Russian religious philosopher and psychologist. In 1922 he was exiled abroad. From
"legal Marxism" moved on to religious philosophy, developed the doctrine "about
unity". He opposed socialism as an extreme degree of social
rationalism. Major works: "The Subject of Knowledge" (1915), "The Meaning of Life" (1926), "The Spiritual Foundations of Society" (1930), "The Incomprehensible" (1939), "Reality and Man. The Metaphysics of Human Being" (published in 1956) .
Jewish family His father, Ludwig Semenovich, a doctor, was awarded the nobility in
connection with the awarding of his Order of Sa Stanislav 3rd degree for service during
Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 After the death of his father in 1882, Semyon, his
brother and sister were brought up by their mother - Rosalia Grandfather from the mother's side M Rosyansky
deep interest in religion and its philosophical problems "My Christianity I
always recognized as a layering on the basis of the Old Testament, as a natural development
religious life of my childhood"
Frank attended the gymnasium at the Lazarev Institute of Oriental Languages in Moscow
(1886-1891), and then the local gymnasium in Nizhny Novgorod, where he moved
mother with family
after the divorce, young Frank was also greatly influenced by his stepfather - Vasily
Frank read the works of Mikhailovsky, Pisarev, Lavrov, trying to understand
contradictory process of development of social life. In the senior classes of the gymnasium
Semyon got acquainted with populist and Marxist ideas Under the influence
gymnasium circle, in which the works of Marx were discussed, Frank was and
the first two years of study at the Faculty of Law of Moscow University, where
he entered in 1894. During this period, Frank participates in discussions on issues
socialism and political economy and is engaged in "revolutionary activities"
as a supporter of the Social Democrats (in civilian clothes, so that the student uniform
did not pay attention, goes to Sokolniki to "agitate" the workers) Soon, however,
he decides to "break with the revolutionary environment and do science" "I felt
irritation from hasty categorical youthful judgments and from hiding
ignorance behind them"
Gradually, Semyon Frank moved away from his comrades in the Social Democratic circle and began to attend debates held at the apartment of his supervisor, professor of economics A Chuprov. Nevertheless, he did not break
connections with the student movement
In 1898, after receiving a "graduate certificate" of eight
semesters of the university, Frank postpones state exams for a year in order to
better prepare for them. However, he failed to pass the exams - in the country
student unrest began Frank was arrested and expelled from Moscow for two
years without the right to reside in university cities. First, he goes to his relatives in
Nizhny Novgorod, and then - in the autumn of the same year - goes to Berlin, where,
having received permission to attend the university, attends lectures on political
economy and philosophy
In 1898, Frank met PB Struve, who had a particularly noticeable effect on him.
influence "I am infinitely indebted to him in my mental and spiritual development, all
life - 46 years of closeness - we were deeply in solidarity internally (small
political divergence in the 20s - does not count), and 15 years - from 1902 to 1917
worked together for years, saw each other almost daily. I feel orphaned, "-
he wrote a few days after Struve's death in 1944, Frank entered
group of "critical Marxists" along with N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov, P. Struve and
M Tugan-Baranovsky Frank's fundamentally important work of that time was
"Marx's theory of value and its significance" (1900), which was
an attempt to combine Marx's theory of value with the Austrian psychological
school of value
In 1899-1901, Frank was mainly in exile in Germany,
was interested in German philosophy. Finally, in the spring of 1901, having received - before
expiration of the two-year period of expulsion - the right to take examinations in any of the
universities in the country, except for Moscow, Frank returns to Russia and takes them
in Kazan Influenced by the work of F Nietzsche "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", Frank
wrote an article on Nietzsche for the collection Problems of Idealism (1902), which reflected
evolution of "critical Marxists" towards idealism After discovering
Nietzsche Frank was also influenced by Fichte, Kant and neo-Kantianism, in 1904
From that time on, a period begins in his life, characterized by him as "years
learning and wanderings" Earning a living mainly by translations, he often travels
abroad - mainly to Stuttgart and Paris, where Struve publishes his magazine
"Liberation", takes part in the first congress of the Cadet Party, from the autumn of 1905
years, after moving to St. Petersburg, together with Struve begins to edit
political weekly "Polyarnaya Zvezda", and then in March 1906 after it
closure becomes effectively the editor of its short-lived successor
"Freedom and Culture"
In the same years, together with Berdyaev and Bulgakov, S. Frank collaborated in the journals
"New Way" and "Questions of Life" From 1907 until the revolution, he was
member of the editorial board of the journal "Russian Thought" and led the philosophical department in it.
magazine - one of the best in those years - his articles were published, reprinted
later (with the inclusion of a number of works from other publications) in the form of two collections
"Philosophy and Life" (1910) and "Living Knowledge" (1923)
During this period, Frank's political views underwent significant changes from
openly hostile to the Russian state and its political system to
more evolutionist position, Frank and Struve jointly criticized utopian
political views and utilitarian ethics of the socialists This served as the basis
famous collection of articles "Milestones" (1909), which called into question all
shades of revolutionary outlook
Frank began his teaching and academic career
relatively late, when he was already over thirty And marriage prompted him to this and
related search for a more sustainable source of livelihood In July 1908
Frank marries Tatyana Sergeevna Bartseva, a student of higher evening
courses at the gymnasium M.N. Stoyunina, where he lectured on social psychology
From that moment, Frank remarks, “the era of youth ended in my life,
teachings, ideological fermentation and the search for one's inner and outer path I
finally chose scientific and philosophical creativity and professorship as his vocation
in philosophy"
Four children were born in the family Victor (1909), Natalia (1910), Alexey (1912) and
Vasily (1920).
Influenced by the writings of Goethe and Spinoza, Frank evolved from idealistic to
ideal-realistic position. In subsequent years, he synthesized his knowledge of
history of philosophy and his own worldview Since 1906, Frank taught
philosophy in various educational institutions of St. Petersburg, including Bestuzhev courses,
Polytechnic Institute In 1912 he converted to Orthodoxy and became
assistant professor at St. Petersburg University, and a year later he was sent to
Germany to complete the master's thesis "The Subject of Knowledge",
which represented the basis of his philosophical system (he defended his dissertation in May
1916) Immediately after the release, Frank's work was noted in the philosophical world. In
during the First World War, Frank lived in Petrograd, working on the book "Soul
human", conceived by him as a continuation of the "Object of Knowledge".
Back in the summer of 1917, Frank tells in his memoirs, the Ministry
of National Education invited him to become dean and full professor
opened in Saratov Faculty of History and Philosophy Since the prospects for
there was practically no continuation of scientific studies in the capital, Frank accepted this
sentence. However, in Saratov, living conditions during the Civil War were
difficult, so in the fall of 1921, Frank decides to leave him and again
move to Moscow - the city of your childhood and youth
In Moscow, he is elected a member of the "Philosophical Institute", separated from
university into a special educational institution, and together with Berdyaev creates the Academy
spiritual culture, in which, as a dean, he organizes and reads public
lectures on philosophical, religious and general cultural topics In the same years in one
private Moscow publishing houses publish his book "Essay on methodology
social sciences", and in Petrograd - "Introduction to philosophy in a concise presentation"
Meanwhile, the political situation in the country continued to be difficult, and in autumn
1922, by decision of the government, a large group was expelled from Soviet Russia
prominent scientists, writers, philosophers
In the late autumn of 1922, the German ships "Prussia" and "Oberburgomaster Haken"
left the harbor of St. Petersburg
"Philosophical steamer" (as the Russians said), "ship of fools of the 20th century" (witted
Germans) took away the intellectual elite of the nation Among the passengers of the steamer
"Oberburgomaster Haken" stood out for his large figure Semyon Ludwigovich Frank
His short-sighted eyes always shone with kindness, disposed to a frank
The high forehead of a thinker.
By the time of forced emigration, Frank was 45 years old It seemed that his creative
the path had to end. However, as his son writes, his most mature works
created precisely "in a foreign land, in the most difficult living conditions and, for the most part, in
complete spiritual loneliness
Frank and his family arrived in Germany at the end of September 1922 and settled in
Berlin. Although he knew German from a young age and spoke it fluently, he
it was not easy to earn a living Together with Berdyaev, Semyon Frank worked in
Religious and Philosophical Academy, which, however, soon moved to Paris and
became one of the intellectual centers of Russian emigration. He also taught at
Russian Scientific Institute, where young emigrants from Russia studied
university program, became director of the institute in his final year
existence (1932) Frank was a member of the Russian Academic Union, entered the
Brotherhood of St. Sophia, and also took part in the Russian Student Christian
movement. In the 1930s, with the rise of Hitler to power, many Jews lost
work, Frank's family was in poverty. Help came from a Swiss psychoanalyst
L Binswanger, whom Frank met in 1934 and whom he supported
active correspondence. In 1937, Frank was called for interviews in the Gestapo, this
was the reason for his hasty departure at the end of the year from Germany to France:
the family soon followed.
