Russian Historiosophy as an Ethical Justification of Being

Session 7 “Historiosophy of the Russian Way”

Looking at its basic principles, our Russian philosophy is historiosophy. It is multidimensional. I think that the moral dimension is the most important one, which doesn't always get the attention it deserves. It has to be said that morality in the context of the Russian ethical tradition does not mean moralism, moralising, or showing off. Ethical questioning is very often confused with moralizing and preaching. So, the ethical is often overshadowed by the moral.

Classical religious philosophers of the Silver Age, representatives of the religious Renaissance, were, in fact, struggling with moralism. And their criticism of Tolstoy, for example, was precisely because of his moral departures from the depths of metaphysics. Therefore, ethical questioning is by no means moralism. From my point of view, ethical questioning is key. And now the loss of ethical guidelines is tantamount to the loss of oneself.

Epigraph

“Russian culture is inextricably bound up with a sense of conscience.”

Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998) – Soviet composer, pianist, public figure.

Conscience is what Russia contributed to the world consciousness. And my talk today will be a kind of commentary on these words. In general, if we start from the semantics of the word "historiosophy" itself, it becomes clear that it is a search for the meaning of history. And this is something different from the academic discipline of the Philosophy of History, which is mainly taught in the West. We also have it.

Historians are engaged in the study of empirical facts: archives, documents, etc. Philosophers, who do not a priori believe that history is chaotic, search for meaning in these events. The philosopher operates in the Logos, which has no room for this absurdity and chaos.

In the West, too, there is what one might call a close tradition of historical philosophy. Its representatives are Nietzsche, Spengler, Jaspers, earlier Herder, Giambattista Vico, and Augustine the Blessed. But if in the West these are rare accidental exceptions, Russian culture from Metropolitan Hilarion to Alexander Panarin is permeated with historiosophical intonations, finding spiritual meaning in history. In addition, epistemological problems prevail in the West. Epistemology is concerned with the reliability of facts: the degree to which historical facts can be trusted, their dependence on subjective interpretation. These are also important problems, but they lose sight of the metaphysics of the ascent. That's why the Russian tradition is exactly like this. Globally speaking, Russian historiosophy is the antipode of the liberal idea of the arbitrariness of being. Konstantin Leontiev's arguments on the vulgarity of European and Russian liberalism are well known. The arbitrariness of being is the starting point of liberal thought. This means that there is no meaning or purpose in being. Things happen only due to the laws of evolution, which are also essentially meaningless and somehow rest on the social Darwinist paradigm. It, in its turn, is also absolutely meaningless kind of regulator of both natural biological and social existence.

Being itself is dangerous and unstable, so the task of this ideology is to build a safe and comfortable utilitarian world in the ocean of chaos and maximize the use of hedonistic resources. Therefore, liberalism does automatically exclude raising the question of the meaning of life; on the contrary, it is hostile to this question. Liberalism calls it totalitarianism, authoritarianism, a threat to democracy, and so on.

The question of primordial philosophy lies in understanding human existence and history. And such a liberal idea of arbitrariness regards the existence of the human being as a mold at the edge of the universe. It has no purpose, and humanity has no mission. And if there is no explicit purpose and mission, then no one has to worry about it, or suffer like, for example, Russian scholars and philosophers. When they lost the purpose of existence, they were in pain, in suicidal pain from the loss of spiritual meaning and purpose. If we translate it into the mode of religious issues, this state is equivalent to Godforsakenness, meaninglessness, loss of meaning; it is experienced as a catastrophe. For a Russian person, a thinker, a creator, this is a personal, ethical, existential problem. Meaning, i.e., illuminating the darkness of being is mandatory. And this is the fundamental antithesis of the liberal idea of arbitrariness, which puts up with the idea of the absurd. With rule of insignificant laws, existence loses its spiritual and metaphysical scope and turns into a one-dimensional, unicellular existence, as Western philosophers from Nietzsche to Marcuse and Heidegger spoke about.

