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KF
Northwestern Academy
public service
abstract
on the topic:
Philosophy of Leo Tolstoy
Completed by: 2nd year student of the State Medical University
Moiseev V. A.
Checked by: teacher
Streltsov A.S.
Kaluga, 2001
Introduction. Pages
L.N. Tolstoy on the meaning of freedom and necessity 2-5
What is hidden behind the question of the meaning of life? 5-8
Leo Tolstoy and his non-church Christianity. 8-12
Is Leo Tolstoy a philosopher? 12-22
Conclusion.
Bibliography.
Introduction
From the point of view of the Russian writer and thinker Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), the drama of human existence lies in the contradiction between the inevitability of death and the thirst for immortality inherent in man. The embodiment of this contradiction is the question of the meaning of life - a question that can be expressed as follows: “Is there such a meaning in my life that would not be destroyed by my inevitable death?” * . Tolstoy believes that a person's life is filled with meaning to the extent that he subordinates it to the fulfillment of the will of God, and the will of God is given to us as the law of love, opposing the law of violence. The law of love is most fully and most accurately developed in the commandments of Christ. In order to save himself, his soul, in order to give meaning to life, a person must stop doing evil, commit violence, stop once and for all, and above all when he himself becomes an object of evil and violence. Do not respond with evil to evil, do not resist evil with violence - such is the basis of Leo Tolstoy's life teaching.
Religion and the theme of non-resistance in one form or another are devoted to all of Tolstoy's work after 1878. The corresponding works can be divided into four cycles: confessional - "Confession" (1879-1881), "What is my faith?" (1884); theoretical - "What is religion and what is its essence?" (1884), The Kingdom of God is within you (1890–1893), The Law of Violence and the Law of Love (1908); journalistic - “Thou shalt not kill” (1900), “I cannot be silent” (1908); artistic - "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (1886), "Kreutzer Sonata" (1887-1879), "Resurrection" (1889-1899), "Father Sergius" (1898).
“L.N. Tolstoy on the meaning of freedom and necessity”
Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) - a brilliant Russian writer - realist, a well-known thinker, whose worldview positions are of great interest for characterizing the historical and philosophical process in Russia in the 19th - early 20th centuries. His legacy - works of art, theoretical works, journalistic articles, diaries and letters full of deep philosophical reflections of a moral, social, aesthetic nature. For the most part, these reflections are in organic connection with the actual literary features of the writer's artistic heritage and are inseparable from them. In Tolstoy's reflections, one or another, predominantly idealistic, solution of philosophical (both anthological and epistemological) problems revealed his sympathies and antipathies, his attitude to various currents of socio-political, philosophical sociological thought, aesthetic and ethical teachings. In his worldview there are rational judgments that have not lost their significance even today. At the same time, the views of the brilliant writer and famous thinker, spokesman for the sentiments and aspirations of the multimillion-strong patriarchal peasantry are riddled with screaming contradictions, a deep analysis of which was given by V.I. Lenin in his articles about Tolstoy. On the one hand, Tolstoy dealt a heavy blow to the dogmas Orthodox Church. On the other hand, he is looking for ways to update religion, expresses clear idealistic statements. At the same time, Tolstoy is characterized by a realistic perception of nature and social life, he has materialistic judgments. Based on the position of metaphysics in solving a number of issues, assuming, for example, the existence of eternal and unchanging truths, L.N. At the same time, Tolstoy reflects the dialectic of the material and the spiritual in his artistic creations. Tolstoy's masterful depiction of the "dialectics of the soul", the mobility and dynamics of the views of numerous heroes of his novels, stories, short stories is in clear contradiction with his metaphysical prejudices, statements, with his inherent fuzziness in the question of the relationship between the material and the ideal.
In the field of sociology, especially in the interpretation of the patterns of socio-historical development, Lev Nikolaevich asserts a number of very important and scientifically valuable truths. Using the materials of Russian and world history, the writer in an artistic and visual form shows the driving forces and determining factors of the socio-historical objective development of human society. In his work "Philosophy of History" Tolstoy considered the movement of mankind. He believed that this movement is continuous, and therefore the comprehension of the laws of this movement is the goal of history. But in order to comprehend the laws of continuous movement - the sum of all the wills of people, the human mind allows arbitrary, continuous units. This is achieved in two ways. The first trick is to take an arbitrary series of continuous events and consider it separately from others, while no event can be the beginning, since it continuously follows from another. The second is to consider the actions of one person (the king) as the sum of the arbitrariness of people, while the sum of the arbitrariness of people is never expressed in the activity of one person. But in order to study the laws of history, it is necessary to completely change the subject of observation, leave the kings and generals alone, and study the homogeneous, infinitesimal elements that guide the masses. The subject of history has always been the life of peoples and mankind. But historians were divided into old (ancient) and new. Questions about the will of the people and how it was controlled were resolved. For the ancients, these questions were resolved by faith in the direct participation of the deity in the affairs of mankind. New history rejected this. She rejected theory, but followed it in practice. Instead of the former goals pleasing to the deity of the peoples: Greek, Roman, which seemed to be the goals of the movement of mankind, new story has set as its goal the good of French, German, English and, in the highest abstraction, the goal of the good of the civilization of all mankind, by which is meant ordinary peoples occupying a small northwestern corner of a large continent. New history rejected the beliefs of the ancients, but arrived at them in a different way:
1. That peoples are led by individuals;
2. That there is a certain goal towards which peoples and mankind are moving.
But Tolstoy believes that it is impossible to connect these two stories. But if we combine both histories together, as modern historians do, then this will be the history of monarchs and writers, and not the history of the life of peoples.
According to Tolstoy, freedom and necessity play the most important role in history. These are philosophical categories that express the relationship between the activities of people and the objective laws of nature and society. Freedom is the ability of a person to act in accordance with his interests and goals, based on the recognition of objective necessity. Necessity is something that cannot fail to happen under the given conditions, which must necessarily happen. It is also the development of phenomena, which inevitably follows from the internal essential relationships, relationships and interactions of these phenomena. The ratio of freedom and necessity is always changing, that is, religion, common sense, humanity, the science of law and history itself understand this relationship between necessity and freedom in the same way. Without exception, all cases in which our idea of freedom and necessity increases or decreases have only 3 reasons:
1) The attitude of the person who committed the act to the outside world. If we consider one person, and some objects act on him, then freedom decreases, and necessity increases.
2) By the time. This is the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago, connected with me in time, cannot seem to me as free as modern life, the consequences of which I do not yet know. Reasoning about the freedom of action becomes doubtful the further it is carried by memories and forward by judgments. The freedom of people becomes doubtful, and the law of necessity becomes obvious.
3) To the reasons that produced the act. Ideas about freedom and necessity increase or decrease depending on the reasons, but no matter how we lengthen or shorten the period of time, no matter how understandable or incomprehensible the reasons are for us, we will never be able to imagine not complete freedom, not complete necessity.
Because:
1) It is impossible to imagine a person as free, outside of space;
2) In order to present its movement as free, it is necessary to present it in terms of the present, past and future, i.e. outside of time, which is impossible;
3) It is impossible to commit an act without a reason, since the fact that I want to commit an act without a reason is the reason for my act.
In the same way, we cannot imagine a person, his actions without the participation of freedom and subject only to the law of necessity, since there is still a share of freedom.
All this leads to the two foundations of man's worldview: reason and consciousness. Reason expresses the laws of necessity, and consciousness expresses the essence of freedom. Freedom, unlimited by anything, is the essence of life in the mind of man. Only when freedom and necessity are combined is there a clear idea of human life. Tolstoy believes that in finding reasons, history should make it its task to find laws, since despite certain elements of fatalism, Tolstoy correctly resolves the issue of the role of the masses in history, in their creation of material wealth and spiritual values, rightly criticizes the point of view of those historians and sociologists , which depict the individual with power, as something defining in historical action.
In general, Tolstoy tried to comprehend man and nature in its unity with man. Tolstoy unwinds the “new culture”, the secular style of thinking, but calls not to the traditional, but to “his own” church. Tolstoy is the theorist of unity. He rebels against the disintegration into components, to which modern science, society, and culture are subject. He calls people to the only natural unity. The significance of Tolstoy's work for the development of Russian thought is very great and not unambiguous. He overcame the secularism of Russian thought. Secularization is the liberation of the social and individual from the influence of religion. He showed the intelligentsia a different path, but he himself did not follow them. He was not understood by his followers or contemporaries.
What is hidden behind the question of the meaning of life?
According to Tolstoy, a person is in disagreement, discord with himself. It is as if two people live in it - internal and external, of which the first is dissatisfied with what the second does, and the second does not do what the first wants. This inconsistency, self-disintegration is found in different people with varying degrees of severity, but it is inherent in all of them. Self-contradictory, torn apart by mutually denying aspirations, a person is doomed to suffer, to be dissatisfied with himself. A person constantly strives to overcome himself, to become different.
However, it is not enough to say that it is natural for a person to suffer and be dissatisfied. Moreover, a person also knows that he is suffering, and is dissatisfied with himself, he does not accept his suffering position. His discontent and suffering are doubled: to the very suffering and discontent is added the consciousness that this is bad. A person does not just strive to become different, to eliminate everything that gives rise to suffering and a feeling of discontent; he longs to become free from suffering. A person not only lives, he also wants his life to have meaning.
People associate the fulfillment of their desires with civilization, changes in external forms of life, natural and social environment. It is assumed that a person can free himself from a passive position with the help of science, the arts, the growth of the economy, the development of technology, the creation of a comfortable life, etc. them during the first half of his conscious life. However, just personal experience and observation of people in his circle convinced him that this path was false. The higher a person rises in his worldly pursuits and hobbies, the greater the wealth, the deeper the knowledge, the stronger the spiritual anxiety, discontent and suffering from which he wanted to be freed in these occupations. One might think that if activity and progress increase suffering, then inactivity will contribute to its reduction. Such an assumption is incorrect. The cause of suffering is not progress in itself, but the expectations that are associated with it, that completely unjustified hope that by increasing the speed of trains, by increasing the productivity of fields, something else can be achieved besides the fact that a person will move faster and eat better. From this point of view, it makes little difference whether the emphasis is on activity and progress or inactivity. The very attitude to give meaning to human life by changing its external forms is erroneous. This attitude comes from the conviction that the inner man depends on the outer, that the state of the soul and consciousness of a person is a consequence of his position in the world and among people. But if that were the case, then there would be no conflict between them from the very beginning.
