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).