaring that in reality only transitory properties exist, while the concept of things is attached by our thinking. In fact, the exact opposite relationship exists here. We are given only those complexes of properties and states that we call things. Properties and states in themselves, taken outside of this connection, do not exist in reality, but are products of our abstraction. It is not in our will, of course, to perform or not to perform this abstraction; our thinking, when distinguishing these properties, is subject to real influences, which necessarily cause this distinction, by which we separate its attributes from the thing itself. But even if the legitimacy of this way of thinking cannot be disputed, this does not in the least change the state of affairs that things are initially and directly given to us, and then the individual features that we distinguish in them (Die Logik., 419-420). The very concept of the interaction of various historical factors, put forward by the majority of opponents of social materialism, for its clarity requires a critical clarification of the philosophical concept of interaction. Since the times of Hume and Kant, this concept has aroused a debate in philosophical literature, which cannot be considered completed at the present time. A strong critic of this concept is Schopenhauer (see in his Ueb. vierfachen Wurzel des Satzes vomzureichenden Grundt (58 sqq.), also Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie (585–6), Ueb. Freiheit des Willeus, Cap. 3 Cited but ed. Advertising). The reconciling point of view is taken by Wundt: Die Logik, Absch. VI, K. 2. Meanwhile, among the opponents of social materialism we do not find a word about the concept of interaction. After all, the establishment of the cognitive forms of pure reason is not accomplished outside of experience, but precisely through experience, and nevertheless these forms are a priori, i.e. independent of any particular content of knowledge,” but generally applicable to all possible ones. separate classes. Riehl gives an excellent definition of apriority: Aprioritat bedeutet kein chronologisches, sondem ein logisches Verhaltniss unter den Begriffen. Scblecbt- hin a priori heisst ein Begriff, der eine ailgemeine Erkenntnissbedingung ausdruckt. So 1st beispielsweise der Satz vom zureichenden Grunde schlecbthin a priori, obgleich wir ihn aus der Einheit des Bewussttseins ableiten kbunen, weil er die Bedingung der Begreiflichkeit der Veratiderung ist (Philosophischer Kriticistius, II, 2, 76). Until now, the principles of critical philosophy, although with less success than Stamler, have been tried to apply to social science by the Berlin prof. Simmel. Prof. seems to have this same point of view. Sombart. – Reworking the basic concepts of sociology, as well as private sociological disciplines: jurisprudence, political economy, is currently one of the most basic tasks of social science. The application of the principles of critical philosophy to the problems of sociology promises to bring many benefits in the sense of a more correct formulation, more precise formulation, and therefore a more successful resolution of many sociological problems. Based on these postulates of our reason, we can say that the unity of the law, a single and continuous pattern that penetrates all states and all changes in the properties and states of an object - in this case, human society - must be postulated a priori by reason. In this sense, in the sense of the unity of regularity, any theory of social development must be or must strive to become monism (it is completely indifferent here what exactly will be the basis of this monism). Proponents of interaction, asserting the existence of several independent factors of historical development, thereby recognize several series of causal relationships operating in the same subject. This point of view can be maintained only if the special unity of our observations - society - is denied. Then sociology itself is abolished, and we are talking only about the simultaneous operation of the laws of biology, psychology, etc. The point of view of interaction can only be justified as a transitional state of our knowledge about society on the way to the knowledge of a higher and unified law; but the human mind cannot at all rest on it, by its very organization, as the supporters of the interaction theory would like. Recognizing the undeveloped nature of social materialism on the part of form, the referent is not at all alone among the supporters of this teaching. Yes, Prof. Sombart says: “wenn ich recht sehe, so wird... von der eigenthümlichen Form des Systems (des Marxismus) wenig oder gar nichts ubrig bleiben. Andere wichtige Partien, so nameutlich "die matrrialistische Geschichtsauffassung", die Lehre von der Gesetzmässigkeit der gesellschafflichen Entwickelung, harren nur einer korrekteren Fassung, um als unreräusserlicher Inrentar ron der Socialwissenschaft übernommen zu werden" (W. Sombart, F. Engels) . Struve speaks about the “philosophical groundlessness” of social materialism. One may easily ask how one can adhere to a known theory while recognizing its imperfections. One can answer this: to refer to the general imperfection of our knowledge and ask to indicate another, more substantiated, or simply another theory: in place of this theory one can find, in Stamler’s words, only “bedenkliches Vacuum”. Those who recommend, on this basis, to completely abstain for the time being from a scientific view of social phenomena, habeant sibi. There is a lot of value in these arguments of Stamler (for example, the definition of the social mode of production, as Simmmel already noted in his review: Schmoller’s Jahrbuch, 1896, II), a lot of controversial ones, but all of them, in any case, are of this kind that no thinking lawyer or economist will pass in silence. I must once again emphasize here that Stamler’s sign of external