In a word, material and cultural progress mean what they mean: material and cultural progress. They do not affect the suffering of the soul. Tolstoy sees the unconditional proof of this in the fact that progress is meaningless if we consider it in the perspective of a person's death. Why money, power, etc., why try at all, achieve something, if everything inevitably ends in death and oblivion. “One can only live while drunk on life; but when you sober up, you can’t help but see that all this is just a deception, and a stupid deception! The tragedy of human existence, according to Tolstoy, is well conveyed by the eastern (ancient Indian) fable about a traveler caught in the steppe by an angry beast. “Fleeing from the beast, the traveler jumps into a waterless well, but at the bottom of the well he sees a dragon with its mouth open to devour him. And the unfortunate man, not daring to get out, so as not to die from an angry beast, not daring to jump to the bottom of the well, so as not to be devoured by a dragon, grabs onto the branches of a wild bush growing in the crevices of the well and clings to it. His hands are weakening, and he feels that he will soon have to give himself up to death, which is waiting for him on both sides, but he still holds on, and while he holds on, he looks around and sees that two mice, one black, the other white, are uniformly walking around the trunk of a bush. , on which it hangs, undermine it. The bush is about to break off and break off by itself, and it will fall into the mouth of the dragon. The traveler sees this and knows that he will inevitably perish; but while he is hanging, he searches around him and finds drops of honey on the leaves of a bush, takes them out with his tongue and licks them. White and black mice, day and night, inevitably lead a person to death - and not a person in general, but each of us, and not somewhere and sometime, but here and now, “and this is not a fable, but this is true, undeniable and understandable truth." And nothing will save you from this - neither huge wealth, nor refined taste, nor extensive knowledge.
The conclusion about the meaninglessness of life, to which experience seems to lead and which is confirmed by philosophical wisdom, is, from Tolstoy's point of view, clearly contradictory logically, so that one could agree with him. How can reason justify the meaninglessness of life if it is itself a product of life? He has no basis for such justification. Therefore, the very statement about the meaninglessness of life contains its own refutation: a person who came to such a conclusion would first of all have to settle his own accounts with life, and then he could not talk about its meaninglessness, if he talks about the meaninglessness life and thereby continues to live a life that is worse than death, which means that in reality it is not as meaningless and bad as it is said. Further, the conclusion that life is meaningless means that a person is able to set goals that he cannot achieve and formulate questions that he cannot answer. But aren't these goals and questions being posed by the same person? And if he does not have the strength to realize them, then where did he get the strength to deliver them? No less convincing is Tolstoy's objection: if life is meaningless, then how did millions and millions of people, all of humanity, live and live? And since they live, enjoy life and continue to live, does it mean that they find some important meaning in it? Which?
Not satisfied with the negative solution to the question of the meaning of life, Leo Tolstoy turned to the spiritual experience of ordinary people living by their own labor, the experience of the people.
Ordinary people are well acquainted with the question of the meaning of life, in which for them there is no difficulty, no riddle. They know that they must live according to God's law and live in such a way as not to destroy their souls. They know about their material insignificance, but it does not frighten them, because the soul remains connected with God. The lack of education of these people, their lack of philosophical and scientific knowledge does not prevent them from understanding the truth of life, rather, on the contrary, it helps. In a strange way, it turned out that ignorant, prejudiced peasants are aware of the depth of the question about the meaning of life, they understand that they are being asked about the eternal, undying meaning of their life and about whether they are afraid of impending death.
Listening to the words of ordinary people, peering into their lives, Tolstoy came to the conclusion that the truth speaks through their lips. They understood the question of the meaning of life deeper, more precisely than all the greatest thinkers and philosophers.
The question of the meaning of life is the question of the relationship between the finite and the infinite in it, that is, whether finite life has an eternal, indestructible meaning, and if so, what does it consist of? Is there anything immortal in her? If the finite life of man contained its meaning in itself, then this question would not exist. “To solve this question, it is equally insufficient to equate the finite with the finite and the infinite with the infinite,” one must reveal the relationship of one to the other. Consequently, the question of the meaning of life is wider than the scope of logical knowledge, it requires going beyond the scope of the area that is subject to reason. “It was impossible to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge,” writes Tolstoy. We had to admit that “all living mankind has some other kind of knowledge, unreasonable - faith, which makes it possible to live.”
Observations on the life experience of ordinary people, who are characterized by a meaningful attitude towards their own life with a clear understanding of its insignificance, and the correctly understood logic of the very question of the meaning of life, lead Tolstoy to the same conclusion that the question of the meaning of life is a question of faith, and not knowledge. In Tolstoy's philosophy, the concept of faith has a special content that does not coincide with the traditional one. It is not the realization of things hoped for and the assurance of things not seen. "Faith is a person's awareness of such a position in the world that obliges him to certain actions." “Faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life." From these definitions it becomes clear that for Tolstoy a life that has meaning and a life based on faith are one and the same.
The concept of faith in Tolstoy's understanding is completely unrelated to incomprehensible mysteries, incredibly miraculous transformations and other prejudices. Moreover, it does not mean at all that human knowledge has any other instrumentation than reason, based on experience and subject to strict laws of logic. Describing the peculiarity of the knowledge of faith, Tolstoy writes: “I will not seek an explanation of everything. I know that the explanation of everything must be hidden, as the beginning of everything, in infinity. But I want to understand in such a way that I can be led to the inevitable-inexplicable, I want everything that is inexplicable to be such, not because the demands of my mind are wrong (they are correct, and outside of them I cannot understand anything), but because that I see the limits of my mind. I want to understand in such a way that every inexplicable situation appears to me as a necessity of reason, and not as an obligation to believe. Tolstoy did not recognize unproven knowledge. He took nothing on faith except faith itself. Faith as the force of life goes beyond the competence of the mind. In this sense, the concept of faith is a manifestation of the honesty of the mind, which does not want to take on more than it can.
From such an understanding of faith, it follows that doubt and confusion are hidden behind the question of the meaning of life. The meaning of life becomes a question when life is deprived of meaning. “I understood,” writes Tolstoy, “that in order to understand the meaning of life, it is necessary first of all that life be not meaningless and evil, and then only reason in order to understand it.” Confused questioning what to live for is a sure sign that life is wrong. From the works written by Tolstoy, one and only conclusion follows: the meaning of life cannot lie in the fact that it dies with the death of a person. This means: it cannot consist in life for oneself, as well as in life for other people, for they also die, as well as in life for humanity, for it is not eternal either. “Life for oneself cannot have any meaning ... To live intelligently, one must live in such a way that death cannot destroy life.”
LEV TOLSTOY AND HIS NON-CHURCH CHRISTIANITY
Tolstoy is a great master of artistic expression and a great thinker. His whole life, his heart and mind were occupied with one burning question, which, to one degree or another, left its painful imprint on all his writings. We feel his darkening presence in "The Story of My Childhood", in "War and Peace", in "Anna Karenina", until he completely absorbed him in the last years of his life, when such works as "My Faith" were created, " What is my faith?", "What to do?", "About Life" and "Kreutzer Sonata". The same question burns in the hearts of many people, especially among Theosophists; it is truly a question of life itself. "What is the meaning, the purpose of human life? What is the final outcome of the unnatural, perverted and deceitful life of our civilization, such as is imposed on each of us individually? What must we do to be happy, constantly happy? How can we avoid the nightmare of inevitable death? " To these eternal questions Tolstoy did not give an answer in his early writings, because he himself did not find it. But he could not stop fighting, as millions of other, weaker or cowardly natures did, without giving an answer that would at least satisfy his own heart and mind; and the five works cited above contain such an answer. This is the answer that the theosophist cannot really be satisfied with in the form in which Tolstoy gives it, but in his main, fundamental, vital thought we can find new light, fresh hope and strong consolation. However, in order to understand it, we must briefly trace the path by which Tolstoy reached the world that he found; for until we can feel as well as understand those inner processes which brought it to this, its solution, like any other solution to a vital problem, will remain a dead letter, a purely intellectual verbal concept, in which the vital force is completely absent; mere speculation, devoid of living truth and enthusiasm.
Like all thinking men and women of our time, Tolstoy lost faith in religion in childhood; for such a loss of childlike faith—inevitable in the life of every man—is not, as a rule, the result of deep reflection; it is rather a natural consequence of our culture and our shared life experiences. He himself says that his faith has disappeared, and he does not know how. But his youthful striving for ethical improvement continued to persist for about ten more years, gradually being forgotten, and in the end completely disappeared. Seeing around him triumphant ambitions, love of power, selfishness and sensuality; seeing the contempt and mocking attitude towards everything that is called virtue, kindness, purity and altruism, and being unable to have either a feeling of inner happiness and fulfillment, or external success, Tolstoy followed the path that the world moves, acting as he sees others, taking part in all the vicious and vile deeds of the "decent world." Then he turns to literature, becomes a great master of the word, the most successful writer, trying, as he himself says, to hide his own ignorance from himself by teaching others. For several years he continued to do this suppression of his inner dissatisfaction, but more and more often, more and more painfully, this question arose before him: For what do I live? What do I know? And every day he saw more and more clearly that he could not give an answer to it. He was fifty years old when his despair reached its peak. Being at the top of his fame, a happy husband and father, the author of many wonderful works filled with the deepest knowledge of people and life wisdom, Tolstoy realizes the impossibility of further continuation of life. "A person cannot imagine life without the desire for well-being. To wish and bring this well-being closer - this is life. A person explores in life only what he can improve in it." Our science, on the contrary, studies only the shadows of things, and not their true essence; and being under the delusion that this secondary and unimportant is essential, science distorts the idea of life and forgets about its true purpose, which consists in penetrating precisely into this mystery, and not in studying what is revealed today and tomorrow is forgotten.