The liberal idea of arbitrariness in science is guided by the principles of natural determinism, in the social field - by the displacement of morality by law, and law becomes a rule established by a certain community. The ethical field is dominated by hedonism, cynicism, and postmodern gaming attitude to higher moral and spiritual values. And therefore, life, of course, is meaningless, ridiculous, and one must live it as successfully and comfortably as possible in conditions of maximum instability and increased risk. This is, as it were, the main goal and organization of the socio-economic, socio-political and global space. Metaphysics that seeks the highest and understands the absolute non-arbitrariness of human existence is dismissed as absurd. So, when Russia turns to its historiosophical origins, it means that we are once again raising the question of the meaning of being, the meaning of history. Western liberal philosophy is trying to defeat this idea. That is why there is a war going on now; it is an echo of the spiritual ideological struggle of different philosophies: the philosophy of arbitrariness, meaninglessness versus the philosophy of seeking the highest meaning. Russian philosophy is now engaged in a deadly struggle with this alogostic philosophy, which is literally devoid of spirit. This philosophy is concerned only with the problem of the arrangement of mortal existence in the mortal world, nothing more. And that is why the economic man, homo economicus, a consumer man is the only possible anthropological type. And in general, I have also long called this type of culture the euthanasia type. By this I mean the creation of such an existence where euthanasia is not only a painless departure from the terminal world, but also life lived as easy as possible, without suffering. The whole industry of modern life is amed at removing physical and mental suffering from a person, to remove the pangs of conscience, remorse, repentance - even its very possibility. It results in lies, hypocrisy, substitution, double standards. These are the rules became law. They finally displace morality, conscience, and the fundamental basic qualities that the Russian tradition, the Russian idea, the Russian human, and Russian politics preserve.

Euthanasia is the end. And that is why, for example, Dostoevsky, being that traditional, is the number one enemy, because he is trying to find the true spiritual meaning of human suffering. He claims that suffering is the highest message, the highest meaning, and getting rid of suffering is getting rid of meaning, getting rid of a person.

I have already spoken about the Sermon about Law and Grace as a source text in which the concept of "Moscow as the Third Rome" is formulated. Here we can recall Lev Gumilev, who called himself the last Eurasianist. He also spoke of the fact of choosing faith when Russia was baptized as an act of Grace, a miracle. After all, Prince Vladimir could have chosen Mohammedanism, paganism, or Catholicism, but he chooses Byzantine Orthodoxy, thereby committing a godly act. Both Metropolitan Hilarion and Lev Gumilev speak about it as about a miracle, salvation for Russia. We can say that the idea of Moscow as the Third Rome is both a spiritual and ethical core. And if "Moscow as the Third Rome" is a search for a historical mission, which characterizes the spiritual development of the people, then on the philosophical level it is expressed in the concept of the search for the meaning of life, which is characteristic of the Russian tradition. A number of works such as The Meaning of Life by Evgenii Trubetskoy, The Meaning of Life by Semen Frank, The Purpose and Meaning of Life by Vasily Rozanov, etc. have been published on this subject. This is a holistic tradition; the search for the meaning of life is the search for one's place in being and in history. The very formulation of the question of the meaning of life suggests that, even if the totality of the events that happen to us is not clear at the moment, our deep logostic-historiosophical conscience does not allow us to give the being to random, chaotic natural social processes determined by who knows what.

And it is here that Russian philosophy of the 19th and early 20th centuries, posing the question of the meaning of life, reaches its historiosophical idea - this is the formulation of Hilarion's idea, the concept of "Moscow as the Third Rome". It is not by chance that Arseniy Gulyga, in his work The Russian Idea and Its Creators, claims that the question of the meaning of life is a new question raised by Russians. Having studied both German and Russian traditions, Gulyga has come to this conclusion based on comparative analysis.

There is also an eschatological dimension to historiosophy, and this is also taken quite seriously. In Russia, everything is always on the edge, in a borderline situation, to use Jaspers' language, in anticipation of universal catastrophes - the world is always on the brink of destruction. And even in a situation where there is no war, where there are no major upheavals, the philosophical thinking is still being shaken. As Vasily Rozanov said, these are people "with a disturbed spirit" – they are a priori disturbed. Disorder, the threat of non-existence, the pressure of non-existence are always anticipated by a Russian philosopher. He feels the pressure not only mentally, in his study. He feels it existentially, experiencing the highest spiritual vibrations of his soul. This problem is at the pulse of the universe, and the Russian philosophical organ is very sensitive to it. The flame of eschatology always scorches a Russian thinker, who is always ready to face the end of the world, a universal catastrophe.

