Maurice Cornforth’s Followers (18)

Maurice Cornforth

Born

in The United Kingdom

October 28, 1909

Died

December 31, 1980

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a.k.a. Maurice Campbell Cornforth

Maurice Campbell Cornforth (28 October 1909 – 31 December 1980) was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy. He later became a leading ideologist of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

He is noted for his attack on the aesthetic theories of Christopher Caudwell, and for his later partial engagement with the linguistic philosophy of Oxford origin of the 1940s and 1960s. He also wrote a defence of Marxism against Karl Popper, whose thought he heavily criticized.

His In Defense of Philosophy attacks, in their relationship to science, empiricist philosophies of many kinds, a.k.a. Maurice Campbell Cornforth

Maurice Campbell Cornforth (28 October 1909 – 31 December 1980) was a British Marxist philosopher. When he began his career in philosophy in the early 1930s, he was a follower of Wittgenstein, writing in the then current style of analytic philosophy. He later became a leading ideologist of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

He is noted for his attack on the aesthetic theories of Christopher Caudwell, and for his later partial engagement with the linguistic philosophy of Oxford origin of the 1940s and 1960s. He also wrote a defence of Marxism against Karl Popper, whose thought he heavily criticized.

His In Defense of Philosophy attacks, in their relationship to science, empiricist philosophies of many kinds, such as those of Rudolf Carnap (linguistic analysis) and William James (pragmatism), on the "materialist" grounds that they divorce science and scientific investigation from the search for truer understanding of the really existing universe. In this book there is a combination of Marxism with deep insights into the interrelations of the various sciences and the philosophical conundrums produced by the empiricist attempt to reduce science to the collection and correlation of data. Both the insights are based on the theory of the primacy of physical work and tools (thus, "materialism") in the development of specifically human traits such as language, abstract thought, and social organization, and the essential role of the external world in the increasingly complex development of forms of life. These latter ideas are remarkably consistent with the most current evolutionary thinking in biology and anthropology.

His multi-volume book entitled "Dialectical Materialism" was originally published in 1953 by the International Publishers, Co., INC. The first U.S. edition of this work was printed in 1971. The text originated from lectures that Cornforth received funding for from the London District Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1950. The first volume, "Materialism and the Dialectical Method" provides a good introduction to several important sociological principles; idealism, metaphysics, materialism, mechanical materialism, and dialectical materialism, in addition to Marxist philosophy. The other volumes of this text are entitled as follows, Volume Two Historical Materialism, Volume Three Theory of Knowledge." ...more

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Maurice Cornforth’s books

Average rating: 4.05 · 337 ratings · 41 reviews · 35 distinct works • Similar authors

	Materialism and the Dialectical Method 4.07 avg rating — 145 ratings — published 1953 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Historical Materialism 4.06 avg rating — 53 ratings — published 1971 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dialectical Materialism: An Introductory Course really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 44 ratings — published 1997 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Theory of Knowledge: 003 4.41 avg rating — 29 ratings — published 1973 — 14 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	مدخل إلى المادية الجدلية 3.87 avg rating — 15 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Science versus Idealism 3.91 avg rating — 11 ratings — published 1962 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Open Philosophy and the Open Society 4.33 avg rating — 9 ratings — published 1968 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Communism and human values 3.50 avg rating — 4 ratings — published 1972 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Communism and Philosophy: Contemporary Dogmas and Revisions of Marxism 3.25 avg rating — 4 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Marxism and the Linguistic Philosophy 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — published 1965 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Maurice Cornforth (?)

“Of course, science is based on observation, but this is not its most essential feature. The basis of science is not mere observation, but experiment. Science is based on an activity of interfering with nature, changing it. [...] And we test it, develop it, and use it also in changing nature. Science is not a dogma, but a guide to action. On the other hand, if it becomes divorced from practice, it degenerates into dogma.”
― Maurice Cornforth, Dialectical Materialism Volume One (1) Materialism and the Dialectical Method

tags: communism, dialectical-materialism, marxism, nature, science

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