Studies in Soviet Thought is an organ of a group of men who claim to be exclusively devoted to philosophy, i.e. to theory. Of course, each of them is also a citizen and might, as such, take part in practical activities. The author of the present article has done so many times in the past and is still prepared to act similarly if he considers it his duty. But — and this is a second characteristic of the group — they do believe that specialization is not only possible — it is necessary. They believe that a man devoted to a particular important activity should, in the course of it, abstract from points of view and aims which are not proper to the given field. In particu1lar, they assume that a philosopher acting as such should forget about everything else except his proper task, which is the solving of philosophical problems. To be more precise, it is assumed here that the philosopher acting as such is exclusively interested in theoretical problems and that he tries to solve them, not for the sake of anyone else but in order to increase his own knowledge. The attitude of a philosopher as understood here is first, theoretical and secondly, egotistical.