Read the biography of the philosopher thinker: facts of life, main ideas and teachings

FEDOR MIKHAILOVICH DOSTOEVSKY
(1821-1881)

Great Russian writer-philosopher. Described the unexplored depths and mysteries of the world and human soul, borderline situations in which the personality collapses. A person has a source of self-movement, life, the distinction between good and evil, and therefore a person in any circumstances is always responsible for his actions. Dostoevsky's work had a great influence on the development of Russian and world philosophy.

Main works: "Poor People" (1845), "Notes from the House of the Dead" (1860), "The Humiliated and Insulted" (1861), "The Idiot" (1868), "Demons" (1872), "Crime and Punishment" (1886), "The Brothers Karamazov" (1880).

The work of F. M. Dostoevsky, who anticipated in his works the main philosophical, socio-psychological and moral conflicts of the 20th century, seems to be a unique phenomenon in terms of the scale of its influence on the spiritual state of society. The versatility and contradictory nature of Dostoevsky's legacy allowed ideologists of various currents of European thought - Nietzscheanism, Christian socialism, personalism, "philosophy of life", existentialism, etc. - to see their "prophet" in the great thinker. Moreover, in Russia, almost every philosophical and aesthetic movement sought to count Dostoevsky, interpreted accordingly, as one of its forerunners.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was born on October 30 (November 11), 1821 in Moscow. His father, the son of a village priest, broke with family traditions as a young man and left his home forever. In Moscow, he received a medical education; in 1812, during Napoleon’s invasion, he began serving in military hospitals, then became a doctor at the Mariinsky Hospital for the Poor. At the end of his life, M.A. Dostoevsky, using money accumulated by many years of labor, bought two small villages near Moscow (near Zaraysk). It was there that the future writer developed a deep respect for peasant labor and a love for his native nature. Dostoevsky later recalled about his childhood: “I came from a Russian and pious family... We in our family knew the Gospel almost from the first year; I was only ten years old, when I knew almost all the main episodes of Russian history.”

After graduating from the “preparatory” school, Dostoevsky, together with his older brother, entered the Military Engineering School (in St. Petersburg) in 1843. During these years, a tragedy occurred in his family - his father was killed by the peasants of his village (who took revenge on him for his ferocity). “The family legend says,” the writer’s daughter writes on this occasion, “that Dostoevsky, at the first news of his father’s death, suffered his first seizure of epilepsy.”

During his years at the Engineering School, Dostoevsky became friends with a certain I.N. Shidlovsky, “a romantic who (later) turned to the path of religious quest” (according to his biographer), who had an undoubted influence on Dostoevsky. “Reading with him (that is, with Shidlovsky) Schiller,” Dostoevsky wrote to his brother, “I believed in him both the noble, fiery Don Carlos and the Marquis Posa... the name of Schiller became familiar to me, some kind of magical sound that evokes so many dreams. " During these years, Dostoevsky became interested in romantic poetry.

In 1843, he graduated from the officer classes of the Engineering School, received a place in the engineering department, but did not remain in service for long and soon retired. Dostoevsky lived very poorly all the time. Even when quite significant sums were sent to him from home, the money ran out very quickly. Not long before this, in 1844, Dostoevsky's first literary experience appeared in print - a translation of Balzac's novel Eugene Grande.

In May 1845, Dostoevsky finished his first novel, Poor People. This novel was preceded by dramatic experiences that have not reached us - a fact that is not accidental, given the acute drama of his subsequent works. "Poor People", highly praised by the critic Belinsky, introduced Dostoevsky into the circle of writers of the "natural school" of the 1840s.

Already in these first works of Dostoevsky, “Poor People” and “The Double,” ardent sympathy for the disadvantaged, penetration into the “depths of the human soul,” and sensitivity to the tragic sides of life, characteristic of all his later works, were clearly manifested.

“Already in 1846 I was initiated (by the Belinskys),” Dostoevsky wrote in his Diary, “into all the “truth” of the coming “renewed world” and into all the “holiness of the future communist society.” “I passionately accepted all this teaching then,” - recalled Dostoevsky.

In 1847, the writer began attending meetings of the Petrashevsky revolutionary society, and from the beginning of 1849 he became a member of two other socialist circles, organized by the Petrashevsky members N. Speshnev and S. Durov. At one of Petrashevsky’s meetings, Dostoevsky introduced his comrades to Belinsky’s letter to Gogol, which had just been received from Moscow and was being distributed illegally. Together with other members of Speshnev’s circle, which set as its ultimate goal “to carry out a revolution in Russia,” the young Dostoevsky participated in the organization of a secret printing house for printing anti-government literature and proclamations.

Arrested on April 23, 1849 in the Petrashevsky case, Dostoevsky was imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress and sentenced to death. On December 22, 1849, along with other Petrashevites, he was taken to the Semenovsky parade ground in St. Petersburg, where the death sentence was read out to them. Only after the first group of convicts was blindfolded and prepared for execution was it announced that execution, by the “grace” of the Tsar, would be replaced by hard labor and subsequently by private service in the army.

“Ten terrible, immensely terrible minutes of waiting for death” were vividly imprinted in Dostoevsky’s memory. He and his comrades accepted the “pardon” with indifference, just as they had previously listened to the death sentence “without the slightest remorse.” "In these last minutes... - Dostoevsky wrote in 1873, - the deed for which we were condemned, those thoughts, those concepts that dominated our spirit - seemed to us not only not requiring repentance, but even something purifying us, martyrdom, for which much we will be forgiven!" It was then that a deep internal and ideological change took place in Dostoevsky, which determined all his further spiritual quests.

Dostoevsky was sent to the Omsk prison, where he spent four years at hard labor, and in 1854 he began military service in Semipalatinsk. Only after the death of Nicholas I, at the request of the hero of the Sevastopol defense E.I. Totleben, was he promoted to officer.

In February 1857, in Kuznetsk, the writer married M. D. Isaeva (née Konstant). Dostoevsky was very passionate about her, but due to an illness that undermined his wife’s life (consumption), this writer’s first marriage was unsuccessful.

