The Base of all metaphysics

My esteemed philosopher,

In response to the writing of Dostoyevsky, you wrote in your last post,
"Artificially trying to stop this pursuit and be happy with an achieved state is a reactionary position not worthy of philosopher, for whom exploration never stops as he discovers new depths (Socrates’ famous assertion about not knowing anything)."

A philosopher should always question what he or she knows and seek the always greater perspective. But I believe Dostoyevsky keeps coming back to an elemental truth that brotherhood and cameraderie are ultimately more beatiful than experiments of thought. This point seems to me what much of his writing, especially Crime and Punishment leaves me with. Some thought experiments and systems are exorcises in masturbation, and I think it is those he rejects. I found an echo of the theme in this poem by Walt Whitman.

The Base of All Metaphysics

And now gentleman,
A word I give to remainin your memories and minds,
As base and finale too for all metaphysics.

(So to the students the old professor,
At the close of his crowded course.)

Having studied the new and antique, the Greek and German systems,
Kant having studied and stated, Fichte and Schelling and Hegel,
Stated the lore of Plato, and Socrates greater than Plato,
And greater than Socrates sought and stated,
Christ divine having studied long,
I see reminiscent to-day those Greek and Germanic systems,
See the philosophies all, Christian churches and tenets see,
Yet underneath Socrates clearly see, and underneath Christ the divine I see,
The dear love of man for his comrade, the attraction of friend to friend,
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,
Of city for city and land for land.


- What do you think of this sentiment? Do you think this could be the truth in Dostoyevsky's philosophy that is being overlooked? I tend to think so, but i am curious what you think.

A Dostoyevsky Rant (conclusion)

Going back to the initial thought driving all this stream of consciousness, i.e. Dostoyevsky’s statement about “Truth and Christ”, we can try to understand it better in view of Hegelian philosophy and its main accomplishment. It would take too long to talk about what “Self” (Selbst) means by Hegel and I would never be able to finish what I have started. So I would have to limit myself by saying that Hegelian history of the Spirit ended in the Spirit knowing itself through (Hegelian) philosophy. The important point here is that unlike by Fichte, where the Spirit is left split into its finite and infinite “components” without any hope of reconciliation, or by Schelling, where it sought this reconciliation in art, religion and absolute idealism, but in all those cases remained unaware of itself trying to come to self-awareness, in Hegel’s philosophy this self-awareness had been reached. In all cases the Spirit moves up in its development (not a time-based development, but a stage based, evidently), however, only by Hegel it reaches the knowledge of itself developing.

Dostoyevsky’s statement about Truth and Christ shows the throwback from Hegel back to Schelling. In this sense, Dostoyevsky is a devout Slavophil for whom the most that could possibly happen in the ascent towards Knowledge is Schelling’s kind of absolute religion. The Spirit never bridges the gap it has created while developing: the gap between the finite Reflexion (the Truth) and the infinite Absolute Vision (Christ). This is a very strange position to take, in my opinion. The destiny of philosophy has always been in pushing the boundaries of human thought. Philosophy is, in a sense, “an extreme” world view. It allows human beings to get in touch with their spiritual component where we are all rooted and which eludes us all the time. Artificially trying to stop this pursuit and be happy with an achieved state is a reactionary position not worthy of philosopher, for whom exploration never stops as he discovers new depths (Socrates’ famous assertion about not knowing anything).

A Dostoyevsky Rant (I).

