Bulgarian Interpretations of Ancient and Medieval
Philosophy
excerpt from a paper, published in 2001 in Studies is East European Thought, vol. 53 (1-2), p. 75-109
excerpt from a paper, published in 2001 in Studies is East European Thought, vol. 53 (1-2), p. 75-109
What is peculiar in the
history of ancient and medieval philosophy, interpreted in a small country like
ours?
Standing at the mere edge
of the century and trying to grasp the essence of the intellectual tendencies
that had evolved here, of course we could make a general retrospection of
several prominent scholars who had contributed a lot to the spiritual efforts
of our nation. However, most of their works are not translated in any of the
used European languages and that’s why we could do something of a broader
interest: we could attempt to conceive the deep-lying formative causes which
had engendered one or another interpretation; we could try to delineate the
background which had forced one or another point of view; we could outline the
personal and existential motivation of some Bulgarian historians of philosophy
which had determined their choice of certain ancient and medieval philosophical
ideas; we could dare to assess their undeniable achievements and
unavoidable limits. By all these we
could not only represent the particular
- the history of ancient and medieval philosophy made in Bulgaria, but
also satisfy the more general need of explanation of the phenomenon history of
philosophy.
I.
The pioneers
of the growing philosophical culture
In the so-called
Bulgarian Renaissance several persons with encyclopedical education have
mentioned here and there in their writings something of the philosophical
heritage of the past. Still, these were merely enthusiastical remarks and
exotic pronouncements[i].
The foundations of the history of philosophy as serious philosophic study were laid by Ivan Georgov. He had been one of the founders of the High
Pedagogical school (1889) which later became Sofia University. He had been the
professor who taught history of philosophy in it for four decades; person with
enormous energy and administrative talent, he had been elected five times to serve as Rector of the University. He had been one of the scholars who had established
the learning of philosophy as the prime and most important humanitarian
discipline taught at the University.
He had left 8 big
volumes in history of philosophy as manuscripts, but only two of them had been
entirely finished and published [ii]
- the first and the fourth. His concept of philosophy and history of philosophy
is developed and defended in the Introduction to the first volume. According to
him philosophy is contemplation and reflection, deprived of all practical
interests and every-day application. Philosophy is knowledge searched for its
own sake, the knowledge that by its essence and merit is above all the other
sciences. Philosophy is the knowledge of truth and cognition.
According to him history of
philosophy is the succession of various ideas belonging to different
traditions, schools and individuals, but the historian of philosophy ought to
emphasize not on the struggle between them, but on the fact that they all
asymptotically adhere to the truth - some of them in greater, others in lesser
degree. What matters is that they all are in search of the truth and this unites them despite the apparent opposition and at times sharp criticism
amongst them[iii]. As a historian of philosophy Ivan Georgov was
inevitably influenced by his immediate teacher in Germany - Rudolf Eucken, but also by Ed. Zeller and
Windelband, Alfred Fouillee and Theodor Gomperz. He relies on their authority
and often quotes them respectfully. It might seem that he is a follower of
Winckelmann as well, because just like him Ivan Georgov speaks with inspiration
of the beauty of Greek nature ( just like Winckelmann he had never seen it with
his own eyes) and of the magical impact of the Greek climate and geographical peculiarities. They had so great
an effect on those who had created art and philosophy there. However on that
issue Georgov never mentions Winckelmann explicitly and that is rather an
insight of his own.
But there is something
unique which distinguishes his view on the philosophy of antiquity: he stands
very far from the europocentrism, which is so wide-spread among the historians
of ancient philosophy. On the contrary, he is convinced that philosophy is
common euroasiatic spiritual phenomenon and that there is intrinsic
congeniality between the philosophizing of ancient India and Greece. Philosophy
as the highest striving of man’s reason and spirit has one origin and essence
wherever it appears. Ivan Georgov tries to prove this belief of his devoting
almost one third of the first volume of
“History of philosophy” to the ancient Indian philosophy[iv].