In 1859, Dostoevsky was allowed to return to European Russia. In the summer he moves with his wife to Tver, and at the very end of the year - to St. Petersburg. From this time on, it was as if his second birth as a writer took place.

Since the beginning of the 1860s, his works have been published one after another, which earned Dostoevsky fame as one of the geniuses of Russian and world literature - “Notes from the House of the Dead” (1860-1862), the novels “The Humiliated and Insulted” (1861), “Crime” and punishment" (1866), "The Gambler" (1866), "The Idiot" (1867), "Demons" (1871-1872), "Teenager" (1875), "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-1880), the story "Notes from underground" (1864), the story "The Meek" (1876), etc.

V. Zenkovsky in “The History of Russian Philosophy” writes: “It has already been pointed out many times that under the “empirical” fabric in all these works there is another plane, which, following Vyacheslav Ivanov, is often called “metaphysical.” Indeed, in the main In Dostoevsky's "heroes" we have before us not only a living, concrete personality, but in her fate, in the inner Logos and the dialectic of her development, Dostoevsky traces the dialectic of this or that idea. Dostoevsky's philosophical, ideological creativity sought its expression in artistic creativity" - and the power of artistic talent It was this that in his empirical drawing he follows a purely artistic instinct and does not adjust artistic creativity to his ideas (as we constantly find, for example, in Tolstoy).”

In 1861, in St. Petersburg, together with his older brother Mikhail (who was also a writer - critic and fiction writer), Dostoevsky founded the magazine "Time", the program of which was to develop a new ideology of "soilism" and to end the strife between Westerners and Slavophiles. The advertisement for subscription to the magazine said: “We are finally convinced that we are also a separate nationality, in highest degree original and that our task is to create a form for ourselves, our own, native, taken from our soil." "We predict that... the Russian idea may be a synthesis of all those ideas that Europe is developing." Among the staff of the magazine "Time" "In addition to the Dostoevsky brothers, there were Al. Grigoriev and N. N. Strakhov.

In the summer of 1862, Dostoevsky traveled abroad for the first time, visited Paris, London (where he visited Herzen), and traveled through Germany, Switzerland and northern Italy. In the winter of 1862-1863 in St. Petersburg, he experienced a passion for the young writer A.P. Suslova, in her company (after the magazine “Time” was banned by the government on May 24, 1863) he made a second trip abroad in the summer of 1863. The image of Suslova was embodied in the heroine of the novel "The Player".

Since 1864, the Dostoevsky brothers were allowed to publish a new magazine, Epoch; however, this year turned out to be critical for the writer: on April 15, 1864, his wife died, and on July 10, his older brother M. Dostoevsky died. After the death of his brother, Dostoevsky voluntarily assumed his debt obligations, which weighed on him almost until the end of his life. The failure of The Epoch forced Dostoevsky to stop publishing in February 1865, after which he was left without funds for a long time, pursued by creditors.

During this period of creativity, Dostoevsky developed a taste for journalistic form. He created his own special style of journalism (he inherited it more than other Rozanovs). And the "Diary of a Writer" (which he published in last years life) still remains precious material for studying Dostoevsky’s ideas.

In October 1866, the writer found himself in a critical situation due to an enslaving agreement he had concluded with the book publisher Stellovsky - to the latter, in the event of the writer’s failure to provide him with a new novel by November 1866, ownership of all his works was to be transferred. Dostoevsky turned to a stenographer, Anna Grigorievna Snitkina, to whom he dictated the novel “The Player” over the course of a month. This stenographer became the writer’s second wife and his faithful assistant. In working on The Gambler, Dostoevsky applied a new method, which he usually used later: after long and careful consideration of the plan and development of individual episodes in his notebooks, he dictated them to his wife, coloring them and supplementing them with his creative imagination in the process of dictation.

After the wedding on April 14, 1867, the couple went abroad, where they spent four years in poverty and wandering. Only on July 8, 1871 - after Dostoevsky partially paid his debts to creditors - were they able to return to their homeland and settle in St. Petersburg again. Abroad, Dostoevsky had daughters, Sonya (who died shortly after birth) and Lyuba (who later became a writer), and after returning to Russia, sons Alexei (who also died as a child) and Fyodor.

After finishing the novel “Demons”, which he began abroad, Dostoevsky returned to magazine work in 1873 and began editing the newspaper-magazine “Citizen”, published by the writer and publicist Prince V.P. Meshchersky, close to court circles.

In this magazine, Dostoevsky began publishing “The Diary of a Writer” - a series of feuilletons, essays, polemical notes and passionate journalistic discussions on the “topic of the day.” Having refused to edit The Citizen in April 1874 due to clashes with the publisher, Dostoevsky returned to publishing The Diary of a Writer as an independent writer in 1876 and 1877. own edition, publishing it in separate monthly issues throughout the year and maintaining extensive correspondence with readers.

The most remarkable fact in Dostoevsky’s life was his speech at the so-called “Pushkin Festival” (May 1880), when the monument to Pushkin was consecrated in Moscow. The impression from his speech was so great that it seemed that all the previous ideological differences between Russian writers had disappeared, they seemed to drown, dissolve in order to merge in the new enthusiasm of the “all-human” idea that Dostoevsky proclaimed.

At the end of 1880, after finishing the novel The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky resumed publication of The Diary of a Writer. But death interrupted Dostoevsky's work at the very peak of his talent.

On January 28 (February 9), 1881, he passed away. Various literary, scientific and social circles took part in the writer’s funeral. In “The History of Russian Philosophy” V. Zenkovsky writes: “Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky belongs as much to literature as to philosophy. In nothing is this expressed more clearly than in the fact that he inspires philosophical thought to this day. Commentators on Dostoevsky continue to reconstruct him ideas, and the very variety of these comments does not depend on any ambiguity in Dostoevsky’s expression of his ideas, but, on the contrary, on the complexity and depth of them. Of course, Dostoevsky is not a philosopher in the usual and banal sense of the word, he does not have a single purely philosophical essays.