Philosophy tells us: "You are part of humanity, therefore you must participate in the development of humanity and in the realization of its ideals; the purpose of your life coincides with the purpose of the life of all other people." But how can this help me to know that I live for the same thing for which all mankind lives, if I have not been told what it is, for which mankind should live? Why does the world exist? What is the result of the fact that the world exists and will exist? Philosophy does not provide an answer.
Skepticism, nihilism, despair - such thoughts lead a thinking person in this direction, if he is looking for the last word of Wisdom in the science and philosophy of various schools. Such, too, is the real, inner, mental state in which many people find themselves both inside and outside the Theosophical Society.
In relation to this problem of life, Tolstoy divides people in general into four classes:
Some, with a weak and immature intellect, live happily in their ignorance - for them the problem of life as such does not exist.
Others are sufficiently aware and understand this problem, but deliberately turn away from it, supported by favorable external circumstances that allow them to go through life as if in a state of intoxication.
The third group consists of those people who know that death is better than a life spent in error and ignorance; but they continue to live, because they do not have sufficient strength to put a sudden end to this deception - life.
Finally, there are strong and persistent natures who realize the idiocy of this farce that is being played out with them, and with one blow put an end to this stupid game.
"I could not do anything," he says, "only think, think about the terrible situation in which I was ... My inner state at that time, which brought me close to suicide, was that all that I had done up to that time, all that I could still do, seemed to me stupid and bad.Even that which was dearest to me in this life, which had led me away and distracted me from the cruel reality for so long - - my family and my work - even this has lost all value for me.
He finally got out of this abyss of despair. “Life is everything,” he concluded, “I, my very mind, is the creation of this universal life. But at the same time, Reason is the creator and last judge of human life, inherent in it. How then can reason deny the meaning of the latter without denying itself and calling itself meaningless? Therefore, I can call life meaningless only because I have not known its meaning. Convinced that Life has a meaning, Tolstoy looks for it among those who really live - among people. But here again he meets with disappointment, the bitterest of all, because here was his last hope. For among men he found the only solution to the problem of life, which rested on a conception of the universe opposed to reason, and based on the blind faith which he had so long cast aside.
“I subjected,” he says, “an additional test of my mind’s representation and found that the Mind does not adequately answer my questions, since it does not consider the concept of the Infinite (Causeless, Timeless and Spaceless), because it explains my life, passing through time, space, and causality, again in terms of time, space, and causality: such an explanation is indeed logically correct, but only in terms of the same components, that is, leaving the original and final basis of life -- the only thing that worries and interests us is the unexplained. Religion, on the contrary, does just the opposite: it does not recognize logic, but knows the concept of the Infinite, with which it relates everything that exists and, to some extent, gives the right answers. Religion says: You must live according to the law of God; the result of your life will be either eternal torment or eternal bliss; the meaning of your life, which is not annihilated after death, consists in union with the Infinite Divinity.... The concept of the Infinite Divinity, the divinity of the Soul, the dependence of human actions on God - these are the ideas that originated in the innermost depths of human thought, and without which there would be no life, and I also could not exist.
“But what is God? On what sequence of thoughts is faith in his existence and in man’s dependence on him based? some primary meaning, and this is God. I feel calm; my doubts and consciousness of my orphanhood in life have disappeared. But when I ask myself: what is God? What should I do in relation to him? - I find only banal answers which again destroy my faith... But I have within myself the concept of God, the very fact and necessity of such a concept—and no one can deprive me of this. However, where does this concept come from? God. And I again feel joy. Everything around me lives and has its own meaning. The idea of God is truly not God himself; but the need to create this idea, the desire to know God, thanks to the knowledge of which I live, is also there is a living God who gives life God ... Living in this thought, you act as a manifestation of God, and then your life will testify to the existence of God.
Tolstoy regained faith, "the testimony of invisible things," and his religious faith was expressed during the three years of his life in full accordance with the most stringent prescriptions of the Orthodox Church. But in the end, having discovered that the church and the whole Christian society as a whole was acting directly opposite to his main ideas about the true Religion, he broke away from Orthodoxy and wanted to understand what the Truth in Religion was for him by studying the New Testament.
But before discussing the conclusions he reached, let us first consider Tolstoy's fundamental position from a theosophical point of view. His argument for the existence of an Infinite God as the necessary "original ground" of the human mind is exactly the same as the Theosophists' argument for the existence of a Cosmic or Universal Mind, and as an argument, he proves nothing more than that. Infected with the Western habit of sensuality, he attributes to the Universal Mind anthropomorphic traits that it cannot possess, and thus sows the seeds of unnaturalness and leads to conclusions about those practical actions that he later arrived at. In the main he is right; but in an attempt to satisfy the demands of his emotional nature, he falls into quasi-anthropomorphism. However, it is more important for us to pay attention to the bitter picture in which he paints the mental suffering that torments every honest and sincere thinker today, and that he shows the way, the only way, in which salvation is possible. For, starting from his basic conception, we arrive, with careful and attentive reasoning, at the fundamental ideas of the Theosophical teaching, as we shall see later.
Is Leo Tolstoy a philosopher?
Of course, Leo Tolstoy is not a philosopher in the professional academic sense, but he is a true philosopher in the original sense of philosophy as love of wisdom.
Tolstoy as a writer was accepted immediately. Already his first story, "Childhood", was highly appreciated, and a great literary future was predicted for him. His fame in the literary environment and among readers grew more and more over the years. He became a classic during his lifetime. Everyone agreed that Tolstoy was a great writer.
The attitude towards Tolstoy the philosopher was different. The right camp not only did not accept and rejected his philosophy, it persecuted it. His writings with philosophical content, as a rule, were not censored in Russia, were not published, and were looking for a way to compatriots through foreign publications, as well as with the help of a list, a typewriter, a hectograph. Some of them were made more accessible by the first Russian revolution, others remained banned until 1917. For their distribution and even storage, one could pay with arrest, trial, prison, hard labor. A noisy propaganda campaign was waged in the right press against Tolstoy's ideas, often accompanied by rude abuse. Letters were sent to Tolstoy, the authors of which, for disagreeing with the existing social order and Orthodoxy, threatened him with reprisal. In 1901 Tolstoy was excommunicated from the church.
However, his philosophy did not arouse sympathy from the left either. In the context of revolutionary and pre-revolutionary situations of the early XX century. Tolstoy's ideas about non-resistance, universal love, and so on seemed very dubious and completely untimely. V.I.Lenin considered his system of views to be utopian and reactionary “in the most precise and in the deepest sense of the word”. Lenin found in his teaching the preaching of a "new, purified" religion, the cultivation of the "most refined" priesthood. According to G.V. Plekhanov, Tolstoy was generally “an extremely weak thinker.” Plekhanov claimed that he "remained aloof from our liberation movement", that his ideology "runs counter to all the progressive aspirations of our age." The speeches of Lenin and Plekhanov did not, of course, remain without consequences for historiography, which was related to Tolstoy's heritage.
Tolstoy's philosophy found itself between two fires.
Some of those who considered themselves the most consistent of his adherents did not contribute to the spread of Tolstoy's ideas either. There were those who brought the simplification preached by the teacher to the point that they stopped having their hair cut and went naked (the Tolstoyans developed a special trend - the Golists). A kind attitude towards animals was accompanied by a refusal to eat meat, milk, wool, and skin. The so-called handbrake (all production carried out exclusively with my own hands) did not use horses for transportation and plowing. There were those who rejected military service even during the Nazi invasion.
In the last 7-8 decades there were no bans on Tolstoy's philosophical writings. All of them are published in the 90-volume complete collection of his works. But their circulation is small, this collection is available only in large libraries, its volumes are not issued at home. Few read these philosophical works. They are addressed mainly by those who are specially engaged in the work of Tolstoy. In general, Tolstoy's philosophy remained unclaimed.
Is it fair?
Tolstoy himself believed that his philosophical work was no less significant than his artistic work.
Interest in philosophy awakened in him early. In the second part of the trilogy, "Boyhood", as in its other parts, events and reflections of an autobiographical nature were reflected. Tolstoy recalled here that somewhere around the age of 14-16, “all abstract questions about the purpose of a person, about the future life, about the immortality of the soul had already presented themselves to me; and my childish weak mind, with all the fervor of inexperience, tried to clarify those questions, the proposal of which constitutes the highest level to which the human mind can reach, but the solution of which is not given to him. Long before F. Müller and E. Haeckel, who formulated the biogenetic law, according to which the individual development of an organism (ontogenesis) in the most general form repeats the evolutionary path traveled by the ancestors (phylogeny), and anticipating the followers of the biogenetic law, who extended it to the sphere of consciousness, Tolstoy expressed similar considerations in this part of his trilogy, on which he worked in 1852-1854: “It seems to me that the human mind in each individual person passes in its development along the same path along which it develops in whole generations that thoughts , which served as the basis of various philosophical theories, are inseparable parts of the mind; but that each person was more or less clearly aware of them even before he knew about the existence of philosophical theories” (2, p. 56). For his predilection for thinking about abstract questions, Tolstoy in those years about which he tells, in the circle of his relatives and acquaintances, received the nickname "philosopher".
While studying at Kazan University, he was already engaged in philosophy professionally. Tolstoy studies the philosophy of law here, takes the theme for development - a comparison of the “Spirit of the Laws” by Sh.L. Montesquieu and the “Instruction” of Catherine II. The work that was carried out in March 1847 led him to the conclusion that the empress uses the ideas of the French thinker to cover up and justify state despotism.
While doing research, Tolstoy is convinced that it is difficult to combine studies in philosophy with the level at which she is in curricula. In April 1847 he retired from the university in order to work independently. Subsequently, he constantly opposed his own philosophy to the state-owned, “professorial” one. Philosophical creativity, he never left. In 1861, when his literary activity was reaching its zenith, he characterizes his regime as follows: “Every morning is philosophical, evening is artistic” (48, p. 82).
In 1863-1869. Tolstoy creates his greatest work, published first in parts, and then in full, the novel War and Peace. This is the work of not only an artist, but also a thinker, a philosopher. Structurally, this work is one of a kind. The texts created by the novelist and the philosopher alternate with each other, forming a striped pattern. The author interrupts his story from time to time to discuss the causes of historical events, the role of statesmen and the masses in them, the meaning of power, express his opinion on various philosophical and historical concepts created in this regard, raise the issue of freedom and necessity.