He had made an interesting comparative analysis between the metaphysical
thinking and the logical conceptions in ancient Greece and India, pointing out
the resemblances and the differences between them. He also stresses the fact
that despite their comparability it would be an oversimplification to think
that the one of them had been immediately dependant on the other – neither the
Greek thinkers had borrowed some strange knowledge from the Indian sages nor
the profound Indian logical systems are taken from the Greeks[v].
Ivan Saruiliev had continued the work begun by Prof. Gueorgoff. Prof .
Saruiliev had lectured on history of philosophy for 24 years. A considerable
part of his interpretative efforts had been directed to the ancient
philosophers. He had graduated from classical lyceum in Sofia, and after that
had studied philosophy in Oxford and Paris where he had got a doctor’s degree.
The strongest influence on his conceptions came from Bergson and Berkeley, whom
he translated in Bulgarian.
In his works Generic
ideas and On will we can see the talent he had possessed to develop the
view-point, acquired during the years of the philosophical education
abroad by his own critical
reestimation and enrichment.
As a historian of
philosophy he had been mostly attracted by the ancient thinking and the
pragmatism which had been for him a near past.
His real solidity as an
interpreter of the ancient thought is exhibited in The philosophy of Socrates (Sofia, 1947, 275 p.)[vi]
. He had been mastering two professional qualities which not so often go
together in equality – the perfect handling with the ancient languages (that
enabled him to propose a provoking translation of some decisive places in the
sources) and the brave philosophical reflection. For him the venerable past of
antiquity is the greatest rational challenge for mankind and that’s why it must
be not only properly understood as something precious in itself, but also it
must be commeasured with the following valuable rational systems in the
history of the western thinking.
According to Ivan
Saruiliev philosophy and respectively history of philosophy begin with the
analysis of the phenomena of the consciousness. This understanding poses
Socrates as the father of our European philosophy. In his respectably
professional study The philosophy of Socrates Prof. Saruiliev represents not
only the rare combination of detailed classical erudition, linguistic talent
and sharpness of the speculative conceptualization. Naturally, he had been well
acquainted with the French and the English philosophical traditions, but this
had not prevented him from the acquisition and the sophisticated usage of the
typically German dialectics. That is evident especially in the pages dealing
with the inseparability of the moral teaching and the dialectical method in
Socrates’ philosophy. In his interpretation
Prof. Saruiliev insists that the most important idea in the philosophy of
Socrates is his theism, exposed in the conception of the teleological essence
of nature and in the hints of existence of only one omniscient and omnipotent
god, who appeared in his individual consciousness as the famous prohibitive
daemon. What is more, thus that consciousness became aware of itself and
anticipated the concept of self-consciousness.
Unfortunately, Prof.
Saruiliev could not fulfill his intentions to write similar studies on Plato
and Aristotle. When in 1953 again the severe repressions had began against all
the intellectuals and political figures expressing their disapproval and doubts
in “the luminous future”, Ivan Saruilieff had been one of the University
professors, who were most crudely injured. He had not only been expulsed from
the University, but also his personal archive had been confiscated and a;most entirely deleted.
In this presentation of
the scholars who devoted all their intellectual capacities and personal energy
for the constitution of the philosophical culture in Bulgaria, we are obliged
to include the two most influential thinkers in the period of the status
nascendi.They are Tsecko Torbov and Dimitar Michaltchev. Both of them were not
exactly historians of philosophy and humble interpreters, but used a great deal
of the ancient and medieval conceptual heritage in the philosophical
constructions of their own.
Tsecko Torbov had been a
German alumnus and one cannot imagine a more faithful upholder of the Kantian
and neo-Kantian tradition than him[vii].
