All
 
|
 
 


Panpsychism, God-building, “joyless materialism”: Academician S. I. Vavilov’s philosophic pursuit
 
PIIS020596060007327-1-1
DOI10.31857/S020596060007327-1
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Andrey Andreev 
Affiliation: S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Russian Academy of Sciences
Address: Russian Federation, 125315, Moscow, Ul. Baltiyskaya, 14
Journal nameVoprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki
EditionVolume 40 4
Pages740-766
Abstract

This paper attempts for the first time to explore the previously unknown philosophical notes of Academician S. I. Vavilov (1891–1951), a prominent optical physicist, historian of science, and science administrator. In 2012–2016, two volumes of his personal diaries from two periods in his life were published as part of the Scientific Heritage academic series. These two periods were seven years of his youth that shaped his personality and established the main elements of his worldview, and the last decade and a half when Vavilov was, among other things, an acknowledged expert in the philosophical aspects of physics in the USSR (and, in 1945–1951, President of the USSR Academy of Sciences). It turned out that, in his diaries  – both the “early” and the “later” ones  – Vavilov gave his attention to not only the external side of his life but also to the events occurring in his internal world at the same time, regularly writing down his very personal reflections on philosophical themes that far exceeded the scope of topics that would have been expected from a physical scientist. In case of the later diaries, this ponderings look especially unusual in the context of dry dialectical materialism that was canonized in the USSR: throughout his entire life, Vavilov had been arduously trying to resolve for himself almost all of the fundamental philosophical problems related to personality (self), soul, creativity, reason, truth, and God. Inspired by the remarkable “fact of life completely incomprehensible to biologists and, even less so, to physicists” and formulating the main goal of his personal philosophy as solving the “mystery of consciousness”, Vavilov on this path ran into the domains of panpsychism, God-building, and God-seeking and sometimes yielded to painful misgivings about the unconditional value of rational thinking. Becoming acquainted with this side of Vavilov’s personality helps to better understand and feel the drama of his biography

Keywordsconsciousness, panpsychism, God-building, God-seeking, uncertainty principle, second law of thermodynamics
Received15.12.2019
Publication date16.12.2019
Number of characters60205
Cite  
100 rub.
When subscribing to an article or issue, the user can download PDF, evaluate the publication or contact the author. Need to register.

