Publication Details

Abstract

Man is an active force of historical movement. Because of his persistent conflicts with reality he is able to transcend his confinment in a given socio-cultural structure. In this way the stimulated contribution of man is sometimes able to influence the social space (in revolution evidently) that in turn stimulates the instinctive activity of man. It is a fundamental characteristic of Marxistic philosophy that it considers the formation of socio-cultural reality as a result of historical human practice. Marxistic philosophy particularly regards the knowledge of that reality as an expression of historical-human (or social-class) practice. However, not only the knowledge of socio-cultural reality is affected by the practice of a certain period but that of natural reality too. Hence the practical social existence of the individual influences in principle all knowledge regardless of its object. This is in spite of the fact that every cognitive progress and every deeper scientific penetration into the substance of things are advances in the sense of objectifying knowledge. New forms of social individual practice being determined by the scientific and technological revolution require an eleboration of revolutionary theory. This should not be a mere mechanical substitute for the theoreticopractical critique of bourgeois society of the 19th century but should issue from the deep and most essential strata of Marx' theory — from his historically philosophical analyses and essays. Under the conditions of the new era of civilization that is being created in the process of the scientific and technological revolution the further development of man will not be determined either by the inherent movement of human products from which man is alienated or by the spontaneous play of individual acitivity, but by negentropically and optimally functioning social individual structure. Propressive changes in the cultural context participate significantly in te existential conditions of modern man. Hence the scientific and technological revolution requires a cooperation of the humanities that investigate the presuppositions of the general development otf the creative forces of man in all their complexity and potentiality. The historical movement is a contradictory process and humanity emancipate itself only through various contradictions and dramatical conflicts. A1 existential, morally psychical problems of the age, and the weakening of many canonized socio-cultural and ethical axioms, stem from conflict situations produced by the traumatic change in the history of mankind which we are just witnessing. Cultural creations may be evaluated from wide historial perspectives. A valuation from the viewpoint of historical signification is to be distinguished from the criteria conditioned only by a given historical era. Altough the theoretical-historical approach gradually develops as well, it studies ultimately also historical norms, their socio-cultural origins and filiation.