He lectured mainly in philosophy of mind, critical philosophy and philosophy of law[viii],
but in his teaching and writings he
referred constantly to the thinking of the past. He had translated in Bulgarian The method of Socrates by Leonard Nelson[ix]. He prepared and
in 1949 finished a manuscript of a
historical study of the period which attracted his analyses mostly. This
manuscript was published only in 1996. It is Fundamentals of the history of
philosophy. Ancient philosophy and philosophy in the middle ages (Sofia,
University Publishing House, 1996, p. 154)[x]. Here a
homogenous interpretation is given of the reasoning of these epochs seen from the
neokantian point of view. Its concept of history of philosophy presupposes that
philosophy is the strict system, which searches for the self-understanding of
reason through pure concepts. Accordingly history of philosophy must provide
the answers given in the previous mental traditions to the question: how is
possible cognition? That explains why Tsecko Torbov treats the ancient and
medieval philosophizing as an approach to the development of the concepts
almost regardless of the persons who had expressed them. He is preoccupied with
the seeking of the forerunners who almost had reached the conceiving of
analytical and synthetical, a priori and a posteriori cognition, the
possibility of cognition and the boundaries of reason.
Dimitar Michaltchev had
gained the recognition of being the patriarch of the Bulgarian philosophizing.
He is the most prolific author in our philosophical literature, the soul of the
enormous organization occupied with the publishing of Philosophical review –
the most respectable Bulgarian review in the humanities published 6 times a
year from 1928 till 1943. He had studied and received his doctoral degree in
Germany[xi], where had shifted gradually from neo-Kantian to Remkean positions. As a professor at the University
and author of numerous papers, articles and books Dimitar Mikhalchev devoted
his analyses mainly to the theory of
knowledge, philosophy of logic and cognition,
history of epistemology and theory of truth. Besides that he had written
much on philosophy of history and sociological ideas, exercised smashing criticism
on certain occult theosophical school that had caught popularity in the 30-s in
this country, and also he had kept uninterruptedly polemical dialogue with the
Marxists here – he had denied that Marxism is philosophy at all senso stricto,
but he had admitted that in the explanation of the social reality and the
historical processes it is worth listening to this ideology.
In all his lectures and
writings he had plumped boldly in history of philosophy in order to prove what
he had maintained, but to be true he is not a paradigmatic historian of
philosophy. He had written studies as Time, succession and moment (in which
he resorts to the Eleatic conception of time), The problem of the relativity
of truth in the teaching of the ancient Greek sophists, New rethinking of an
old sophism, Could a man bathe into the same river twice?, Being and
consciousness, The “essence” of
things and its “manifestations”, The origin of the logical thinking.
The functional semantics and the problem of the unreal formation of concepts[xii]. His own quite individual
philosophizing rethinks the past and implements it in the contents of the
voluminous works Form and relation (sec. ed. 1931) and The traditional logic
and its materialistic justification (published only in 1998)[xiii]. Not only in these, but also in numerous other
papers [xiv] he constantly
refers to the eleatics, the sophists, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz,
Spinoza, Kant and Hegel. Prof . Michaltchev is not the kind of interpretator,
aiming at the immanent objective understanding of the thinking of the past. He
is rather one of the famous European thinkers who absorb and transform the
ideas of their great predecessors instead of making only punctual study of
them. Just like Aristotle and Hegel, Heidegger and Derrida, Prof. Mikhalchev
exemplifies the rule that the independent thinker cannot be a proper and strict
historian of the thinking of the previous philosophers. The elaborateness of
his own system, the peculiar point of view of his makes the references to the
past not a cautious dealing with objective mental facts, but transforms them in
useful elements for the development of his own ideas. That is evident
especially in the analyses made by him on the problems of the conceiving of
reality as a psychophysical parallelism, the essence of truth, the
philosophical interpretation of logic, the reasoning of the eleatics, the
sophists and above all the philosophy and logic of Aristotle[xv].
II.