In Germany, Frank was forced to lead the life of a recluse, this affected
his extraordinary productivity as a philosopher. In the early years he wrote several
popular philosophical works for Russian students "Crash of idols" (1924),
"The Meaning of Life" and "Fundamentals of Marxism" (both 1926), the article "I and We" (1925).
The book "The collapse of idols" leaves the impression of the author's confusion. She rather
excited, than calmed the mind Naturally, the question arose about the continuation
The pathos of the book, like the previous one, is pain for the defeat of the Russian people "What to do
me and others - to save the world and thereby justify their lives for the first time? Before
disaster of 1917, the answer was one - to improve social and political conditions
the life of the people. Now - the overthrow of the Bolsheviks, the restoration of past forms of life
people Along with this type of answer, there is another in Russia, related to it -
Tolstoyism, preaching "moral perfection", educational
work on yourself"
Frank is skeptical about all the plans to "save" Russia, especially the whole world
The reasons for the tragic collapse of our past dreams are now clear, they
lie not only in the erroneousness of the planned plan
salvation, but above all - in the unsuitability of the very human material
"rescuers" (whether the leaders of the movement or the masses who believed in them,
who have begun to realize imaginary truth, to exterminate evil)
The failure of public endeavors again leads Frank to the conclusion about
need to seek "personal salvation". This conclusion was made in the book "The Crash
idols." Here he is further developed Do not put off good deeds,
respond to the immediate, urgent needs of those around you.
In 1930, he created the most significant social work of that period.
Philosophy - "Spiritual Foundations of Society". In the 1930s, Frank spent a lot of time
devoted to the book that probably became his most famous - "Incomprehensible".
Work on it was started in Germany, but in that political situation, Frank did not
was able to find a publisher and eventually translated it into Russian and published it in
Paris in 1939
In 1938-1945 Frank lived in France. The family first settled in the south of the country in
resort town of Lavier, but soon Frank and his wife moved to Paris. They are
settled in Fontenay-aux-Rose, communicated with Russian emigrants. burst out
the war forced them to return again to the south of France, where they lived until August 1943
years, then, fleeing hunger, moved to the small village of Saint-Pierre
d "Allevard in the mountains near Grenoble. Life there was hard, especially because
the constant danger of Gestapo raids on Jews. Sometimes Frank and his wife are forced
spent whole days hiding in the forest. At last the liberation came, and Frank with
wife moved to Grenoble. In September 1945 they were able to leave for England and
reunite with the children who were there. All these years, Frank did not stop
work, writing the books "God with us" and "Light in the darkness"; the latter, although it appeared
after the war (1949), but was conceived in those difficult years.
Frank spent the last five years of his life with his daughter Natalia in London. Her husband
died in the war, and she alone raised two children. Most of the time with them
there lived a son Alexei, who was seriously wounded at the front. Frank was working on his
the last book "Reality and Man", which was completed by the end of 1947
health, in 1936 and 1938 he suffered an exacerbation of heart disease.
It is amazing that he was able to cope with the hardships of war at all.
In August 1950, Frank was diagnosed with lung cancer, four months later, 10
December, he passed away. During his illness, he experienced the deepest religious
experiences that he perceived as a feeling of unity with Christ. "I lay down and
tormented, - he said to his half-brother Lev Zak, - and suddenly felt
that my suffering and the suffering of Christ are one and the same suffering. In my suffering I
joined some kind of liturgy and participated in it, and at its highest point I
did not partake of the sufferings of Christ, but, no matter how bold to say, to the very
essence of Christ
Frank was aware that it was too easy to criticize materialistic ideas.
and what is quite different - to offer a philosophical justification for an alternative
view of the world It was his life's work to create such a justification. Main Ideas
Frank are set out in three books that were
conceived as a trilogy: "The subject of knowledge", "The soul of man" and "Spiritual foundations
society." The Object of Knowledge is probably Frank's most complex work. Frank
argued that there are two types of knowledge "rational knowledge about the world and
direct experience of him, which also has the right to exist, since
both - subject and object - are rooted in "absolute being". In "Soul
human", following the characteristic of Neoplatonism, the distinction between the spirit
(spiritual principle), soul and body, he considered a person as a creature with
deep inner life, which is by no means exclusively the product of
the impact of the surrounding material environment. Frank argued that nations are just as
like individuals, have a soul, and this argument determined his subsequent
interpretation of the Bolshevik revolution, the origins of which he associated with the spiritual
the collapse of the Russian national identity.
In The Spiritual Foundations of Society, Frank used the concept of "unity" to
studies of social life and argued that the state of all societies is to a greater extent
or to a lesser degree reflects their relationship with God. This work represented an attempt
revision of the foundations of political liberalism. Supporting many liberal ideas,
Frank noted their inadequate philosophical interpretation. He believed that freedom and
law must serve absolute spiritual values "Liberal conservatism"
Frank was one of his many attempts to reconcile the ideas of personal freedom and
religious-state "unity". Frank's trilogy formed the basis for
comprehensive and interconnected interpretation of the world, which in breadth and boldness
views was reminiscent of the idealistic concepts of Hegel and Fichte.
Frank's critique of modern liberalism was woven into his interpretation
Bolshevik Revolution He argued that the revolution broke out because of the spiritual
limited conservative and liberal opposition Protecting the state,
conservatives, Frank claimed, had renounced their religious roots, while
how liberals, possessing an excess of technical knowledge and experience, did not understand that
the state and the law have an absolute metaphysical value. As a result, they are not
there was enough firm will and conviction capable of resisting the Bolsheviks. Franc
also complained about the passivity of Russian religious culture. In this and other
articles, he perceived the revolution as a symptom of the decomposed national soul,
which, in his opinion, followed from the process of secularization of Europe and, as a consequence
this, the decline of the Christian humanist tradition
The bitter experience of the revolution and emigration forced Frank in search of an answer to
questions that worried him more and more often turn to religion. Over the years, the work of Frank
increasingly acquiring confessional features. He proved that God is incomprehensible outside
connection with him, Frank argued that suffering, perceived as an opportunity
getting closer to God can be beneficial; while he noted that it was his
own experience
Describing his own philosophy, Frank writes "My religious
I define social views as "Christian realism" It recognizes
divine basis and therefore the positive religious value of everything concretely
being is combined with the perception of the fatal imperfection of its empirical
state and therefore the limited possibilities of his purely human
improvement."
The outstanding Russian philosopher, religious thinker and psychologist Semyon Ludwigovich Frank (born January 16, 1877 in Moscow; died December 10, 1950 in London) became widely known in Russian society, primarily as one of the authors and inspirers of collections of articles idealist philosophers directed against revolutionary theory and practice "Problems of Idealism" (1902), "Milestones" (1909) and "From the Depths" (1918), which were characterized by V. Lenin as "reactionary" and "Black Hundred ". The fundamental feature of his philosophical style was that he strove for a synthesis of rational thought and religious faith in the traditions of apophatic philosophy and Christian Platonism, in particular under the influence of Nicholas of Cusa and Vladimir Solovyov (in particular, the doctrine of the positive unity of the latter).
The historian of Russian philosophy, Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky, who died in Paris, wrote that among the thinkers of this generation, Frank was the most philosophical - in the truest sense of the word: “He was a powerful philosophical intellect. He was not a publicist, he was not a theologian, although, of course, he also had to write sharp journalistic articles, and in a number of his books he directly went on theological topics. He was a man of thought, similar to many classics of world philosophy. He himself jokingly said about himself: "I dreamed all my life." This, of course, was not an idle dream, but a deep contemplation. He, as it were, dived into the ocean of thought, deeper into the ocean of abstract schemes, and, finally, reached the very bottom of reality.
Semyon Frank was born into a family of Polish Jews. His father, doctor Ludwig Semyonovich Frank (1844-1882), having moved to Moscow from the Vilna province during the Polish uprising of 1863, graduated from Moscow University in 1872, and then participated as a military doctor in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 -1878 (in particular, in the heroic defense of Sevastopol), for which he was awarded the Order of Stanislav and the nobility.
