Consciousness and the Ideality as the Subject of a Dialogue between M.A. Lifshits and E.V. Ilyenkov – Agreement and Divergence

Abstract

The article attempts to compare the positions of two extraordinary thinking philosophers, bound by friendship and a common approach to solving the main is­sues of understanding and explaining being, although they do not always agree with each other. The analysis is based on the book in which M.A. Lifshits leads with E.V. Ilyenkov dialogue, the main theme of which was consciousness and the concept of the ideality, which is inextricably linked with it. The phenomenon of consciousness M.A. Lifshits considers it to be a given and therefore is inter­ested in the question of the historical genesis of consciousness, but the ability of consciousness not to be limited to the nearest immediacy, not to become closed in the circle of “small being”, but to rise above the limb of the moment and go beyond its border to understand the universal, to the “great being” and its infinity. Lifshits answers this question positively, explaining this ability of consciousness to his “responsibility” to “external instance”, before the world nature, without explaining the mechanism for overcoming the difference between small and great life – but here the idealistic note (a certain responsibility) sounds. Ilyenkov firmly adheres to the monistic principle of Spinoza in this matter – a person represents the dialectical identity of the material (his body) and ideality (consciousness).