β Scribed by M. D. Akhundov; L. B. Bazhenov; V. N. Ignat'ev
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
The author of this book -a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA)is a well-known specialist in the United States on the history of science in the USSR, the author of numerous works, among which is Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union (1972), of which this book is essentially the second edition. In the second edition the author has added two new chapters devoted to research on human behavior (from this comes the new title) and has basically reworked the contents of the other chapters, taking into consideration Soviet and foreign works published up to the middle of 1985.
For Soviet readers (and not just for specialists but for the broadest reading public) Graham's book is interesting for a whole series of reasons. First of all, we must recognize to our shame that simply no Soviet work exists in which is illuminated so carefully and thoroughly the complicated history of the relationship of Soviet science and philosophy over the period of Soviet history (and Graham covers just this time period in his research). This fact is so glaring that it does not need, it seems, further detailed commentary or evaluation. We would like to express the hope that the interest in Soviet history which is now reflected in numerous publications will at last touch on the history of the relations of science and philosophy in our country.
An additional important circumstance that makes Graham's book interesting for the Soviet reader is the rather benign position of its author toward the theory of dialectical materialism. Such a position is not met often on the pages of Western works, and it is exactly this position which deserves, in our opinion, the attention of Soviet researchers; Graham deserves support in his efforts to popularize in the West the achievements of Soviet science. (In this connection one should not forget that Graham's books are addressed to the Western reader and have been translated into many languages (except Russian
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