Publication Details

Abstract

The author proffers some ideas concerning the theory of social lawfulness; he does it in the form of a criticism on the philosophical interpretation of economical laws presented by E. Lobl in his papers concerned with dogmatism in economical thinking. The author points at the unjustifiable liquidation of objectivity of the economical laws of socialism, and he emphasizes that the task of the science of economics is to disclose them on the basis of argumentation founded on the difference between the subjects and methods of natural and social sciences on the one hand, and on the faulty viewpoint according to which objectivity is being identified with spontaneity. The author discloses the gnoseological essence of the so-called „codification“ in political economy, i. e., the deduction of economical facts immediately from economical laws, or to proclaim phenomenal forms of processes as laws. The author criticizes the idea according to which the succes of economical activity of the socialistic society depends on its being in accordance with the economical lawfulness of socialism as if for instance disproportions were contradictory to the economical law of the division of socialistic labour in certain proportions. Disproportions are, however, for the socialistic society a negative expression of the said law. These ideas are issuing from the identification of an unavoidable direction, tendency of movement and its lawfulness. There is no collision between social activity and the lawfulness of this activity (this is only an incorrectly formulated relationship of the essence and phenomenon of social activity), but between cognizance and lawfulness, knowledge and the results of activity. These are the relationships from which originate the philosophically — historical categories of spontaneous and cognizant activities. The author considers them as forms of objectivity of social movement. The incorrectly conceived identity of the objective with the spontaneous (objective is only what is spontaneous) leads to the denial of the objectivity of conscious social activity, and eventually to the conclusion thai objective economical laws act in socialism only where they act spontaneously.