In 1891, 9 years after the death of her husband, S. L. Frank's mother, Rozalia Moiseevna Rossiyanskaya, remarried the pharmacist V. I. Zak, who shortly before returned from a ten-year Siberian exile, which he served for participating in the "People's will." As a child, Semyon Frank was educated at home by his grandfather, Moses Mironovich of Russia, who was one of the founders of the Jewish community in Moscow in the 60s of the 19th century and from whom he took an interest in the philosophical problems of religion. Grandfather was a deeply religious and religiously educated person. He brilliantly knew the Hebrew language, the Bible, ancient sacred literature; and when he was dying, he took from Semyon (who was then 14 years old) the word: always study the Scriptures, the Hebrew language and theology. The philosopher himself subsequently recalled: “Formally, I did not fulfill his covenant, but what my heart, my mind, my spiritual searches and, finally, my Christianity (he converted to Orthodoxy in 1912) was directed to - all this was natural. and an organic continuation of the lessons that I received from my grandfather. His stepfather also had a significant influence on the formation of the worldview of the young S. Frank, but on the other hand: on his recommendation, he got acquainted with the works of the Russian democrats Mikhailovsky, Pisarev, Lavrov.
In 1892, S. Frank's family moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where he graduated from the gymnasium. While still a high school student, S. L. Frank took part in Marxist circles, under the influence of which he then entered the law faculty of Moscow University. While still a high school student and then a student, he was interested in Marxism (like N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov and the Trubetskoy brothers in their youth), because his supporters assured that Marxism finally provides a scientific explanation for social processes. S. Frank studied Capital by K. Marx with pleasure (then only the first volume was published), because he, like any young man with a developed intellect, was attracted by the fact that this huge book, written in heavy Hegelian language, but who understood it, that reached some heights. However, later, having already become a rather prominent sociologist, S. Frank ruthlessly criticized Marxist philosophy and sociology, showing their helplessness and non-science. He pointed out that all these words that were written around, all these thick volumes actually "gave birth to a mouse."
For participation in Marxist circles, S. Frank was arrested. He spends some time in prison (1899), and then is deported. Shortly thereafter, he went abroad, where he worked in Berlin and Munich. It was in the 1890s. he finally breaks with the environment of the revolutionaries (mostly they were Socialist-Revolutionaries and Narodniks), because by that time his own scientific thinking had already been formed on completely different grounds.
It is not surprising, therefore, that S. L. Frank's first published work, Marx's Theory of Value (1900), was devoted precisely to the criticism of Marxism. In 1902, in the collection "Problems of Idealism", his first philosophical study ("Nietzsche and Love for the Far") was published - from that time on, the work of S. L. Frank became entirely connected with the problems of philosophy proper.
In 1908, the philosopher marries and begins to work on his master's thesis, in which he raises the most important questions of the theory of knowledge. After passing the master's exam (1912), S. L. Frank became a Privatdozent at St. Petersburg University and in the same year converted to the Orthodox faith. In 1915 he defends his master's thesis (“The Subject of Knowledge”), in which he deals with the ontological conditions for the possibility of intuition as a direct perception of reality, thereby adjoining the intuitionism movement that was just emerging in Europe at that time.
The book "The Soul of Man", published in 1917, was presented by S. L. Frank in 1918 as a dissertation for a doctorate, but due to the outbreak of the revolution and civil war, its defense no longer took place. In 1917, S. L. Frank was offered to become the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Saratov University, one of the last centers of intellectual freedom. But then he returned to Moscow and in 1922 was arrested there and, together with his family - his wife and three children, was expelled from Russia on the famous "philosophical ship", on which N. Berdyaev and two hundred other people who made up the Russian intellectual elite sailed, objectionable to the Bolshevik regime.
The European world was not alien to Frank, as he was fluent in several languages. Initially, he settled on a teaching job in Berlin. The philosopher lectured in Berlin, Paris and worked hard. During these years, he wrote the famous book "The Meaning of Life", addressed primarily to young people; the book "The collapse of idols", in which he debunked Marxism and some other false and outdated, in his opinion, concepts. At the same time, he wrote the books “Light in the Darkness” and “Spiritual Foundations of Society”, where he showed that a society can be healthy only when it has a spiritual foundation.
In the thirties, under the Nazis, S. L. Frank was deprived of his chair in Germany, he went to France and in the end, after the German occupation, he was forced to emigrate to England, to London, where he lived the last post-war years until his death in 1950
In the philosophical teachings of S. L. Frank, one of the central places is occupied by such a cross-cutting theme for Russian religious philosophy (starting with V. Solovyov) as the theme of unity. In its line, S. L. Frank believed that there are serious philosophical and logical arguments against subjective idealism. Since subjective idealism comes from the "I", which stands in the center of the universe. During a dialogue with the world, a person discovers something in himself - something that can be called "you". But there is something else - what we call "we". Like his predecessors, Sergei Trubetskoy and Vladimir Solovyov, he emphasized that human consciousnesses, human "I" are not cut off from each other. Real knowledge, real being are possible only when contact arises between people, unity arises. We do not live on isolated islands, the philosopher stressed, but on a single mainland. And this continent, which unites us all, is the last and true object of knowledge. A person cognizes not only a reflection of his own feelings, but cognizes a certain substratum, depth.
For S. L. Frank, as a philosopher, the relationship between science and religion was very important. Because he was not only a philosopher, but also a sociologist and a religious scholar. He has one small but fundamentally important book called Religion and Science. It was reprinted many times in the West, but first came out in those years when fierce anti-religious propaganda was being waged. In it, S. L. Frank briefly answers the questions posed by the era. “We affirm,” he says, “in contrast to the prevailing opinion, that religion and science do not and cannot contradict one another for the simple reason that they speak of completely different things, and a contradiction is possible only where two opposing statements are made. about the same subject. He explains his idea with a number of specific examples. A man sits in a train, sits motionless; the neighbor turns to him and says: “Can you sit still?” He says: "Sorry, I'm already sitting motionless." Which of them is right? Of course, the person who says that he sits motionless is right. But the one who reproached him is also right, because he is rushing at high speed - with the train. They speak in different planes. Approaches to the same phenomenon can be so different that it is impossible to put them on the same plane. The same applies to science and religion, the thinker claims. Here are his words: “... science takes the world as a system of phenomena closed in itself and studies the relationship between these phenomena outside the relation of the world as a whole, and therefore, each, even the smallest part, to its highest foundation, to its root cause, to its absolute the beginning from which it originated and on which it rests. Science takes as a working hypothesis that the world is a finished closed system. “Religion cognizes precisely the relation of the world, and consequently of man, to this absolute fundamental principle of being, to God, and from this knowledge it draws an understanding of the general meaning of being, which remains outside the field of view of science.”
For understanding the worldview and psychological concept of S. L. Frank, his book “The Soul of Man”, first published in 1917, is of key importance. Subsequently, it was repeatedly published in foreign languages, including Japanese, Czech, Polish, German, English, etc. In this The book brilliantly analyzes the question of the unity of spiritual life, which cannot be cut, cannot be divided. This unity concerns not only our "I", but also the field in which there are those "I" to which we are addressed. That is, "I", then "we" and, finally, a certain mysterious substratum, which is the incomprehensible.
The ideas of the "Soul of Man" are organically linked with another work by S. L. Frank - "The Meaning of Life", where he, showing the unconditional primacy of the spiritual over the material, at the same time justifies the necessity and meaningfulness of everyday human existence. In it, in particular, he writes on this subject: “The covenant is not to worry about tomorrow, for “his wickedness is enough for the day”, there is not only a covenant not to overload oneself with excessive earthly worries, but at the same time the requirement to limit oneself to worries about real life, and not about the objects of dreams and abstract thought. Today I live, and the people around me live; today there is a matter of will and life. Tomorrow is the realm of dreams and abstract possibilities. Tomorrow it is easy to accomplish the greatest feats, to benefit the whole world, to start a reasonable life. Today, now, it is difficult to overcome and destroy one's weakness, it is difficult to give a minute of attention to the poor and sick, to help him and the few, it is difficult to force oneself to do even a small moral deed. But it is precisely this small matter, this overcoming of oneself, albeit in a trifle, this at least an insignificant manifestation of effective love for people, that is my duty, it is a direct expression and the closest test of the degree of genuine meaningfulness of my life. Proceeding from such premises, he absolutely logically comes to the conclusion: “Thus, the external, worldly doing, being derived from the main, spiritual doing and being only comprehended by it, must stand in our common spiritual life in its proper place, so that normal life is not overturned. spiritual balance. The forces of the spirit, strengthened and nourished from within, must freely pour outward, for faith without works is dead; the light coming from the depths should illuminate the darkness outside. But the forces of the spirit must not go into service and captivity to the senseless forces of the world, and darkness must not drown out the eternal Light. This is, after all, that living Light that enlightens every person who comes into the world; this is the God-man Christ himself, who is for us “the way, the truth and the life” and who, precisely for this reason, is the eternal and inviolable meaning of our life.”
Having solved for himself at the level of methodology and epistemology the problem of the correlation and interaction of "I", "you" and "we", S. L. Frank then uses these developments in his social theory. So, he had a negative attitude towards collectivism, which crushes the individual. Any dictate, in his opinion, is contrary to freedom, and divine unity cannot exist without freedom, it is free in its very essence.