He thinks like an artist, the dialectic of ideas is embodied in him in clashes and meetings of various “heroes”. The statements of these heroes, which often have independent ideological value, cannot be separated from their personality. So, Raskolnikov, regardless of his idea, by himself, as a person, attracts attention; he cannot be separated from his idea, and ideas cannot be separated from what he experiences. In any case, Dostoevsky belongs to Russian, and even more to world philosophy. Dostoevsky's work is centered around questions of the philosophy of spirit, these are topics of anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics, philosophy of religion. In this area, the abundance and depth of ideas in Dostoevsky are amazing; he belongs to those creative minds who suffer from an abundance, and not from a lack of ideas.

Having not received a systematic philosophical education, Dostoevsky read a lot, absorbing other people's ideas and responding to them in his thoughts. Since he tried to go beyond the boundaries of purely artistic creativity (and he undoubtedly had the enormous gift and temperament of a publicist), he still remained a thinker and an artist at the same time everywhere. His "Diary of a Writer", original in its style, is constantly filled with purely artistic sketches." A peculiar combination of real and mystical elements is a distinctive feature of Dostoevsky's work. Life seems to him to be unusually complex and spontaneous, full of contradictions and unsolvable mysteries. External circumstances control a person no less than the mysterious mystical principle that invariably accompanies every manifestation of the human personality.

In the depths of life's phenomena lies in Dostoevsky the tragic element of fate, which leads the most heterogeneous accidents to amazing coincidences, which play the role of a decisive motive.

Dostoevsky believed that Russia should move forward, unlike the West, peacefully, without fundamental socio-political upheavals. The novel "Demons" is a prophetic warning against the monstrous consequences of socialist doctrine. “Trouble,” “boundless despotism,” “the conversion of nine-tenths of people into slavery,” “the removal of a hundred million heads,” “complete obedience, complete impersonality,” “atheism,” “espionage.”

“Each member of society looks one after another and is obliged to denounce,” “we will allow drunkenness, gossip, and denunciation.” In "A Writer's Diary", analyzing the political and social life Russia and the West, Dostoevsky introduces the facts Everyday life into a broad philosophical and historical context. At the same time, the main feature of his worldview is clearly reflected - his rejection of revolution; he defines socialism as “universal robbery”, as “the darkness and horror prepared for humanity”, as “such chaos, something so crude, blind and inhuman that the whole building will collapse under the curses of humanity" (1873).

Dostoevsky considered the main idea of ​​his realism to be the desire to “find man in man,” and this, in his understanding, meant (as he repeatedly explained in polemics with the vulgar materialists and positivists of his era) to show that man is not a dead mechanical “pin,” piano key”, controlled by the movement of someone else’s hand (and any extraneous, external forces), but that within him lies the source of internal self-movement, life, the distinction between good and evil. Therefore, a person, according to Dostoevsky, in any, even the most unfavorable, circumstances is always ultimately responsible for his actions.

No influence external environment cannot serve as an excuse for evil will; any crime inevitably contains moral punishment. The pathos of rejection, moral intransigence both in the life of an individual person and in the life of society as a whole constitutes the image of Dostoevsky as a humanist thinker. The Russian idea of ​​Dostoevsky is the concept of universal morality embodied in patriotic form.

In 1877, Dostoevsky wrote “The Russian national idea is, in the end, only a worldwide universal human unification.” The Russian idea, according to Dostoevsky, presupposes the unity of all peoples without any exceptions.

“We will be the first to announce to the world that we do not want to achieve our own prosperity through the suppression of individuals of nationalities foreign to us, but, on the contrary, we see it only in the freest and most independent development of all other nations and in fraternal unity with them, replenishing each other, grafting them into ourselves organic characteristics and giving them and from ourselves branches for grafting, communicating with them in soul and spirit, learning from them and teaching them, and so on until humanity, replenished by the world communication of peoples to universal unity, like a great and magnificent tree, overshadows a happy land."

Dostoevsky thought about the future. Through the mouth of his hero Versilov ("The Undergrowth"), he drew attention to the fact that in Russia "a higher cultural type is emerging, which does not exist in the whole world - the type of universal pain for everyone." This “worldwide fan” arises from the “soil”; the stronger the attachment to the native land, the sooner it grows into the understanding that the fate of the homeland is inseparable from the fate of the whole world. Hence the desire to organize pan-European and world affairs as a characteristic Russian trait.”

A Frenchman can serve not only his France, but even humanity, only on the condition that he remains the most French, equally Englishman and German. Only the Russian, even in our time, that is, much earlier than the general result will be summed up, has already acquired the ability to become the most Russian precisely when he is the most European. This is our most significant national difference from everyone else. Russia lives decidedly not for itself, but for Europe alone.” This is what “narrow-hearted Russian nationalism” looks like, which Freud attributed to Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky recognized himself as a utopian. "A great work of love and true enlightenment. This is my utopia." And at the same time, he believed in the feasibility of his dream. “I don’t want to think and live differently, that all our ninety million Russians, or how many there will be then, will be educated and developed, humanized and happy... And there will be a universal kingdom of thought and light, and we will have in Russia, perhaps, rather, than anywhere else."

Dostoevsky had to hear a critical objection to the desire to enlighten the Russians: in this way they will turn into “average Europeans”, such as live in the West, and humanity will lose its diversity, unification will lead to decline. The answer to this reproach is the doctrine of conciliarity, which presupposes the uniqueness of individuals, in this case, peoples.

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... Representatives of German classical philosophy - Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Feuerbach - for the first time realized that man lives not in the world of nature, but in the world of culture. The 19th century is the century of revolutionary philosophers. Thinkers emerged who not only studied and explained the world, but also wanted to change it. For example - Karl Marx. In the same century, European irrationalists appeared - Arthur Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Bergson... Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are representatives of nihilism (philosophy of negation)... In the 20th century, among the philosophical teachings one can single out existentialism - Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre. .. The starting point of existentialism is the philosophy of Kierkegaard...
Russian philosophy (according to Berdyaev) begins with the philosophical letters of Chaadaev. The first Russian philosopher known in the West is Vladimir Solovyov. Lev Shestov was close to existentialism. The most widely read Russian philosopher in the West is Nikolai Berdyaev.
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Dostoevsky went through a thorny path, his fate was not easy, and this could not but be reflected in his views and philosophy. Dostoevsky's development as a philosopher was based on many factors - upbringing, the writer's environment, the literature he read, Petrashevsky's circle and, undoubtedly, penal servitude.

