Abstract

P. Ia. Chaadaev continues to attract the attention of researchers of Russian thought. Some recent publications in our press justify the assertion that scholars are interested not only in this or that side of the views of "the philosopher of Basmannaia Street" but also in the very character of his mentality and its place in the history of Russian philosophical thought. Thus, Viacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov writes in his article "Chaadaev-Our Contemporary" [Chaadaev-nash sovremennik] : "There are several reasons why Chaadaev is not at home in Russia and in the history of Russian thought. One of them is his extreme rationalism and logical orientation. He is the follower of Western European rationalism, mainly, I think, of the French rationalist tradition. For him the chief achievement of civilization is the syllogism, the deduction of logical conclusions from some kind of premises and he takes history to be a unified whole." The same problem of Chaadaevan mentality is raised by P.V. Kuznetsov in his article "The Metaphysical Narcissus: P. Ia. Chaadaev and the Fate of Philosophy in Russia" [Metafizicheskii nartsiss. P. Ia. Chaadaev i sud'ba filosofii v Rossii] , which contrasts Chaadaev's thought with the Eastern "apophatic consciousness."