Proceeding from this, S. L. Frank makes a disappointing diagnosis of socialism: “Socialism in its main socio-philosophical plan is to replace the entire individual will with the will of the collective ... putting in its place the existence of a “collective”, as if to blind or glue monads into one continuous the dough of the "masses" is a senseless idea that violates the basic ineradicable principle of sociality and can only lead to paralysis and disintegration of society. It is based on the insane and blasphemous dream that a person, for the sake of regularity and orderliness of his economy and a fair distribution of economic benefits, is able to give up his freedom, his "I" and become wholly and without a trace a cog in the social machine, an impersonal environment for the action of common forces. In fact, it cannot lead to anything other than the unbridled tyranny of despotic power and stupid passivity or bestial rebellion of subjects.
The social theory of S. L. Frank was not just a theory for him - his political position was always fundamental. When, at the end of the war, N. Berdyaev, as a sign of solidarity with belligerent Russia, wanted to take Soviet citizenship and involuntarily became carried away by the calls of those who came from the Soviet Union and said that now we would have freedom, now everything would be fine with us, S. L Frank was outraged. He wrote: “I knew people who were given the task of attracting emigrants. One hierarch, whom I knew, in general, a noble person, went to Paris with a whole bag of Russian land: he threw it from the balcony, emigrants caught it with tears and took Soviet passports, and left straight for the camps. It was a tragedy for many people. Some wanted to believe, others did not want to believe - it was suspicious: those who were leaving disappeared, as if they had sunk into the water, all kinds of information ceased to come from them. But the moment was joyful - victory was approaching. S. Frank had a sharp quarrel with N. Berdyaev about this, S. Frank wrote to N. Berdyaev that he had succumbed to influence and thought that everything was fine there, behind the cordon, but he, S. Frank, did not believe in this, believes that tyranny continues its work, despite the victory of the people.
Speaking about the importance of S. L. Frank and his teachings for modern times, it would be most appropriate to quote here the words of Father Alexander Men: “... in his philosophy, Frank showed that the religious worldview, Christianity is by no means something irrational. Now it often happens that a person, having turned to the Christian faith, thinks that for this he must throw his thinking, his logic, his mind overboard. And such people as Vladimir Solovyov, Sergei Trubetskoy or Semyon Frank show that the powerful work of the mind not only does not undermine the foundations of the religious worldview, but, on the contrary, gives it an understanding, and sometimes even justification. Of course, the fundamental justification for Frank was his experience, the deep experience of understanding reality as a whole, the deep experience of contact with the divine as something that can never be defined by human language. But this experience, common to all mankind, for all Christianity, he passed through the crystallizing gates of the mind and managed to tell about it not only in the language of poetry, in the language of mysticism, but also in the transparent, clear language of a sage-philosopher. And Frank remained a sage not only on the pages of his books, but also in his appearance - a calm, clear, unperturbed, happy man, despite the mournful pages of his life (exile, wandering around Europe), despite all the bitterness of our century. He walked along it and was like a burning candle that the wind does not shake.
Most people on earth are believers and are related to one of the religious directions. Some to a greater extent, some to a lesser extent, but people believe in the existence of a higher power and a great creator. There is no doubt that faith is very important for any person and allows a person not only to live, but to live with pleasure.
In turn, psychology, as a modern science, does not speak of the existence of a higher power, but it seems that it does not deny it.
I'm afraid I made a mistake in my previous sentence. Surely psychologists, as representatives of one of the psychological directions or simply from the position of an ordinary person, have their own point of view on this topic.
In general, today's round table will be about this.
It seems to me that religion and science began to merge a long time ago, if we talk about the phenomenon faith, and not just about performing a series of rituals and following some moral standards. Psychology does not deal with rituals and morality, yes, but not because it is a science, but because it is called upon to build a kind of therapeutic contact that would help the client through an invaluable look. They are just different tasks. And a psychologist cannot and does not have the right to talk about, for example, whether it is good to have sex before marriage or whether homosexuality is a sin. His job is to accept a person as he is, to help form his goals and find his own path, even if this path turns out to be the path of an atheist or a skeptic.
But on the other hand, it is FAITH that can be a serious help to a psychologist. For example, scientists have conducted a number of studies of the prayer state, and found that it is fundamentally different from the 3 main ones: REM sleep, slow sleep, wakefulness. The state of a person during sincere prayer, according to the encephalogram, is not similar to any of the above. And it can significantly change the situation inside the human body - for example, there is a recovery from diseases that doctors considered almost hopeless. Accordingly, a psychologist can use a person's faith as an additional support in the person himself to achieve the goals of this person.
There are situations when the psychologist himself has to raise the question of faith. Not about religion (I share these concepts, a believing person may not be religious at all and not necessarily at all, faith and religion should intersect). And about faith. Because a person sometimes encounters issues in which the usual means of psychology are not enough. The young spouse also died. Why is that? How to survive? Simply accepting a seemingly "meaningless" death is not something a psychologist can help with. Because the client most often tries to find meaning both in this death and in his life after it. And these are questions that the science of psychology is not able to answer. And then it is necessary to go further - to help the client realize whether he can believe in something, what are his general relations with the universe, with the forces that surround him. And a psychologist can help a person to form his faith (not to impose religion! But to form faith and trust in higher powers, and the client himself will decide what appearance to choose for them). Or, for example, a sick child was born. How did it happen? You can work with the mother's guilt and work it out, but she will continue to look for the cause and meaning of what happened, even if the guilt goes away. What is it for her? What is meant to teach parents? What do you rely on in yourself to try to cure a child? Without faith, at least in the possibility of the person himself, the treatment of a complex disease is a heavy burden. And again, faith must be helped to form, and often the clients themselves put their request in this way.
I happened to graduate from the Faculty of Philosophy and study at a theological college, and therefore I read almost all religious "primary sources" - the Bible, the Koran, the Dhammapada, the Tao de Ching, the Vedas, Confucius, etc. And I am more and more imbued with the idea that, in fact, the same knowledge is presented there, but with different accents inherent in different civilizations and cultures. And this knowledge is very helpful in psychology and complements psychology. Because the clients themselves often go beyond a simple analysis of everyday situations.
There is some line, a line beyond which psychology is powerless. For example, a client realizes as a result of therapy that one or another of his life collisions and ups and downs were caused by negative parental experiences. Working through this experience, letting go of resentment. But he is tormented by the question: why did I end up in this particular family? Why did I have such parents? The person himself often wants to go beyond "that's all, there's nothing to be done."
Viktor Frankl is for me one of the brilliant examples of the ability to combine science and religion. He argued (and wrote a book based on observations in a concentration camp) that it is faith that helps a person to pass the most difficult psychological tests, to survive even in the most inhuman conditions. Higher meaning is what keeps a person afloat when everything around promises a threat.
And religion - you can choose it partly according to your own taste. Or accept what was inherited from the ancestors. Religion is just a shell for faith, and if a religious person is not filled with faith, then he is simply someone who performs rituals out of fear that a higher power will “take offense” at him, tries to make ritual sacrifices “just in case”. But such a confession of God does not really help, it does not give those beneficial states for the psyche that can cure diseases and give the will to live.
It seems to me (but this is only my personal opinion on this issue), a psychologist cannot completely ignore this phenomenon of faith. Psychology, if translated from Greek, is the science of the soul. And the soul tends to believe, needs it. In addition, the soul cannot be fully investigated by scientific means, quantitative methods and mathematical analysis. And so we have to go beyond the boundaries of scientific methods. If we are really ready to deal with the soul, and not only with behavioral reflexes and biosocial instincts.
Colleagues said above about a lot and about important things! I won't repeat...
I collaborated with an organization that, in addition to a wide range of activities, also developed a helpline for the Orthodox.
I will tell you my vision on this issue: the majority of people who turned to a psychologist (by phone) do not want to do anything for themselves, for their spiritual comfort - preferring to devote most of their time to prayers, in the expectation that everything will work out by itself. Up to internal consultation "get" units. There are many people who talk about "demons" and other evil spirits (I never understood this!) and at the same time do not want to accept that it is important to start with themselves, and not blame others who, in their opinion, prevent them from being happy! Somehow the commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself" is forgotten. Or misunderstood...
It is also important to realize that one believer and another believer "believe" in different ways.
At the Orthodox exhibition in the Manezh, I talked with a fairly high rank in the Church, who the day before had visited ... systemic family constellations! This, you see, is amazing! The method is extraordinary, although its founder is a priest (in the past). This person, who enthusiastically describes his impressions, is open to accepting new things, does not deny what he has not seen, read, is not familiar with, he is flexible and wise!