Under the auspices of Marxist ideology (1944-1989)
The brutal imposition of
Marxism in all spheres of public life -
politics, economy, education – have had hard consequences. Several times in all
schools and Universities had been made purges ( in 1944, 1946, 1948, 1953 and
1954). In the beginning, in September –
December 1944 the most prominent
collaborationists to the previous regime
among the University staff and the directors of the schools had been not only
fired, but also prosecuted and in 1945
sentenced to death by the so called “Law-court of the people”. For some years
Bulgaria had remained a country with relatively democratic pluralistic
political system (relatively, because only left-wing parties were allowed to
continue to exist) . Nevertheless, one by one all leaders of the non-communist
political parties were swept from the political scene by absurd trials and
murders despite their deputy’s immunity. A great number of intellectuals,
priests, reserve-officers, teachers and directors of schools, and even
communist-activists who were unlucky enough to be well educated, were arrested
and vanished tracelessly. Without charge and trial thousands of people were
killed or sent to concentration camps ( by the way they have existed till the
early 70-s) and most frequently that was in result of personal revenge or in
application of the uncontrollable revolutionary terror proclaimed a long time
ago. In 1946 The Referendum declared
that Bulgaria is no longer a monarchy, but becomes a “democratic republic”. In
December 1947 the new Constitution had been promoted, all the political parties
except the BCP (Bulgarian Communist Party) and BAPA (Bulgarian Agrarian
People’s Alliance) were set out of law. In 1948 were created the Law for the
public education and the Law for the high University education. All these had given
repeatedly the start of new repressions and persecutions – thousands of
teachers, educational regional inspectors, University professors, publishers,
writers were fired and forbidden to continue their work for a life time. The
grounds for that were different – of course, all of them had been punished for
being “ bourgeois reactionaries”, but the proofs for that were sometimes
ridiculous: some of them had been treated as enemies of “the building of
socialism” only because they have studied in Western countries and mastered
perfectly foreign languages[xvi].
Similar had been the fate
of the University professors, whom we have mentioned above. Three of them had
been fired in 1953. Prof .Saruiliev had
been not only expulsed, but also forbidden from teaching and publishing for a
life-time. Prof. Torbov had been allowed to continue to teach only German.
Prof. Mikhalchev had been allowed to continue to be only a member of the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (thanks to the fact that he had been ambassador
in the Soviet Union and had accepted the historical materialism as a relevant
sociology), but several months later, when he presented his manuscript of the The traditional logic… [xvii],
after a scandalous public discussion he had been condemned for his retrograde thinking and expelled from
the Academy as well. Several times they had been searched without an order and
certain papers of theirs had been confiscated[xviii].
Nevertheless, they continued to work courageously “for the drawer” – something
well familiar for many their “brothers in fate” in the ex-socialist countries –
without knowing whether their writings would reach to the readers[xix].
The flourishing diversity of points of view in the humanities
and the variety of cultural and intellectual trends between the two wars had
been crudely eradicated. Only one possibility had been left: to praise the only
true and veritable philosophy, to speak and write, to create science and art in
accordance with its ideology. No wonder then that for almost 40 years (from the
establishment of “the power of the people” till the early 80-s ) in our country ( as in all the rest former socialist countries) had appeared
books, films, theater-performances, exhibitions etc., the loyalty of which to
the communist regime had been beyond of doubt. For almost 40 years the
slightest innocent digression in a direction different from the grandeur of
Marxism was taken as very suspicious.
In this atmosphere of
totalitarian ideology the teaching and study of history of philosophy was
totally neglected as useless and moreover, as a potential threaten in front
of “the building of socialism”[xx].
In similar conditions in
all countries from the “socialist camp” appeared several histories of ancient –
and some of medieval – philosophy, which resembled one another like the drops
of water. Although written by different authors, all of them are made in the
same way, as if following the same prescription: each issue must be posed
predominantly in the light of “the
fundamental philosophical question” which has either materialistic or
idealistic solution; the ideas of the past have to be presented in very brief
and schematic account without whatsoever authentic Greek resource [xxi];
preferable attention is to be paid to the progressive materialistic ideas of
the so called ‘line of Democritus’ and
respectively, the hostile idealistic ‘line of Plato’ is to be ignored or
blamed; the indispensable instrument of the ‘analysis’ must be the usage of
the supreme criteria – the opinions of
‘the classics of Marxism’ - and
correspondingly the labels expressing everything in accordance with
these unquestionable ‘criteria’: ‘materialism / idealism’, ‘sensitive / rational’, most of all ‘progressive or
reactional?’, ‘favorable for the slave-owners or disastrous for the people?’.
