Abstract

The notion of ‘philosophical culture’ can be defined as the totality of conditions of philosophical thought and theory. Among these conditions is an awareness of the historical background of the philosophical culture in question. This awareness, which plays an important cognitive and normative role, often takes the form of a relatively independent discipline: history of philosophy. Over the last decade, Russian historians of philosophy have been attempting to make the repressed past accessible to contemporary philosophy, often modifying their earlier, Soviet work. This can be illustrated with a survey of late Soviet and post-Soviet literature on the Russian philosopher, Vladimir Solov’ëv.