Someone does not accept psychology, someone does not accept religion - everyone has their own path in this life! After a psychologist, many go to the priest, and someone after confession rushes to the psychologist.
Religion and psychology are not exactly incompatible... They are like two roads that either run parallel, or intersect, or merge into one wide one!
It seems to me that religion and psychology are incompatible. Take Christianity, it teaches humility, forgiveness of insults, giving back the caftan if they ask for a shirt, putting the right cheek if they hit the left, it teaches that problems are given for the good and for spiritual growth, that it is not necessary to prevent evil and adversity, but to accept them humbly. And psychology teaches and strives to help people value themselves more, focus on their needs and desires, be confident and defend their boundaries, and even be aggressive towards the aggressor, i.e. psychology teaches us not to put up with difficult situations and not to put up with those who attack us, but to rebuff them and overcome difficulties. Religion is self-denial and humility, psychology is love yourself (I am the center) and overcoming.
« psychology, as a modern science, does not speak of the existence of a higher power, but it seems that it does not deny it ... ..»
Psychology, as a science, speaks about many things in its own language, including the higher power, calling it collective unconscious - one of the forms of the unconscious, common to society as a whole and is a product of inherited brain structures. The main difference between the collective unconscious and the individual is that it is common to different people, does not depend on individual experience and the history of the development of the individual, is a kind of common "common denominator" for different people. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
There is no person without faith, we are in a space where we simply would not survive if we did not perceive many things on the basis of faith.
Well, let's imagine lessons at school where we constantly try to check experimentally all the formulas presented to us as researched.
Man is a social being and lives in close dependence with people.
Great saints, leaving people for some time and receiving some signs and enlightenment of consciousness, still return to people or allow a huge number of people to their cells and caves!
We just need each other in order to exist and perceive and receive some kind of developing our CONSCIOUSNESS catharsis, we just need the very OTHER person whom we, of course, BELIEVE!
I really like this topic raised by you and having a more philosophical focus. I agree with my favorite author A. V. Kurpatov that a psychologist must first of all be a philosopher. He has a very interesting book on this subject "Philosophy of Psychology New methodology". The book discusses the religious, philosophical and scientific worldview systems, as well as a methodological analysis of the development of psychological knowledge. He is not the first and not the last who touches on the topic of faith and global issues, what nevertheless determines our consciousness?
I am writing this article and I believe, I do believe that both my colleagues and the author of the topic and readers will read these lines, and someone, maybe, will write me their comments. Isn't that part of my consciousness.
I believe that people: mothers and fathers, reading our articles, talking to us or reading our answers, think and stop screaming and humiliating their children of different ages.
Reconciling science and religion is achieved by William Arntz in "The Book of Great Questions. What do we even know?" and in the documentary on which this book is based, Forces of thought: What do we know about it / What the Bleep Do We Know!?(William Arntz, Betsy Chase) :
“Forty years ago, innovative thinkers led by Professor Abraham Maslow realized that psychology is focused almost exclusively on problems and violations: neuroses, psychoses, dysfunctions. And why not study healthy or even “exceptionally healthy” individuals, they thought? Why not explore the highest and highest possibilities of man - to help everyone develop these powers ? ………….
Perhaps the greatest legacy of Maslow and his colleagues is that they conveyed to people a simple truth: each of us has an enormous hidden potential! We all have powers and abilities that have never been fully realized!”
Some philosophers call psychology the religion of the future. And there is some truth in this. An appointment with a psychologist often reminds both clients and psychologists of a confession to a priest. For many millennia, conversations relieved mental stress from a person. He comprehended the committed sin and sought to end the torment of conscience. It’s just that with modern confession, we pay more attention to explaining to a person how to overcome this very “ sin» not giving rest to a person.
Yes, and the role of a preacher, colleagues agree, is also inherent in us, you just need to read some of our answers. And you know, it doesn't scare me at all. I often like to repeat that even before psychology, people lived with the help of religious ministers, they strove to be above animal reflexes and they succeeded. Psychology relies not only on the discoveries of Freud and Pavlov, Vygotsky and Ukhtomsky, Bekhterev and Sechenov, but also on those who came before them and relies on, among other things, research and philosophical heritage inherited from the great teachers and saints from the East and West.
Good luck to everyone and success.
In my opinion, faith in a higher power (and it has many types, including faith in God) is a way to support yourself in life. God is man's support. He teaches life, gives commandments, watches over you, judges and decides whether your soul will go to hell or heaven. This is the outer support. It is necessary for many people who do not have an inner support, if you like, an inner God. Those who have this inner support do not need external objects of influence and control over themselves, they do not need rituals and magical actions to make decisions and carry out their life activities. All this happens in a folded form inside, in the soul, in the psyche. But what happens, in fact, is the same as for believers in the church. Simply, in my opinion, the difference is whether there is an internal support in a particular person. If it is not there, he seeks support in God through religion.
It's hard for me to describe this inner support, it's a complex thing. But it seems to me that this is some kind of mechanism for self-regulation and decision-making, when we compare them with our inner yardstick, our inner God. That's just psychology, it seems to me, and teaches the tools, methods and ways of forming this very inner support.
I would not like this thesis of mine to be perceived as an opposition between religion and psychology, or as the fact that the internal support is better than the external one. Not at all. This is simple different ways to get the support you need to live, but they are both necessary and important, because someone can create this support inside, and someone needs external support. Both that, and another in our life was, is and will be further. This is a matter of choice, a personal choice of each person.
Religion and psychology...
Contact ..., interpenetration ..., disagreements (?) ...
Speaking of psychology, as a practitioner, I mean psychotherapy, psychological assistance, counseling, support.
That which in religion is called counseling, mentoring.
In my opinion, all psychological teachings, all theories and practices came out of religions and continue to feed on life-giving meanings and practices taken from there.
All theories are part of the teachings of the Church Fathers, translated into the professional language of theories by psychologists.
I say this by no means belittling such arrangements.
Such a topic is a topic for a large and rather theoretical conversation about religion and psychology.
For me, as a practitioner, the concept of FAITH is important, without which I do not see the work of a practical psychologist, psychotherapist.
It is difficult to refrain from quoting the words of my friend, psychotherapist A.E. Alekseychik from his book "Psychotherapy with Life":
“Very few sick people, let alone healthy ones, have any real idea of faith, even the simplest, not to mention faith in all its complexity, concreteness, dynamics, liveliness, vitality, effectiveness, development, personality. Most often, faith is understood in consumer terms: it is better to believe than not to believe, you must believe, I want to believe, show, prove .... They do not imagine that faith can be general, specific, fanatical, perverted, powerless, crafty... Even professionals do not recognize, do not recognize the "wonderful" faith: doctors - religious, priests - the faith of patients. They do not know how to “use” faith, “serve faithfully”.
Faith is the main, one might say, “stem” essence ”(psychotherapy - my note - G.I.).
Trustworthiness, non-confidence, little-confidence, trust are secondary, although they can be successfully worked with.
How blessed is the life of those people who from childhood receive such concrete faith instead of knowledge. I believe that father and mother are for him the most kind, best, smart…. exemplary. What is his kind most…. That he is the most for them, well, if not the best, then the appropriate one.
Unfortunately, in today's world, in our world, this happens infrequently. People do not receive from childhood such a “small”, warming, activating faith, with tradition, in the church, in the community, in their parish. And they will have to look for such faith belatedly, in trouble, in pain, in disease. Or - in oblivion. Or in psychotherapy.
The task of the psychotherapist - I think the main task - is to do so, to create such an "atmosphere" of work so that the patient - trusts, believes, approaches faith - in himself, in his strengths and capabilities.
To see, hear, feel, understand - with faith - that his life to a greater extent can be - different.
That his faith in himself, in another - can be healing.
I work with such concepts as soul, spirit.
The task is to help the patient - to open the soul. Towards myself, towards new experiences and understandings.
I work - not with the unconscious, but with - the soul. And then it works - with the soul.
But at the same time, I remember that religion is concerned with the salvation of the soul. Psychotherapy is a secular craft - the treatment of the soul.
There is no Orthodox, Muslim, etc. psychotherapy.
But people do psychotherapy. And faith helps a believer, who is engaged in our work, to see more clearly, deeper and wider than a person with his difficulties, helps to find ways out - to the light, to life.
From delusions, from childhood to youth, adulthood and maturity.
To a healthy childhood, to a healthy adulthood, maturity.
To wisdom.
Accepting life and finding meaning in it.
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In the 19th century, original Russian philosophizing was born, which was a manifestation of the spiritual revolution. There is now an extensive literature on the history of Russian philosophy, among which the works of V.V. Zenkovsky, N.O. Lossky, G.V. Florovsky, wrote a lot and brilliantly about the Russian philosophers N.A. Berdyaev.