Basic ideas of Dostoevsky's philosophy

Dostoevsky's ethical and philosophical views always had one focus - man. It was in man that he saw the greatest value and greatest opportunity. Neither society nor class societies were ever singled out by the author as much as the idea of ​​personality. His knowledge of the world occurred more through a person, rather than through events.

In 1839, Fyodor wrote to his brother Mikhail: “Man is a mystery. It needs to be solved, and if you spend your whole life solving it, don’t say you wasted your time; I am engaged in this mystery because I want to be a man.”
The main direction of Dostoevsky's philosophy is called Humanism- a system of ideas and views in which a person is the greatest value, and which is designed to create Better conditions for life and spiritual development.
Researchers of Dostoevsky as a philosopher (in particular N. A. Berdyaev) highlight several important ideas in his work:

• Man and his destiny. In his novels there is a certain frenzy in learning about people and revealing their fate. So, Prince Myshkin tries to get to know two women, but tries to help everyone around him, which ultimately affects his fate.
• Freedom. Many quote passages from the writer’s diary to show that he was an opponent of freedom in the socio-political sense. But through all his work there is inner freedom, freedom of choice. So, Rodion Raskolnikov himself chooses to surrender.
• Evil and crime. Without denying a person freedom, Dostoevsky does not deny him the right to make a mistake or malicious intent. Dostoevsky wants to know evil through his heroes, but at the same time he believes that free person, must be held accountable for their actions and punished for their crimes.
• Love, passion. The writer's pen has told us many stories about love - this is Myshkin's love for Nastasya and Aglaya, and Stavrogin's passion for many women. The passion and tragedy of love occupies a special place in Dostoevsky’s work.

Early Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky, from the time of writing the novel “Poor People” and participating in the Petrashevtsev circle, is a socialist, as he called himself - a supporter of theoretical socialism. Although researchers note that Dostoevsky's socialism was too idealistic, rejecting materialism
Dostoevsky early period believes that it is necessary to reduce tension in society, and to do this by promoting socialist ideas. He is based on utopian ideas Western Europe— Saint-Simon, R. Owen, the ideas of Considerant, Cabet, and Fourier were also of great importance for Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky after hard labor

The ideological content of Dostoevsky's work changed radically after hard labor. Here we meet a more conservative person - he denies atheism, proves the failure of socialism and revolutionary changes in society. Calls to return to folk root, to the recognition of the people's spirit. He considers bourgeois capitalism soulless, immoral, devoid of fraternal principles.

RUSSIAN PHILOSOPHY: Dostoevsky

A great place in the history of Russian and world philosophical thought is occupied by the great humanist writer, brilliant thinker Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881). In his socio-political quest, Dostoevsky went through several periods. After becoming fascinated by the ideas of utopian socialism (participation in the Petrashevites circle), a turning point occurred due to his assimilation of religious and moral ideas. Since the 60s. he professed the ideas of pochvennichestvo, which was characterized by a religious orientation to the philosophical understanding of the fate of Russian history. From this point of view, the entire history of mankind appeared as the history of the struggle for the triumph of Christianity. The original path of Russia in this movement was that the messianic role of the bearer of the highest spiritual truth fell to the lot of the Russian people. He is called upon to save humanity through “new forms of life, art” due to the breadth of his “moral capture.” Characterizing this significant cross-section in Dostoevsky’s worldview, Vl. Soloviev writes that the positive social outlook was not yet completely clear to Dostoevsky’s mind upon his return from Siberia. But three truths in this matter “were completely clear to him: he understood first of all that individuals, even the best people, do not have the right to rape society in the name of their personal superiority; he also understood that social truth is not invented by individual minds, but is rooted in the feeling of the people, and, finally, he understood that this truth has a religious meaning and is necessarily connected with the faith of Christ, with the ideal of Christ.” In Dostoevsky, as his researchers note, in particular Ya.E. Golosovker, there was a “frenzied sense of personality.” He, both through F. Schiller and directly, acutely felt something deep in I. Kant: they seemed to be merged in the understanding of Christian ethics. Dostoevsky, like Kant, was concerned about the “false service of God” by the Catholic Church. These thinkers agreed that the religion of Christ is the embodiment of the highest moral ideal of the individual. Everyone calls Dostoevsky’s legend “The Grand Inquisitor” a masterpiece, the plot of which dates back to the cruel times of the Inquisition (Ivan Karamazov fantasizes what would have happened if Christ had descended to Earth - he would have been crucified and burned by hundreds of heretics)

Dostoevsky is one of the most typical exponents of those principles that are destined to become the basis of our unique national moral philosophy. He was a seeker of the spark of God in all people, even bad and criminal ones. Peacefulness and meekness, love for the ideal and the discovery of the image of God even under the cover of temporary abomination and shame - this is the ideal of this great thinker, who was a subtle psychological artist. Dostoevsky emphasized the “Russian solution” to social problems, associated with the denial of revolutionary methods of social struggle, with the development of the theme of the special historical vocation of Russia, capable of uniting peoples on the basis of Christian brotherhood
[Nobel Prize-winning writer Heinrich Böll said that Dostoevsky’s works, especially “The Demons” and “The Idiot,” remained of constant relevance to him. “Demons” - not only because he could not forget the description of Shatov’s murder since 1938, when he read the novel, but also because over the 30 years of modern history experienced since then, they managed to become as much a classic as a prophetic model of the blind , abstract fanaticism of political groups and movements.].

