Alexander Spirkin

Alexander Georgyevich Spirkin (Алекса́ндр Гео́ргиевич Спи́ркин; 24 December 1918– 28 June 2004) was a Soviet and Russian philosopher and psychologist. He was born in Saratov Governorate and graduated from the Moscow State Pedagogical University. In 1959 he received his doctorate in philosophy for a dissertation on the origin of consciousness.

He became a professor in 1970, and a year later was elected vice-president of the USSR Philosophical Society. On November 26, 1974, Alexander Spirkin became a Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

His principal works deal with the problems of consciousness and self-consciousness, worldview, and the subject matter, structure and functions of philosophy. Prof. Spirkin's Fundamentals of Philosophy (1988; English translation 1990) expounding Marxist–Leninist philosophy in popular form was awarded a prize at a competition of textbooks for students of higher educational establishments.