Victoria Juharyan, Russ 2425 (Spr ’19)

Philosophy and Literature:

Western Thought and the Russian Dialogic Imagination
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Week # 3 (For Monday. Jan. 28)

The Period of Philosophical Remarks, the Philosophical Dark Age and

the Emergence of Professional Philosophy

Schelling and the Slavophiles vs Hegel and the Westernizers

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READINGS

• FRIEDRICH WILHELM JOSEPH VON SCHELLING [1775–1854]

Schelling was essentially trying to provide a "total explanation" of nature, based on his
presupposition that you needed to start from a philosophical, totalizing understanding of
nature, and only then can you correctly explore nature using science (empirical observation,
measuring, testing hypotheses, etc.)

[study the basic context and an overview of philosophical ideas on-line at The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schelling/]

Excerpts from Schelling’s Naturphilosophie…………………..….……………...….pp.13-19.

• GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH HEGEL [1770-1831]

If Schelling’s main focus and starting point of philosophical enquiry was nature, Hegel
focused on history and its structural similarities with the development of self-consciousness.
Most importantly, he claimed that self-consciousness, history (or Spirit, as he called it) as
well as art and all spheres of life (except nature) developed dialectically.

[study the basic context and an overview of philosophical ideas on-line at The Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel/ and
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/history/]

“Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage,” the chapter

more commonly referred to as the “Master and Slave Dialectic” from Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit…......................................................................................pp. 111-119.

Introduction from Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History…………..…80 pages or so.

 Victoria Juharyan, Russ 2425 (Spr ’19)

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*From Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism:

4. ANTI-ENLIGHTENMENT TRENDS IN THE EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY

Mysticism. The Wisdom-lovers and Russian Schellingianism ……..…………..pp. 71-81.

6. THE SLAVOPHILES

The Slavophiles’ Philosophy of History and Social Ideals. The Concept of the “Integral
Personality” and “New Principles in Philosophy.” Slavophile Ecclesiology. Slavophilism
as Conservative Utopianism. The Disintegration of Slavophilism ..……..…….pp. 92-115.

7. THE RUSSIAN HEGELIANS – FROM “RECONCILIATION WITH REALITY” TO

“PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION”

Nikolai Stankevich. Mikhail Bakunin. Vissarion Belinsky.

Alexander Herzen..............................................................................................pp. 115-135.

8. BELINSKY AND DIFFERENT VARIANTS OF WESTERNISM

Belinsky’s Westernism. The Liberal Westernizers…………………….……..pp. 135-152.

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ADDITIONAL TEXTS IN RUSSIAN

• Д. И. Чижевский. «ГЕГЕЛЬ В РОССИИ»

Русское шеллингианство………………………………………………...……стр. 50-66.

Гегельянские кружки………………………………….………………………стр. 66-87.

Славянофилы и Гегель…………………………………………………......стр. 191-219.