From the Editors:Such was the topic considered by members of a new discussion club, "The Free Word" [Svobodnoe slovo] , along with specialists from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences.

From the Editors:Such was the topic considered by members of a new discussion club, "The Free Word" [Svobodnoe slovo], along with specialists from the Institute of Philosophy, USSR Academy of Sciences.

Virtually the chief complaint thrown at Marxism by contemporary bourgeois philosophers is the accusation of undervaluation of "existential subject matter".

The author analyzes Mamardashvili's philosophical views by putting them in the context of contemporary Western philosophy, especially existentialism. He identifies unique features of Mamardashvili's philosophizing that he equates with existentially interpreted soteriology.

The author places Herzen's view of history in the context of the development of West European political philosophy—in particular, the concepts of "open history" and "historicism.".

Contrary to the widespread opinion that in the Soviet period the Institute of Philosophy had been a mere citadel of ideological dogmatism, the author shows that even in the most oppressive periods of stagnation not only did the institute resist the imposition of this atmosphere, but it openly refused to take part in any campaign of condemnation or ideological reprisal against nonconformists, whether in philosophy, literature, economics, or politics. The reigning atmosphere in the institute at that time was one of (...) glasnost, open argument, and constructive discussion. And the mediator of such an environment was the institute's Communist Party chapter, which among other positive influences, provided the institute and its associates with real protection from Stalinism, hostility, and societal pressure. While in the country as a whole there had never been a civil society, the institute always possessed and actively displayed the key features of such an institution. The famous wall newspaper published at the institute was one sign of such its civic-social maturity. (shrink)

Vladimir Sergeevich Solov'ev was born on January 16, 1853, into the highly educated family of the outstanding Russian historian Sergei Mikhailovich Solov'ev. Solov'ev received his secondary education in the Fifth Moscow Gymnasium, and his higher education at Moscow University. At first Solov'ev studied in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. After three years and eight months there he left the university, but a few months later he stood his candidate's examination for the full university course in the Faculty of History (...) and Philology. At the same time as he was preparing his candidate's examination he audited lectures on theological and philosophical issues at the Moscow Spiritual Academy. (shrink)

Looking back I count, not without some sadness, that I have been a reader of Voprosy filosofii for forty-five years, an author for almost forty, and a staff member for exactly ten. I hope that this entitles me to discuss briefly the most tempting of anniversarial problems; namely, the problem of periodization.

Marxism has relinquished the position of the ruling ideology in Russia without having been subjected to a fundamental critique. There was hardly time to boo it as it expired. The shelves in our libraries are still occupied by hundreds of books in which the Marxist-Leninist doctrine is introduced as the total fulfillment of the preceding social and philosophical thought. The tendentious construct of the history of philosophy that upholds this illusion has not been demolished to this day. People who teach, (...) study, or simply love philosophy fall, as before, into this trap. It has had a particularly strong influence on the reception of the German philosophical classics, which, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Lenin had already raised to the ideological rank of one of the immediate sources of Marxism. (shrink)

Gentlemen! In inviting you to the free pursuit of philosophy, I should like first of all to reply to one question that may arise on this account. This question would be easy to dismiss as excessively naive, one that could only come from someone totally unfamiliar with philosophy. But since I have in mind mainly people who are as yet unfamiliar with philosophy, who have only just come to it, I cannot be so dismissive of this naive question, but rather (...) deem it better to answer it. (shrink)

Could anyone shake nineteenth century Russia out of herphilosophico-juridical stagnation? Was there anyone whodared speak of rights, of freedoms based on vital principles?Was there anyone who had the courage to suggest that the lawof force be turned into recognition of the force of law, orwas bold enough to call for the revival of natural law onits idealist reading? Solov'ëv turned out to be the thinkerwho was able to do these things. An amateur in juridicalquestions, remote from the enlightenment rationalizations ofpolitical (...) liberalism, Solov'ëv set out to lay the basis forjuridical freedom in way that was unexpected philosophicallyand culturally. (shrink)

At the turn of the nineteenth century, the problem of the overman becomes one of the most discussed problems in Russia. This was mainly a consequence of the boom in the popularity of Nietzsche's writings; however, to a significant degree it was conditioned also by Solov'ev's works. The religious pathos of Solov'ev's philosophy prepared Russian specialists in the humanities to take an attentive interest in and eventually to accept precisely the "overhuman" aspect of Nietzschean thought. It would not be wrong (...) to assert that the special nature of the Russian Nietzscheanism of the Silver Age consists precisely in the fact that the idea of the overman firmly occupied a central place in it. While the representatives of academic scholarship and religious writers in the final years of the nineteenth century recoiled in horror from the Nietzschean overman, seeing in him the mark of Satanic origin, the embodied idea of evil, indeed the Antichrist himself, the young generation of idealist philosophers, the activists of the Russian religious renaissance of the beginning of the twentieth century, on the contrary, welcomed the Nietzschean image as a symbol of the approaching religious renewal of culture. The general mood of those years was accurately conveyed by D. Merezhkovskii: "The overman is the last point, the sharpest summit of the great mountain ridge of European philosophy, with its age-old roots in the rebellious, solitary, and aloof personality. One can go no further: precipice and abyss, fall or flight: the way of the overman-religion.". (shrink)

Freedom, as a product of the historical development of society, is one of the very greatest social values. It testifies to human control over objective forces of nature and society.

Freedom, as a product of the historical development of society, is one of the very greatest social values. It testifies to human control over objective forces of nature and society.

Solov'ev (1853-1900) gilt als "der erste christliche Denker, der den individuellen und nicht nur den Gattungssinn der Liebe zwischen Mann und Frau anerkannte" (Berdjajev). Der bedeutendste russische Philosoph des 19. Jahrhunderts sieht in der Unbedingtheit des leidenschaftlichen Verlangens der sinnlichen Liebe ein Geschehen der unbedingten Anerkennung des geliebten Menschen - das Fundament der Ethik.

I attempt to clarify the connection between two late texts by V.S. Solov''ëv: Justification of the Good and Theoretical Philosophy. Solov''ëv drew attention to the intrinsic connection between moral and intellectual virtues. Theoretical Philosophy is the initial -- unfinished -- sketch of the dynamism of mind seeking truth as a good. I sketch several parallels and analogies between the doctrine of moral experience set out in Justification and the account of the intellect''s dynamism based on immediate certitude set out in (...) Theoretical Philosophy. Solov''ëv can thus be considered as a virtue epistemologist in the current meaning given to this description. I conclude by suggesting that Solov''ëv''s position on these questions does not easily cohere with the impersonalism he appears to defend in Theoretical Philosophy. (shrink)