Especially with regard to the ancient philosophy the faithful Marxist had to
know by heart several quotations from the doctoral thesis of Marx (on
Epicurus), from the Philosophical notebooks by Lenin and from Anti –
Duering by Engels. These quotations had to be present in all studies and
articles dealing with the thinking of antiquity, regardless of their particular
topic. That resulted in a stupid – but absolutely unavoidable – quoting of
Engels’ opinion of Heraclitus for example in a study on Plato.
It was unthinkable to
explain the origin or the essence of given idea otherwise than by its
dependence on the social and political positions of the thinker who conceived
it. The opposite procedure was also obligatory. The philosophical systems of
the past were not only conceived as entirely determined by the “material
conditions of life” and “the productive means”. They also had to be revealed
from their outer form and their contents
had to be reduced to the social dimension, to their probable political
application. And last but not least, whatever was the issue, whoever was the
interpreter, the question in view from the past had to be juxtaposed with its
answer given by the “only true and veritable” philosophy and if there was not
such an answer available in Marxism, it meant that such a question cannot be
posed at all.
In that pattern were
created ‘histories’ of ancient
philosophy or studies on particular problems by many authors, whose chief
concern was to remain as close as possible to the holy paradigm. In our country
this typical Marxist procedure in the making of history of ancient philosophy
was represented in the works of several University professors: Prof. Grozju
Grozev, and the academicians Nickolai Iribadjakov and Angel Bunkov.
Prof. Grozev prepared
an anthology which followed the Marxist prescription and represented only the “good ones” . This
anthology is entitled The ancient Greek materialists. Fragments and texts
from Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles,
Democritus and Epicurus (S., 1958)[xxii].
He also obediently provided works in which admired Democritus and condemned
Plato – ‘The materialism of Democritus’ (published in German, 1958) [xxiii]and The philosophy of Plato(S., 1984)[xxiv].
Angel Bunkov in the 40-s had been an
assistant-professor of Prof. Mikhalchev and had a very promising future as an
exponent of the Remkean philosophy, but one night he had fallen asleep and on
the next morning he had awoken as a convinced Marxist. Since then he had
subdued his talent and sharp thinking to his new philosophical credo. From his
previous conceptual period he preserved the interests to the problems of
epistemology and logic, but the world-view and the ideology he had accepted
made him interpret and think about everything in harmony with the prescriptions
of ‘the only true and veritable philosophy’. In the prolific heritage of his
philosophical writings in respect of the ancient thinking
for example we can pick up the study ‘The problem of the individual and
the universal in the logic of Aristotle’[xxv],
which perfectly conforms to what was demanded by the dominating ideology.
Understandably, such a scholar becomes academician.
Nickolai Iribadjakov had also become an academician thanks to his
peculiar qualities: enough talent
for a proper reasoning, undeniable
abilities devotedly to teach and write on philosophical matters in accordance
with the ‘only true and veritable philosophy’, inexhaustible energy for its
propaganda and for the conceptual
smashing of everything different from it. At the University he passionately
lectured on the discipline Criticism against the contemporary bourgeois philosophy . In regard of the
ancient thinking he created his enormous The sociological thought of the ancient world in three volumes and [xxvi]–
as could be expected - a study of the
father of the ‘materialistic line’ – Democritus – the laughing philosopher (S., 1982). With these writings of his he could become a champion of
the utmost fulfillment of the Marxist prescriptions. He superseded all the rest
authors who had written similar books in similar manner especially in one
thing: in each discussed issue he used the following proportion – one tenth of
the whole exposes the thinker of the past and the remaining nine tenths give
the solution to his problems in ‘the only true and veritable philosophy’. In
order to be fair, we have to acknowledge that he possesses another remarkable
differentia specifica, which distinguishes him from the rest. He supersedes
even many younger interpreters by his acquaintance with the most important
contemporary writings, written in the wide-spread European languages on the
same subject on which he wrote. All of them had to be well examined, in order
to be mercilessly refuted. This is something for which the new generation of
Bulgarian humanitarians feels very indebted to him. In the totalitarian times
very few of the significant Western studies particularly in the humanities
reached the libraries and it was forbidden by law privately to possess such
books. A very limited number of readers had an access to this literature, kept
in the special reserves of the libraries. Thanks to the energy of Nickolai
Iribadjackov, who felt obliged belligerently to criticize everything published
abroad by non- Marxist authors in the enormous specter of issues on which he
wrote, many readers at least got some idea of what was going outside.
