''The Philosophy of Living Experience'' is a book by

Alexander Bogdanov Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Богда́нов; – 7 April 1928), born Alexander Malinovsky, was a Russian and later Soviet physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and B ...

, which he wrote in 1911 and published in 1913. Further editions were published in 1920 and 1923 without revision. However the 1923 addition contains an appendix "From Religious to Scientific Monism" delivered at the Institute of Scientific Philosophy in February 1923. This is the book in which Bogdanov most extensively discusses the relationship of his thought to both

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...

. The book was probably based on a course he developed firstly at the

Capri Party School The Capri Party School (Russian: Каприйская школа), known by its official name as "The First Higher Social Democratic Propaganda and Agitational School for Workers." was an educational organisation established by the Vperedists, a su ...

(1909) and subsequently at the Bologna Party School (1911). Indeed Bogdanov cites the unpublished work of Nikifor Vilonov, a worker-philosopher who attended the Capri school. An English translation was published in 2015.

Publishing history

Two manuscripts of the text dating from 1911 is in the Russian Center for the Preservation and Study of Documents of Contemporary History (Rossiiskii tsentr khraneniiai izucheniia dokumentov noveishei istorii): the first consist of chapters I and II (205 pages) and the second covers Chapters III -IV (RTsKhIDNI f 259, op. 1, d17 and d18). * The first edition (1913) was published in

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

by Izdanie M. I. Semenova. * The second edition (1920) was published in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

Gosizdat State Publishing House of the RSFSR (Russian: Госуда́рственное изда́тельство РСФСР), also known as Gosizdat (Госиздат), was the State Publishing House founded in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Repu ...

. * The third edition (1923) was published in both Moscow and St Peterburg by Kniga. * An English translation by David Rowley was published by

Historical Materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

in conjunction with

Brill Brill may refer to: Places * Brielle (sometimes "Den Briel"), a town in the western Netherlands * Brill, Buckinghamshire, a village in England * Brill, Cornwall, a small village to the west of Constantine, Cornwall, UK * Brill, Wisconsin, an un ...

as Volume 8 of their "Alexander Bogdanov Library".

Content

Introduction

(a) What is philosophy? Who needs it and why? Bogdanov starts this discussion by looking at the unpublished work of two worker-philosophers active at the time:

Fedor Kalinin Fedor Ivanovich Kalinin (Russian: Фёдор Иванович Калинин; 14 February 1882 – 5 February 1920) was a Russian revolutionary, literary critic and writer. Fedor was the younger brother of Mikhail Kalinin. Kalinin was born on Fe ...

and Nikifor Vilonov. (b) What came before philosophy? (c) How did philosophy and science become distinguished from religion?

Chapter I. What is Materialism?

Chapter II. Materialism of the Ancient World

Chapter III. Modern Materialism

Chapter IV. Empiriocriticism

Chapter V. Dialectical Materialism

Chapter VI. Empiriomonism

(a) Labour causality (b) Elements of experience (c) Objectivity (d) Sociomorphism (e) Substitution (f) The picture of the world

Conclusion: The Science of the Future

Appendix: From Religious to Scientific Monism

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Philosophy of Living Experience Books by Alexander Bogdanov Metaphysics books