I think the biggest problem of Russian philosophy and "moral thought" in general is it having its root in Dostoyevsky. After finishing The Science of Logic by Hegel, I have revisited my views and thoughts on this philosopher. Can we even call him a "philosopher"? Apparently we have to, because we surely cannot call him a writer. Let's look at the Dostoyevsky Universe. The view is pretty grim. Unlike that of Tolstoy's, where we do see real people, only Schemas and Ideas concocted by the writer populate this sad locale. His characters are bleak, even the passionate ones, because they are so "un-alive". Each one fulfils a certain function assigned to him by the author and so Dostoyevsky's novels are actually thought experiments. Russia did not have a philosophical tradition of Germany, and so its primary philosopher expressed himself writing literature. If we examine the ideas themselves, what do we find? Crime and Punishment with its research of whether everything is permitted to an Ueber-mensch (same echoed in the Karamazov Brothers). Enough to look at the Antic literature to convince ourselves that the problem has been tackled and resolved thousands of years ago. The Legend of the Great Inquisitor is supposed to inspire us? But has the humanity not fought with religion overflowing its borders of Absolute Spirit and succumbing to the Devil? It is enough to look at the New Testament, to see that the Apostles have been struggling with this problem all over the sacred text! What is more baffling, though are the famous statements like "Красота спасет мир" (Beauty will save the World), or the still less comprehensible one about Truth and Christ, that even if someone were "to prove to me with mathematical precision that Truth is separate from Christ, I would still be with Christ, giving up Truth". How are we to understand it? Taking this literally makes no sense, even if Truth is separate from Christ, the latter cannot be the opposite of Truth, i.e. a Lie, so it has to be also Truth! Actually this statement is testimony to the purity of the uniquely Russian spirit of Dostoyevsky. Without diving deep into the whole issue, we can say with certainty, that the entire "Slavophil" movement of the early 19th century Russia (that later on was identified as purely nationalistic, but definitely was not so at inception), was rooted in German Idealism, more precisely - that of Schelling's. (It is enough to mention, that Richard Kroner calls the founders of the movement "Russische Schellingianer"). I don't think Boris Paramonov is correct when he calls attention to Schelling's romantic connections in this regard. I think we should definitely consider the issue in terms of his Absolute Idealism. However, it is undeniable, that Schelling's view of religion stems from Schleiermacher's article, and thus can be shown to have a Romantic source.

Schelling's philosophy of religion, later on extended by Hegel (again on the basis of the same groundbreaking article by Schleiermacher) regarded religion as a two-fold phenomenon. On one hand we have "esoteric" religions. This is essentially paganism, where godliness is concealed by forces of natures. Such religions have rich mythology where its deities are constantly present in the life of human beings and intervene through forces of nature. This is a so called "natural religion", Nature, the Universe itself is God. Such a religion is monotheistic, but only at its core. Monotheism is not "given", it is hidden, concealed, needs to be transcended to.

The other kind, the "ecsoteric", or "revealed" religion is a monotheistic religion where God reveals himself directly. Such religion is transcendence by nature and hence does not have mythology with miracles happening within the World Order.

Absolute religion is the fusion of both kinds; it is the philosophical religion that does not exist, according to Schelling. If it were to exist - we would have achieved the true religion of the Absolute Spirit. Christianity, according to this view, has come the closest, for while being the "revealed" religion it has preserved the elements of the "natural" one by creating the unity of spiritual and natural forces within a man. Catholicism is closer to this ideal than Protestantism because the heathen element of Christianity is not denied in it, the way it is in the latter. According to Dostoyevsky and the "Slavophiles", Russian Orthodoxy, with its emersion into Nature and Community should be even closer to the absolute ideal, and thus the movement was born out of Schelling's philosophy.

It would take a while to explain Hegel's philosophy of religion even briefly, as it is in general impossible to explain anything in Hegel's philosophy. Rather, it must be studied carefully and every nook and corner where it leads explored with utmost effort. One point, however, is relevant. Hegel's genius solved the problem that had no solution since the moment it was presented by Kant.

Both Fichte and Schelling tried but had to leave things as they were in their systems, with the main problem unsolved. The problem was to find unity between the Absolute and the finite thinking. (Endliche Reflexion). Fichte left an unbridgeable cleft between his "absolute" and "finite I", Schelling introduced the "absolute, or intellectual vision" (intellectuelle Anschauung), but it is not solving the main problem. In Schelling's absolute idealism, just like in Fichte's Wissenshaftlehre, the Absolute always needs the finite Reflexion to start thinking about it. But once this happens, the finite Reflexion runs away never to be reunited with Absolute, which, by definition cannot be anything else but a simple unity. Fichte and Schelling were forced to leave matters as they were, being unable to solve this problem.