Vladimir Lenin/Materialism and empirio-criticism - Empirio criticism and historical materialism

Table of contents

1. Prefaces
   1. Preface to the first edition
   2. Preface to the second edition
   3. In lieu of an introduction
2. The theory of knowledge of empirio-criticism and of dialectical materialism
   1. Part I
      1. Sensations and complexes of sensations
      2. “The discovery of the world-elements”
      3. The principal co-ordination and “naive realism”
      4. Did nature exist prior to man?
      5. Does man think with the help of the brain?
      6. The solipsism of Mach and Avenarius
   2. Part II
      1. The “thing-in-itself,” or V. Chernov refutes Frederich Engels
      2. “Transcendence,” or Bazarov “revises” Engels
      3. L. Feuerbach and J. Dietzgen on the thing-in-itself
      4. Does objective truth exist?
      5. Absolute and relative truth, or the eclecticism of Engels as discovered by A. Bogdanov
      6. The criterion of practice in the theory of knowledge
   3. Part III
      1. What is matter? What is experience?
      2. Plekhanov’s error concerning the concept “experience”
      3. Causality and necessity in nature
      4. The “principle of economy of thought” and the problem of the “unity of the world”
      5. Space and time
      6. Freedom and necessity
3. The philosophical idealists as comrades-in-arms and successors of empirio-criticism
   1. The criticism of kantianism from the Left and from the Right
   2. How the “empirio-symbolist” Yushkevich ridiculed the “empirio-criticist” Chernov
   3. The immanentists as comrades-in-arms of Mach and Avenarius
   4. Whither is empirio-criticism tending?
   5. A. Bogdanov’s “empirio-monism”
   6. The “theory of symbols” (or hieroglyphs) and the criticism of Helmholtz
   7. Two kinds of criticism of Dühring
   8. How ould J. Dietzgen have found favour with the reactionary philosophers?
4. The recent revolution in natural science and philosophical idealism
   1. The crisis in modern Physics
   2. “Matter has disappeared”
   3. Is motion without matter conceivable?
   4. The two trends in modern Physics and English spiritualism
   5. The two trends in modern Physics, and German idealism
   6. The two trends in modern Physics and French fideism
   7. A Russian “idealist physicist”
   8. The essence and significance of “physical” idealism
5. Empirio-criticism and historical materialism
   1. The excursions of the German empirio-criticists into the field of the social sciences
   2. How Bogdanov corrects and “develops” Marx
   3. Suvorov’s “Foundations of Social Philosophy”
   4. Parties in philosophy and philosophical blockheads
   5. Ernst Haeckel and Ernst Mach
   6. Conclusion
   7. Supplement to chapter four, section I
      1. From what angle did N. G. Chernyshevsky criticise kantianism?

The Russian Machians, as we have already seen, are divided into two camps. Mr. V. Chernov and the collaborators of the Russkoye Bogatstvo^[3] are downright and consistent opponents of dialectical materialism, both in philosophy and history. The other company of Machians, in whom we are more interested here, are would-be Marxists and try in every way to assure their readers that Machism is compatible with the historical materialism of Marx and Engels. True, these assurances are for the most part nothing but assurances; not a single Machian would-be Marxist has ever made the slightest attempt to present in any systematic way the real trends of the founders of empirio-criticism in the field of the social sciences. We shall dwell briefly on this question, turning first to the statements to be found in writings of the German empirio-criticists and then to those of their Russian disciples.

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