In the 1873 edition, Tolstoy, possibly taking into account the advice of some critics, in particular N.N. Strakhov, removed part of these arguments, and from their other part he formed a special treatise, which became an appendix to the novel. In 1886, all these philosophical fragments return to their original places and subsequently never leave them. Indeed: taken separately, not supported by empirical material, they are perceived somewhat abstractly, and the narrative, in turn, is deprived of theoretical generalizations that allow one to delve deeper into the essence of the unfolding action. As a matter of fact, “War and Peace” is a holistic philosophical novel that tells about what is happening either in a figurative or in a conceptual form.
From the late 70's - early 80's. philosophy becomes for Tolstoy the main thing, although he, of course, does not leave literature either. He is now, as he himself testifies to this, “most of all occupies philosophy” (53, p. 232).
Thus, one of the most powerful minds of mankind has been working in the philosophical field for more than 60 years.
Tolstoy wrote a whole series of philosophical monographs. They are fundamental both in content and scope. From book to book, he logically develops a system of his views, draws new layers of social reality and public consciousness into the orbit of consideration, checks previously expressed considerations on the material that is mastered again.
Tolstoy wrote many articles on philosophical topics, in which he either preceded the monographic coverage of the problem, or clarified and commented on the provisions made earlier. He also attached great importance to the diary and notebooks. They are not only for personal use. Many texts, including philosophical ones, were created for their subsequent publication. Even during Tolstoy's lifetime, extracts were made from his diaries, which were used by those involved in the dissemination of his views. Of interest are Tolstoy's letters containing his philosophical opinions or directly addressed to philosophers. Philosophical in a significant part and his literary work. In addition to judgments about the essence of life, the purpose of man, the course of history, expressed in artistic form, his works (not only “War and Peace”) contain many philosophies - in the form of aphorisms, inserted fragments.
In the summer of 1881, Tolstoy completed his "Confession", which laid the foundation for his books on worldview, philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and politics. He wrote in it that the life of the privileged circle was disgusting to him, had lost all meaning for him. The actions of the working people presented themselves to him as a single real deed. This principled attitude predetermined his views on all other questions. Tolstoy spoke in connection with this about the revolution he had experienced. This does not mean, however, that he began to look at the social world around him in a completely different way, to evaluate it. Breaks with the former system of views and the acquisition of a different one are known to history, including Russian. Nothing like Tolstoy in the late 70s - early 80s. Did not happen. Speaking in his "Confession" about the revolution that had taken place in him, he emphasized that this revolution had been prepared for a long time and that its inclinations had always been peculiar to him. The revolution did not come down to negation and rupture, not to the replacement of one quality by another, but to the transition of quantitative accumulations into a qualitative state, unformed into formalized, organization of disparate and insufficiently mature ideas into a carefully developed system. Tolstoy's views do not break up into periods that would contradict one another. Time worked for one and the same complex of ideas, strengthening it, and not for different ones.
Even in childhood and adolescence, the future writer and thinker was able to appreciate the labor skills of the peasants, their figurative language, folk song. Tolstoy later said that the Russian peasant became his "youngest love." Already in the early stories about the village, the author's sympathies are invariably on the side of the peasant, not the landowner. In 1861-1862, during the period of the reform that abolished serfdom, Tolstoy was a mediator. By this time, his reputation as a man holding the side of the peasants had become so established that it almost prevented him from taking office. His actions as an intermediary confirmed the worst fears of the owners of the surrounding estates. A review of documentary materials related to Tolstoy's analysis of litigations that arose between landlords and peasants allows us to consider him "a true popular intercessor from the brutal arbitrariness of landlords and police officials." And the more Tolstoy was imbued with popular interests, the more he became convinced that although the social conditions in which the peasant is extremely difficult, he knows how to live, work, endure misfortunes, and when the time comes, die with dignity.
Such a cornerstone of Tolstoy's teaching as the rejection of violence was also laid very early. In "Boyhood" his relationship with a tutor who is inclined to introduce violence into the upbringing process is described, which led to a stormy scene. “It is unlikely that this incident,” Tolstoy considered, “was not the cause of that horror and disgust before all kinds of violence that I experienced all my life” (34, p. 396).
An idea of how early religious skepticism arose in Tolstoy can also be formed on the basis of what he himself told about it. From "Boyhood" we learn that the "first step" on the path of religious doubt was taken by him at the age of 14. When he faced general life questions, it became clear that religion did not fit into his theoretical reasoning. In Confession, Tolstoy wrote: “I was baptized and brought up in the Orthodox Christian faith. I was taught it from childhood, and throughout my adolescence and youth. But when I graduated from the second year of university at the age of 18, I no longer believed in anything that I was taught.
Judging by some reminiscences, I never really believed seriously, but only had confidence in what I was taught and in what the big ones confessed to me; but this trust was very shaky” (23, p. 1).
Later, in the process of religious studies, Tolstoy subjected to more and more detailed critical examination of the main tenets of Christianity, its confessional variety - Orthodoxy. He came to the conclusion that the various historical religions, including the Orthodox, are nothing but superstitions. True, Tolstoy himself claimed that he was leaving the church in order to serve God better, and that he renounced perverted Christianity in the name of true Christianity. But by true Christianity, he understood the sum of the moral precepts inherent in other religions, and recognized not the god that the world created, but the one that lives in the minds of people. He believed that knowing God and living morally are one and the same.
Rejecting the religions known to history, Tolstoy sought to replace them with his own, which was synonymous with morality. The use of the concept of "religion" in a meaning other than that generally recognized and commonly used created, of course, preconditions for misunderstandings and falsifications. Tolstoy is “religious” like L. Feuerbach, E. Haeckel, A. Einstein or A. V. Lunacharsky, who also did not refuse the term “religion” itself, but gave it an arbitrary interpretation, putting into it a different meaning from the accepted one.
The work related to philosophy was carried out by Tolstoy purposefully, without any special zigzags. He gave her not only a lot of time, but also strength.
Thus, opposing his views to traditional Christianity, Tolstoy, as he himself says, “worked for a long time”, “learned theology like a good seminarian” (23, p. 62). Having studied various catechisms, the messages of the Eastern patriarchs, he turned to the writings of Peter Mogila, John of Damascus, the contemporary Russian theologian Macarius (M.P. Bulgakov) ... While studying the “Bible”, he used Jewish, Greek and Latin texts, as well as German , French, English and Russian translations, identified discrepancies, made new translations. In order to get a complete picture of Orthodoxy, he met with Macarius, other theologians, visited the Trinity-Sergius and Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Optina Hermitage, talked with the monks.
Even the creation of a book on aesthetics, the subject closest to him (“What is art?”), required him 15 years of work and search, reflection, conversations with writers, musicians, artists and critics, pen trials on some particular aspects of the topic.
His writings, which raised the problems of philosophy, as is generally typical of Tolstoy, were carefully prepared, repeatedly altered at the stage of manuscripts and typesetting, so that their preparatory versions can many times exceed the text of the publication itself.
During his long life Tolstoy acquired an enormous philosophical erudition. He was familiar with all the philosophical classics - from ancient authors to K. Marx and F. Nietzsche. In the early period of his philosophical development, he was strongly influenced by J. J. Rousseau. Tolstoy considered him his teacher. He read everything written by Rousseau, including his correspondence and the Musical Dictionary. Tolstoy turned to the creative heritage of Rousseau later. In the works of the French philosopher, he was attracted by thoughts about the equality of people, the unity of man with nature, a critical attitude towards civilization, urban life. Of the thinkers of the West, in addition to Rousseau, he especially singled out I. Kant, A. Schopenhauer, B. Spinoza. Tolstoy found L. Feuerbach excellent, said that he carried him away, advised him to translate “The Essence of Christianity” into Russian. He opposed K. Marx to R. Owen and P. J. Proudhon, emphasizing that "Marx tried to find scientific foundations for socialism."
Tolstoy knew many Russian philosophers not only from their works, but also personally. He maintained friendly relations with Yu.F. Samarin, N.N. Strakhov, N.Ya. Grot, was familiar with A.S. Khomyakov, N.G. N.F. Fedorov, P.D. Yurkevich, B.N. Chicherin and others. But not all of them were equal for Tolstoy. “None of the Russians,” he said, “had on me, for my spiritual direction, the upbringing of such an influence as the Slavophiles, their whole system of thoughts, their view of the people: the Aksakovs are father and Konstantin, Ivan is less, Samarin, Kireevsky, Khomyakov". He especially appreciated the works of Khomyakov. D.P. Makovitsky, Tolstoy’s secretary and doctor, one of the people closest to him, conveys his impressions of a conversation with him about the Slavophiles in this way: “About the Slavophiles L.N. he spoke with enthusiasm, with such respect with which, in my presence, he did not speak of anyone except the Russian people.
Being in London in 1861, Tolstoy repeatedly visited AI Herzen. These meetings were forever remembered by him and he took a lot out of them. Tolstoy remembered Herzen, his conversations with him, and the works he read with warm feelings until the last days of his life. Tolstoy, as a philosopher, put KN Leontiev high. He found F. M. Dostoevsky and P. A. Kropotkin to be kindred in spirit thinkers, although he was not personally acquainted with either one or the other.
Tolstoy was one of the few Russian writers who drew attention to the work of folk theorists. “In my whole life,” he wrote, “two Russian thinking people had a great moral influence on me and enriched my thought and clarified my worldview. These people were not Russian poets, scientists, preachers, they were two remarkable people living now, both of whom had been working peasant work all their lives, the peasants Syutaev and Bondarev ”(25, p. 386).
VK Syutaev - a peasant in the village of Shevelino, Tver province - expressed his views orally. He broke with the church, condemned property and violence, glorified brotherhood and love. His fame went far beyond the village in which he lived. In October 1881 Tolstoy visited Syutaev in Shevelino, and in January 1882 Syutaev arrived in Moscow and stayed at his house. He visited Tolstoy in the future. Tolstoy did not meet with T.M. Bondarev, who was exiled to Siberia (to the village of Iudino, Yenisei province), but read his handwritten essay “Industriousness and Parasitism, or the Triumph of the Farmer”. “The main idea of Bondarev is that,” Tolstoy considered, “that this law (the law that a person must work in order to live), which is still recognized as a necessity, must be recognized as a good law of life, obligatory for every person” ( 25, p. 466). In 18865, Tolstoy entered into a correspondence with Bondarev, which continued until the latter's death in 1898.
