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Vladimir Solovyov (philosopher)
Encyclopedia
Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov was a Russia
n 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. Solovyov (the last name derives from "соловей", "solovey", Nightingale
in Russian) played a significant role in the Russian spiritual renaissance in the beginning of the 20th century.
on 16 January 1853, in the family of well-known Russian historian Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov (1820–1879). His mother, Polixena Vladimirovna, belonged to a Ukrainian-Polish family, having among her ancestors a remarkable thinker the 18th century Hryhori Skovoroda
(1722–1794).
In his teens Solovyov renounced Orthodox Christianity for nihilism
though later Solovyov changed his earlier convictions and began expressing views in line again with the Russian Orthodox Church
. What prompted this radical change appears to be Solovyov's disapproval of the Positivist movement. In Solovyov's The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists he attempted to discredit the Positivists' rejection of Aristotle's essentialism
or philosophical realism
. In Against the Postivists, Solovyov took the position of intuitive noetic comprehension, noesis or insight
stating consciousness, in being is integral (Russian term being sobornost
) and has to have both phenomenon
(validated by dianonia) and noumenon
validated intuitively
. Positivism according to Solovyov only validates the phenomenon of an object denying the intuitive reality people experience as part of their consciousness. Vladimir Solovyov was also known to be a very close friend and confidant of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In opposition to Dostoyevsky's apparent views of the Roman Catholic church
, Solovyov supported Roman Catholicism. It could be said that he did this to engage in the reconciliation (ecumenism
, sobornost
) between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, a reconciliation that Solovyov outspokenly favored, eventually,"through an ethical and social standpoint," converting to Roman Catholicism. Solovyov believed that his mission in life was to move people toward reconciliation or absolute unity or sobornost
.
Solovyov never married or had any children, but he pursued idealized romantic relationships as immortalized in his spiritual love poetry, including with two women named, appropriately enough, Sophia. Shortly afer rebuffing the scandalous advances of mystic Anna Schmidt who claimed to be his divine partner, Solovyov died an apparent homeless pauper, leaving his brother Mikhail Sergeevich and several colleagues to defend and promote his legacy.
and Ivan Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov
. Solovyov's influence can also be seen in the writings of the Symbolist
and Neo-Idealist
of the later Russian Soviet era. His book The Meaning of Love can be seen as one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata
(1889).
He influenced the religious philosophy of Nicolas Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky
, Nikolai Lossky
, Semen L. Frank
, the ideas of Rudolf Steiner
and also on the poetry and theory of Russian symbolism
, namely Andrei Belyi, Alexander Blok
, Solovyov's nephew, and others. Hans Urs von Balthasar
explores his work as one example of seven lay styles that reveal the glory of God's revelation, in volume III of The Glory of the Lord (pp. 279–352).
pagan philosophy (see Plato
, Aristotle
and Plotinus
) and also early church Patristic tradition along with Buddhism
and Hebrew Kabbalistic
elements (Philo of Alexandria
). Solovyov also studied Gnosticism
and seemed to be heavily influenced by the gnostic works of Valentinus
. Solovyov's religious philosophy was syncretic and fused many of the philosophical elements of various religious traditions with that of the Eastern Orthodox church and also Solovyov's own personal experience of the Sophia.
Solovyov described his encounters with the entity Sophia in his works the Three Encounters and Lectures on Godmanhood among others. Solovyov's fusion was driven by the desire to reconcile and or unite with Eastern Orthodoxy these various traditions via the Russian Slavophiles' concept of sobornost
. His Russian religious philosophy had a very strong impact on the Russian Symbolist
art movements of his time. Solovyev's teaching on Sophia have been deemed a heresy
by ROCOR and condemned as unsound and unorthodox by the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Solovyov sought through his works to create a form of philosophy, that could through his system of logic or reason, reconcile all various bodies of knowledge or disciplines of thought. It was Solovyov's goal to fuse all conflicting concepts into a single systematic form of reason. It was this complete form of philosophy
that Solovyov presented as being Russian philosophy
. That based on the central components of the Slavophile
movement, all forms of reason could be reconciled into one single form of logic. The heart of this reconciliation as logic or reason was the concept sobornost (organic or Spontaneous order
through integration) which is also the Russian word for catholic. Solovyov sought to find and validate the common ground and or where various conflicts found common ground and by focusing on this common ground to establish absolute unity and or integral fusion of opposing ideas and or peoples.