Philosophical views Dostoevsky have unprecedented moral and aesthetic depth. For Dostoevsky, “truth is good, conceivable by the human mind; beauty is the same good and the same truth, bodily embodied in a living concrete form. And its complete embodiment in everything is already the end and the goal and the perfection, and that’s why Dostoevsky said that beauty will save the world.” In his understanding of man, Dostoevsky acted as an existential-religious thinker, trying to solve the “ultimate questions” of existence through the prism of individual human life. He developed a specific dialectic of ideas and living life, while the idea for him has existential-energetic power, and in the end living life a person is nothing more than the embodiment, the realization of an idea (“idea-bearing heroes” of Dostoevsky’s novels). Strong religious motives in Dostoevsky's philosophical work were sometimes combined in a contradictory way with partially even atheistic motives and religious doubts. In the field of philosophy, Dostoevsky was more of a great visionary than a strictly logical and consistent thinker. He had a strong influence on the religious-existential direction in Russian philosophy at the beginning of the 20th century, and also stimulated the development of existential and personalist philosophy in the West.
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HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: contents:

ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
1. From myth to Logos
2. Milesian school: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes
3. About the seven wise men
4. Pythagoras and his school
5. Heraclitus of Ephesus
6. Eleatic school: Xenophanes, Parmenides, Zeno
7.

Essay on philosophy

Philosophical views of F.M. Dostoevsky

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is a great Russian writer, Christian thinker and publicist. N. Berdyaev writes in his work “The Worldview of Dostoevsky” that Dostoevsky discovered a new spiritual world and returned his spiritual depth to man.

Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in 1821 in the family of the staff physician Mikhail Andreevich Dostoevsky and Maria Fedorovna, nee Nechaeva, the daughter of a Moscow merchant of the third guild. Since 1831, the Dostoevskys have been the owners of the village of Darovoy and the village of Cheremoshny in the Tula province. The future writer received a good education at home: from an early age he knew the Gospel, mastered French and Latin languages, gets acquainted with classical European and Russian literature - the works of Zhukovsky, Karamzin, Walter Scott, Schiller, knows almost all of Pushkin by heart, reads Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe, Hugo, Gogol. In 1834, he entered the Chermak boarding school, where the best teachers in Moscow taught, ancient languages ​​and ancient literature were studied.

In 1838, Fyodor Dostoevsky moved to St. Petersburg to enter the Engineering School. In 1839, his father dies (there is a suspicion that he was killed by his serfs). The shock associated with the news of his father's death was the cause of the first epileptic seizure Dostoevsky.

During the years of study at the school, experiments begin literary creativity, in 1841 the remaining unknown dramas “Mary Stuart” and “Boris Godunov” were written - a sign of the study of Schiller and Pushkin. Dostoevsky is translating novels by Balzac and George Sand. During his studies he lives very poorly. Having received significant sums from home, he spends them rather randomly, again getting into debt. In general, money problems haunted the writer all his life. Only his marriage to Anna Grigorievna Snitkina in 1867 (Dostoevsky’s second wife), who took over the organization of his publishing affairs and relations with creditors, weakened the pressure of these problems.

In 1843, his studies at the school ended and his service in the engineering corps of the St. Petersburg engineering team began. In February 1844, Dostoevsky renounced hereditary rights to own land and peasants in exchange for a small, lump sum of money, and retired in October of the same year.

In November 1844, the story “Poor People” was written. Through D.V. Grigorovich, the story gets to N.A. Nekrasov, who, having read it overnight, goes with Grigorovich at about four in the morning to meet the author. V.G. Belinsky reads the story and is also delighted with it. In 1845, the story was published in the “Petersburg Collection”, it brought Dostoevsky the glory of “the second Gogol”. However, his following stories and stories: “The Double”, “Mr. Prokharchin”, “The Mistress” - cause bewilderment and annoyance of those who recently admired him so much. Dostoevsky’s work fits less and less into the framework of the realistic natural school with its criticism of social reality and love for the “little man.”

In 1847, Dostoevsky began to attend the circle of M.V. Butashevich-Petrashevsky, where plans for transformations in Russia were discussed based on the ideas of the French utopian socialist Charles Fourier. In April 1849, members of the circle, including Dostoevsky, were arrested and placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In December 1849, the convicts were brought to the Semenovsky parade ground, preparations for the death penalty were simulated, and at the last moment the royal mercy was informed that the execution would be replaced by hard labor and subsequent exile. Dostoevsky would reflect his experiences before his execution many years later in the novel “The Idiot.” Dostoevsky served 4 years in the Omsk convict prison, after which, until 1859, he served first as a soldier, and then as a non-commissioned officer and ensign in Semipalatinsk. In 1859, he received permission to return to Russia to live in Tver; soon this restriction was lifted, and Dostoevsky, at the age of 38, finally returned to St. Petersburg.

From this time on, the second period of Dostoevsky’s work began, which brought him world fame and glory. In the early 60s, “Notes from the House of the Dead” was published, reflecting the experience of life in hard labor, as well as the novel “The Humiliated and Insulted.” In 62-63, Dostoevsky travels abroad, after which he publishes “Winter Notes on Summer Impressions,” dedicated to his meeting with European civilization in its bourgeois reality.

In 1864, “Notes from the Underground,” a confessional work in form, was published; it outlines the dialectic of freedom and self-will that will be developed in subsequent novels: “Crime and Punishment” (1865-66), “The Idiot” (1867-68), “Demons” (1870-73), “Teenager” (1874 -75), “The Brothers Karamazov” (1878-80).

Dostoevsky is not only a writer, but from 1861 to 1874 he was the editor of the literary and journalistic magazines “Time”, “Epoch”, “Citizen”. He is the creator of “A Writer’s Diaries”, published in the 70s and 80s - a special literary genre, who combined journalism on the topic of the day with works of art. It was in the “Diaries of a Writer” that the stories “The Meek One” and “The Dream of a Funny Man” were published.

F.M. Dostoevsky died in January 1881 and was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra next to the graves of Karamzin and Zhukovsky.

In presenting the philosophical issues of Dostoevsky’s work, we will rely on the works of M.M. Bakhtin, N.A. Berdyaev, B.P. Vysheslavtsev.