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1821 - 1910) great both as a writer and as a thinker. He is the founder of the concept of non-violence. His teaching was called Tolstoyism. The essence of this doctrine was reflected in many of his works. Tolstoy also has his own philosophical writings: “Confession”, “What is my faith?”, “The Way of Life”, etc.
Tolstoy with great power of moral condemnation criticized state institutions, the court, the economy. However, this criticism has been controversial. He denied the revolution as a method of solving social issues. Historians of philosophy believe that “containing some elements of socialism (the desire to create a hostel of free and equal peasants on the site of landownership and a police-class state), Tolstoy’s teaching at the same time idealized the patriarchal order of life and considered the historical process from the point of view of “eternal”, "original" concepts of the moral and religious consciousness of mankind".
Tolstoy believed that getting rid of violence, on which the modern world is based, is possible on the path of non-resistance to evil by violence, on the basis of a complete rejection of any kind of struggle, and also on the basis of the moral self-improvement of each individual person. He emphasized: “Only non-resistance to evil by violence leads mankind to replace the law of violence with the law of love.”
Thinking power is evil, Tolstoy came to the denial of the state. But the abolition of the state, in his opinion, should not be carried out through violence, but through the peaceful and passive avoidance of members of society from any state duties and positions, from participation in political activities. Tolstoy's ideas had a wide circulation. They were simultaneously criticized from the right and from the left. On the right, Tolstoy was criticized for his criticism of the church. On the left - for the propaganda of patient obedience to the authorities. Criticizing L. N. Tolstoy from the left, V. I. Lenin found “screaming” contradictions in the writer’s philosophy. Thus, in his work “Leo Tolstoy as a Mirror of the Russian Revolution”, Lenin notes that Tolstoy “On the one hand, merciless criticism of capitalist exploitation, exposure of government violence, the comedy of court and state administration, revealing the entire depth of the contradictions between the growth of wealth and the gains of civilization and the growth poverty, savagery and torment of the working masses; on the other hand, the foolish preaching of “non-resistance to evil” by violence.”
Tolstoy's ideas during the revolution they were condemned by the revolutionaries, since they were addressed to all people, including themselves. At the same time, while manifesting revolutionary violence against those who resisted revolutionary transformations, the revolutionaries themselves, stained with foreign blood, wished that violence would not be manifested in relation to themselves. In this regard, it is not surprising that less than ten years after the revolution, the publication of the complete works of Leo Tolstoy was undertaken. Objectively, Tolstoy's ideas contributed to the disarmament of those who were subjected to revolutionary violence.
However, it is hardly legitimate to condemn the writer for this. Many people have experienced the beneficial influence of Tolstoy's ideas. Among the followers of the teachings of the writer-philosopher was Mahatma Gandhi. Among the admirers of his talent was the American writer W. E. Howells, who wrote: “Tolstoy is the greatest writer of all time, if only because his work is more than others imbued with the spirit of goodness, and he himself never denies the unity of his conscience and his art."
The brilliant writer and deep thinker L.N. Tolstoy occupies an important place in Russian philosophy of the second half of the 19th century. At the center of his religious and philosophical searches are questions of understanding God, the meaning of life, the relationship between good and evil, freedom and moral perfection of man. He criticized official theology, church dogma, sought to substantiate the need for social reorganization on the principles of mutual understanding and mutual love of people and non-resistance to evil by violence.
For Tolstoy, God is not the God of the Gospel. He denies all those of its properties, which are considered in the Orthodox dogma. He seeks to liberate Christianity from blind faith and sacraments, seeing the purpose of religion in delivering earthly, and not heavenly, bliss to man. God appears to him not as a Person who can reveal himself to people, but as a vague, indefinite Something, an indefinite beginning of the spirit, living in everything and in every person. This Something is also the master, commanding to act morally, to do good and avoid evil.
Tolstoy identified the moral perfection of man with the question of the essence of life. He evaluates the conscious, cultural and social life with its conventions as a false, illusory life and, in essence, unnecessary to people. And this applies, first of all, to civilization. Tolstoy considers it as a lack of people's need for rapprochement, as a desire for personal well-being and ignoring everything that does not directly relate to one's own person, as a conviction that the best good of the world is money. Civilization, according to Tolstoy, cripples people, separates them, distorts all the criteria for evaluating a person and deprives people of the enjoyment of communication, the enjoyment of a person.
For Tolstoy, a genuine, unclouded civilization is the “natural” primary life, which includes eternal nature and the starry sky, birth and death, work, life, as it is represented by an unbiased view of the world of a simple person from the people. This is the only life that is needed. And all life processes, Tolstoy believes, are directed by the infallible, universal, all-penetrating Spirit. He is in every person and in all people taken together, he puts in everyone the desire for what is due, he tells people to unconsciously huddle together, the tree to grow towards the sun, the flowers to wither towards autumn. And his blissful voice drowns out the noisy development of civilization. Only such a natural beginning of life, and its primordial harmony, can contribute to the earthly happiness of a person, says Tolstoy.
Tolstoy's moral position is most fully revealed by his doctrine of non-resistance to evil by violence. Tolstoy proceeded from the assumption that God established the law of Goodness in the world, which people must follow. Human nature itself is naturally beneficent, sinless. And if a person does evil, it is only out of ignorance of the law of Good. Good in itself is reasonable, and only it leads to well-being and happiness in life. The realization of this presupposes a "higher intelligence" which is always stored in man. In the absence of such an out-of-bounds Everyday life understanding of rationality is evil. Understanding good will make it impossible for evil to appear, Tolstoy believes. But for this it is important to “awaken” the highest rationality in oneself by negating the usual ideas about the rationality of everyday life. And this causes spiritual discomfort in the experience of people, because it is always scary to give up the familiar, visible for the sake of the unusual, invisible.
Hence Tolstoy's active denunciation of the evil and lies of real life and the call for the immediate and final realization of good in everything. The most important step in achieving this goal is, according to Tolstoy, non-resistance to evil by violence. For Tolstoy, the commandment of non-resistance to evil by violence means an unconditional moral principle, obligatory for all, the law. He proceeds from the fact that non-resistance does not mean reconciliation with evil, internal surrender to it. This is a special kind of resistance, i.e. rejection, condemnation, rejection and opposition. Tolstoy emphasizes that, following the teachings of Christ, all of whose deeds on earth were counteracting evil in its diverse manifestations, it is necessary to fight evil. But this struggle should be completely transferred to the inner world of a person and carried out in certain ways and means. By the best means such a struggle Tolstoy considers reason and love. He believes that if any hostile action is answered with a passive protest, non-resistance, then the enemies themselves will stop their actions and the evil will disappear. The use of violence against a neighbor, whom the Commandment requires to love, deprives a person of the possibility of bliss, spiritual comfort, Tolstoy believes. And vice versa, turning one's cheek and submitting to someone else's violence only strengthens the inner consciousness of one's own moral height. And this consciousness will not be able to take away any arbitrariness from outside.
Tolstoy does not reveal the content of the very concept of evil, which should not be resisted. And so the idea of non-resistance is abstract in nature, significantly at odds with real life. Tolstoy does not want to see the difference between a person's forgiveness of his enemy for the sake of saving his soul and the inaction of the state, for example, in relation to criminals. He ignores that evil in its destructive actions is insatiable and that the lack of opposition only encourages it. Noticing that there is no and will not be a rebuff, evil ceases to hide behind the guise of integrity, and manifests itself openly with rude and impudent cynicism.
All these inconsistencies and contradictions cause a certain distrust of the position of Tolstoy's non-resistance. It accepts the goal of overcoming evil, but makes a peculiar choice about ways and means. This teaching is not so much about evil, but about how not to overcome it. The problem is not the denial of resistance to evil, but whether violence can always be recognized as evil. Tolstoy failed to solve this problem consistently and clearly.
So, the development of Russian philosophy in general, its religious line in particular, confirms that for understanding Russian history, the Russian people and its spiritual world, its soul, it is important to get acquainted with the philosophical searches of the Russian mind. This is because central issues These searches were questions about the spiritual essence of man, about faith, about the meaning of life, about death and immortality, about freedom and responsibility, the relationship between good and evil, about the destiny of Russia, and many others. Russian religious philosophy actively contributes not only to bringing people closer to the paths of moral perfection, but also to familiarizing them with the riches of the spiritual life of mankind.
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... the meaning of life in the understanding of L.N. Tolstoy”, “Social philosophy L.N. Tolstoy". To the main source compiled ... specified purpose Tolstoy sees in principle non-resistanceevil violence." Shifting ... the creator of history, the decisive strength historical development. That's why …
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… 2. Features of Russian philosophy 2.1 The role of writers in the development of Russian philosophy(L.N. Tolstoy) Conclusion The list of used ... abstracts of which is the thesis about " non-resistanceevilby force" Criticism Tolstoy and Tolstoyans Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod ...
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… direction to philosophy, in strength which... philosophy; philosophy systems of writers F.M. Dostoevsky and L.N. Tolstoy; revolutionary democratic philosophy; liberal philosophy. 2. Decembrist philosophy… should be non-resistanceevil; state …
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My abstract was written according to the book by A.A. Galaktionov and P.F. Nikandrova: “Russian philosophy of the 9th-19th centuries”, pages 563-576. The topics of this passage are “True religion and the meaning of life in the understanding of L.N. Tolstoy”, “Social philosophy of L.N. Tolstoy". Ten questions were made to the main source, the answers to them are given with quotations from the main text. In addition, answers are given from other sources.
“True Religion and the meaning of life
In the process of creating his religious and ethical teaching, Tolstoy studied and rethought all the main religious doctrines, selecting from them those moral principles that fit into the system of views that formed in his mind. For the most part, he turned to Eastern, Asian religious and philosophical teachings, where the patriarchal element was more pronounced than in the corresponding ideological currents in Europe.