in the 1988 philosophical novel The Infinite Deadlock. Galkovsky cites Solovyov's early adoption of nihilist views, and later renunciation of them, as evidence of Solovyov's opportunism. He also characterizes Solovyov's writings on theocracy
as a "parodic hybrid of slavophilic nationalism
with Western nihilism
." In Galkovsky's radical interpretation, Solovyov emerges as an impostor whose primary goal was to create a caricatured form of religious conservatism that would draw audiences away from more "authentic" nationalists such as Yuri Samarin
.
all-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into
reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as
long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin
exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical
answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure."
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 philosopher
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, poet, pamphleteer, literary critic, who played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century. Solovyov (the last name derives from "соловей", "solovey", Nightingale
Nightingale
The Nightingale , also known as Rufous and Common Nightingale, is a small passerine bird that was formerly classed as a member of the thrush family Turdidae, but is now more generally considered to be an Old World flycatcher, Muscicapidae...
in Russian) played a significant role in the Russian spiritual renaissance in the beginning of the 20th century.
Life and work
Vladimir Solovyov was born in MoscowMoscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
on 16 January 1853, in the family of well-known Russian historian Sergey Mikhaylovich Solovyov (1820–1879). His mother, Polixena Vladimirovna, belonged to a Ukrainian-Polish family, having among her ancestors a remarkable thinker the 18th century Hryhori Skovoroda
Hryhori Skovoroda
Hryhorii Savych Skovoroda was a Ukrainian philosopher, poet, teacher and composer who lived in the Russian Empire and who made important contributions to Russian philosophy and culture. He lived and worked in Ukraine and passionately and consciously identified with its people, differentiating them...
(1722–1794).
In his teens Solovyov renounced Orthodox Christianity for nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
though later Solovyov changed his earlier convictions and began expressing views in line again with the Russian Orthodox Church
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...
. What prompted this radical change appears to be Solovyov's disapproval of the Positivist movement. In Solovyov's The Crisis of Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists he attempted to discredit the Positivists' rejection of Aristotle's essentialism
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
or philosophical realism
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
. In Against the Postivists, Solovyov took the position of intuitive noetic comprehension, noesis or insight
Insight
Insight is the understanding of a specific cause and effect in a specific context. Insight can be used with several related meanings:*a piece of information...
stating consciousness, in being is integral (Russian term being sobornost
Sobornost
Sobornost is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively...
) and has to have both phenomenon
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...
(validated by dianonia) and noumenon
Noumenon
The noumenon is a posited object or event that is known without the use of the senses.The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to "phenomenon", which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses...
validated intuitively
Intuition (knowledge)
Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. "The word 'intuition' comes from the Latin word 'intueri', which is often roughly translated as meaning 'to look inside'’ or 'to contemplate'." Intuition provides us with beliefs that we cannot necessarily justify...
. Positivism according to Solovyov only validates the phenomenon of an object denying the intuitive reality people experience as part of their consciousness. Vladimir Solovyov was also known to be a very close friend and confidant of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In opposition to Dostoyevsky's apparent views of the Roman Catholic church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
, Solovyov supported Roman Catholicism. It could be said that he did this to engage in the reconciliation (ecumenism
Ecumenism
Ecumenism or oecumenism mainly refers to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. It is used predominantly by and with reference to Christian denominations and Christian Churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice...
, sobornost
Sobornost
Sobornost is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively...