However, in the 70-s and
more remarkably in the 80-s the circumstances changed a little bit. Gradually
appeared the symptoms of the impoverishment of the planned economy, more and
more the inefficacy of all mechanisms of managing, control and even the
uselessness of the suppressions became evident. In the sphere of art and
philosophy, in the humanities and in the way and quality of life it was already
possible to make thinks different from the previous monopoly of the
totalitarian ideology. Socialism was very far from whatever normalization but
at least it had lost its most grotesque features.
Of course, in the sphere of the humanitarian studies and in history of
philosophy as well that made possible the appearance of other kind of works,
standing at a distance from the boringly uniform interpretations, totally
determined by the ideological prescriptions. The period of the transition from
the absolute dominance of
Marxism-Leninism to the liberated writings of the younger generation of
Bulgarian scholars in the 80-s is closely connected with the interpretative
energy of Prof. Radi Radev. He has taught since 1965 (to the present day)
history of the ancient, medieval and Renaissance philosophy at Sofia
University. Being a respectable and authoritative scholar, he has succeeded to
prove the study of the thinking of the past as necessary and indispensable, as
having value and merits in itself. He resumed the obligatory reference to the
authentic ancient sources, which previously had been substituted by the blunt
quotations from “the classics”. He provided two substantial and representative
anthologies: Ancient philosophy and Medieval philosophy[xxvii],
which gather the most important excerpts from the most important works in
philosophy, created in the antiquity and the middle ages. He wrote a very
exhaustive - in respect of the objective
factual information - History of the ancient philosophy[xxviii]
in two volumes (the first volume deals with the Greek philosophy from its
beginning to the Socratic schools and the second one – from Plato to
Carneades), a survey of the Philosophy in the Hellenistic epoch[xxix],
and a series of minor works, devoted to prominent ancient and medieval
philosophers: Socrates, Heraclitus, Epicurus, The Latin Aristotle (Peter
Abaelard)[xxx].
His greatest concern has always been the understanding and the interpretation of
the philosophy of Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. Naturally, in the
60-s he could publish only Materialistic statements in the gnoseology of
Aristotle[xxxi]
and From the history of the Arab philosophy[xxxii]
( engaged mainly with the medieval Islam aristotelism). Inevitably he had to hide his sympathy for the
peripatetic tradition. His earlier study of its evolution from Aristotle to
Etienne Gilson is published under the title Critique of neotomism, but this
is perspicuous for all who have lived in that part of the world - in order to treat something different from
the officially recognized in a manner different from the officially tolerated,
and above all to publish such thing, the
author was forced to use the hypocritical ‘criticism’ or ‘critique’. Later on
appeared Aristotle. The historical fate of his philosophy (exploring again
the development of the peripatetic tradition from its founder’s ideas to the
neotomistic thinkers) and the popularizing
Aristotle[xxxiii].
***
Full text of the paper available at:
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Full text of the paper available at:
[i] More on that in: Boian
Angelov, Antichnata filosofia prez b”lgarskoto
V”zrazhdane,S., 1996, 122 p. ( Boyan Angelov, Ancient Philosophy in
Bulgarian Renaissance, PH “Bogianna”, Sofia, 1996, 122
p.)
[ii] Prof. Dr. habil. Ivan Georgov, Istoria na filosofiata, I tom Drevna
filosofia, I otdel : Uvod. Filosofskite v”zgledi u starite iztochni kulturni
narodi. II otdel : Gr”tska filosofia. P”rvi period: Predsokratovska filosofia.,1926,Sofia,
Universitetska biblioteka No 49, 697 p. (Ivan Gueorgoff, History of philosophy, vol.I,
Ancient philosophy I,
Section one: Introduction. Philosophical views of the ancient cultural people
in the far East. Section two: Greek philosophy. First period: Presocratic
philosophy. Sofia, University Library No
49, 1926, 697 p.) Istoria na filosofiata.tom ІV, Nova filosofia do Kanta. Chast I: Nova
filosofia do Khobsa.S., 1936, 460 с. (History of philosophy, vol. IV, Modern philosophy to Kant, Chapter
I: Modern philosophy to Hobbes, S., 1936, 460 p.)
