Does the world exist independent of the observer?

New Age/esoteric spiritual groups often teach that "we create our own reality" in the most literal sense. On an ever more widespread basis, Christian fundamentalist views of science and more cynical industry-lobby-created scientific scams on issues like global climate change have gone a long way, especially during the Cheney-Bush administration, toward confusing the distinction between fact and opinion. The philosophical debate between "idealist" and "materialist" views of the world is probably best known from the positions of Plato (idealist) and Aristotle (materialist). Both "idealism" and "materialism" have specific meanings in philosophy that are distinct from the colloquial meanings.

In looking through Brown University's online collection of the New Left journal Radical America, I came across the following reference to a memorable remark by the Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin on the topic. It's from the Sept-Oct 1970 issue of that journal, in an article by Paul Piccone, "Toward and Understanding of Lenin's Philosophy". This issue was largely turned over to the philosophical journal Telos (more on it below), making it effectively an extra issue of Telos.

The comment, quoting Piccone from p. 18 of the linked PDF document, is that:

the independent existence of the [world] cannot be seriously doubted (or else we fall to the level of psychotics or university professors, according to Lenin).

This comes in the middle of Piccone's discussion of Lenin's book Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1908). I haven't been able to find the exact quotation in the linked full English text. So maybe that was Paul Piccone's interpretation of the book, which is full of sharp words for various academics and the concept of "idealist" philosophy. In any case, it's a memorable saying.

It still surprises me to think that a guy like Lenin, who made his mark on history through his political activities in leading the Russian Bolshevik revolution and founding the Soviet Union, spent a significant part of his life pouring through philosophical texts to write a polemic like Materialism and Empirio-criticism. His example in that regard had lasting influence on the Soviet leadership. In his book Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (1992), Alan Bullock described how the leaders in the USSR were expected to show their own mastery of Communist ideological/philosophical concepts.

Telos is a philosophical journal still being published. It was founded by Paul Piccone who was the chief editor until he passed away in 2004. It is still published, and Telos Press has a Web site, although it apparently doesn't make copies of its articles available online. As of this writing, the the alternating slideshow blurbs of "What others are saying about TELOS" includes this one from Jerry Brown, former California Governor, former Mayor of Oakland and current California's environmental-friendly Attorney General: "TELOS remains provocative and independent in a time of intellectual banality."

And, yes, it's entirely believable that Jerry Brown reads Telos. And understands it.

This tribute, The Trek with Telos: A Rememberance [sic] of Paul Piccone (January 19, 1940—July 12, 2004) by Timothy Luke Fast Capitalism 1.2 (2005), gives more biographical details about Piccone. Piccone's focus on the political philosophy of the very conservative Germany theorist Carl Schmitt suggests that he may have developed interests that run in a more conservative direction later in life. Marie Piccone also writes about him and the journal in TELOS: Its Past and Future (2007).

I haven't read many articles from any issue of Telos, so I can't really say much about it's current philosophical or political direction. Browsing the blog posts on the front page of the Telos Press Web site, including one by Irene Lancaster on Islam and another by current Telos editor Russell Berman of Stanford on the recently-release National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, suggests that the blog itself has a distinct neoconservative bent.

Tags: irene lancaster, jerry brown, lenin, paul piccone, russell berman