Number of purchasers: 1, views: 1551

Readers community rating: votes 0 

1. Einstein, A. (1940) Personal God Concept Causes Science-Religion Conflict, The Science News-Letter, vol. 38, no. 12, pp. 181–182.
2. Frank, I. M. (ed.) (1991) Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov: ocherki i vospominaniia [Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov: Essays and Reminiscences]. Moskva: Nauka.
3. Menskii, M. B. (2005) Kontseptsiia soznaniia v kontekste kvantovoi mekhaniki [The Concept of Consciousness in the Context of Quantum Mechanics], Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, vol. 175, no. 4, pp. 413–435.
4. Obshchee sobranie Akademii nauk SSSR. Zasedanie, posviashchennoe pamiati V. I. Lenina [General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The Session in Memoriam of V. I. Lenin] (1944), Pravda, February 16, no. 40, p. 3.
5. Orel, V. M. (ed.) (2012) Vavilov Sergei Ivanovich. Dnevniki, 1909–1951. V 2 kn. [Vavilov, Sergei Ivanovich. Diaries, 1909–1951. In 2 books]. Moskva: Nauka, book 2: 1920, 1935–1951.
6. Orel, V. M. (ed.) (2016) Vavilov Sergei Ivanovich. Dnevniki, 1909–1951. V 2 kn. [Vavilov, Sergei Ivanovich. Diaries, 1909–1951. In 2 books]. Moskva: Nauka, book 1: 1909–1916.
7. Spinoza, B. (1957) Izbrannye proizvedeniia [Selected Works]. Moskva: Gospolitizdat.
8. Vavilov, S. I. (1934) Dialektika svetovykh iavlenii [The Dialectics of Light Phenomena], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 4, pp. 69–79.
9. Vavilov, S. I. (1934) Lenin i fizika [Lenin and Physics], Priroda, no. 1, pp. 35–38.
10. Vavilov, S. I. (1938) Novaia fizika i dialekticheskii materialism [New Physics and Dialectical Materialism], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 12, pp. 27–33.
11. Vavilov, S. I. (1941) Razvitie idei veshchestva [The Development of the Idea of Substance], Vestnik AN SSSR, no. 1, pp. 12–28.
12. Vavilov, S. I. (1941) Razvitie idei veshchestva [The Development of the Idea of Substance], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 2, pp. 95–112.
13. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 113–132.
14. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], in: Obshchee Sobranie AN SSSR 14–17 fevralia 1944 g. [General Meeting of the USSR Academy of Sciences on February 14–17, 1944]. Moskva and Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR, pp. 38–56.
15. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], Vestnik AN SSSR, no. 3, pp. 33–49.
16. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], Pod znamenem marksizma, no. 2–3, pp. 36–53.
17. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], Elektrichestvo, no. 4, pp. 1–6; no. 5–6, pp. 3–7.
18. Vavilov, S. I. (1944) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika. Stenogramma publichnoi lektsii, prochitannoi v Kolonnom zale Doma soiuzov v Moskve [Lenin and Modern Physics. A Verbatim Record of the Public Lecture Delivered in the Pillar Hall of the House of the Unions in Moscow]. Moskva: Tipografiia im. Stalina.
19. Vavilov, S. I. (1946) Fizika Lukretsiia [The Physics of Lucretius], Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, vol. 29, no. 1–2, pp. 161–178.
20. Vavilov, S. I. (1947) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], Tekhnika molodezhi, no. 5, pp. 1–6.
21. Vavilov, S. I. (1949) “Materializm i empiriokrititsizm” V. I. Lenina i filosofskie problemy sovremennoi fiziki [“Materialism and Empirio-Criticism” by V. I. Lenin and Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics], Vestnik AN SSSR, no. 6, pp. 30–39.
22. Vavilov, S. I. (1949) Lenin i filosofskie problemy sovremennoi fiziki [Lenin and Philosophical Problems of Modern Physics], Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 145–152.
23. Vavilov, S. I. (1949) Lenin i sovremennaia fizika [Lenin and Modern Physics], in: Sovremennye problemy nauki i tekhniki (Lomonosovskie chteniia) [Modern Problems of Science and Technology (Lomonosov Readings)]. Moskva: Molodaia gvardiia, pp. 5–18.
24. Vavilov, S. I. (1950) Lenin i filosofskie problemy sovremennoi fiziki [Lenin and Phylosophical Problems of Modern Physics], in: Stepanian, Ts. A. (ed.) Velikaia sila idei leninizma [The Great Power of the Ideas of Leninism]. Moskva: Gospolitizdat, pp. 171–186.
25. Vizgin, V. P. (2017) Ob “oshibochnostnoi” kontseptsii razvitiia nauchnogo znaniia S. I. Vavilova [Concerning S. I. Vavilov’s Error-Based Concept of the Development of Scientific Knowledge], in: Shcherbinin, D. Iu. (ed.) Institut istorii estestvoznani ia i tekhniki im. S. I. Vavilova. Godichnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia, posviashchennaia 85-letiiu IIET RAN (2017) [S. I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology. Annual Scientific Conference Dedicated to the 85 th Anniversary of IHST RAS (2017)]. Moskva: Ianus-K, pp. 262–265.
26. Vizgin, V. P., Kessenikh, A. V., and Tomilin, K. A. (2011) Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov kak istorik nauki [Sergei Ivanovich Vavilov as a Historian of Science], Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk, vol. 181, no. 12, pp. 1352–1356.

Система Orphus

Loading...
Up