) between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, a reconciliation that Solovyov outspokenly favored, eventually,"through an ethical and social standpoint," converting to Roman Catholicism. Solovyov believed that his mission in life was to move people toward reconciliation or absolute unity or sobornost
Sobornost
Sobornost is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively...
.
Solovyov never married or had any children, but he pursued idealized romantic relationships as immortalized in his spiritual love poetry, including with two women named, appropriately enough, Sophia. Shortly afer rebuffing the scandalous advances of mystic Anna Schmidt who claimed to be his divine partner, Solovyov died an apparent homeless pauper, leaving his brother Mikhail Sergeevich and several colleagues to defend and promote his legacy.
Influence
It is widely held that Solovyov was Dostoyevsky's inspiration for the characters Alyosha KaramazovAlyosha Karamazov
Alyosha Karamazov is the protagonist in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His full name is given as Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov and he is also referred to as Alyosha, Alyoshka, Alyoshenka, Alyoshechka, Alexeichik, Lyosha, and Lyoshenka. He is the youngest of the Karamazov brothers,...
and Ivan Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov
The Brothers Karamazov is the final novel by the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Dostoyevsky spent nearly two years writing The Brothers Karamazov, which was published as a serial in The Russian Messenger and completed in November 1880...
. Solovyov's influence can also be seen in the writings of the Symbolist
Russian Symbolism
Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry.-Russian symbolism in...
and Neo-Idealist
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
of the later Russian Soviet era. His book The Meaning of Love can be seen as one of the philosophical sources of Leo Tolstoy's The Kreutzer Sonata
The Kreutzer Sonata
The Kreutzer Sonata is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, published in 1889 and promptly censored by the Russian authorities. The work is an argument for the ideal of sexual abstinence and an in-depth first-person description of jealous rage...
(1889).
He influenced the religious philosophy of Nicolas Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky
Pavel Florensky
Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky was a Russian Orthodox theologian, philosopher, mathematician, electrical engineer, inventor and Neomartyr sometimes compared by his followers to Leonardo da Vinci.-Early life:Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky was born on January 21, 1882, into the family of a railroad...
, Nikolai Lossky
Nikolai Lossky
Nikolay Onufriyevich Lossky was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionism, personalism, libertarianism, ethics, Axiology , and his philosophy he called intuitive-personalism. Born in Latvia, he spent his working life in St. Petersburg, New York and Paris...
, Semen L. Frank
Semen L. Frank
Semyon Lyudvigovich Frank was a Jewish-born Russian religious philosopher.-Biography:Semyo′n Lyu′dvigovich Frank was born in a Jewish family. He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1912, and became a leading Russian Orthodox thinker. He was expelled from the USSR in 1922 on the so-called...
, the ideas of Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Steiner
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian philosopher, social reformer, architect, and esotericist. He gained initial recognition as a literary critic and cultural philosopher...
and also on the poetry and theory of Russian symbolism
Russian Symbolism
Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry.-Russian symbolism in...
, namely Andrei Belyi, Alexander Blok
Alexander Blok
Alexander Alexandrovich Blok was a Russian lyrical poet.-Life and career:Blok was born in Saint Petersburg, into a sophisticated and intellectual family. Some of his relatives were literary men, his father being a law professor in Warsaw, and his maternal grandfather the rector of Saint Petersburg...
, Solovyov's nephew, and others. Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church...
explores his work as one example of seven lay styles that reveal the glory of God's revelation, in volume III of The Glory of the Lord (pp. 279–352).
Sophiology
Solovyov compiled a philosophy based partly on HellenisticHellenistic philosophy
Hellenistic philosophy is the period of Western philosophy that was developed in the Hellenistic civilization following Aristotle and ending with the beginning of Neoplatonism.-Pythagoreanism:...
pagan philosophy (see Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Plotinus
Plotinus
Plotinus was a major philosopher of the ancient world. In his system of theory there are the three principles: the One, the Intellect, and the Soul. His teacher was Ammonius Saccas and he is of the Platonic tradition...
