Anti-formalistic Disccusion about the Theory of Physics in the first half of 1930-s in the Soviet Union

Abstract

In this study, I analysed the discourse of a philosophical dispute about the idea or theory of physics, which occurred in the first half of 1930-s in the Soviet Union. I examined the internal contents of the dispute between leading physicists and communist philosophers or old-generated technicians. This analysis has shown that against leading physicists such as Ia. I. Frenkel' or I.E. Tamm, their opponents such as V.E. Egorshin (communist philosopher) or V.F. Mitkevich (old-generation electrical engineer) insisted on the importance of materialistic/realistic interpretation of field proposed by Frenkel', which allowed the action in distance. Egorshin, based on Engels' philosophy, maintained the importance of the idea of energy as the reflection of the motion of real matters. Despite the ignorance (as pointed out by Soviet physicists) or bitterness of their discourse, the argument of the opponents is also understandable from their "anti-formalistic" tendency. This tendency has continued to form a base of the dispute about the philosophy of physics in the Soviet Union.