Russian philosophy was originally religious and was formed differently than in Europe. European literature was born from the theological and philosophical tradition in the process of secularization of Christian medieval culture. At first there was scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologia, then Dante's The Divine Comedy, only then did Petrarch and Shakespeare create secular literature. Russian fiction, on the contrary, preceded and gave birth to the original Russian philosophy, giving it artistic intuition and religious pathos. “The Russian thinker rises to true heights as a thinker contemplating with his heart. It explains a lot and sheds light on a lot. That is why the abstract theory of knowledge is not a Russian national product ... that is why philosophy is for him a kind of religious search and evidence” (I.A. Ilyin).
At the same time, over the previous centuries, the Russian mind has gone the way of philosophical propaedeutics. In the 17th-19th centuries, attempts at philosophizing in theological academies, then at universities, were unoriginal and amounted to imitations of European scholasticism and rationalism: “In the 18th century. even the philosophy of the rationalist and enlightener Wolf was considered the most appropriate to Orthodoxy. Originally, it was not a professor of theology, not a hierarch of the Church, but a retired horse guards officer and landowner Khomyakov who began to theologize in Orthodox theology. Therefore, the most remarkable religious and philosophical thoughts among us were expressed not by special theologians, but by writers, free people. In Russia, a religious and philosophical freemen was formed, which remained under suspicion in official church circles ”(N.A. Berdyaev).
By the middle of the 19th century, the Russian philosophical mind had gone through a good school of Western philosophizing. Of the European philosophers, Schelling had the most favorable influence, which is not at all obvious after two centuries of Hegelianism in various forms. This is symptomatic and important for our topic. Schelling was very gifted from his youth and already at the age of 18 he formulated his first philosophical system in natural philosophy. Then, in a few years, he creates systems of transcendental (or aesthetic) idealism and a philosophy of identity. Hegel was five years older than Schelling, but under the influence of his younger colleague, he was first carried away by the ideas of transcendental (subjective) idealism, and then, on the basis of Schelling's philosophy of identity, he developed a system of absolute (objective) idealism. Schelling's philosophical research leads further, and by the age of thirty-five he creates the philosophy of freedom, then until the end of his life he develops the principles of positive philosophy, or the philosophy of revelation. If the philosophy of freedom began to formulate religious problems in philosophy, then the philosophy of revelation is the first system of religious philosophy in modern European history, which Schelling develops alone from 1813 until the end of his life. He turned Western European thought, secularized after Descartes, to the religious origins of philosophy. But in this he was little understood by his contemporaries. If for Schelling all previous periods of his philosophizing were preparatory to the pinnacle of creativity - the philosophy of revelation, then the followers were able to perceive only his early, and therefore more particular concepts. Hegel devoted his whole life to the development of the ideas of the philosophy of identity, through the prism of which he described all philosophical problems. This extremely rationalistic system, which looks universal, but in fact reduces the universe to a few particular principles, was perceived by contemporaries as the highest form of philosophizing. Hegel was more in line with the order of the intellectual atmosphere of the era, in which the inertia of enlightenment rationalism prevailed. When, in 1841, Schelling was invited to lecture at the University of Berlin, where Hegel taught for about fifteen years before his death, the audience was already Hegelian and was incapable of accepting a religious-philosophical approach. The Young Hegelians and F. Engels subjected the philosopher to ridicule in pamphlets. But Schelling's lectures were listened to by both S. Kierkegaard and A. Schopenhauer, on whom he had a strong influence. Their philosophy goes beyond the narrow framework of the dominant Western European rationalism, but they were also not in demand by contemporaries.
At the same time, many Russian people attended Schelling's lectures. If Hegel in Russia was carried away by the radicals M.A. Bakunin and V.G. Belinsky (who knew him from Bakunin's retellings), then P.Ya. Chaadaev, V.F. Odoevsky and other “wise men”, as well as Slavophiles, preferred Schellingian religious philosophy to Hegelian rationalism. Little accepted in Europe, Schelling's philosophy of revelation influenced the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere in Russia. This tradition of Russian Schellingism influenced the formation of the views of Vladimir Solovyov, who creates an integral system of religious philosophy and in this strongest way determines the appearance of Russian philosophy. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian religious philosophers preceded by two decades the main trends in European philosophical thought - personalism and existentialism. Only in the twenties European existentialists discover the work of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and perceive the influence of Schelling.
In its problems and methods, the original Russian philosophy turned to the tradition of patristic theology and philosophy: “We have a great school of theology, this is our mass, open to everyone” (F.M. Dostoevsky). Russian philosophy initially followed the ancient tradition of patristics and Russian medieval thought, combining theoretical and practical interest: true philosophy is the search for true life and salvation. When in the 19th century If philosophical thought was born in Russia, then it became predominantly religious, moral and social. This means that the central theme was the theme of man, the fate of man in society and in history” (N.A. Berdyaev). Russian philosophical thought at a new level reproduced the traditional forms of Russian speculation, which for centuries developed in non-rationalistic forms: in aesthetic (medieval icon painting - philosophy in colors), in fiction. This left an imprint on philosophical thinking, which was originally integral. “Russian religious philosophy particularly insists that philosophical cognition is cognition by an integral spirit, in which reason is united with will and feeling, and in which there is no rationalistic dissection. Therefore, the critique of rationalism is the first task. Rationalism was recognized as the original sin of Western thought” (N.A. Berdyaev). This holistic spirit of Russian thinkers has nothing to do with the abstract world spirit of Hegel, but is a living concrete subject of being: existential, expressed his spiritual and moral experience, a holistic, and not a broken experience ”(N.A. Berdyaev).
The philosophical mind turned to Orthodoxy for the first time in the work of the Slavophiles. The program of philosophy in Russia was formulated by Ivan Vasilyevich Kireevsky, and it was a philosophy of life: “How necessary philosophy is: the entire development of our mind requires it. It alone lives and breathes our poetry; she alone can give soul and integrity to our infant sciences, and our very life, perhaps, will take from her the grace of harmony ... Of course, the first step towards it should be a manifestation of the mental riches of that country, which in speculation is ahead of all peoples. But other people's thoughts are useful only for the development of their own. German philosophy cannot take root in our country. Our philosophy must develop from our life, be created from current questions, from the dominant interests of our national and private existence. In this program, the need to reunite the thinking of the educated estates with the national religious spirit was realized. Kireevsky and Khomyakov proclaimed the end of abstract philosophy and strove for holistic thinking, which testified to the weakening of the influence of Hegel and the strengthening of the influence of Schelling of the later period.
Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov argued that philosophizing proceeds from religious experience and should become a philosophy of action. Khomyakov shrewdly foresees the transition of Hegelianism into materialism, of dialectical idealism into dialectical materialism. Creatively comprehending the experience of European philosophy, Khomyakov, on the basis of patristics, lays the foundations of a new Russian philosophy, the doctrine of freedom, catholicity, and the Church. The concept of catholicity is fundamental in the Christian philosophy of A.S. Khomyakova: catholicity is “freedom in unity”, a free unity of people based on Christian love and aimed at a joint search for the path of salvation. The ideal of catholicity is the Cathedral of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity, and the most catholic reality is the Orthodox Church, leading Russia to the catholic wholeness of the spirit. Khomyakov develops original principles of the theory of knowledge, which can be characterized by Orthodox epistemology: love as a principle of knowledge reveals religious truth, conciliar communion in love is the criterion of truth: “Knowledge of truth is given only by mutual love” (A.S. Khomyakov). At the heart of consciousness is faith: knowledge and faith are identical, the willing mind contemplates the existent before the act of rational consciousness. Will-freedom is connected with the mind in the integrity of the spirit. Khomyakov developed the concept of catholicity, organically uniting freedom and love. In the universality of the Church, uniting everyone with love, and at the basis of whose unity is love, Christian catholicity is revealed: “Christianity is nothing but freedom in Christ ... unity – such are the two forces to which the mystery of human freedom in Christ has been worthily entrusted” (A.S. Khomyakov). It is significant that Russian Orthodoxy provided great opportunities for religious and philosophical creativity: “Khomyakov’s thought testifies that in Orthodoxy a great freedom of thought is possible (I am talking about internal, not external freedom). This is partly due to the fact that the Orthodox Church does not have a mandatory system and more resolutely than Catholicism separates dogmas from theology... In Russian religious-philosophical and theological thought there was no idea of natural theology, which played a large role in Western thought. Russian consciousness does not make a division into frank theology and natural theology; for this, Russian thinking is too holistic and sees the experience of faith as the basis of knowledge” (N.A. Berdyaev).
