The Philosophical Foundations of Soviet Aesthetics: Theories and Controversies in the Post-War Years

I.- I / The Object and Methods of Soviet Aesthetics.- 1.1. The General State of Soviet Aesthetics.- 1.2. The Object of Aesthetics.- 1.3. Aesthetics as a Science.- 1.31. Aesthetics and Marxist-Leninist Philosophy.- 1.32. Aesthetics and Methodology.- 1.321. A Periodization of the Dominant Approaches to Aesthetics.- 1.322. 'Vulgar' or Extreme Sociologism.- 1.323. 'Vulgar' or Extreme Gnoseologism.- 1.324. 'Academism', 'Empiricism' and 'Historism'.- 1.325. Methodological Pluralism.- 1.4. The Sub-divisions of the Aesthetic Problematic.- II / The Sources and Origins of Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics.- 2.1. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.- 2.2. Lenin.- 2.3. Plekhanov.- 2.4. Russian Revolutionary Democrats.- II.- III / The Aesthetic: Chronology of the 1956-1966 Discussions and its Philosophical Framework.- 3.0. General Survey of the Esteti?eskoe Discussion.- 3.1. Initial Formulations.- 3.11. The Societalists.- 3.12. The Naturists.- 3.13. The Polemic.- 3.14. Subsequent Transitions and Developments.- 3.2. The Philosophical Framework of the Esteti?eskoe Discussion.- 3.21. The Essential Questions.- 3.22. Three Basic Biases and Their Correlations.- IV / The Aesthetic: The Societalists and Naturists.- 4.1. The Essence of the Aesthetic.- 4.11. The Objectivity of the Aesthetic.- 4.12. Aesthetic Qualities or Properties.- 4.121. Content and Form. The Essence of the Aesthetic According to the Societalists.- 4.13. Harmony and the Laws of Matter. The Naturist Conception.- 4.2. The Aesthetic Categories.- 4.21. The Naturist Theory of the Categories.- 4.22. The Societalist Theory of the Categories.- 4.3. The Aesthetic Relation.- 4.31. Fluidity of the Concept.- 4.32. Appropriation vs. Cognition.- 4.33. The Specificity of the Aesthetic Relation.- 4.331. Characteristic Features of the Aesthetic Experience.- 4.34. Aesthetic Evaluation and Judgement.- 4.341. Aesthetic Taste and Judgement.- 4.342. The Aesthetic Ideal.- 4.4. The Aesthetic and The Question of Art (the Artistic).- 4.41. The Question of the Specificity of Art.- 4.42. The Object of Art.- 4.43. The Societalist Theory of the Object of Art.- 4.44. The Specificity of the Content of Art.- V / The Aesthetic: The Struggle over the Philosophical Foundations.- 5.1. The Traditional Attitude Toward the Young Marx.- 5.2. Aesthetic Passages in the Manuscripts.- 5.3. Practice.- 5.31. Excursus: Non-natural Needs and the Social Mediation of Nature.- 5.32. The Human Senses and Practice.- 5.4. Social Being.- 5.5. Realism and the Socio-human Object.- 5.6. The 'Laws of Beauty'.- Summary and Conclusion.- Summary and Conclusion.- Notes and References.- Index of Names.- Index of Subjects.