Vasilij Vasil'evič Sokolov (1919 - 2017) Russisch filosoof, was in zijn tijd dé scholar van de Sovjet Unie over #Spinoza [1]

Sokolov vertaalde werk van Spinoza en schreef twee boeken en vele artikelen over Spinoza. Het wordt tijd voor enige blogs over hem. Onderaan heb ik de links naar eerdere blogs over Russische aandacht voor Spinoza

Igor Kaufman schrijft in "Studies on Spinoza in Russia" over Sokolov [Kaufman's  PDF staat tegenwoordig op academia.edu]:

“Vladimir V. Sokolov has been researching as a historian of philosophy, especially in history of philosophy of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. He’s been working since fifties of twentieth century as a Professor at the Department of History of Philosophy of the Faculty of Philosophy, Moscow State University. He interpreted Spinoza’s philosophy as materialism and atheism; this interpretation was connected with historical and critical studies on Spinoza’s contemporaries and the pre-Spinozistic pantheism. He interpreted Spinoza’s pantheism as an inconsistent variant of materialism.”

Een wikipedia of andere pagina over deze Russische filosoof op internet liet Google niet te vinden. Hij komt niet voor op de Sokolov- of Sokolow-pagina en ook niet op de “List of Russian philosophers” [cf.]. En dus grabbelde ik voor dit en volgende blogs bij elkaar wat er te vinden is over vooral de Spinoza-studie van deze geleerde. En dat is best wat. Ik kon aanvankelijk zijn levensdata niet geven, want z’n sterfdatum vond ik nergens en hem worden twee geboortedata toegekend (1915 en 1919), ), “maar wellicht stuit ik toch nog eens op juiste informatie,” zo schreef ik in een eerste concept van dit blog. 

En die juiste informatie ontving ik van mevr. Iva Manova, Assistant Prof. at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, die zo vriendelijk was mij de link te bieden naar de Russische Wikipedia-pagina over hem en naar twee Russische korte obituaries die verschenen in het Russische filosofische tijdschrift "Voprosy filosofii" [obituary 1 en obitury 2 van V. V. Vasiliev]. Uit een later blog zal blijken, waarom ik haar e-mailde om nadere informatie over Sokolov.

Uit de eerste obituary bleek dat Sokolov in 1962 promoveerde op Философия Спинозы и современность [Filosofija Spinozy i sovremennost], dat in 1964 de titel werd van zijn eerste boek over Spinoza [V.V. Sokolov, The Philosophy of Spinoza and the Contemporaneity. Моsсоw, 1964. 430 рр.], waarover later meer.

Vesa Oittinen schrijft in haar hoofdstuk “Evald Ilyenkov the Soviet Spinozist” [In: Alex Levant & Vesa Oittinen (Eds.), Dialectics of the Ideal: Evald Ilyenkov and Creative Soviet Marxism. BRILL, 2013, books.google] in vootnoot 1 over Sokolov

^1. The latest Spinoza edition of the Soviet era was published in 1957: lzbrannye proizvcdeniya 1-2. Newer editions are already from the post-Soviet period (for example, Sochineniya, 1-2). This silence of late Soviet philosophy on Spinoza stands in a noteworthy contrast to the 1920s when issues on Spinoza and Spinozism formed an important part of the debates among Marxists; in fact, one could say that the doctrine of Dialectical Materialism was to a large extent forged as a result of these Spinoza discussions. Later, V.V. Sokolov seems to have gained a quasi-monopolistic position in the field of Soviet Spinoza studies with his 1964 book Filosofiia Spinozy i sovremennost.

In een artikel van Bill Bowring [cf. blog] is in een voetnoot het volgende te lezen over Ilyenkov’s Spinoza-studie, waarin Sokolov voorkomt:

** llyenkov's engagement with Spinoza was through the Collected Works in two very handsome volumes, with a variety of translations, published in 1957 (Moscow: Politicheskaya Literature), in a large edition of 30 000. Vol 1 contained: an introduction by V. V. Sokolov; A Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being (translated by A. I. Rubin); The Principles of Cartesian Philosophy (translated by V. V. Sokolov); Appendix on Metaphysical Thought (translated by V. V. Sokolov); On the Improvement of the Understanding (translated by Ya. M. Vorovskiy); Ethics (translated by N. A. I vantsov). Volume 2 contained: A Theologico-Political Treatise (translated by M. Lopaikina); Political Treatise (translated by S. M. Rogovin and V. V. Chredin); Correspondence (translated by V.K. Brushlinskiy). [vetdruk door mij, SV]

In tegenstelling echter tot deze mededeling, lezen we bij Andrey Maidansky in “The Russian Spinozists” [in: Studies in East European Thought, September 2003, vol. 55, no. 3, pp. 199-216, cf.]: dat llyenkov Sokolov als tegenstander zag: “It was no accident that Il’enkov preferred to make use of the old Polovtsova translation of De intellectus emendatione, and not the recent editions by V. Sokolov or J. Borovsky. And his understanding of Spinoza’s notiones communes leans directly on Polovtsova’s commentary. [cf. Источник: caute.ru/am/text/rse.htm

Sokolov redigeerde ook in vier banden werk van Leibniz: Socinenija v cetõrjoch tomach [Werke in vier Bänden]. Tom 1. Redaktor i sostavitel toma V. V. Sokolov. Moskva: Mysl 1982. En enige jaren later in twee banden werk van Descartes, dat uitkwam in 1989. [cf. books.google]

Sokolov gaf, zoals boven vermeld, in 1957 een inleiding bij de Spinoza-vertalingen die in 2 delen bij Gospolitizdat verschenen en publiceerde in 1964 het volgende al genoemde boek over Spinoza:

• V. V. Sokolov, Filosofija Spinozy i sovremennost' [De filosofie van Spinoza en de tegenwoordige tijd], Moskou: MGU, 1964 - 430 pp.