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a brilliant metaphysical philosopher. His philosophy in images for the first time posed many problems of human existence: insoluble contradictions of the individual, world harmony and rampant evil, the justification of good in a world full of evil. The main question of Dostoevsky thinker-artist: the meaning and purpose of human existence on Earth "The secret of human existence is not only to live, but in what to live for." He combined personalism - the affirmation of the divine value of the human person - with catholicity and all-humanity. Dostoevsky - a realist of the spirit - for the first time revealed the depths of the human soul, in which the devil fights with God. “Dostoevsky, the great seer and thinker, expresses, as it were, the spiritual substance of the Russian people. His novels plunge into spiritual chaos, in which passions acquire a powerful voice, where they intertwine, collide and collapse in such tension and confusion that is sometimes barely bearable, and with such artistic power that one cannot sometimes experience without disgust. However, if anyone were to assert that Dostoevsky idealizes this chaos and digs into the darkness of his soul in order to "exalt" the disorder and vicissitudes of the soul, he would fall into a big mistake. On the contrary, everything that Dostoevsky writes is a breakthrough to God, a call to the Lord, a struggle for transfiguration and for the spirit of Christ. For Dostoevsky, only one motto is significant: "De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine!" (“From the depths I called to Thee, O Lord!”), only one slogan: “In the deepest abyss God shines!” And he himself, the suggestive master of human passion, knew exactly everything that concerns form, and precisely the good form of man; he knew how groundless, in what a deep abyss a person finds himself without God, and why only harmony reveals the true depths of the spirit, brings healing and enlightenment. That is why he understood and was able to express the essence of Pushkin's national prophetic mission” (I.A. Ilyin).
The writer reveals the deep psychology of the underground man, the subconscious: “He made great discoveries about man, and from him a new era begins in the inner history of man. After him, man is no longer the same as before him... This new anthropology teaches about man as a contradictory and tragic being, highly disadvantaged, not so much suffering, but also loving suffering. Dostoevsky is more of a pneumatologist than a psychologist, he poses problems of the spirit... He depicts the existential dialectics of human bifurcation... Dostoevsky expresses brilliant ideas that man is not at all a prudent being striving for happiness, that he is an irrational being, having a need in suffering, that suffering is the only cause of the emergence of consciousness” (N.A. Berdyaev). Dostoevsky reveals the deep psychological motives of the crime and the dialectic of conscience. He is the singer of divine freedom in man: “The acceptance of freedom means faith in man, faith in the spirit. Denial of freedom is disbelief in man. The denial of freedom is the spirit of Antichrist. The mystery of the Crucifixion is the mystery of freedom. The crucified God is freely chosen as the object of love. Christ does not force in his image” (N.A. Berdyaev). But Dostoevsky sees how easily freedom turns into godless self-will and slavery.
In the age of the beginning of scientific and technological progress and the triumph of the ideas of an earthly paradise, for the first time, the anti-humanity of humanistic civilization was declared: “The underground man does not agree to world harmony, to the crystal palace, for which he himself would be only a means ... world harmony, a happy anthill, when millions will be happy, renouncing personality and freedom ... Dostoevsky does not want a world without freedom, he does not want a paradise without freedom, he most of all objects to forced happiness ”(N.A. Berdyaev). Non-religious self-affirmation leads to the affirmation of human deity, to the slavery of man and degenerates into inhumanity. Only in the God-man and God-manhood is man able to establish himself in true spiritual freedom. If there is no God, then everything is allowed; without faith in immortality, we will not resolve any issue. F.M. Dostoevsky reveals the tragic metaphysics of evil.
Having seen deep spiritual realities, the writer was able to foresee a lot in history: “In Dostoevsky, the prophetic element is stronger than in any of the Russian writers. His prophetic art was determined by the fact that he revealed the volcanic soil of the spirit, depicted the inner revolution of the spirit. It denoted an internal catastrophe, new souls begin with it ... There is a fourth dimension in a person. This is opened by an appeal to the finite, an exit from the middle existence, from the obligatory, which receives the name of the “family” (N.A. Berdyaev).
Dostoevsky was concerned about the problem of the historical destiny of the Russian people. “It is Dostoevsky who has the sharpest Russian messianic consciousness... He owns the words that the Russian people are God-bearing people” (N.A. Berdyaev). Dostoevsky believed that the Russian people had a great God-bearing mission - to say a new word to the world. In his famous speech about Pushkin, he says that the Russian man is an all-man who has universal responsiveness. At the same time, the writer foresees the great apocalyptic battles in Russia: “Dostoevsky’s prophecies about the Russian revolution are the penetration into the depths of the dialectic about a person – a person who goes beyond the limits of the average-normal consciousness” (N.A. Berdyaev).
Dostoevsky's tragic worldview expanded the horizon of Christian humanity in an unprecedented way, opened up new dimensions of spiritual existence. Understanding Christianity itself becomes more complex and, at the same time, more in line with the gospel of the Savior: “Dostoevsky preached John’s Christianity, the Christianity of the transformed earth, the religion of the resurrection, first of all” (N.A. Berdyaev). Christianity is the religion of saving the world with love. Elder Zosima in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” says: “Brothers, do not be afraid of the sin of people, love a person and in his sin ... Love the whole creation of God, and the whole, and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God, love animals, love plants, love every thing. Let us love every thing and comprehend the mystery of God in things ... Kiss the Earth and tirelessly, insatiably love, love everyone, seek this delight and frenzy. This is life in the scorching dimension of the Sermon on the Mount.
Dostoevsky was discovered by inscrutable ways in the 20th century by a reader of Western culture - both in Europe, and in America, and in Asia, at a time when he was actually banned in Soviet Russia. From there - from the West, again inscrutablely, Dostoevsky has been returning to Russia since the sixties.
The first Russian professional philosopher on a European scale was Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov, who sought to create a system of Christian philosophy. Solovyov was a European educated person, of the European philosophers, Schelling is closest to him. Pm. Solovyov begins independent philosophizing with the rejection of European rationalism, which is the subject of his dissertations: master's "Crisis of Western Philosophy" and doctoral "Critique of abstract principles." He managed to overcome the dominance of positivism in the then Russian thinking and instill metaphysical problems and depth. In his work there is a powerful both analytical and synthetic mind, individual mystical intuition (the appearance of Heavenly Sophia in Egypt) and Christian theology. He wrote both large philosophical treatises and graceful mystical poems. This melting of the dividing walls in the European intellect will be salutary for subsequent Russian thought, which is characteristically synthetic. The broadest scope of philosophical and theological problems developed by Solovyov is also impressive, and this universalism of thinking was also inherited by later Russian philosophy. At the same time, in the work of the philosopher there were relapses of abstract rationality, the product of which was the concept of total unity, which many highly valued and which S.N. tried to develop. and E.N. Trubetskoy, P.A. Florensky, S.L. Frank, S.N. Bulgakov, L.P. Karsavin, V.F. Ern, N.O. Lossky, A.F. Losev. Perhaps, for the philosophers themselves, the idea of the positive universal unity of everything played the role of a methodological device that made it possible to fix and streamline some creative meanings, but all the true achievements of our philosophers lie outside this short-lived abstraction. Moreover, the development of the ideas of unity by Lev Karsavin led him to the vicious concept of ideocracy. Solovyov's fundamental intuition about unity limited his philosophical horizon: “He did not acutely experience the problem of freedom, personality and conflict, but with great strength experienced the problem of unity, integrity, harmony. His triple theosophical, theocratic and theurgic utopia is the same Russian search for the Kingdom of God, the perfect life” (N.A. Berdyaev). The desire to impose a scheme of unity led Solovyov to abstract concepts: about the Universal Church, inorganically and ahistorically uniting Christian denominations (subsequently Solovyov abandoned these ideas); about a utopian world order based on a “social trinity” (reflecting the Divine Trinity), in which the unity of the Church, state and society is expressed in the spiritual authority of the ecumenical high priest (who should become the Pope), in the secular power of the national sovereign, and also in the free ministry of the prophet; or the historiosophical concept of a third force - Russia, which avoids the monistic extremes of the Muslim East and the individualistic extremes of the West.