regulation, at least at this stage of research, has an exclusively epistemological meaning: without it, there is no objective-logical concept of sociality, a special object of social science, just as with the abstraction of space and time, the possibility of any experience disappears. This meaning of this attribute apparently remained unclear even to such an insightful and congenial writer as Simmel, who gave this formal attribute a material meaning. In the aforementioned review, he gives a number of examples of social phenomena in which the sign of regulation does not play a significant role (1. pp. 232–233), namely in the material sense. Refraining from discussing the issue in essence, we will only note that the sign of regulation is not difficult to apply to the phenomena of social existence, but it is much more difficult to apply to the phenomena of social consciousness, which, undoubtedly, from a certain point of view, are subject to the jurisdiction of sociology, but are excluded from there, apparently, by Stamler. With the word “expediency” we everywhere convey Stamler’s term Telos. Looking ahead, I will note here that this example was chosen extremely poorly: how can one prove the objective illegality of cannibalism everywhere and at all times? Stamler here makes a departure from his own point of view, according to which the law of purpose is an exclusively formal law—handle frei—hence, the possibility of any material, historically changing, content is fundamentally excluded. Of course, this unfortunate example has no significance for Stamler’s argument. Stamler devotes considerable space to clarifying how this formal unity relates to the diversity of historically emerged social forms and aspirations. In general, the same relationship that exists between the regularity of a general goal and empirically arising private goals is repeated here - the relationship that was explained above. This formula coincides in meaning with the basic position of Christian morality and represents an almost literal repetition of Kant’s “fundamental law of pure practical reason”: handle so, dass die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Prinzip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könne! (Kr. d. pract. Vernunft, ed. Advertising, 36). Stamler's system is generally a miniature copy of Kant's system in that both of them have two centers of gravity. But in order to stimulate causality and save moral freedom, Kant was forced to seek refuge in the “thing in itself” and intelligible free will and, finally, to postulate God. For him, the matter ends with “the primacy of practical reason over theoretical”; for Stamler, both of them stand on equal footing, not to the benefit of the harmony of his system. It is characteristic that another Kantian sociologist Simmel recognizes the social question (which he understands only in a psychological sense) as also unsolvable (see Ueber die sociale Differenzierung. In Schmoller’s Forschungen). Wed. also: “Wir sind a priori der durchgängigen ldentität unseres Selbst in Ansehung aller Vorstellungen, die zu unserem Erkenntniss jemals gehören können bewusst, als einer nothwendigen Bedingung der Möglichkeit aller Vorstellungen (weil diese in mir doch dadurch etwas vorstellen dass sie mit аllem Andern zu einem Bewusstsein gehören, mithin darin wenigstens müssen verknüpft werden können). Dieses Prinzip steht a priori fest und kann das transcendentale Prinzip der Einheit alles Mannigfaltigen unserer Vorstellungen (mithin auch in der Anschauung) heissen (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, pp. 127–8). And it is already known that “Motivation ist Causalität des Willens” (Schopenhauer). The reader sees how harshly the German scientist treats scientific methods, known in our country under the name of the “subjective method.” Stamler uses a very strange argument when he says that until the future action has occurred, has not become a phenomenon, it cannot be known under the conditions of knowledge of phenomena. These words deny the possibility of any thinking that deals not with phenomena, but with concepts. “Denken istdurch Begriffe erkennen” (Kant); the possibility of any scientific prediction is denied, which contradicts the evidence. Stamler contradicts himself by speaking a few lines below about two possibilities for imagining a future event. To absolve ourselves of any responsibility, we have tried to present this part of Stamler's theory in his own words (see above). The relationship between the foundation and the principle of morality, the psychological and normative part of ethics, resembles the relationship between the theory of knowledge and the normative science of logic. Wundt defines this attitude as follows: “die Logik bedarf der Erkeinntnisstheorie zu ihrer Begründung” (Logik, I, 2). See about this prof. Timiryazev: “The significance of the revolution made in modern natural science by Darwin,” introductory article to the new edition of Darwin’s work (O. N. Popova). Wundt teaches about the “objective goal” (objective Zweck) and finds that this principle is the basis of Darwinism. In itself, the concept of “objective goal” is contradictio in adjecto, for the concept of goal is relative to the concept of the subject who sets the goal (Logik, I, 580 fgg. II, 439–449). For excellent discussions on this issue, see Rpl: op. cit., I, 2. Tsap. V. V (analysis of Kant’s teachings). Nevertheless, it is obvious to everyone how superior Stamler’s theological teaching is to all uncritical “subjective” constructions of our and foreign literature. In any case, at present, only one subjective sociology is possible - Stamler's (of course, for someone who manages to combine both unities - the laws of will and knowledge). It relates to the preceding subjective constructions in the same way as Kant's critical philosophy relates to the German dogmatic philosophy that preceded him.