Philosophical views of L. N. Tolstoy
As for Christianity, it has undergone a kind of processing by him.
Although Tolstoy denied ecclesiastical Christianity, i.e., a doctrine that, in his opinion, was distorted in official theology, it still determined the main direction of his religious and philosophical searches. From Christianity, he singled out those features that are essentially equally characteristic of all religions, namely: the equality of people before God, non-resistance to evil by violence, moral self-improvement, derived from the need to serve God, etc. But, on the other hand, Tolstoy is very good imagined the anti-people role that the church plays in the life of society, and therefore treated it with a strong prejudice. He believed that Christian dogma was only a “pretext” for the church, but in reality the church has always pursued mainly its own benefit, exploiting the ignorance of ordinary people and their naive faith. Having set himself the task of purifying the original Christianity from later accretions, he interpreted it in the spirit of all-encompassing love, that is, he accepted its main moral testament.
Of Western European thinkers, Tolstoy is closest to Rousseau, Schopenhauer, and Bergson. Rousseau mainly influenced the social philosophy of the writer and his pedagogical views. As for the moral-religious doctrine, here its connection can be easily traced, first of all, with Schopenhauer. Both thinkers have a lot of consonance in the interpretation of the categories of will, conscience, virtue. Both are characterized by an ascetic and pessimistic orientation of the teachings in general. Bergson, apparently, influenced Tolstoy in understanding some general philosophical and epistemological problems, such as causality and expediency. Just like Bergson, Tolstoy was prone to irrationalism, bringing intuition to the fore.
Tolstoy's views were formed, of course, mainly under the influence of the social and intellectual atmosphere of Russia in the second half of the 19th century. Russian thought gave a whole range of ideas and currents, which were melted in the mind of the writer in a peculiar way. But with all the influences experienced by Tolstoy throughout his long life, he followed his own, unique path. For him, there were no indisputable authorities before whom he would stop. All teachings and ideas were refracted by him through the prism of Russian life in its transitional period.
Tolstoy associated all plans for the transformation of life with the improvement of man. Hence, naturally, the problems of morality are put forward in the center of philosophy and sociology. But he did not conceive of the construction of a doctrine without a religious basis. All religions, according to Tolstoy, contain two parts: one is ethical, that is, the doctrine of people's lives, and the other is metaphysical, containing basic religious dogma and talking about God and his attributes, about the origin of the world and people, about their relationship to God. Since the metaphysical side of religions is not the same, being, as it were, a concomitant feature, and the ethical side is the same in all religions, then, therefore, it is precisely this side that constitutes the true meaning of any religion, and in true religion it should become the only content. And no matter how much the church replaces ethics with metaphysics, no matter how much it puts the external, worldly above the internal for the sake of its earthly, selfish goals, people, especially ordinary people, far from understanding dogmatic tricks, have preserved the moral core of religion in all its purity. Therefore, Tolstoy rejected the church, church dogma and ritualism and called to learn the true faith from ordinary people.
At the same time, humanity, during its long existence, has discovered and developed spiritual principles that guide all people. The fact that these principles coincide in the consciousness and behavior of people is for Tolstoy one more proof of the possibility and construction of a single “true” religion: infinity and governs his actions.” And then he explains that the provisions of this “true” religion are so characteristic of people that they take them as long known and self-evident. For Christians, the "true" religion is Christianity, not in its external forms, but in moral principles, according to which Christianity coincides with Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Buddhism, and even Mohammedanism. In turn, the true in all these religions is that which coincides with Christianity. And this means that the diversity of beliefs testifies to the failure of individual religions, teachings or churches, but this cannot serve as an argument against the necessity and truth of religion in general.
An important place in the system of religious and ethical views of Tolstoy is occupied by the concept of God and especially the meaning of this concept in relation to man. The definitions of God in the ontological sense, that is, as an infinite being, and also in the cosmological sense, that is, as the creator of the world, are of no interest to Tolstoy. On the contrary, he declares as metaphysical superstition the idea that the world came from nothing, only as a result of an act of divine creation. He considers the essence of the deity mainly in moral terms. He presents God as an "unlimited being", which is recognized by every person in himself within the limits of time and space. And even more precisely, as Tolstoy liked to repeat, “God is love,” the “perfect good,” which is the core of the human “I”. He was inclined to identify the concept of God with the concept of the soul. “Something incorporeal, connected with our body, we call the soul. This incorporeal, not connected with anything and giving life to everything that exists, we call God. The soul, according to his teaching, is the cause of human consciousness, which, in turn, must be an immanation of the “universal mind”. This universal reason, or God, is the highest law of morality, and the knowledge of it is the main task of mankind, because the understanding of the meaning of life and the ways of its proper organization are directly dependent on this.
But before deciding the question of the meaning of life, a person must realize what life is in general. Going through all the definitions of life then known in the natural sciences, Tolstoy considers them, firstly, tautological, and, secondly, fixing only accompanying processes, and not determining life itself, since they reduce the diversity of man to biological existence. Meanwhile, Tolstoy points out that a person’s life is impossible without social and moral motives, and therefore he opposes his own to all definitions of life: weakness is chosen by people who have come to terms with the deception in which they live. Tolstoy considers all these positions illusory, not containing a satisfactory solution to the problem, because they are derived rationally. But besides the mind, which covers the relationship between "I" and "not-I", a person has some kind of internal, overmind "consciousness of life", which corrects the work of the mind. She, this life force, lies in the common people, the understanding of the meaning of life which is not deformed either by the influence of false knowledge, or by artificial civilization, or by church theology.
The "foolish knowledge" of the people is faith. Therefore, in the people and it is necessary to look for the meaning of life.
Indicative in this respect are Tolstoy's arguments on behalf of Levin in the last chapters of Anna Karenina. Where, for what, why and what is life, what is its meaning, as well as the meaning of human motives and aspirations - these are the polls put by Tolstoy before Levin. “Organism, its destruction, the indestructibility of matter, the law of conservation of force” development - these were the words that replaced his former faith. These words and related concepts were very good for mental purposes; but they gave nothing for life. Finding no answer in the theories of the materialists and naturalists, Levin turned to kidealistic philosophy, to the writings of Plato, Kant, Schelling, Hegel and Schopenhauer, but rationalistic constructions with vague concepts collapsed as soon as he remembered that there is much more important in human life, than reason, such that with the help of reason it is impossible to explain. In his search, Levin got to theological literature, including the writings of Khomyakov. At first, he agreed with the ideologue of Slavophilism that the comprehension of "divine truths" was not given to an individual person, but to a set of people united by the church. But the study of the history of different churches led him to the conviction that the churches are hostile to each other and each of them claims to be exclusive. The latter circumstance made him distrustful of church theology and forced him to seek the truth in his own, own soul. In the words of the peasant Fyodor: “to live for God, for the soul”, “to live in truth, according to God”, the meaning of life was suddenly revealed to him.
Tolstoy proves that all scientists and thinkers who raised the question of the meaning of life either gave an indefinite answer or came to the recognition of the meaninglessness of the finite existence of man in the face of an infinite world. However, Tolstoy sees the essence of the question in what is the meaning of the finite in the infinite? What timeless and spaceless significance does the individual life, taken by itself? And this new formulation of the question leads Tolstoy to an even more categorical statement that only religious faith reveals to a person the meaning of his life, directs him on the path of perfecting himself and society, “There is only one goal of life: to strive for that perfection that Christ indicated to us, saying: "Be perfect as your heavenly Father." This only goal of life accessible to man is achieved not by standing on a pillar, not by asceticism, but by developing in oneself loving communion with all people. From striving for this goal, correctly understood, all useful human activities flow, and all questions are resolved in accordance with this goal.
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life path Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy is divided into two completely different parts. The first half of Leo Tolstoy's life, according to all generally accepted criteria, was very successful, happy. An earl by birth, he received a good upbringing and a rich inheritance. He entered life as a typical representative of the highest nobility. He had a wild, wild youth. In 1851 he served in the Caucasus, in 1854 he participated in the defense of Sevastopol. However, his main occupation was writing. Although novels and stories brought fame to Tolstoy, and large fees strengthened his fortune, nevertheless, his writing faith began to be undermined.
Philosophical ideas in the work of L. n. thick.
He saw that writers do not play their own role: they teach without knowing what to teach, and constantly argue among themselves about whose truth is higher, in their work they are driven by selfish motives to a greater extent than ordinary people who do not claim to be the mentors of society. Without giving up writing, he left the writing environment and after a six-month trip abroad (1857) took up pedagogical activity among peasants (1858). During the year (1861) he served as a conciliator in disputes between peasants and landlords. Nothing brought Tolstoy complete satisfaction. The disappointments that accompanied his every activity became the source of a growing inner turmoil from which nothing could save. The growing spiritual crisis led to a sharp and irreversible upheaval in Tolstoy's worldview. This revolution was the beginning of the second half of life.
The second half of Leo Tolstoy's conscious life was a denial of the first. He came to the conclusion that, like most people, he lived a life devoid of meaning - he lived for himself. Everything that he valued - pleasure, fame, wealth - is subject to decay and oblivion. “I,” writes Tolstoy, “as if I lived and lived, walked and walked, and came to an abyss and clearly saw that there was nothing ahead but death.” It is not certain steps in life that are false, but its very direction, that faith, or rather the unbelief, which lies at its foundation. And what is not a lie, what is not vanity? Tolstoy found the answer to this question in the teachings of Christ. It teaches that a person should serve the one who sent him into this world - God, and in his simple commandments shows how to do this.
So, the basis of Tolstoy's philosophy is Christian teaching. But Tolstoy's understanding of this doctrine was special. Lev Nikolaevich considered Christ as a great teacher of morality, a preacher of the truth, but nothing more. He rejected the divinity of Christ and other mystical aspects of Christianity that are difficult to understand, believing that the surest sign of truth is simplicity and clarity, and Lies are always complex, pretentious and verbose. These views of Tolstoy are most clearly seen in his work "The Teachings of Christ, set forth for children", in which he retells the Gospel, excluding from the narrative all mystical scenes that point to the divinity of Jesus.
