The book by the greatest Russian philosopher of the 20th century, A. F. Losev (1893-1988), is a creative biography of one of the outstanding Russian philosophers of the 19th century, Vladimir Sergeevich Solovyov (1853-1900). It reflects the main facts and stages of his life and philosophical development, the main ideas and concepts of his teaching. The religious, socio-political, worldview, and life views of the philosopher are considered in detail. A wide panorama of the intellectual environment of Vl. Solovyov, his place in the social life of Russia in the XIX century and his influence on the spiritual development of society.

ru Tatyana Trushova If you found an error - write to e-mail saphyana@inbox.ru ExportToFB21, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 04.04.2012 OOoFBTools-2012-4-4-16-40-9-769 1.0 Vladimir Solovyov and his time Young Guard Moscow 2009

Vladimir Solovyov and his time

FROM THE HISTORY OF THE BOOK ABOUT VL. SOLOVYOV

The book by A. F. Losev about Vladimir Solovyov has its own and even very outstanding history.

This story began in old, grace-filled, still peaceful times, when the young gymnasium student Alexei Losev had a year left before graduating from the classical gymnasium in the city of Novocherkassk, the capital of the Don Army Region. It was then, in 1910, that the director of the gymnasium awarded his pupil, who was fond of philosophy, with the collected works of Vl. Solovyov, who, along with Platon (Losev already had his books in his library), became the eternal companion of the long life of Alexei Fedorovich Losev[1].

The gymnasium student Losev worked a lot (it was not for nothing that he graduated from the course with a gold medal), subscribed to a number of popular science magazines, such as "Around the World", "Nature and People", "Herald of Knowledge", borrowed the magazine "Faith and Reason" from the gymnasium library, read philosophers, theologians, physicists, astronomers, naturalists. He had already written the study "The Significance of the Sciences and Arts and Rousseau's Dissertation "On the Influence of the Sciences on Morals"[2], made a long report on this topic to his comrades, wrote an article "Atheism, Its Origin and Influence on Science and Life"[3].

Alexei Fyodorovich recalled[4] that at the age of 17 he studied in detail the works of Vl. Solovyov, "this not very easy philosopher", and understood much in him "not so elementary"[5]. At that time, he became acquainted with the theoretical works of the philosopher, with his dialectics, clearly expressed in "The Crisis of Western Philosophy (Against the Positivists)", in "Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge", in "Critique of Abstract Principles". And this is characteristic: the young Losev learned dialectics from Plato and Solovyov, which became the main method of his own philosophy, and positivism, as a result of the crisis of Western philosophy, was always alien to Losev and was subjected to well-deserved criticism by him. The young man was interested in the literary articles of Vl. Solovyov about Russian poets, not always, however, agreeing with him.

Against Solovyov's understanding of the poetry of his beloved Lermontov, he "rebelled deeply". However, works of socio-political, historical, and theological content have not yet been read. It was not so easy for a gymnasium student to cover all eight volumes of the works of Vl. Solovyov, who made up their first edition. The second, already ten-volume, together with four separate issues of the philosopher's writing, was acquired by Alexei Fedorovich later, and it was preserved in the philosopher's library after the destruction of his house in Moscow on Vozdvizhenka by a fascist high-explosive bomb in the summer of 1941. Alexei Fedorovich considered Vl. Solovyov as his "first teacher", especially "in the dialectics of the finite and the infinite". However, for Losev (unlike Vl. Solovyov) the finite and the infinite were not abstractions, but the "true reality" in which they "indistinguishably coincide". It was this concrete, quite real dialectic of opposites that remained for Losev "for the rest of his life the original alphabet of philosophizing" [6].

. Young Losev was especially attracted by the doctrine of "all-unity", so characteristic of the Russian philosopher.

Young Losev expressed his commitment to this idea in an extensive work, a real scientific work "Higher Synthesis as Happiness and Knowledge". It is noteworthy that the author wrote his work on the eve of his departure to Moscow, literally within two days.

He entered the Moscow Imperial University and left his hometown on September 1, 1911. He has to be in time, he is in a hurry, writes hastily, illegibly, crosses out, inserts words, makes footnotes. This work was preserved in the archive of Alexei Fedorovich and, as is now known, turned out to be never completed. It was supplanted by university concerns. But the main ideas have already been expressed. Science, philosophy, religion, art, morality, that is, everything that forms the spiritual life of man and is ultimately the highest synthesis, found its support in Solovyov's theory of "all-unity" and remained for Losev the basic principle of his philosophy and worldview.