Background
Asmus, Valentin Ferdinandovich was born on December 18, 1894 in Kiev.
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Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus
Edit ProfileHistorian of philosophy logician Marxist
Education
Kiev University.
Career
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.
Views
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.
Interests
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Born
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Died
June 4, 1975 (aged 80) -
Nationality
Russian