The dual meaning of ‘empiriomonism’ in the work of Alexander Bogdanov

In Alexander Bogdanov’s work, the term ‘empiriomonism’ is used in two ways: broadly to signify his general worldview (a monist, naturalist, determinist, scientific outlook) and narrowly to refer to the philosophy of cognition and being (a critical, transformed version of the empiriocriticism of Richard Avenarius and Ernst Mach) that he briefly employed to substantiate his general worldview. It has often been said that Bogdanov developed empiriomonism ‘to bring Marxism up-to-date’ with modern science, but this is a misunderstanding. Before he ever used the term ‘empiriomonism’ Bogdanov had already elaborated an up-to-date scientific worldview that presented Marx’s historical materialism as a natural science, and it was this worldview that constitutes ‘empiriomonism’ in the broad meaning of the term. Bogdanov developed empiriomonism (in its narrow sense) not to substantiate Marxism philosophically but to provide an up-to-date philosophical foundation for his own scientific outlook. The worldview he defended in Empiriomonism was precisely his initial scientific outlook, but in the course of justifying it philosophically, he arrived at highly speculative and unscientific conclusions that he quickly abandoned, making empiriomonism, in its narrow sense, a brief episode in his intellectual development.