Lektorsky on dialectical materialism and enactivism

Summary

This article examines V.A. Lektorsky's evolving philosophical position on the realism versus constructivism debate. It traces his shift from dialectical materialism to a post-Marxist realism informed by cognitive science. Lektorsky's later view, termed "constructive" or "activity" realism, draws on enactivism, which emphasizes the knowing subject's active, embodied interaction with the environment. The article reconstructs the genesis of this realism, discusses its arguments, and evaluates its support.

Study at a glance

Abstract

The article analyses V.A. Lektorsky’s views on the debate on constructivism and realism. On the one hand, it considers the history of development of constructivism and realism as philosophical positions embedded in the evolution of European philosophical tradition. On the other hand, the changes in V.A. Lectorsky’s views on constructivism and realism are traced from dialectical materialism to post-Marxist variant of realism. The latter is built on the basis of analysis of cognitive science and recognition of limitations of the so-called computational model of cognition, as well as on the explication of epistemological consequences of enactivism, a concept emphasizing significance that the physical body of a knowing subject actively inscribed in the cognizing environment, i.e. interacting with it, has for cognitive processes. The article discusses the two distinguished stages in Lectorsky’s work on epistemological realism, reconstructs its genesis, discusses and evaluate the arguments that Lectorsky presents in support of his conception so-called “constructive” or “activity” realism.

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