) and also early church Patristic tradition along with Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
and Hebrew Kabbalistic
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
elements (Philo of Alexandria
Philo
Philo , known also as Philo of Alexandria , Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew, was a Hellenistic Jewish Biblical philosopher born in Alexandria....
). Solovyov also studied Gnosticism
Gnosticism
Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...
and seemed to be heavily influenced by the gnostic works of Valentinus
Valentinus (Gnostic)
Valentinus was the best known and for a time most successful early Christian gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome...
. Solovyov's religious philosophy was syncretic and fused many of the philosophical elements of various religious traditions with that of the Eastern Orthodox church and also Solovyov's own personal experience of the Sophia.
Solovyov described his encounters with the entity Sophia in his works the Three Encounters and Lectures on Godmanhood among others. Solovyov's fusion was driven by the desire to reconcile and or unite with Eastern Orthodoxy these various traditions via the Russian Slavophiles' concept of sobornost
Sobornost
Sobornost is a term coined by the early Slavophiles, Ivan Kireevsky and Aleksey Khomyakov, to underline the need for cooperation between people at the expense of individualism on the basis that the opposing groups focus on what is common between them. Khomyakov believed the West was progressively...
. His Russian religious philosophy had a very strong impact on the Russian Symbolist
Russian Symbolism
Russian symbolism was an intellectual and artistic movement predominant at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. It represented the Russian branch of the symbolist movement in European art, and was mostly known for its contributions to Russian poetry.-Russian symbolism in...
art movements of his time. Solovyev's teaching on Sophia have been deemed a heresy
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
by ROCOR and condemned as unsound and unorthodox by the Patriarchate of Moscow.
Sobornost
Solovyov sought through his works to create a form of philosophy, that could through his system of logic or reason, reconcile all various bodies of knowledge or disciplines of thought. It was Solovyov's goal to fuse all conflicting concepts into a single systematic form of reason. It was this complete form of philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
that Solovyov presented as being Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy
Russian philosophy includes a variety of philosophical movements. Authors who developed them are listed below sorted by movement.While most authors listed below are primarily philosophers, also included here are some Russian fiction writers, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, who are also known as...
. That based on the central components of the 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...
movement, all forms of reason could be reconciled into one single form of logic. The heart of this reconciliation as logic or reason was the concept sobornost (organic or Spontaneous order
Spontaneous order
Spontaneous order, also known as "self-organization", is the spontaneous emergence of order out of seeming chaos. It is a process found in physical, biological, and social networks, as well as economics, though the term "self-organization" is more often used for physical and biological processes,...
through integration) which is also the Russian word for catholic. Solovyov sought to find and validate the common ground and or where various conflicts found common ground and by focusing on this common ground to establish absolute unity and or integral fusion of opposing ideas and or peoples.
Criticism
Solovyov is extensively criticized by Dmitry GalkovskyDmitry Galkovsky
Dmitry Yevgenyevich Galkovsky is a Russian novelist, essayist, journalist, philosopher, blogger. Most famous as author of the novel The Infinite Deadlock .-Biography:...
in the 1988 philosophical novel The Infinite Deadlock. Galkovsky cites Solovyov's early adoption of nihilist views, and later renunciation of them, as evidence of Solovyov's opportunism. He also characterizes Solovyov's writings on theocracy
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
as a "parodic hybrid of slavophilic nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
with Western nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
." In Galkovsky's radical interpretation, Solovyov emerges as an impostor whose primary goal was to create a caricatured form of religious conservatism that would draw audiences away from more "authentic" nationalists such as Yuri Samarin
Yuri Samarin
Yuri Fyodorovich Samarin was a leading Russian Slavophile thinker and one of the architects of the Emancipation reform of 1861....
.
