Valentin Asmus (philosopher)

Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus (Russian: Валенти́н Фердина́ндович А́смус; December 30, 1894 – June 4, 1975) was a Soviet philosopher. He was one of the small group who continued the classical European philosophical tradition through the early Soviet times.^[1] He was an independent thinker and unorthodox Marxist,^[2] with interests in the history of philosophy and aesthetics.

He graduated from St. Vladimir University in 1919, then moved to Moscow in 1927.^[3] At this period he attacked the views of William James.^[4] In the mid-1920s, he was a theorist of literary constructivism.^[5]

Through his wife Irina, he became a friend of Boris Pasternak, from about 1931.^[6] His major work Marx and Bourgeois Historicism (1933) was influenced by György Lukács.^[7] At this point an opponent of formal logic, he changed position and wrote a textbook on it. There is a story of his being summoned to see Joseph Stalin, and required to give logic lectures to Red Army generals.^[8]

He was Professor at Moscow State University from 1942 to 1972.^[9] In the 1960s he edited Plato, with Aleksei Losev. Outside the Soviet Union, Asmus was mostly known for his contributions to studying Immanuel Kant.

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