Tolstoy preached the desire for moral perfection. He considered perfect love for one's neighbor to be the highest moral rule, the law of human life. Along the way, he cited some commandments, taken from the Gospel, as fundamental:
1) Don't be angry;
2) Do not leave your wife, i.e. do not commit adultery;
3) Never swear an oath to anyone and in anything;
4) Do not resist evil by force;
5) Do not consider people of other nations as your enemies.
According to Tolstoy, the main of the five commandments is the fourth: "Do not resist evil," which imposes a ban on violence. He believes that violence can never be a blessing, under any circumstances. In his understanding, violence coincides with evil and it is directly opposite to love. To love means to do as the other wants, to subordinate one's will to the will of the other. To rape means to subjugate another's will to one's own. Through non-resistance, a person recognizes that the issues of life and death are beyond his competence. Man has power only over himself. From these positions, Tolstoy criticized the state, which allows violence and practices the death penalty. “When we execute a criminal, then again we cannot be absolutely sure that the criminal will not change, will not repent, and that our execution will not turn out to be a useless cruelty,” he said.
Tolstoy's reflections on the meaning of life
Realizing that life simply cannot be meaningless, Tolstoy devoted much time and energy to the search for an answer to the question of the meaning of life. At the same time, he became more and more disappointed in the possibilities of reason and rational knowledge.
“It was impossible to look for an answer to my question in rational knowledge,” writes Tolstoy. I had to admit that "all living mankind has some other kind of knowledge, unreasonable - faith, which makes it possible to live."
Observations on the life experience of ordinary people, who are characterized by a meaningful attitude towards their own life with a clear understanding of its insignificance, and the correctly understood logic of the very question of the meaning of life, lead Tolstoy to the same conclusion that the question of the meaning of life is a question of faith, and not knowledge. In Tolstoy's philosophy, the concept of faith has a special content. "Faith is a person's consciousness of such a position in the world that obliges him to certain actions." “Faith is the knowledge of the meaning of human life, as a result of which a person does not destroy himself, but lives. Faith is the power of life." From these definitions it becomes clear that for Tolstoy a life that has meaning and a life based on faith are one and the same.
The following conclusion follows from the works written by Tolstoy: the meaning of life cannot lie in the fact that it dies with the death of a person. This means: it cannot consist in life for oneself, as well as in life for other people, for they also die, as well as in life for humanity, for it is not eternal either. “Life for oneself cannot have any meaning ... To live intelligently, one must live in such a way that death cannot destroy life.” Tolstoy considered only service to the eternal God to be meaningful. This service consisted for him in the fulfillment of the commandments of love, non-resistance to violence and self-improvement.
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LOOKING AT THE REVOLUTION
Tolstoy did not understand that dogma, or, more precisely, the prejudice of non-resistance, is an expression of the weakness, impotence, and insufficient political maturity of the Russian peasantry. This prejudice dominated Tolstoy's thinking as an axiom of the moral and social outlook. At the same time, Tolstoy felt the connection between his doctrine of non-resistance and the centuries-old way of thinking and acting of the patriarchal Russian peasantry. “The Russian people,” Tolstoy wrote, “the majority of them, the peasants, need to continue to live as they have always lived, their agricultural, secular, communal life and, without a struggle, submit to any, both government and non-government violence ...” (vol. 36, p. 259).
Tolstoy simply ignores the numerous facts and phenomena of revolutionary ferment and revolutionary action (uprisings, destruction and burning of landowners' estates) in the history of the Russian serf-owning village. According to Tolstoy's generalization, which is true only relatively patriarchal peasantry, the Russian people, unlike other peoples of the West, seem to be guided in their lives precisely by Christian ethics non-resistance. “... In the Russian people,” wrote Tolstoy, “in all its vast majority, whether due to the fact that the Gospel became available to them in the 10th century, or due to the rudeness and stupidity of the Byzantine-Russian Church, which clumsily and therefore unsuccessfully tried to hide the Christian teaching in its in the true sense, whether due to the special character traits of the Russian people and their agricultural life, the Christian teaching in its application to life has not ceased and still continues to be the main guide of the life of the Russian people in its vast majority ”(vol. 36, p. 337).
To rely on violence as a means of combating evil, according to Tolstoy, only people who believe that the improvement of human life can be achieved by changing external social forms. Since this change is obviously possible and accessible, it is considered possible to improve life through violence.
Tolstoy rejects this view, as if it were fundamentally erroneous. According to Tolstoy, the liberation of humanity from violence can only be achieved internal change of each individual person, “clarification and approval in yourself rational, religious consciousness and his life corresponding to this consciousness” (vol. 36, p. 205). “Human life,” says Tolstoy, “changes not from a change in external forms, but only from inner work each person over himself. Any effort to influence external forms or other people, without changing the situation of other people, only corrupts, diminishes the life of the one who<…>surrenders to this destructive delusion” (vol. 36, p. 161).
In this Tolstoy ban on all political activity, under the pretext that this activity is a change only in the external forms of human life and does not affect the inner essence of human relations, the profound connection between the worldview of Tolstoy and the worldview of the patriarchal peasantry — with its apathy, ignorance of the causes of social disasters, and lack of understanding of the conditions for overcoming them.
From this ignorance flowed a deep doubt about the availability for a person of any kind of knowledge about what will be, what should be the forms of the future life of human society. Indeed, the first argument by which Tolstoy substantiated the futility of any activity aimed at changing external social forms, consisted precisely in the assertion that a person was not given knowledge of what the future state of society should be.
Tolstoy is clearly aware that the opposite view is widespread among people. “... People,” says Tolstoy, “believing that they can know what the future society should be, not only decide abstractly, but act, fight, take away property, lock them up in prisons, kill people in order to establish such arrangement of society in which, in their opinion, people will be happy” (vol.
36, p. 353). People, - continues Tolstoy, - "knowing nothing about what is the good of an individual, imagine that they know, undoubtedly know what is necessary for the good of the whole society, so they undoubtedly know that in order to achieve this good, as they understand it, they commit cases of violence, murder, executions, which they themselves recognize as bad ”(vol. 36, pp. 353-354).
On the contrary, according to Tolstoy, the conditions in which people will become among themselves, and the forms in which society will take shape, depend “only on the internal properties of people, and in no way on the foresight by people of this or that form of life into which they wish to develop” ( 36, p. 353).
Another argument by which Tolstoy wants to prove the futility of any activity aimed at changing social forms is the assertion that even if people really knew what the best structure of society should be, this device could not be achieved through political activity. It could not, according to Tolstoy, be achieved, since political activity always presupposes the violence of one part of society over another, and violence, so Tolstoy argues, does not eliminate slavery and evil, but only replaces one form of slavery and evil with another.
On this erroneous argument, Tolstoy built an equally erroneous denial of the beneficence of the revolution, in particular, a denial of the historical beneficence of the first Russian revolution.
Tolstoy does not in the least deny the truth principles which inspired the ideologists of the French bourgeois revolution. “The leaders of the revolution,” wrote Tolstoy, “clearly set forth those ideals of equality, freedom, fraternity, in the name of which they intended to rebuild society. From these principles, Tolstoy continues, practical measures followed: the abolition of estates, the equalization of property, the abolition of ranks, titles, the destruction of landed property, the dissolution of a standing army, income tax, workers' pensions, the separation of church and state, even the establishment of a common and rational religious doctrine. "(vol. 36, pp. 194-195). Tolstoy admits that all these were “reasonable and beneficent measures arising from the undoubted, true principles of equality, freedom, and fraternity put forward by the revolution” (vol. 36, p. 195). These principles, Tolstoy admits, as well as the measures arising from them, “as they were, so they remain and will remain true and will stand as ideals before humanity until they are achieved” (vol. 36, p. 195). But these ideals are achieved, says Tolstoy, "they could never be violence" (vol. 36, p. 195).
Misunderstanding of this - undoubted, as it seems to Tolstoy - truth, was shown not only by the leaders of the French Revolution of the XVIII century. According to Tolstoy, this misunderstanding also underlies the theoretical concepts and practical activities of the Russian revolutionaries of 1905. now. And now, says Tolstoy, this contradiction pervades all modern attempts to improve the social system. All social improvements are supposed to be carried out through government, that is, through violence” (vol. 36, p.
Abstract on the topic “Philosophy of Leo Tolstoy”
It is extremely interesting and significant that in his reflections on the future course of development of Russian society, Tolstoy did not doubt at all that in the struggle that began in 1905 between the revolution and the autocratic government, it was not the government, not the autocracy, but revolution. “... You,” Tolstoy addressed the government with such words, “cannot resist the revolution with your banner of autocracy, even with constitutional amendments, and perverted Christianity, called Orthodoxy, even with patriarchy and all sorts of mystical interpretations. All this has become obsolete and cannot be restored” (vol. 36, p. 304).
not sympathizing methods revolutionary transformation of society, Tolstoy sympathized with the denial of the existing social and political system, which led the leaders revolutionary movement. Therefore, the well-known Danish historian of Russian literature, Stender-Petersen, is wrong when he writes: “In reality, everything tolstoyanism, as his teaching was called, Tolstoy's denial of the existing social order, his demand for non-resistance to evil, and his rationalized religion are nothing more than a powerful attempt to reinterpret the movement in his own way populists which gradually became more and more revolutionary and terroristic, and also to block the way for the new Marxist-socialist doctrine of the class struggle” 34 .
But, considering neither right nor simply reasonable the autocratic government in its struggle against the revolution, Tolstoy nevertheless resolutely condemns the activities of the revolutionaries.
The objections he raised against the revolutionary resolution of the crisis that has matured in the life of the Russian people are highly characteristic of Tolstoy's patriarchal-"peasant" way of thinking. His main objection comes from the idea that, unlike the revolutions that took place in the countries of the West, the Russian revolution will be carried out not by urban workers and not by the urban intelligentsia, but mainly by the multimillion-strong peasantry: professions and urban workers led by these people; the participants in the coming revolution must and will be predominantly the agricultural masses of the people. The places where earlier revolutions began and took place were cities; the place of the present revolution must be predominantly the countryside. The number of participants in previous revolutions is 10.20 percent of the entire people, the number of participants in the present revolution taking place in Russia should be 80.90 percent” (vol. 36, p. 258).