Here I would like to remember Nikolai Bugaev, the famous Russian mathematician, philosopher, father of Andrei Bely, better known as the great Symbolist poet. Bugaev's arrhythmological concept is a unique theory when he draws it from the mathematical idea of arrhythmology, discontinuity that is mathematically conditioned, and turns it into the social idea of discontinuity in general, historical discontinuity. Here it is, the historiosophy - all of it in catastrophes and rifts. It is only from Bugaev's arrhythmological concept that one can approach such things as death, war, evil, and catastrophes. Other concepts here turn out to be simply one-dimensional, miserable, and provoke a liberal pacifist reaction: "No war, no death, let's live in a complacent euthanasia world where there is nothing." Therefore, Bugaev's theory is an extensive struggle. It is not so much a theory as an attempt to see nothingness with its dangers and horrors. Horror is not when something terrible happens, it is not when a person dies. Horror is always there; horror and grace. There is no middle ground for a Russian; he exists between horror and grace; he is always torn between these extreme border states. This has been discussed by our philosophers, humanists, semioticians Lotman, Toporov and Uspensky. The structure of Russian culture is so that there is no middle stratum within it - it is either an extreme top or an extreme bottom. There is no middle ground that corresponds to the comfort of the middle class, the bourgeoisie of the West. Eschatology is also of key importance here.

Finally, ethical justification is an important aspect that needs to be considered and addressed. The question of justification is not even of primary importance in the ethical discourse. If we look at such an outline of the history of the Western and Russian Christian world, we can say that in the West the tendency of theodicy, i.e., the justification of God in the face of the evil of the world, prevails. Western philosophical thought, from St. Augustine to modern Protestant theologians, is sophisticated in its arguments for justifying God against manifest evil. But theodicy is not as strong as anthropodicy in the Russian tradition. How to justify a human? Say, a small, insignificant, oppressed, wretched, pathetic shoemaker. This is the tradition of Gogol and Dostoyevsky - to save, to justify a human being. According to Nietzsche, the human being is a coffin full of abominations. But according to Dostoevsky, he is worthy of justification and salvation; no matter how low a person has fallen, no matter what dark bottom he has reached, there is always a light inside this person. Russian philosophers see this light, and it allows to pull a person out of the infernal abyss. Russian philosophy and Russian historiosophy have an important mission in this, which unfolds both in the historical and in the geopolitical dimension. This is Dostoevsky's approach. No matter what heinous and diabolical act a person has committed, it should be written off and erased from existence forever. Having repented, even the most insignificant, the meanest and the unworthy person is worthy of salvation. This is the idea of absolute ethical equality - a very strong idea that does not imply any hierarchy between people, between good and evil, between good and bad people. This is an opportunity to see the spark of God and the light of goodness in everyone. It cannot be extinguished by any action. Gogol has the same idea. He is in search of the good essence of beauty in the darkness of evil, and is not content with the fact that beauty can be evil. This is what kills him in the end, and this is Gogol's tragedy: beauty and evil cannot coincide in his view, and so he struggles with this infernal beauty. Andrei Platonov had the gift of a sense of the most terrible absurdity and meaninglessness of life, that is the gift of God. By the way, even Brodsky said that Platonov is cooler than Kafka, Musil and Joyce in terms of surreality and the deepest experience of the absurd, in which, according to Brodsky, there is the whole tragedy of the human race. Kafka wrote only about the absurd; Platonov wrote about the tragedy of the human race.

The historiosophical mission is the ethical mission of saving a human being and humanity in general, getting rid of his abyss of evil. It means disbelief that evil is infinite, disbelief that a human is intrinsically evil, and faith in ethical good in humans. Therefore, Vladimir Solovyov has written "Justification of good" – not "Justification of God". He wrote a fundamental work, reminiscent of treatises by Schelling and other German philosophers-taxonomists. The difference is that he doesn't attempt to justify God. It is not up to a Russian to blame God, much less justify Him. A Russian stands up for a human being. The most searing pain is when there has been a violation of justice. And for justice, a Russian is ready to sacrifice everything.

Ultimately, the Western paradigm boils down to the destruction of man, the posthuman, posthumanism, transhumanism - the complete destruction of all traditional, primordial man. This is a natural way that Western civilization has come; Western philosophy has led it to this. Russia has another perspective - sacreology. That's why the meaning of Russia's historical existence is salvation, justification of human being. Undoubtedly, it will be possible due to the light of divine truth, divine grace. However, the primary, ethical justification depends on a person. It happens when God sees that a human loves people and pities them; that a human sees an angel in a neighbour, not the beast. Russian philosophy is a gift borrowed from simple Russian people. It was not from abstract cabinet theories, but from the depths of Russian folk life that Dostoevsky and Platonov did this. Therefore, the struggle for human is the meaning of Russian historiosophy. Now historiosophy is entering into a deadly battle. And our common victory will depend on the philosophical victory; not only in Heaven, but also on earth, it is imperative that it be won. Without victory on earth, heavenly victory is impossible. We have to win in the historical existence. The Russian philosophy, the meaning of the Russian philosophy in the theory and on the battlefield depend on it. Philosophy is always at the forefront. It is later that the battle of ideas passes over to the physical world.

Translated by Sophia Polyankina