Spirkin, Aleksandr

Spirkin, Aleksandr Georgievich 

Born Dec. 24, 1918, in the village of Chiganak, in what is now Arkadak Raion, Saratov Oblast. Soviet philosopher and psychologist. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1974). Member of the CPSU since 1960.

Spirkin, who graduated from the V. I. Lenin Moscow Pedagogical Institute in 1941, has been engaged in teaching activities since 1946. From 1960 to 1970 he was head of the philosophy department of the Sovetskaia Entsiklopediia Publishing House and served as assistant editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He has been a senior research worker at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR since 1962 and vice-president of the Philosophy Society of the USSR since 1974. His principal works are devoted to consciousness and self-consciousness, world view, and the subject, structure, and functions of philosophy.

WORKS

Myshlenie i iazyk, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1958.
Proiskhozhdenie soznaniia. Moscow, 1960.
Kurs marksistskoi filosofii, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1966.
Materialisticheskaia dialektika—metodologiia sovremennoi nauki. Moscow, 1968. (With V. F. Glagolev.)
Soznanie i samosoznanie. Moscow, 1972.
Osnovy marksistsko-leninskoi filosofii, 3rd ed. Moscow, 1974. (Coauthor.)