Deze cover en bovenstaande titelpagina kon ik later (8-11-2018) invoegen van ebay.

Op deze werken kom ik terug; eerst vermeld ik nog

• V. V. Sokolov, “On the Evolution of Spinoza's Political and Philosophical Ideas.” In: Soviet Studies in Philosophy, Volume 2, 1964 - Issue 4,  Pages 57-62. Pas 50 jaar later online gebracht met het volgende uitgebreide [ik vermoed de eerste 2 van 6 pagina's als]:

Abstract: One of the most persistent and popular bourgeois myths about Spinoza is that of his unwillingness to participate in any kind of political struggle whatever. This myth is sustained particularly by those non-Marxist historians of philosophy who contend that the essence of Spinozism is the development of a new form of religiosity, free of the limitations of any national religion. Such a conception of the Dutch thinker is partially based on facts related by his first biographers, particularly Lucas. As we know, Lucas, in his Life of Benedict Spinoza, written in French between 1678 and 1688, writes that the philosopher's father, Michael de Spinoza, lacking funds and being unable to establish his son in commerce, chose for him the career of a rabbi, and with this in mind placed the young Spinoza in the Amsterdam kheder, where he gained an excellent knowledge of classical Hebrew and studied to perfection the Old Testament and the considerably more voluminous Talmud. Even during his period of instruction, Spinoza, having found many contradictions in the Bible and Talmud, placed the rabbis who were his teachers in untenable positions and this subsequently led to a conflict between him and the leadership of the Amsterdam Jewish community. This report by Spinoza's first biographer suggests the idea that the young Spinoza had crystallized his ideas as early as his stay in the kheder. This we find stated in many of the non-Marxist studies devoted to him. Soviet writings on Spinoza also usually repeat Lucas' view entirely without criticism (see, for example, the last book on Spinoza to be published in our country: Ia. Mil'ner, Benedikt Spinoza, Moscow, 1940, pp. 23-24). However, certain foreign researches of recent decades, which have given consideration to documents and firsthand reports published in 1932 by the Dutch researcher Vaz Dias (Spinoza. Mercator et Auto-didactus, 1932; these documents are presented in French in Albert Rivaud's "Documents in-édits sur la vie de Spinoza," Revue de Methaphysique et de Morale, XLI, 1934, pp. 253-262) and, more recently, certain other documents have necessitated considerable corrections in the biographies both by Lucas and Colerus. In these works — of which the book by the French researcher Madeleine Francés, Spinoza dans les pays Neerlandais de la seconde moitié du XVII siècle, Vol. I, Paris, 1937, and that of the American researcher, Lewis Feuer, Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism, Boston, 1958, are particularly worthy of mention — serious attempts are made to demonstrate the social roots and essence of Spinozism. The biographical data presented in these works contribute to a clarification of the real reasons for the conflict between the young Spinoza and the leadership of the Jewish community of Amsterdam. According to these writers, Spinoza's father was a wealthy man and, in all probability, did not intend to make a rabbi of his son. There can be no question that the young Spinoza attended the elementary classes of the Jewish school, but his name is not found in the lists of students in its higher grades, from which future rabbis emerged. Beginning approximately at the age of thirteen, Bento (as the future philosopher was called in his native Spanish tongue) helped his father in his commercial and financial operations. However, after his father's death, Baruch himself took charge of these matters during the period 1654-1656 and, as these documents suggest, demonstrated considerable skill in commercial and financial affairs. However, the activities of merchant and financier did not appeal to the young man. The discrepancy between his intellectual interests and the nature of his occupation proved so irreconcilable that the future philosopher, who had established numerous scholarly and personal ties outside the Jewish community, drifted farther and farther both from his business and the community, until finally he was excommunicated, and broke with the community.

* * *

Deze cover is van de Hongaarse vertaling [van hier]
Szokolov: Spinoza filozófiája és a jelenkor [Szokolov: Spinoza’s-filosofie en het heden]. Moscow (1971)
Hiermee begon mijn ontdekking van Sokolov.

In een volgend blog breng ik, zo is mijn plan, het review dat F. Rapp van Sokolov’s boek over Spinoza bracht in Studies in Soviet Thought [Vol. 5, No. 4 (Dec., 1965), pp. 333-335]. Maar daarvoor kom ik eerst nog met de tekst over Sokolov’s 1957-Inleiding over Spinoza van George L. Kline in zijn review, “Spinoza East and West: Six Recent Studies in Spinozist Philosophy, “ [in: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol 58 #22(13, June 1961), 346-355, cf. pdcnet en jstor], waarin hij zeven werken over Spinoza uit oost en west besprak.

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Eerder blogs over Russische aandacht voor Spinoza

11-01-2009 Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) en Spinoza

23-03-2009 Evald Vasilyevitch Ilyenkov (1924 - 1979) en Spinoza

1 juli 2018 Evald Vasilyevitch Ilyenkov (1924 - 1979) en Spinoza [2]

04-12-2009: Lev Shestov (1866-1938) en zijn haat-fascinatie verhouding met Spinoza

10-01-2010 Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896 - 1934) probeerde Spinoza toe te passen [1] en 10-01-2010 [2]

19-01-2010 Liubov Isaakovna Akselrod (1868 - 1946) zag Spinoza verwant aan het dialectisch materialisme

13-12-2010 Barbara Polovtsova (1877 - 1936) De eerste Russische filosofe en Spinoziste

NB Igor Kaufman, "Studies on Spinoza in Russia" [PDF]. Heeft ook veel over Polovtseva

17-01-2015 Soviet Spinoza by A. Maidansky