The history of Russian religious speculation

"History of Russian Philosophy" is a book by N.O. Lossky. The book covers the most important Russian philosophers, including Lossky himself. Soloviev, Berdyaev, Bulgakov and Frank are prominently featured. There is a shorter chapter on Pavel Florensky. Lossky also mentions his own son, Vladimir Lossky!

While the book does mention materialist and Neo-Kantian philosophers, its main emphasis is on thinkers who were fundamentally religious. In the West, they would have been regarded less as philosophers and more as theologians or even mystics. Lossky himself was a self-avowedly Christian philosopher, whose system sounds similar to Theosophy or Anthroposophy, although he claims to have based it on Leibniz and Biblical revelation. When Lossky mentions Bulgakov, he quotes extensively from Bulgakov's famous description of his mystical visions. Soloviev was another essentially Christian thinker who had visions of various kinds. Lossky also retells anecdotes that come close to miracle stories, emphasizes how ascetic and contrite some of the "philosophers" were, etc.

Lossky does make some interesting observations concerning religiously inspired Russian philosophy. Apparently, virtually all philosophers of this type are a kind of naïve realists. They believe that man has unmediated access to an objective, external reality. Kantian or Lockean notions of something imposing itself between the outside world and our minds are rejected. However, Russian religious philosophy doesn't connect naïve realism with materialism. Rather, they argue that realism presupposes a fundamental wholeness between subject and object. Otherwise the direct perception of an outer world would be impossible. This wholeness is interpreted in a pantheist or panpsychist manner, and thus opens the door to theological speculations about God. Further, mystical intuition is seen as realist, i.e. it gives us direct and unmediated access to a divine reality. Another important notion similar to many thinkers is consubstantiality between matter and spirit, or between unity and multiplicity. This consubstantiality is connected to the creedal statements about the Trinity, which is a "consubstantial" unity-in-diversity between three persons of the same Godhead. It's also used politically, as in the idea of sobornost, which is supposedly a unity of free individuals, everyone voluntarily serving the same goal ultimately derived from God. (On more critical interpretations, sobornost is really a collectivist, absolutist notion. Indeed, the concept is used in modern Russia by enemies of liberal democracy.)

Lossky also points out that while many Russian philosophers accept evolution, they emphasize cooperation rather than competition. This is true even of materialist philosophers, such as the anarchist Kropotkin, whose most famous work is called "Mutual aid". It's not clear where the evolutionary notions of the more religious thinkers came from, but Theosophy would surely be the prime suspect, although Lossky is silent on this point. Jesus is often seen as the perfect God-man at the apex of evolution, incarnating on Earth not simply for soteriological reasons but also for ontological ones, completing the evolutionary process by uniting spirit and matter within one person. Here, medieval theology have been fused with cosmic evolution.

The holistic perspective of many religious philosophers leads them to regard all human knowledge as a unity. Lossky talks about "integral" knowledge which somehow unites science, philosophy, theology, ethics and aesthetics. Thus, somebody like Soloviev or Bulgakov wouldn't see any difficulty in blending philosophy and theology.

Something not mentioned by the author is the obviously heretical character of much "Christian" speculation in Russia. Ideas about Jesus being some kind of primordial Heavenly Man, perhaps even a created being distinct from the unfathomable God, sound Kabbalistic: Adam Kadmon emerges out of the Ain Soph as its first creation. Soloviev's and Bulgakov's visions of Sophia sound like attempts to introduce a goddess into Christianity. Lossky's own philosophy includes Sophia. Soloviev's positive view of Catholicism would also count as heretical in Russia, which is dominated by the Orthodox Church. Even philosophers who were ordained priests, such as Bulgakov, often strayed from strict Orthodox orthodoxy (pun intended).

As a sidepoint, I noticed that Lossky considers dialectical materialism to be a contradictory jumble, and predicts that it will eventually be transformed into a form of realist idealism. He has a point: dialectical materialism is a unique form of materialism, since it seems to be teleological. But how on earth can a *materialist* system be teleological? This is obviously a trait taken over from Hegel, whose World Spirit could still be given a religious interpretation as a pantheist god.

"History of Russian Philosophy" might be too complicated for the absolute beginner, while still being too basic for more advanced students of philosophy. I read it after first digesting large chunks of Frederick Copleston's history of Russian philosophy. It did help with some background information. Perhaps Lossky's book could serve as a kind of mini-encyclopaedia of Russian philosophers, mostly of the religious persuasion. I found it immensely interesting and stimulating.