Intelligent Materialism

Evald Ilyenkov (1924–1979) was an important Soviet Marxist thinker who worked on a number of topics related to materialist dialectics and philosophy as a science of laws and categories of thinking. In 1953 Ilyenkov defended his dissertation on the issues of materialist dialectics in Marx's Grundrisse where he investigated matters that gave rise to a new direction in Marxist philosophy – dialectical logic. In the 1960s Ilyenkov published several original studies dedicated to the categories of 'the abstract and the concrete' in Marx's Capital as well as works related to dialectics, nature of thinking, art and communist ideal. Evgeni V. Pavlov, Ph.D. (2009), University of Denver, teaches in the Department of Philosophy at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“This is an important collection which makes a major addition to Marxist philosophy. The main articles in it are substantial scholarly pieces that make original and thought-provoking contributions to Marxist philosophy and to the Marxist interpretation of Hegel’s thought. They provide an excellent overview of some of the main themes of Ilyenkov’s work and enable one to appreciate its importance in a number of areas.”—Sean Sayers, Science & Society“This book has further solidified Ilyenkov's significance within the canons of both Hegel and Marx scholarship, but more importantly has direct relevance in clarifying ongoing debates in Marxist circles regarding what is meant by ‘materialism”.”—Dom Taylor, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

• Editor's Note Evgeni V. Pavlov1 Hegel Today 2 Hegel and the Problem of the Subject Matter of Logic 3 The Peak, the End and the New Life of Dialectics (Hegel and the End of Old Philosophy) 4 Hegel's Science of Logic5 Hegel and Hermeneutics: the Problem of the Relationship between Language and Thinking in Hegel 6 The Problem of the Ideal in Philosophy 7 Understanding of the Abstract and the Concrete in Dialectics and Formal Logic 8 The Logical and the Historical 9 Lenin's Idea of the Coincidence of Logic, Theory of Cognition and Dialectics 10 Materialism Is Militant and Therefore Dialectical Bibliography Index