I took part in the work of the editorial board of Voprosy filosofii from the very first days of the journal's existence. I am thus in a position to say something about the earliest period of its activities, especially as the distinctive features of this period are worthy of special attention.

Twenty-five years have passed since the fifth and final volume of the Philosophical Encyclopedia [Filosofskaia entsiklopediia] was published in 1970. This serves as an occasion for us to examine this publication, which in its own way was unique. Neither before nor since its appearance has philosophical scholarship received such thorough and profound expression in our country, and never had it undergone such a thorough updating. The interval over which it was published, from 1960 to 1970, coincides with mathematical exactitude with (...) an epoch in the history of our culture that we are accustomed to call the epoch of the "people of the sixties." A study of the "people of the sixties" is of major and in many respects special interest, since this period differs radically in its productivity from preceding years in the history of Soviet philosophy. When we commence serious research on this history, the study of the collective reason of our country's philosophers that found its expression in the Philosophical Encyclopedia will occupy an honored place. (shrink)

The scholars who claim that a "black hole" appeared in the history of our philosophy are obviously violating the truth. Evidently, what they are saying is that there was no philosophy of the kind that they would call philosophy. Such an approach does not fit any theoretico-method-ological paradigm. One must study the subject, bring it under critical analysis, not declare unequivocally that there was no such thing. For this reason, I would like by way of introduction to touch upon some (...) of the theoretico-methodological preconditions of an analysis of the phenomenon under study. (shrink)