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History of Russian Philosophy

Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University ) Alexander Shishkin Department of Philosophy. History of Russian Philosophy. Lecture 11 Russian Existentialism. Lecture 10 Russian Existentialism. Lev Shestov (1866-1938). Nikolay Berdyayev (1874-1948).

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History of Russian Philosophy

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  1. Moscow State Instituteof International Relations (MGIMO-University)Alexander ShishkinDepartment of Philosophy History of Russian Philosophy Lecture 11Russian Existentialism

  2. Lecture 10RussianExistentialism • Lev Shestov(1866-1938) • Nikolay Berdyayev(1874-1948)

  3. RussianExistentialism • Lev Shestov • Epistemology of the Absurd • Ontology of the Absurd • Ethics of the Absurd • NikolayBerdyayev • Creative Activity and Objectification • The Meaning of Creative Activity • The Mind-Nature Dualism and the “Corruption” of Being • Understanding Mind and Understanding Nature • Freedom • Freedom and Determination • Freedom and Nothingness • God and Freedom: The Tragic Theodicy • Ethics • The Ethic of Law, the Ethic of Redemption, the Ethic of Creativity • Beyond Moralism • Universal Salvation • Philosophy of History • The Crisis of Culture • “The New Middle Age” • The Destiny of Russia

  4. Lev Shestov(1866-1938) Principal Writings • The Good in the Teachings of Count Tolstoy and F. Nietzsche: Philosophy and Sermon(1900) • Dostoevsky and Nietzsche: The Philosophy of Tragedy(1903) • The Apotheosis of Groundlessness: An Essay in Adogmatic Thinking(1905) • The Power of the Keys(1923) • On the Scale of Job: Wandering Through Souls(1929) • Athens and Jerusalem(1938) • Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy(publ. 1939)

  5. Lev ShestovEpistemology of the Absurd Reason istruth’s greatest enemy.Rather than liberating our thought, the “truths” of reason serve toenslave it. This may sound absurd, but in the world of the absurdabsurdity proves to bea criterion of truth,rather than a sign of thoughtless or misunderstanding. Rational understanding is based on the law of contradiction and the law of sufficient reason,be it causation or expediency. To reason to understand and explain something means to present it as necessary, and, therefore, justified.

  6. Lev ShestovOntology of the Absurd The world outlook provided by reason is unacceptable: it is both false,andimmoral. Contrary to what reason assumes or asserts, our world “lieth in wickedness”:injustice and evil prevail over justice and good. The real, the most real is something contrary to the world of noumena, it is fathomless, secret, unprecedented, unexpected, present in the single, the accidental, the temporary, not consideredsubspeciaeaeternitatis.

  7. Lev ShestovEthics of the Absurd • Traditional philosophy has striven to be “science”, butwhat people need is not a true philosophy, but a better philosophy. • The Hellenic wisdommust yield to the Jerusalem-type longing for a living God. • For what is impossible for man, is possible for God: everything is in His hand, He can change even the past. • Awareness that is not seduced by the appetite for universal understanding, that does not strive to become “knowledge”, is faith/belief, “the second dimension of thinking”. • “Truths” of reason demand blind obedience to their impersonal necessity; faith/belief presupposes personal freedom and courage.

  8. NikolayBerdyayev(1874-1948) Principal Writings • The Philosophy of Freedom(1911) • The Meaning of the Creative Act: An Essay in Anthropodicy(1916) • The Destiny of Man: An Essay in Paradoxical Ethics(1931) • Self and the World of Objects: Philosophy of Solitude and Communication (Eng. transl. Solitudeand Society (1934) • On Man’s Slavery and Freedom: An Essay inPersonalist Philosophy(Eng. transl.Slavery and Freedom)(1940) • The Russian Idea: The Main Problems of Russian Thought(1946) • The Origin and Meaning of Russian Communism (Eng. transl.The Origin of Russian Communism) (1955)

  9. Creative Activity and ObjectificationThe Meaning of Creative Activity • The antinomy of man’s grandeur versus man’s pettiness is resolved in the concept of Godmanhood that implies deification of man and humanisation of God. • Human creative activity must become continuation of the Creation, for it is only through his creative activity that man becomes like God. • Traditional theology has belittled man by emphasising the notion of man as God’s slave and ignoring the other aspect of Christian teaching, viz. man’s godlikeness. • Salvation is only the preliminary goal; the ultimate goal is creative activity.

  10. Creative Activity and Objectification The Meaning of Creative Activity It is not creative activity that is to be justified; on the contrary life is to be justified by creative activity. Creative act is a value in itself, that allows for no external judgement… The cult of holiness must be supplemented by the cult of genius.

  11. Creative Activity and Objectification The Mind-Nature Dualism and the “Corruption” of Being • The mind is activity and creativity,nature is passivity, objectification, materiality. • The world of objects lacks the profundity possessed by Mind: • the Mind is a noumenon, a “thing in itself”, • nature is only a phenomenon, an appearance. • Originally all reality was mental; but this initial being became “corrupted”, fallen, and the Mind became alienated from itself. • It is wrong to assume that objectification occurs only in the sphere of cognition;it occurs in the sphere of being, too; objectification is but an epistemological representation of the fallen being.

  12. Creative Activity and Objectification Understanding Mind and Understanding Nature The Kingdom of Mind can be understood only intuitively,through mystical experience. Understanding of nature, of “the world of objects”is necessarilyexternal. As a result of objectification reality is identified with that which is secondary (objectified). The reality of what is primary(non-objectified, non-rational) is, on the contrary, in doubt.

  13. Freedom Freedom and Determination Man was created to be free, but his original freedom comes incontradiction with natural determination, society seeking to bring everything individual and unique under a general standard, God.