Also he had published studies on Giordano Bruno, Roger
Bacon and Tomaso Campanela, Herbert Spencer
and Kant, and a history of the
modern philosophy from Kant to Hegel (Istoria na novata filosofia ot Kant –
Hegel,S., 1920, 160 p. )
[iii] Op. cit. Vol. . I, Introduction.
[iv] There is also a brief review of the most important ideas in ancient
China, Egypt and Babylon, and the teaching of Zoroaster as well, but according
to him all they are closer to theogony and mythology than is the speculative Indian philosophy.
[v] See especially p. 133-135, 315 ff., op. cit.
[vi] Ivan Sar”iliev, Filosofiata na Sokrat, S., Universitetska biblioteka № 352, 1947, 275
s.
[vii] In that respect see his
studies from the 20-s and 30-s published lately in: Izsledvania v”rkhu kriticheskata
folosofia. S., 1993, 261 s. (Studies in critical philosophy, ed.
By Valentina Topuzova and Dimitar Tsatsov, University Publishing House, 1993,
261 p.)
[viii] Filosofia na pravoto I iurisprudentsia, S., 1930 ,
S., 1992, “Vеk 22”, s. 120. ( Philosophy of right and
jurisprudence, S. , 1930, sec. ed. 1992, “Vek 22”, S., 120 p.
[ix] Leonard Nelson, Sokratoviat
metod, S., 1993, Liubom”drie,
[x] Tsecko Torbov, Osnovi na
istoria na filosofiata. Antichna filosofia I filosofia na srednite vekove. S., University Publishing House,1996, p. 154.
[xi] Philosophische Studien. Beitrage zur Kritik des modernen
Psychologysmus. Leipzig, 1909, 575 S.
[xii] All of them published in : Dimitar
Mikhalchev. Dialectic I
sofistika.
Etiudi na razni filosofski temi,
University Publishing House, 1994, 461 с.
[xiii] DIMIT’R Mikhalchev,
Forma I otnoshenie, S., т.1, 1914, 760
с., second improved ed.,1931, University
Library, No 107, 547
p. Idem, Traditsionnata logika I neinoto materialistichesko obosnovavane, S., 1998, Zakharii Stoianov PH, 581 p.
[xiv] Some of them republished in Dimitar Mikhalchev, Izbrani s”chinenia, S., 1981, “Nauka I izkustvo”, с. 438 ( Dimitar
Mikhalchev, Selected writings, S.,1981, “Science and art”, 438 p.
[xv] See Form and relation, op. cit.
and The traditional logic…,
op.cit.
[xvi] Among the most paradoxical
deeds in the times of the repressions was the expulse from the University and
the schools of thousands of students and teachers, who had taken part in the last phase of the
Second World War – what mattered was not they had fought against the fascist
alliance, but that they had been officers in the Army. Needless to say, the
children of all these thousands of repressed people were forbidden to study at
the University for a life-time (in accordance with the Law for the public education
and the Law for the high University education). A very detailed information and
analysis of that period could be found by the foreign reader in A short
history of modern Bulgaria by Richard J. Crampton, Cambridge University Press, 1987. Published
also in Bulgarian by the Open Society PH,
S., 1994. 368 p. Particularly with regard to the injures of the University
professors, students, teachers, directors and inspectors in secondary schools
in the 40-es abundant facts and document evidence is given in Vesela Chichovska. Politikata sreshtu prosvetnata
traditsia,
S., 1995, 457 p.
( Vesela Tchitchovska :Politics against the educational
tradition, Sofia, University Publishing House, 1995, 457 p.
[xvii] Op. cit.
