Background
Asmus, Valentin Ferdinandovich was born on December 18, 1894 in Kiev.
Historian of philosophy logician Marxist
Asmus, Valentin Ferdinandovich was born on December 18, 1894 in Kiev.
1919 graduated History, of Philology Faculty, Kiev University.
Taught Philosophy at various institutions, first in Kiev and from 1927 in Moscow. Professor at Moscow State University, from 1939. Senior scientific associate of the Institute of Philosophy of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, from 1968.
Main publications:
(1924) Dialekticheskii materialism i logika [Dialectical Materialism and Logic], Kiev.
(1929) Dialektika Kama [The Dialectics of Kant], Moscow.
(1930) Ocherki istorii dialekliki v novoi filosofli (An Essay in the History of Dialectics in Modern Philosophy], Moscow and Leningrad.
(1933) Marks i burzhuaznyi istorizm [Marx and Bourgeois Historicism], Moscow and Leningrad. (1947) Logika [Logic], Moscow.
(1954) Uchenie logiki o dokazaiel’stve i oproverzhenii [The Logical Doctrine of Proof and Refutation], Moscow.
(1956) Dekart [Descartes], Moscow.
(1960) Democrit [Democritus]. Moscow.
(1963) Problema intuitsii r 'filosofli i maternal ike [The Problem of Intution in Philosophy and Mathematics], Moscow.
(1963) Nemetskaia estetika XVIII veka [Eighteenth Century German Aesthetics], Moscow.
(1968) Voprosy teorii i istorii estetiki [Problems of the Theory and History of Aesthetics], Moscow.
(1969-1971) Izbrannye fllosofskie trudy [Selected Philosophical Works]
2 vols, Moscow.
(1973) Immanuil Kant [Immanuel Kant], Moscow.
(1975) Platon [Plato], Moscow.
(1976) AntichnaiaJilosofiia [Ancient Philosophy], Moscow.
Secondary literature:
Motroshilova, N. V. (1989) ‘In memory of a professor’, Soviet Studies in Philosophy,
Fall
59 -65.
One of the Soviet Union’s most distinguished philosophical scholars, a friend of Boris Pasternak and other members of the pre-Stalin Russian intelligentsia, Asmus represented for later generations of Soviet philosophers an inspiring living link with the philosophical traditions and scholarly standards of the past. Although a professed Marxist and materialist, he was accused in the 1930s of ‘menshevizing idealism’, and he remained ideologically suspect throughout the Stalin era, often narrowly escaping dismissal from Moscow University and imprisonment.
Religion is bad because it imposes irrational rules of good and bad behaviour.
One of the Soviet Union’s most distinguished philosophical scholars, a friend of Boris Pasternak and other members of the pre-Stalin Russian intelligentsia, Asmus represented for later generations of Soviet philosophers an inspiring living link with the philosophical traditions and scholarly standards of the past. Although a professed Marxist and materialist, he was accused in the 1930s of ‘menshevizing idealism’, and he remained ideologically suspect throughout the Stalin era, often narrowly escaping dismissal from Moscow University and imprisonment.
Asmus was instrumental in the rehabilitation of formal logic in the Soviet Union after the Second World War. His 1947 book Logic was one of the first Soviet texts on the subject.
Selections from his many writings on the theory and history of aesthetics were published in the 1968 volume listed here. His greatest influence, however, was as a historian of ancient and modern Western philosophy. His monographs on Plato, Democri
tus, Descartes and Kant, as well as his many substantial essays in the history of philosophy, demonstrated a breadth of knowledge and a freedom from ideological distortion that were exceptional in Russia during his time.