  14. Freedom Freedom and Nothingness The original (irrational)freedom has not been created by God,it is eternally rooted inNothingness. The dualism of an existential self and the world of objectification conceals a deeper dualism of God the Creator and the uncreated freedom. Man is, therefore, not only “the son of God”, he is also the son of freedom (of the non-being, the meon). This explains his irresistible yearning for evil,the irrational lust for destruction.

  15. Freedom God and Freedom: The Tragic Theodicy • All creation, and especially the human soul, is the field of struggle between God and freedom. • The myth of the Fall illustrates God’s inability to prevent evil rooted in the freedom that is not God’s creation. • God has had to act again, this time as Saviour, not as Creator. The Divine Sacrifice has been to triumph over the meonic freedom without violence, by means of internal enlightenment. • Thistragic theodicydoes not guarantee God’s victory over the irrational freedom, but it inspires belief in this victory.

  16. Ethics The Ethic of Law • The ethic of law is thelowest,albeitnecessary stage of morality. • This ethic is predominantlynegativeand consists of prohibitions:commandments, taboos, vetoes. • Without these interdictions man risks to degenerate into an animal. • But the ethic of law “bypasses” personalityand may result in formal legalism of the Pharisee kind with its accompanying hypocrisy and bigotry and even in the sadistic “fanaticism of goodness” (“the nightmare of malicious goodness”).

  17. EthicsThe Ethic of Redemption • The ethic of redemption is the ethic of forgiveness, love and compassion. • But it easily degenerates into “transcendental egoism”, the exclusive concern about one’s own personal salvation that may result in religious masochism and kill the love for one’s neighbour.

  18. Ethics The Ethic of Creativity • Creative activitytranscends the ethics of law and redemption and has its own ethic. • Creator isjustifiedby hiscreation. • The fear of punishment and fear of eternal tormentplay no role in the ethic of creativity. • Sublimation, or transformationof passionsis passion’sliberationfrom lust and the assertion of creative freedom. • Creator is always unselfish:his care is not about himself, it is about his creation; he loves his creation as God loves the world. • Through his creative activity man becomesGod’s free coworker, his “lesser brother”.

  19. Ethics Beyond Moralism It is bad to have to distinguishbetween good and evil, butit is good to do it when we have;it is bad to have the experienceof evil,butit is good to be ableto tell good from evil on the basis of that experience.

  20. Ethics Beyond Moralism The world develops from the original nondiscrimination between good and evil through sharp discrimination between good and evil to the final nondiscrimination between good and evil enriched by all the experience of discrimination.

  21. Ethics Universal Salvation The moral of higher good is not indifference to good and evil,does not imply toleration for evil. It demands more, not less, viz.it seeksenlightenment and salvation of the wicked. No salvation is possible while even one soul remains in hell.There is no such thing as separate salvation.

  22. Ethics Universal Salvation Morality began with the question: “Cain, where is Abel thy brother?”

  23. Ethics Universal Salvation It will end with the question: “Abel,where is Cain thy brother?”

  24. Ethics Universal Salvation • Salvation can only besoborny(here: universal, encompassing everyone). • Hell isisolationfrom others. • The tragedy of Hell is not that God cannot forgive the sinners’ sins, it is that the sinner cannot forgive himself. • Hell is not some outer space where sinners are tortured, it is that absolute loneliness,in which the voice of conscience muffled during life torments the sinner with the dreadful inextinguishable fire of self-condemnation.

  25. Ethics Universal Salvation The idea of Hell must be fully dissociated from anything suggesting transfer of the principles of criminal law onto Heaven. Hell as the subjective sphere, as soul’s immersion in its own darkness,isthe immanent result of sinful existence,nota transcendent punishment of sin. Hell isthe inability to pass over to the transcendent, the immersion in the immanent.

  26. Philosophy of HistoryThe Crisis of Culture • The principal cause of the contemporary crisis is the humanity’s break-away from Christianity and humanism. • Christianity brought the humankind the message about the Kingdom of God;humanism, realisation of freedom and its value. • But people nowadays have opted for the kingdom of man rather than the Kingdom of God and for satiation rather than freedom. • Instead of organic culture people have begun to build mechanical civilisation, intrinsically antireligious and antipersonal. Rather than striving to the image and likeness of God, man is becoming the image and likeness of a soulless machine. • Civilisation has developed tremendous technical power that was to give man mastery over nature; instead this power has enslaved man himself and killed his soul.

  27. Philosophy of History “The New Middle Age” • The mania for freedom alienated from God results, dialectically, in the worst forms of slavery;humanism alienated from its religious source, in dehumanisation and bestiality. • Relative prosperitysends mind asleep; self-satisfied person becomes depersonilised; bourgeois culture, unable to resist “new barbarianism”, proves to be but a transitory stage between pure humanism and “the new Middle Age”. • This “New Middle Age” promises to be worse than the previous one, because the Christian idea no longer protects the person from complete disintegration. Shopkeepers and chauffeurs have replaced monks and knights, themselves to be replaced by commissars and chekists who tyrannise over people in the name of popular will.

  28. Philosophy of HistoryThe Destiny of Russia • Communism is the product of the materialist spirit of capitalism and is capitalism’s Nemesis. • The strength of Bolshevism is its criticism of the falsehoods of bourgeois culture, but it provides no positive alternative because it is as infected with materialism as is the capitalism. • The strength of Bolshevism is thus destructive, not constructive.

  29. Philosophy of HistoryThe Destiny of Russia The Russian people do not care to createa middle kingdom of humanism;they do not care for the rule of law in the European sense of the word<…> They want eithera Kingdom of God,a brotherhood in Christ, or a comradehood in Antichrist,the rule of the Prince of This World.

  30. Questions?

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