Vladimir Solovyov creatively was a controversial figure: “He was an erotic philosopher, in the Platonic sense of the word, erotica of a higher order played a huge role in his life, was his existential theme. And, at the same time, there was a strong moralistic element in him, he demanded the implementation of Christian morality in the fullness of life ... Vl. Solovyov combines mystical erotica with asceticism” (N.A. Berdyaev). An important role was played by the fundamental work “Justification of the Good. Moral Philosophy”, which, along with excessive rationalization, is full of a deep analysis of ethical problems, precise characteristics and definitions, and many witty conclusions. Good is the highest essence of being, embodied in various aspects of human existence; virtues and good deeds are conditioned not by subjective arbitrariness, but by the fulfillment of the highest command of conscience - the spark of God in man. Moral issues were originally central to Russian philosophy, and Vl. Solovyov. In this book, along with "Readings on God-manhood", one of the main ideas of Solovyov's philosophy - about God-manhood, which has gained great importance in Russian philosophy, is systematically developed. In the person of the God-man, the Divine and human natures were united, and in history God and man, God-manhood, must be reunited. “The understanding of Christianity as a religion of God-manhood is radically opposed to the judicial understanding of the relationship between God and man and the judicial theory of redemption, widespread in Catholic and Protestant theology. The appearance of the God-man and the coming manifestation of God-manhood signify the continuation of the creation of the world. Russian religious and philosophical thought, in its best representatives, resolutely fights against any legal interpretation of the mystery of Christianity... At the same time, the idea of God-manhood refers to cosmic transfiguration, this is almost completely alien to official Catholicism and Protestantism... His statement is of great importance in Solovyov's case. prophetic side of Christianity” (N.A. Berdyaev).
In Solovyov, “behind universalism, behind the striving for total unity, there is an erotic and ecstatic moment, hidden in love with the beauty of the divine cosmos, to which he will give the name of Sophia” (N.A. Berdyaev). Ideas about Sophia are connected with the Platonic world of ideas: “Sophia is an expressed, realized idea ... Sophia is the body of God, the matter of the Divine, imbued with the beginning of Divine unity” (Vl.S. Solovyov). Sophia is the link between the Creator and the creation, she manifests the Divine wisdom in the created world, in the cosmos and humanity, there is an ideal humanity. Sophia's visions reveal the beauty of the Divine cosmos and the transfigured world. The intuition of Sophia - the Eternal Femininity and Wisdom of God - corresponded to the archetypal ideas of the Russian Orthodox worldview: “Dedicating their oldest temples to St. Sophia, the substantial Wisdom of God, the Russian people gave this idea a new incarnation, unknown to the Greeks (who identified Sophia with the Logos) ... along with The Mother of God and the Son of God - the Russian people knew and loved under the name of Saint Sophia the social embodiment of the Divinity and the Church of the Ecumenical ”(Vl.S. Solovyov). The sophiological theme, which runs through all of Solovyov's work, turned out to be very fruitful for the tradition of Russian philosophy and poetry.
Only in the last work, Three Conversations, does Vladimir Solovyov's philosophy approach an organic form of expression devoid of rational schematism. The form of the work - dialogues - draws Russian philosophical thought to the artistic dialectical method of Plato, and, at the same time, anticipates the existential philosophy of the 20th century. “He seems to be approaching existential philosophy. But his own philosophizing does not belong to the existential type... his very philosophy remains abstract and rational, what is in it is crushed by schemes... As a philosopher, Vl. .A. Berdyaev). Solovyov in his Three Conversations renounces his theocratic utopia and prophetically describes the tragedy of human history, its eschatological perspectives. He portrays the Antichrist as a philanthropist, realizing the ideals of social justice and thus spiritually enslaving a person. Only the unification of the Churches in the person of the Catholic Pope Peter, the Orthodox Elder John and the Protestant Doctor Paulus can resist the kingdom of Antichrist, while Orthodoxy turns out to be the bearer of the most mystically profound tradition of Christianity. Solovyov's thought hovered on heights from which he saw certain historical problems as rather utopian. He passed by the main concern of Russian thought in the 19th century - the growth of ideological mania in the atmosphere of the era. As a result, we can agree with N.O. Lossky that “There are many shortcomings in Solovyov's philosophy. Some of these shortcomings were inherited by his followers. However, it was Solovyov who was the creator of the original Russian system of philosophy and laid the foundations for a whole school of Russian religious philosophical thought, which still continues to live and develop.
Pm. Solovyov was poorly understood by his contemporaries and was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century by a generation that experienced the temptations of nihilism, positivism, and Marxism. “Only at the beginning of the 20th century. a myth arose about him. And the formation of this myth was facilitated by the fact that Vl. Soloviev was daytime and Vl. Soloviev was nocturnal, outwardly revealing himself, and hiding himself in the very disclosure, and not revealing himself in the most important thing. Only in his poems did he reveal what was hidden, covered up and crushed by the rational schemes of his philosophy ... He was a mystic, had mystical experience, everyone who knew him testifies to this, he had an occult talent, which he did not have at all Slavophiles, but his thinking was very rational. He was one of those who hide themselves in their mental creativity, and do not reveal themselves ”(N.A. Berdyaev). With his mystical poetry, Solovyov contributed to the birth of symbolism in Russian poetry at the beginning of the century: “Vl. Solovyov was for Blok and Bely a window from which the wind of the future blew ”(N.A. Berdyaev). Vladimir Solovyov instilled philosophical professionalism in Russian thought, for the first time raised many religious and philosophical problems, and in this sense he can be considered the forerunner of Russian philosophy of the 20th century.
In the second half of the 19th century, a number of talented religious philosophers appeared in Russia. N.Ya. Danilevsky in his work "Russia and Europe" outlined the concept of cultural-historical types and anticipated many ideas of the 20th century, in particular O. Spengler and A. Toynbee. Humanity is a destructive abstraction, each cultural-historical type expresses a certain idea, and together they make up all of humanity. The dominance of one of the cultural-historical types leads to the degradation of civilization. Danilevsky notes the hostile and aggressive nature of the Romano-Germanic cultural and historical type in relation to the emerging Slavic type. In other works, Danilevsky criticizes Darwin's theory of natural selection from the standpoint of natural theology.
The original philosopher was N.F. Fedorov, the author of The Philosophy of the Common Cause, who created the concept of the general resurrection from the dead, proposed to interpret the prophecies of the Apocalypse as conditional. On the contrary, the aesthetic philosopher and apocalyptic K.N. Leontiev did not believe in universal salvation, he was not striving for the transformation of mankind and the world, he asserted the inevitability of the apocalypse. He believed that inequality contributes to the growth of being, while equality leads to the degradation of life and to non-being; all civilizations, cultures, societies, after flourishing, are doomed to inevitable decrepitude. From these positions, the monk-philosopher sharply criticizes the concept of progress, which is an example of degradation, “Antichrist is coming,” he said about the state of the modern world. Leontiev foresaw the terrible catastrophe of Russia, and, at the same time, believed in her resurrection, but only on Byzantine principles.
From the church environment A.M. Bukharev (Archimandrite Fyodor) developed Christology: the Son of God became a man for the sake of every man, the Lamb was slain before the creation of the world, and God created the world by His own crucifixion. “The world appeared to me not only as an area lying in evil, but also as a great environment for revealing the Grace of the God-Man, who took the evil of the world upon himself” (A.M. Bukharev). Christian anthropology was developed by the professor of the Kazan Theological Academy V.I. Nesmelov, who anticipated the principles of existential philosophy and thus influenced Berdyaev. The concepts of the professor of the Moscow Theological Academy M.M. Tareev anticipated a number of ideas in the philosophy of life, existentialism and the dialectical theology of neo-Protestantism of the 20th century. Very different Russian philosophers were united by common intuitions of being and close philosophical approaches, which from the very beginning distinguished them from their European counterparts: “In general, Russian religious thought was characterized by the idea of the ongoing Incarnation of God, as well as the continuing in the appearance of Christ, the creation of the world. This is the difference between Russian religious thought and Western... Russian religious-philosophical thought posed the problem of religious anthropology in a different way than Catholic and Protestant anthropology, and it goes further than patristic and scholastic anthropology, humanity is stronger in it... Russian thought is essentially eschatological, and this eschatologism takes on different forms” (N.A. Berdyaev).
Thus, during the formation of Russian philosophy of the 19th century, its main intentions were determined. First of all, the Russian mind renounces intellectual Eurocentrism and turns to the religious origins of culture, Russian philosophy becomes predominantly religious. The philosophical genius, following the writer's, turns to Orthodoxy, looking for sources of inspiration in Russian culture, in domestic problems. And in repulsion from hypertrophied Western rationalism, and in themes, and in methodology, Russian philosophy develops in line with the Platonic tradition, transmitted from time immemorial through Orthodox Hellenism, patristics and the Russian Middle Ages: from Platonic figurative thinking to existential, from Platonic idealism, contemplation of the world of eternal ideas, to the contemplation of God and the contemplation of the drama of God's creation. From the very beginning, the Russian philosophical mind covers a wide range of problems. In the formulation of existential questions and in methodology, Russian philosophy in many respects preceded the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophy of Russia in the 19th century enriched Russian culture and complicated the national consciousness. Russian philosophy is initially meta-existential: it is focused on the spiritual foundations of being, answers the questions of the national spirit, corresponds to the national character and speculation. All this largely predetermined the character of Russian philosophy of the 20th century.