A common theme in Dostoevsky's works is human freedom. Here he takes a step forward compared to classical European philosophy. In the latter, freedom (for example, in the philosophy of I. Kant) was considered, on the one hand, as behavior not subject to natural causal necessity, but, on the other hand, it was identified with conscious submission to moral duty. As a natural and social being, man, of course, follows his egoistic interests, including class and group interests, and strives for personal happiness and profit. At the same time, a person is capable of proceeding in his behavior from universal moral laws, and in this ability to follow moral laws, despite his natural and social conditioning, a person acts as a free being.

Thus, freedom was reduced to another type of necessity - not natural, but moral. Not by chance classical philosophy was the source of socialist theories, according to which the ultimate goal of historical progress is to build social relations on the basis of reason, in which all people would necessarily be kind and moral.

According to Dostoevsky, human freedom, in order to remain precisely freedom, and not just another type of necessity, must inevitably include freedom of arbitrariness, pure caprice, irrational “stupid desire” (“Notes from the Underground”) not only in relation to causal laws, but also in relation to attitude towards moral values. This possibility of arbitrariness is a condition for moral choice to be not forced, but truly free. Only in this case does the individual bear responsibility for his behavior, which, in fact, means being a person. Thus, the initial form of freedom is the pure autocracy of the human self. And only above this primary freedom rises another - the highest freedom, coinciding with conscious submission to moral duty.

Here a tense antinomy arises, which classical philosophy does not know: human freedom must be subordinated to moral values ​​(thesis), and human freedom must include the possibility of arbitrariness in relation to moral values ​​(antithesis). The contradictory nature of human freedom opens up the possibility of an uprising of the individual, who does not want to be a means even in relation to the so-called highest values; she wants to be an end for herself, completely rejecting any forced, external obligation. The experience of such an uprising, the experience of self-will, is what Dostoevsky shows in his novels. He takes a man released and explores his fate in freedom.

A person's path to freedom begins with extreme individualism and rebellion against the external world order. It turns out that human nature is polar and irrational. Man by no means strives specifically for gain; in his self-will, he often prefers suffering. Freedom is higher than well-being. This immense freedom torments a person and leads him to death. And man treasures this torment and this death.

The underground man rejects any rational, pre-thought-out organization of universal harmony and well-being. He is sure that even if such a society is built in the future, some gentleman with an ignoble and mocking face will definitely appear and offer to kick all this prudence with his foot for the sole purpose of “so that we can live again according to our stupid will.” And he will certainly find followers. Man is so constructed that “always and everywhere, no matter who he was, he loved to act as he wanted, and not at all as reason and benefit commanded him; You can want against your own benefit, and sometimes you should positively.” “After all, this is the stupidest thing, because this whim of your own, and in fact, gentlemen, ... can be more beneficial than all the benefits, even in this case, if it brings us obvious harm and contradicts the most sound conclusions of our reason about the benefits, - because in any case case preserves for us what is most important and dearest, that is, our personality and our individuality.” A person “will want to keep his fantastic dreams, his most vulgar stupidity, solely in order to confirm to himself (as if this is so necessary) that people are still people, and not piano keys...”.

Human nature can never be rationalized; there always remains a certain irrational residue, and in it is the source of life. And there is always an irrational element in society, and human freedom, which strives to “live according to one’s own stupid will,” will not allow society to turn into an anthill. Here Dostoevsky reveals a heightened sense of personality and a deep distrust of any final arrangement of human destiny.

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is currently perhaps the most famous Russian writer in the West, through whose works foreigners are trying to understand the secret of the mysterious Russian soul. Dostoevsky does not have a developed philosophical system; his philosophy is expressed through the writer’s worldview, about which N.A. Berdyaev said: “Dostoevsky’s worldview was not an abstract system of ideas, such a system cannot be sought in an artist, and it is unlikely that generally possible. Dostoevsky’s worldview is his brilliant intuition of human and world destiny.”

The main themes of Dostoevsky's philosophical reflections.

Dostoevsky's work is centered around the themes of anthropology, philosophy of history, ethics and philosophy of religion. The central theme of his work is the theme of freedom. The theme of evil and crime is connected with Dostoevsky’s study of freedom. The leitmotif of the writer’s historiosophical themes is associated with the struggle against socialism, which, in his opinion, is nothing more than the construction of a new Tower of Babel in order to bring “heaven to earth.” One of the most important themes in his work is Russian idea, those. the question of Russia's place in world history.

In Dostoevsky’s work there is practically no theme of nature that did not interest him, there is no ontology, there is no special epistemology. He also does not have a theme of God, understood as theology or theology, but the religious quest of the writer himself plays a special role. However, this is not a search for God, whose existence he did not doubt, but an attempt to understand how divine existence Manifests itself in the world and is reflected in what exists. The main “event” of this existence is man. This event is mysterious and controversial. Dostoevsky's novels are way understanding of this event. Through his heroes, Dostoevsky tries to solve the “mysteries of human existence.”

Human theme. Exploring the theme of man, Dostoevsky first of all turns to himself, to your inner feelings and torment, without hiding anything about yourself. Dostoevsky's work is comparable to confession. This is the repentance of the soul for sins not only committed, but also Bymental - by the author himself or someone he knew. ON THE. Berdyaev believed that Dostoevsky reveals the pangs of conscience at such a depth to which they had not been visible until now, and there, in the very last depths of man, he discovers will to crime. Therefore, be creative. Dostoevsky's property is repentance one for all. The writer embodied in his own life the principles of love for every person, and for sinners, perhaps even first of all.

Dostoevsky acted in accordance with the instructions of the Apostle James, who taught: “Confess your faults to each other and pray for each other in order to be healed” (James 5:16). Therefore, the writer’s work can also be considered as a matter of healing souls from everything dark and evil. Creativity is his “business”, his predestination from above, which he must implement in his life. Whatever a person might think about himself, for Dostoevsky the indisputable fact is that God provides for each of his creations, man exists in God’s world, and the laws of his Creator operate in it. Dostoevsky's man is not a phenomenon natural world. ON THE. Berdyaev emphasizes Dostoevsky’s exceptional anthropologism and anthropocentrism: “Man is a microcosm, the center of being, the sun around which everything revolves. Everything is in man and for man.”

