54
PARTISAN
REVI EW
correctness of historical materialism with its mathematically exact
scientific laws of historical development, class struggle, and the
final victory of Communism.
In Moscow, following an earlier definition of the concept of
matter by Stalin, Hanna Wolf progressed in her own conceptual
system to "trans-sensory" phenomena, which, as energies, waves, or
radiations, were material but not substantial. On the basic assumption
of the homogeneously material character of the world, each and
every phenomenon is material, but not substantial, in contrast to
the mechanistic conception of matter as substance. "Everything
which exists outside of human consciousness is material"; thoughts
are an exception, but even they are the product of matter, in its most
highly developed form, the brain. In this distinction between the
substantial and the material, vague and virtually unverifiable, only
human thoughts remain as "spiritual" in a homogeneously material
and knowable world. I, on the other hand, tried to explain the
world as homogeneously spiritual, to account for matter-as-substantial
as a product of the spiritual, in the sense of something having real
existence outside the human brain. Hanna Wolf "proved" to me
that there was no logical or qualitative disagreement here, but
merely an incorrect use of the term "spiritual" on my part. She
explained all spiritual and intellectual capacities of man as ma–
terial, following Pavlov, but she went so far as to concede the
possibility of the existence of an entelechy, an "immortal soul" of
man, as well as beings higher than man; these, however, she like–
wise declared "material" and knowable with material means, in ac–
cordance with her general conception.
All my discussions with Hanna Wolf, to which she occasionally
invited two or three others, took place outside the regular schedule of
instruction. This had a twofold purpose. The questions and objections
which I used to bring up during the classes were to a large extent
diverted to these conversations, where they could not influence other,
less tainted scholars in an undesirable way by exposing them to de–
bates. At the same time, of course, she wanted to convert me from
idealism to materialism and to convince me of the unique objective
truth of the Stalinist fundamentals of dialectical materialism.
If
there
is an absolutely basic postulate in this system, it is that of "partiality"
as opposed to "objectivism"; this is by no means new and, expressed
