The Institute of Scientific Philosophy in the Creative Biography of Aleksei F. Losev

Abstract

The article reconstructs the historical and philosophical cooperation between Alexei F. Losev and the Institute of Scientific Philosophy in the early 1920s; on the basis of archival materials (Archive of the RAS, Archive of the Institute of Philosophy of the RAS, Archive of the State Academy of Art Sciences, State Archive of the Russian Federation, Central State Archive of Moscow) and per­sonal correspondence, we reconstruct the history of Alexey F. Losev’s crea­tive communication with the staff of the Institute (G.G. Shpet, I.N. Diakov, N.I. Ginkin, S.L. Frank, and others) and attempts to employ the philosopher as senior fellow researcher in 1921 and 1922. Special attention is paid to A.F. Lo­sev’s connections in the 1930s with the Institute of Philosophy of the Communist Academy, and then with the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, and his participation in publishing projects initiated by the Insti­tute: preparation of the works of Nicholas of Cusa in 1937, creation of a new textbook of logic in 1941–1946, and the Encyclopedia of Philosophy in 1960–1970s. The question of the philosopher’s interaction with the staff of the Insti­tute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (V.V. Bibikhin,
L.A. Gogotishvili, A.V. Gulyga, D.V. Dzhokhadze, M.F. Ovsyannikov, A.G. Spir­kin, A.A. Stolyarov, P.S. Trofimov) is touched upon, and the contribution of the Institute to the perpetuation of A.F. Losev’s memory in the 1990s and 2000s is underlined.