The theme of freedom. Dostoevsky studies man in his freedom, and freedom is the main possession of man. At the same time, as Dostoevsky showed, he has not only freedom, subject to moral laws, which consequently becomes one of the types of necessity, but also freedom of arbitrariness, caprice, “stupid desire.” There is a possibility of arbitrariness condition so that moral choice is not forced, but truly free. Only in this case is the person responsible for his behavior, which, in fact, means being a person.

It turns out that, on the one hand, human freedom must be subordinated to moral values, and on the other, include the possibility of arbitrariness in relation to these values. In his works, Dostoevsky comprehensively explores this antinomy, showing how a person either rebels, not wanting to be a means even in relation to the “highest values,” or simply breaks down, “tired” of fulfilling his moral obligations. In the novel “The Teenager,” the main character Arkady Dolgoruky says: “Why should I absolutely love my neighbor or your future humanity, which I will never see, which will not know about me and which in turn will decay without any traces and memories..."

Dostoevsky, through his hero, criticizes the theory of the French socialist Charles Fourier (1772-1837), widespread in his time, contrasting the Fourierist formula (“A reasonable attitude towards humanity is also my benefit”), firstly, the possibility of finding all these rationalities unreasonable. Secondly, arguing with the atheistic worldview of the Fourierists, he shows that if there is no God, then there is no eternal life, no Kingdom of God, no higher divine-human ideals. And then a person has the right to ask: “What do I care about what will happen to this humanity of yours in a thousand years, if for this, according to your code, I receive neither love nor future life, no recognition of my feat?

The irrationality of human behavior. But even if moral ideals are objective and based on Divine existence, the problem of freely accepting these ideals does not become easier. To persist in the free acceptance of the Truth, which in Dostoevsky’s view is Christ himself and His teaching, is the lot of the few. The conclusion from Dostoevsky’s artistic research is this: a person’s personality is complex and his actions do not always lend themselves to logical analysis. A person often does irrational despite even his own benefit and benefit, and this also expresses his desire to be free.

The hero of “Notes from the Underground” argues: “...You repeat to me that an enlightened and developed person cannot, in a word, be what he will be future man, knowingly want something unprofitable, that this is mathematics. I completely agree, it really is mathematics. But I repeat to you for the hundredth time, there is only one case, only one, when a person can deliberately, consciously wish for himself even harmful, stupid, even stupid things, namely; so that to have a right to wish for yourself even the stupidest things and not be bound by the obligation to wish for yourself only the smartest things.”

Man strives for self-will. Dostoevsky makes a number of discoveries about human nature. It is polar, antinomic and irrational. A person does not necessarily strive for profit. In his own will, he often prefers suffering. But where does this passion for self-will come from in a person? In Dostoevsky’s religious perception, the answer is this: God and the devil are not just abstract categories of morality, they are mystically present in the world and fight for the souls of people in the heart of every person. Evil is not reducible to social causes, but is rooted in human nature itself. According to N.A. Berdyaev, “evil is the child of freedom.”

But goodness is also a “child” of freedom. And man as a free being chooses for oneself either good or evil, but maybe - and even very often - both at the same time. Good or evil is accepted by a person not abstractly, but through his confessed ideas. All of Dostoevsky's heroes live by one or another idea. The writer himself has repeatedly emphasized the role of ideas in the world, believing that ultimately all history is created by ideas.

The concept of Dostoevsky's ideas.

The writer does not have a single concept of idea, but there are images that resonate with each other. The main way in which Dostoevsky clarifies his concept of idea is the image of the “divine seed.” God throws this seed onto the earth and from it grows God's garden on earth. Ideas spread by infections, but why do certain ideas “infect” certain people, remains incomprehensible. Dostoevsky defines the idea that a person lives by and believes in as his secret. The presence of a certain secret in a person turns him into a personality, and a personality is nothing more than an embodied idea. People, to one degree or another, find themselves at the mercy of the ideas that live in them and act in accordance with what they dictate to them.

Obsession with ideas. According to the philosopher and theologian G.V. Florovsky (1893-1979), “the power of dreams, or obsession with an idea, is one of the main themes in Dostoevsky’s work.” Dostoevsky's ideas do not necessarily have a positive aspect. Ideas come from other world, and therefore they can also be negative, a kind of “temptation”. Most of Dostoevsky's most interesting heroes obsessed just such ideas. A man “from the underground” (“Notes from the Underground”) wants to live according to his “stupid will.”

Raskolnikov (“Crime and Punishment”) believes that there are two types of people - ordinary people and those for whom everything is permitted, for whom even murder is justified. Shigalev (“Demons”) proposes a plan for dividing humanity into two unequal groups, where some will be masters and others will be slaves. The Grand Inquisitor (“The Brothers Karamazov”) has approximately the same plan. Of a number of similar ideas, perhaps the most paradoxical is that of Kirillov (“Demons”). Kirillov believed that there was no God, but since he believed that man could not live without faith in God, he came to the conclusion that it was necessary to declare omnipotent Man as God.

The struggle of ideas in man. The problem of obsession with an idea is that a person can simultaneously be captured not by one, but by two or more ideas, sometimes contradictory and emanating from different spiritual worlds. It is in this struggle of ideas in man that the struggle between God and the devil manifests itself. In Dostoevsky there are practically no unambiguously bad people. Even such a truly satanic personality as Stavrogin (“Demons”) ultimately needs confession and understanding.

And the Grand Inquisitor (“The Brothers Karamazov”), in a conversation with Christ, vaguely senses the vulnerability of his “iron” logic and therefore releases Christ without carrying out his threat of execution. These are examples where the negative idea seems to win out completely, but even here the divine seeds of hope remain. The struggle between positive and negative ideas of approximately equal strength occurs in the soul of Versilov (“Teenager”).