Quotes
"As long as the dark foundation of our nature, grim in itsall-encompassing egoism, mad in its drive to make that egoism into
reality, to devour everything and to define everything by itself, as
long as that foundation is visible, as long as this truly original sin
exists within us, we have no business here and there is no logical
answer to our existence. Imagine a group of people who are all blind, deaf and slightly demented and suddenly someone in the crowd asks, "What are we to do?"... The only possible answer is "Look for a cure". Until you are cured, there is nothing you can do. And since you don't believe you are sick, there can be no cure."
Further reading
- Kristi Groberg, ‘Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev: a bibliography’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, vol.14-15, 1998
- Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, ‘Vladimir Sergeevich Solov’ev’, Dictionary of Literary Bibliography, v295 (2004), pp377–386
- Dimitrii N.Stremooukhoff, Vladimir Soloviev and his messianic work (Paris, 1935; English translation: Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1980)
- Jonathan Sutton, The religious philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov: towards a reassessment (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1988)
- Nicholas Zernov, Three Russian prophets (London: SCM Press, 1944)
- Nikolai LosskyNikolai LosskyNikolay Onufriyevich Lossky was a Russian philosopher, representative of Russian idealism, intuitionism, personalism, libertarianism, ethics, Axiology , and his philosophy he called intuitive-personalism. Born in Latvia, he spent his working life in St. Petersburg, New York and Paris...
History of Russian Philosophy «История российской Философии »(1951)
See also
- Russian philosophyRussian philosophyRussian philosophy includes a variety of philosophical movements. Authors who developed them are listed below sorted by movement.While most authors listed below are primarily philosophers, also included here are some Russian fiction writers, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, who are also known as...
- Vladimir LosskyVladimir LosskyVladimir Nikolayevich Lossky was an influential Eastern Orthodox theologian in exile from Russia. He emphasized theosis as the main principle of Orthodox Christianity....
- Apophatic theologyNegative theologyApophatic theology —also known as negative theology or via negativa —is a theology that attempts to describe God, the Divine Good, by negation, to speak only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God...
- N. O. Lossky
- Mikhail EpsteinMikhail EpsteinMikhail Naumovich Epstein is an American literary theorist and critical thinker. He is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia...
- Leo Mikhailovich LopatinLeo Mikhailovich LopatinLeo Mikhailovich Lopatin was a Russian philosopher and former head of the Moscow Psychological Society until the formal liquidation of the society by the Soviet after the Revolution of 1917. Lopatin fell victim to the policies of Soviet reform,...
- PhronesisPhronesisPhronēsis is an Ancient Greek word for wisdom or intelligence which is a common topic of discussion in philosophy. In Aristotelian Ethics, for example in the Nicomachean Ethics it is distinguished from other words for wisdom as the virtue of practical thought, and is usually translated "practical...
External links
- Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900) – entry on Solovyov at Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- The Russian Church and the Papacy
- Dostoevsky and Soloviev
- http://www.orthodoxphotos.com/readings/end/antichrist.shtml
- ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky Several chapters on Solovyov
- http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/s/solovyov.htm
- http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/soloviev/soloviev.html
- http://www.christendom-awake.org/pages/soloviev/biffi.html (address by Cardinal Giacomo Biffi)
- http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9068629/Vladimir-Sergeyevich-Solovyov
- http://www.valley.net/~transnat/solsoc.html
- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/solovyov/
- Tale of the Anti-Christ - excerpt from Three Conversations by Solovyov
- Civil Society and National Religion: Problems of Church, State, and Society in the Philosophy of Vladimir Solov'ëv (1853-1900) – research project at Centre for Russian Humanities Studies, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
- http://rumkatkilise.org/necplus.htm
- English translations of 5 poems, including 8 of 18 acrostics from the cycle "Sappho"
- English translations of 2 poems by Babette Deutsch and Avrahm Yarmolinsky, 1921
- "The Positive Unity: How Solovyov’s Ethics Can Contribute to Constructing a Working Model for Business Ethics in Modern Russia" by Andrey V. Shirin