Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Prince Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy (1863-1905) was Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n religious philosopher.

Biography

As a teenager, Trubetskoy was an adherent of Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer was an English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist of the Victorian era....

and John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

. Later he became disappointed with both and turned to Schopenhauer. Study of his philosophy led Trubetskoy to a conclusion that Schopenhauer's pessimism was the result of denial of God

God

God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....

. Trubetskoy himself described this dilemma the following way: "Either God exists or life is not worth living". He became Orthodox

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

Christian and adherent of Slavophile

Slavophile

Slavophilia was an intellectual movement originating from 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed upon values and institutions derived from its early history. Slavophiles were especially opposed to the influences of Western Europe in Russia. There were also similar movements in...

s, his beliefs at that time are substantially influenced by writings of Aleksey Khomyakov

Aleksey Khomyakov

Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov was a Russian religious poet who co-founded the Slavophile movement along with Ivan Kireyevsky, and became one of its most distinguished theoreticians....

. In 1885 Trubetskoy graduated from the Moscow University, but he continued to work there until his death lecturing in philosophy. In 1886 he became acquainted with Vladimir Solovyov

Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)

Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a Russian philosopher, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century...

, another philosopher who held largely the same views about religion as Trubetskoy and was his close friend. In 1890 Trubetskoy became Professor of philosophy in the Moscow University, later he played significant role in Russian liberal movement. In 1905 he was appointed rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

of the Moscow University, but died just a month later of the brain hemorrhage. Nikolai Trubetzkoy

Nikolai Trubetzkoy

Prince Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy was a Russian linguist and historian whose teachings formed a nucleus of the Prague School of structural linguistics. He is widely considered to be the founder of morphophonology...

, the linguist, is his son.

Trubetskoy's brother Evgeny Nikolaevich (1863-1920) was also a philosopher, Professor of the Moscow University, who largely shared Trubetskoy's beliefs. Evgeny Trubetskoy died in the Crimea

Crimea

Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...

when he was trying to emigrate.

Works and beliefs

Working in the same field as Solovyov, Trubetskoy sought to establish philosophical base for Orthodox Christian Weltanschauung which would be equally rooted in faith and ratio

Ratio

In mathematics, a ratio is a relationship between two numbers of the same kind , usually expressed as "a to b" or a:b, sometimes expressed arithmetically as a dimensionless quotient of the two which explicitly indicates how many times the first number contains the second In mathematics, a ratio is...

. In 1890 he defended his Master's thesis "Metaphisics in Ancient Greece" in which he argued that the Holy Scripture and Christian theology largely stemmed directly from the idealistic philosophy of Ancient Greece.

Religious beliefs of Trubetskoy are sometimes defined as Christocentrism. In other words the Christianity and the Church are incarnation of the personality of Jesus in the human society which convey His teachings to people. These views are set forth in the major Trubetskoy's work The Teaching on Logos
Logos
' is an important term in philosophy, psychology, rhetoric and religion. Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word," "speech," "account," "reason," it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus ' is an important term in...

. Trubetskoy believed that the personality of Christ, which combined human and divine conscience, was the crucial problem for the understanding of all aspects of the Christianity. He viewed Christianity not as a solely ethic teaching but the one which is can be perceived and understood exclusively through revelation. This viewpoint differed both from the official doctrine of the Orthodox Church and from beliefs of liberal intellectuals who reduced the Christianity to ethics.

Biography

Works and beliefs

Further reading