On the unfulfilled debate between D.I. Dubrovsky and E.V. Ilyenkov

Abstract

The article examines the grounds for claiming that a debate took place between E.V. Ilyenkov and D.I. Dubrovsky concerning the problem of the ideal. In the secondary literature, reference is often made to an “unfinished dispute” or a “discussion” between the two thinkers; however, the very existence of such a dispute requires careful verification. The paper reconstructs the fundamental philosophical premises of Ilyenkov and Dubrovsky – their understanding of the subject matter of philosophy, the status of the category of the ideal, and the nature of the relation between mind and material reality. It is shown that their divergence appears already at the level of preliminary definitions and concerns not isolated theses but the very foundations on which the problem is formulated. Special attention is devoted to each author’s interpretation of the key tenets of the Marxist tradition – for example, the formula describing the ideal as the material “transplanted into the human head”. The article analyzes how the difference in their conceptions of the ideal – understood by Ilyenkov as a socio-historical form of thinking and activity, and by Dubrovsky as a subjective reality grounded in the functioning of the individual brain – determines the divergence of their theoretical programs and levels of analysis. It is argued that the texts traditionally regarded as mutual responses do not constitute a dispute in the strict sense, since the two positions lack a shared object of inquiry and a common understanding of what is at issue. The study maintains that beneath the appearance of a debate lies a clash of fundamentally different conceptions of the nature and tasks of philosophy. This case clarifies the character of disagreements within Soviet philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century and highlights the contrast between philosophical and naturalistic models of approaching the problem of the ideal, thereby contributing to a more precise understanding of the history of Russian philosophical thought.