APEIRON
[Greek: boundless] A term in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, introduced by the
materialist Ionian philosopher Anaximander. It refers to the
boundless, originally formless, ever-moving flux of nature, from which all worlds and
physical objects as we know them today have arisen. It seems that this was an early attempt
to form something like the conception that Marx and Engels referred to as “matter in motion”,
though it is perhaps meant to be more like the original or primitive matter
in motion.
Anaximander thought that there needed to
be some principle (or peras) of order to render this original apeiron
into the worlds and objects that we see today. He called this primary principle the
arché. Apparently he considered the essence of this principle to be that of
the struggle of opposites, since that is how Anaximander viewed the world and its objects
as having arisen from the apeiron.
AP&P
This is the jargon being used in the Revolutionary Communist Party,
USA for the following mouthful: “The culture of appreciation, promotion,
and popularization around the leadership, the body of work and the method and
approach of Bob Avakian.” AP&P is thus a short-hand reference to what most people
would simply call the ghastly personality cult which
the RCP has created around its leader Bob Avakian.
APOSTASY
1. [In religion:] Renunciation of religious faith.
2. [In intellectual or political matters:] The renuciation or abandonment of a previous
intellectual or political viewpoint, or defection to an opposing viewpoint.
A person who renounces their previous
faith or viewpoint is called an apostate.
“... every philosophy of the past without exception was accused by the theologians of apostasy...” —Marx, leading article in the Kölnische Zeitung, # 179, 1842. [Marx’s point being that religion opposed all philosophical thought and progress.]
APPEAL TO REASON
An important newspaper of the American Socialist movement which was founded in Kansas in
1895. During World War I it took up an internationalist position which brought it under
government attack. It ceased publication in 1919.
APPEARANCE AND ESSENCE
“We should draw a lesson here: Don’t be misled by false appearances. Some of our comrades are easily misled by them. There is contradiction between appearance and essence in everything. It is by analyzing and studying the appearance of a thing that people come to know its essence. Hence the need for science. Otherwise, if one could get at the essence of a thing by intuition, what would be the use of science? What would be the use of study? Study is called for precisely because there is contradiction between appearance and essence. There is a difference, though, between the appearance and the false appearance of a thing, because the latter is false. Hence we draw the lesson: Try as far as possible not to be misled by false appearances.” —Mao, "Speeches at the National Conference of the Communist Party of China: Concluding Speech" (March 31, 1955), SW 5:165-6.
APPRECIATION (Aesthetics)
The recognition and sensitive awareness of the aesthetic values in a work of art or other
thing (such as a natural phenomenon).
APPRECIATION (Economics)
An increase in price or exchange
value.
APTHEKER, Herbert (1915-2003)
A historian specializing in African-American history, and a long-time leader of the
revisionist Communist Party, USA. His book American Negro Slave Revolts (1943) was
pathbreaking and important, but it seems he was never really a revolutionary Marxist.
Aptheker joined the CPUSA in 1939, and
remained loyal to it until 1991, when at around the time of the collapse of the revisionist
Soviet Union he left with the social-democratic breakaway group, the
Committees of Correspondence. He strongly
defended Soviet social-imperialism in 1956 when it invaded Hungary, and again in 1968 when
it invaded Czechoslovakia.
After the death of Aptheker and his wife,
his daughter Bettina wrote a book [Intimate Politics (2006)] in which she claimed
that her father had repeatedly sexually molested her from the age of 4 until the age of
13—but that she had not remembered this until writing that book! We may not know what to
believe about that accusation, but we can be very sure that Herbert Aptheker was definitely
a revisionist.
AQUINAS, Thomas (1225-74)
The most important Scholastic philosopher and theologian
of the Roman Catholic Church, which after his death declared him to be a “saint”.
See also:
Philosophical doggerel about
Aquinas.
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