Dostoevsky has heroes in whom a positive idea seems to have won, but nevertheless, their souls also contain the seeds of evil. These are Alyosha Karamazov (“The Brothers Karamazov”), Prince Myshkin (“The Idiot”), Sonya Marmeladova (“Crime and Punishment”). Dostoevsky shows that in any person good and evil fight to the end, as long as the person is alive. A clear example of this is Rodion Raskolnikov, who “resurrected” from moral oblivion. Dostoevsky believed in the possibility changes in a person's ideas, in his moral transformation.

The idea of ​​a man-god. The idea of ​​a man-god is considered by Dostoevsky several times - in “The Demons,” in “Crime and Punishment,” in “The Brothers Karamazov.” This was the reason for L. Shestov to call Dostoevsky a Nietzschean before Nietzsche. In terms of subject matter, Dostoevsky was indeed in many ways a predecessor of Nietzsche (it is no coincidence that the latter carefully read Dostoevsky), but in terms of the meaning of his searches, he is rather a Russian anti-Nietzsche, since Dostoevsky was the singer not of the man-god, but of the god-man.

Discrimination and change of the human idea. Distinguish which of the two types of ideas grows in a person, and changing a human idea is possible only on the paths of human freedom. People living with a positive idea know that freedom is inseparable from Truth, because real Freedom is given only by Truth, the visible embodiment of which on earth was Christ. A person living with a negative idea himself wants to be the truth, to become like God.

Freedom is not identical with truth or goodness and presupposes choice on the part of a person, the choice of which of the ideas brought from the other world will be cultivated and nurtured by him, and which ones he will fight as weeds of his soul. The ability to use freedom helps a person in his choice. The correct choice, from Dostoevsky’s point of view, leads a person not just to God, but also to personal immortality, to eternal life in the Kingdom of God. That is, a person acquires absolute values. The paradox is that freedom can be learned, but this can only be done by already being free.

Ideas of nations and the Russian idea. According to Dostoevsky, not only every person, but also every nation, like all humanity as a whole, has its own idea. Exactly ideas make history. Each person is like a “garden” in which these ideas sprout and grow. The task of the individual is to help, by example, to recognize the ideas that others have, to help them with their choice and cultivation. Just like what happens to an individual, it also happens to entire nations, who also have within themselves the ideas of “divine” and “diabolical”. To the category of the latter, Dostoevsky included, for example, Catholic and communist ideas.

Dostoevsky believes that the ideas embedded in the people, in humanity, can be revealed to selected people, who must convey them to others. This idea that was revealed to him is “idea of ​​the Russian people*. Every people must nurture your idea, but not everyone nurtures and develops a “divine” idea. Thus, many peoples of Europe, according to Dostoevsky, have lost their “divine” ideas and are going the wrong way.

However, they have a chance to get on the right road if they receive help from other nations. This can be done by the Russian people, who have retained the “divine” seeds within themselves, but have not yet fully cultivated them. The universal “divine” idea lies in the establishment on earth Kingdom of God expressed primarily in fraternal relations between all members of society, in the relationship of love from each to each.

Self-test questions

1. Why do you think Dostoevsky paid so much attention to the study of man in his work? What tasks did he set?

2. How does Dostoevsky resolve the antinomy of human freedom, which, on the one hand, must be subordinated to moral values, and on the other, include the possibility of arbitrariness in relation to these values?

How do you solve it?

3. Do you agree with the concept of S. Fourier that: “A reasonable attitude towards humanity is also my benefit”? What did Dostoevsky think about this?

4. Do you think it is good or evil that a person is endowed with the ability to self-will? Give some examples of irrationality in human behavior.

5. Explain what personality is according to the concept of Dostoevsky’s ideas?

6. According to Dostoevsky, can any one idea prevail in a person? How can a change in a person’s ideas and his moral “recovery” occur?

7. What is the fundamental difference between a man-god and a god-man?

8. In the novel “The Teenager,” Arkady Dolgoruky deduces a “law for ideas,” which states that the simplest ideas are understood and presented with the most difficulty, but: “There is also an inverse law for ideas: vulgar ideas, quick ones, are understood unusually quickly , and certainly in a crowd, certainly along the whole street; Moreover, they are considered the greatest and most brilliant, but only on the day of their appearance.” Do you agree with these statements? If yes, then try to give your explanation why this happens. If not, then justify your opinion.

9. What, according to Dostoevsky, is the essence of the Russian idea and what are the ways of its implementation? Express your attitude to the Russian idea of ​​a writer.

10. According to the Grand Inquisitor (“The Brothers Karamazov”), freedom brings not happiness, but suffering. A person is ready to give up his freedom for bread and be submissive to the one who feeds him. When meeting Christ, the Grand Inquisitor tells him: “You want to go into the world and you go with your bare hands, with some kind of vow of freedom, which in their simplicity and in their innate disorder they cannot even comprehend, which they are afraid of and afraid of.” - are staggering, - because nothing has ever been for human society More unbearable than freedom! Do you see these stones in this naked, hot desert? Turn them into bread, and humanity will run after you like a herd, grateful and obedient, although always trembling that you will “withdraw your hand and your bread will cease.” What can you say to the Grand Inquisitor?

Literature

1. Berdyaev N.A. Worldview of Dostoevsky // N.A. Berdyaev about Russian philosophy / Comp. B.V. Emelyanova, A.I. Novikova. Part 1. Sverdlovsk, 1991.

2. Dostoevsky F.M. Complete works: In 30 volumes, L., 1972-1988.

3. Laut R. Dostoevsky's philosophy in a systematic presentation. M., 1996.

4. About Dostoevsky. The work of Dostoevsky in Russian thought 1881-1931. / Comp. V.M. Borisov, A.B. Roginsky. M., 1990.

5. SizovV.S . Russian idea in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky. Kirov, 2001.

6. Stepun F.A. Worldview of Dostoevsky // F.A. Stepun. Meetings. Comp. S.V. Stakhorsky. M., 1998.

7. Shestob L. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche (Philosophy of Tragedy) // Shestov L. Works. M., 1995.

8. Sheshberg A.Z. Freedom system F.M. Dostoevsky // Russian emigration grants about Dostoevsky / Intro. and note. S.V. Belova. St. Petersburg, 1994.