[xviii] Prof. Torbov had been searched
or - what seems more polite-
visited without invitation by notorious
“scholars-party functionaries” in 1973. They had never returned to him what they had taken from his archive. See the Introduction to his History and
theory of right by Neno Nenovski, Sofia,
1992, Publishing House of the Bulgarian
Academy of Sciences, p. 7. ( Tsecko Torbov : Istoria I teoria na pravoto, S., 1992. Ed. And introduction by Prof. Neno Nenovski.)
[xix] In fact some of these writings were published after their death:
Prof. Torboff’s History and theory of
right and Prof. Michaltchev’s The
traditional logic and …. . What is more, in the so called “discussion” meant
to bring to an end his intellectual carrier in 1954, he had not been allowed to
answer to the criticism, exercised by
the young Marxists at the University. He had only to listen to them and keep
silence. However, he answered them profoundly and with dignity in a manuscript “for
the drawer”. Of course, his response appeared only in 1995: Listen to the
other side as well, S., University Publishing
House (Chuite I drugata strana), 392 p.
[xx] Even in the early 80-s a student in philosophy could hear from his
colleagues confessing Marxism that in order to
understand the skeleton of the ape one has to know in advance the
skeleton of man. That wisdom ascribed to Marx saw the philosophy of the past as
the skeleton of the ape and it is needless to say which one philosophy was
compared to the skeleton of man.
[xxi] The knowledge of the classical languages was considered to be a bourgeois
excess and that’s why all the classical schools were closed in 1948. It had
been a real disaster especially when one pays attention to the fact that in
Bulgaria even original Greek texts had been published in the 40-s in
Bibliotheca Graeca et Latina, published by Metodi B”rdarov and Todor Donchev.
In it has appeared about 25 small, but important texts. Later it has been
impossible to resume this again.
[xxii] Drevnogr”tskite materialisti. Fragmenti I textove ot Heraklit,
Anaxagor, Empedok”l , Demokrit I Epikur. S., 1958.
[xxiii] Der Materialismus des Demokrit. Das
Altertum, Band IV, Heft 4,
Akademie-Verlag, Berlin, 1958.
[xxiv] Filosofijata na Platon.S., BAN, 1984, 189 p.
[xxv] In the Annuary of the Sofia University, Faculty of Philosophy, Book – Philosophy, S., 1986, vol.76, ,.p.
5-55. In Bulg. Problemata za obshtoto I edinitchnoto v logikata na Aristotel.
[xxvi] The sociological thought of the ancient world, vol.I : Egypt,
Sumer, Babylonia, S., 1978, 511 p. Vol. II: In the bosom of philosophy. Greece
(from Hesiod to Democritus), S., Partizdat, 1981, 535 p. Vol.III: Sophistry and
materialism. Metoikos in philosophy, Partizdat, S., 1982, 435 p.
[xxvii] Radi Radev (ed.): Antichna filosofia. S., 1977, 1982, 1988, 1994,
p. 514. Introduction and notes by Radi Radev, translation by Christo Danov.
Radi Radev (ed.): Srednovekovna filosofia, 1987, 1994, p. 576. . Introduction and notes by Radi Radev,
translation by Christo Danov and Temenuga Angelova.
[xxviii] Istoria na antichnata filosofia. S., Nauka I izkustvo, tom I, 1981,
p. 370; tom II, 1983, p.451.
[xxix] Filosofiata na elinizma. S.,
Nauka I izkustvo, 1973, 309 p.
[xxx] Sokrat. Zhivot I delo. S.,
1980, Partizdat, 176 p.; Epicurus, S., Partizdat, 1976, p.; The Latin Aristotle, S., Partizdat,
1982, 175 p.; Heraclitus. S., Partizdat, 1986, 209 p. All of these books have
as appendixes translations of selected places and fragments from the most
important writings of these philosophers.
[xxxi] Materialisticheski
polozhenia v gnoseologiata na Aristotel, S., 1961, Nauka I izkustvo,p.
[xxxii] Iz istoriata na arabskata filosofia. S.,1966, Nauka I izkustvo, 263
p.
[xxxiii] Aristotel. Istoricheskata
s”dba na negovata filosofia. S., 1989, University Publishing House, 417 p.
Aristotel. S., 1988, Narodna prosveta, 215 p.
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