The Path to “Normal Science” Through Existentialism

Abstract

The article reflects upon the developmet of professional history of philosophy, philosophy of science and theoretical sociology in Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. The decisive contribution to the formation of modern historical and philo­sophical problems, as well as to modern disputes about the nature of philoso­phy and science, belongs to Piama Gaidenko. The author focuses on the role of studies in existentialism and the way its problematic shaped human and sci­ence studies in soviet philosophy. A small review article published in Voprosy Filosofii in 1959, the very first scientific paper by Gaidenko despite its formal status, appears to be an extremely important scientific document, revealing not only the characteristic personal style of the author soon to become famous, but also the full thematic structure of Gaidenko’s future works. Contrary to the com­mon in the 50-60-s classification of existentialism as “irrationalism” and hence as hostile to science, this movement was the first to be studied as a region of contemporary philosophy thus fostering soviet philosophy to move away from harsh criticism of bourgeois philosophy and develop the branch of history of phi­losophy as “normal science”.