Tolstoy's understanding of the Russian revolution of 1905 as peasant revolution reflected one, a really important feature of this revolution. This meaning of Tolstoy's understanding of our first revolution was pointed out by Lenin. “Tolstoy,” wrote Lenin, “is great as an exponent of those ideas and those moods that had developed among millions of the Russian peasantry at the time of the onset of the bourgeois revolution in Russia. Tolstoy is original, because the totality of his views, taken as a whole, expresses exactly the features of our revolution, as peasant bourgeois revolution" 35 .
The peasant, according to Tolstoy, character of the Russian revolution not only excludes, as Tolstoy thinks, the possibility of directing the Russian revolution on the path along which revolutions were made in the West, but makes in Russia any imitation of Western revolutions harmful and dangerous. “Danger,” Tolstoy explained, “<…>in the fact that the Russian people, due to their special position, called to show the peaceful and true path of liberation, will instead be drawn by people who do not understand the full significance of the ongoing revolution, into slavish imitation of former revolutions” (vol. 36, p. 258).
Tolstoy's second objection to the activity of revolutionaries is the assertion that this activity, even in countries where the revolution is carried out by urban workers and urban intelligentsia, never leads to the achievement of the set goal. It does not lead to it, because revolutionary activity, being based on violence, inevitably leads, as Tolstoy asserts, to the establishment of new forms of violence, no less disastrous for humanity than the former ones.
A revolution can establish a new social order only by replacing the old form of the state with a new one. But since any state rests on violence, all violence, according to Tolstoy, is only evil and supposedly cannot be the source or condition of the good, then from this Tolstoy concludes that the state that will be created by the revolution cannot be such a source either. “Forms change,” Tolstoy wrote, “but the essence of people’s attitudes does not change, and therefore the ideals of equality, freedom, and fraternity do not come close to being realized” (vol. 36, p. 198).
In his views on the state and on the political paths of development of society, Tolstoy correctly reflected the point of view of the patriarchal peasantry of the post-reform period. But from the fact that he correctly reflected it, it certainly did not follow that this point of view itself was true in the essence of its content. What Tolstoy so correctly reflected in his doctrine of the impossibility of revolution was precisely misunderstanding the role of the political struggle and, in particular, the revolutionary struggle. And because this misunderstanding was typical at the beginning of the 20th century. still significant - patriarchal - part of the Russian peasants, it, of course, did not cease to be what it actually was, that is delusion, erroneous and in their conclusions harmful teaching.
In Tolstoy's political skepticism, in distrust of any authorities, to any form of government, everyone the use of violence in public life once again reflected the attitude of the patriarchal peasantry towards the new one, which formally “liberated” it, but in fact ruined and enslaved the social order of post-reform capitalist Russia even more.
Tolstoy's obvious and enormous mistake is that he dogmatically transferred the experience of the past and observation of the present to the whole future. From the fact that all the revolutions that took place before the beginning of the 20th century could not eliminate the inequality and oppression of the working people, Tolstoy concluded that and henceforth no form of government is possible that would meet the interests of the working and peasant masses.
Tolstoy denies the possibility of creating such a form of state, since he believes that, in accordance with the very essence of the state, one can never achieve power, seize power and retain power. the best(i.e., according to Tolstoy, good people), but always only the worst(i.e., according to Tolstoy, evil, cruel, violent people).
Having taken this point of view, developed in detail in the book The Kingdom of God is Within You, Tolstoy consistently came to the complete and unconditional denial of the state, that is, to the teaching of anarchism.
According to Tolstoy, the disasters and contradictions that dominate today's humanity, and above all the Russian peasant people, will stop only when the state is abolished with all the apparatus of violence, coercion and intimidation necessary for it - the government, administration, army, police, courts. , officials, etc.
At the same time, Tolstoy's teaching on the abolition of the state differs in an important feature from many other anarchist teachings. Tolstoy's anarchism is not revolutionary. According to Tolstoy, a stateless form of social organization should not be established through violent coup or violent destruction of the existing state. The abolition of the state can and should take place, thought Tolstoy, only by non-resistance, i.e., by peaceful and passive abstinence or evasion, the renunciation of each member of society from all state duties - military, tax, judicial, - from all types of public positions, from the use of state institutions and institutions, and from any participation in any was - legal or revolutionary - political activity.
This teaching of Tolstoy about society and the political forms of its development, as Lenin showed, "is undoubtedly utopian and, in its content, reactionary in the most precise and deepest sense of the word" 36 . The reactionary nature of Tolstoy's doctrine lies in the fact that the critical and even socialist elements, which, according to Lenin's analysis, certainly were in Tolstoy's teaching, did not express the ideology of the class "going to replace the bourgeoisie", but corresponded to the "ideology of the classes that the bourgeoisie is going to replace" 37 .
If, therefore, back in the late 70s of the last century, “critical elements of Tolstoy’s teachings could in practice sometimes benefit certain segments of the population despite reactionary and utopian features of Tolstoyism” 38, then already in the first decade of the 20th century, as Lenin showed, “any attempt to idealize Tolstoy’s teaching, justify or mitigate his “non-resistance”, his appeals to the “Spirit”, his calls for “moral self-improvement” , his doctrines of "conscience" and universal "love", his preaching of asceticism and quietism, etc. bring the most immediate and most profound harm.
All this significance of Tolstoyism was first elucidated in Lenin's brilliant articles on Tolstoy. At the same time, these articles shed new light on the requirements that should be made for research into the spiritual heritage and the spiritual world of such complex artists and thinkers as Tolstoy.
Lenin's articles on Tolstoy refute the fundamental tenet of the vulgar sociological method in literary criticism, in the history of literature and philosophy. These articles showed with their own eyes how untenable and primitive is the point of view of historians who claim that the ideology of a great artist is immediate reflection immediate the social conditions of his origin, environment, social position, etc. The point of view that the writer takes in his depiction of life, and which does not necessarily have to coincide with the point of view characteristic of people of his social origin and position, turned out to be decisive for assessing the nature of the ideology of the writer. . “By birth and upbringing, Tolstoy,” Lenin wrote, “belonged to the highest landlord nobility in Russia, he broke with all the usual views of this environment and, in his last works, fell with passionate criticism on all modern state, church, social, economic orders based on the enslavement of the masses, on their poverty, on the ruin of the peasants and small proprietors in general, on violence and hypocrisy, which permeate all modern life from top to bottom.
It is precisely this discrepancy between the point of view from which Tolstoy examines, depicts and discusses the phenomena and relations of contemporary Russian life, with the point of view, which, it would seem, was naturally and even necessary prompted to him by all the circumstances of his origin and all the relations of his social circle, allowed Tolstoy , as Lenin showed, to see in the phenomena of Russian life what he had not seen in it before him nobody of writers who viewed Russian life from a different point of view.
Hence Lenin's profoundly true assertion, which struck Maxim Gorky when he said that "prior to this, there had been no real muzhik in literature" 41 .
But if the decisive factor for the results of the work of a great artist is not the immediate social position of the artist, but the point of view from which this artist will consider and depict the phenomena accessible to people of his circle or to him personally, then his work can become truly significant not under any conditions. . Actual social significance informs creativity not every point of view, which can be a given artist. This meaning is given to the work of only that writer or artist whose point of view is not easy his personal point of view, but a position that expresses the views, moods, aspirations labor classes representing a significant part of the people.
Tolstoy's work acquired its significance not simply because Tolstoy broke with all the habitual views of his environment, but because, having broken with his environment, Tolstoy adopted a point of view that represented views and moods. multi-million dollar of the Russian peasantry, i.e., the views and sentiments, although "patriarchal", archaic, backward, but still containing a truly democratic part of the mass of the Russian peasantry.
“The contradictions in Tolstoy’s views,” wrote Lenin, “are not contradictions of his personal thought only, but a reflection of those highly complex, contradictory conditions, social influences, historical traditions that determined the psychology of various classes and various strata of Russian society in on reform, but before revolutionary epoch" 42 .
Tolstoy is great not because he expressed in his artistic and philosophical-journalistic works a doctrine that should become a guide to practical action and which in itself is true. true image and expression ideology is not yet the image and expression true ideology. Tolstoy, as Lenin showed, "could not absolutely understand either the labor movement and its role in the struggle for socialism, or the Russian revolution" 43 . Tolstoy is great because his art and his teaching reflected "the great sea of the people, agitated to the very depths, with all its weaknesses and all its strengths" 44 . Tolstoy's greatness lies precisely in the relief, the force with which the long-prepared features of the first Russian revolution are captured in Tolstoy's works of art and in his teachings.
The very mistakes and delusions of Tolstoy, having given rise to the need for their refutation, gave - in this refutation - a positive result. Lenin explained that in order to move forward it is often necessary to understand what shortcomings and weaknesses have hitherto hindered forward movement. But it was precisely this role that Tolstoy's delusions played. “By studying the works of art by Leo Tolstoy,” Lenin explained, “the Russian working class gets to know its enemies better, and by understanding doctrine Tolstoy, the entire Russian people will have to understand what their own weakness was, which did not allow them to complete the cause of their liberation. This must be understood in order to move forward.
The entire history of Russia after the revolution of 1905 was a confirmation of Lenin's assessment of the worldview of Leo Tolstoy.
Notes
34 a. Stender-Petersen. Geschichte der Russischen Literatur, Bd. II. Munich, 1957, S. 368.
35 V.I. Lenin. Works, vol. 15, p. 183.
36 V.I. Lenin. Works, vol. 17, p. 32.
39 Ibid., p. 33.
40 V.I. Lenin. Works, vol. 16, p. 301.
41 M. Bitter. Collected works, vol. 17. M., 1952, p. 39.
42 V. I. Lenin. Works, vol. 16, p. 295.
43 V.I. Lenin. Works, vol. 15, p. 183.
44 V.I. Lenin. Works, vol. 16, p. 323.
45 Ibid., p. 324.
Philosophical doctrine founded by Leo Tolstoy
soil cultivation
Philosophy of unity
Populism
Ethics of non-violence
The main moral rule from the point of view of L.N. Tolstoy
Kill the sufferer
Know yourself
Don't Resist Evil
Serve the Fatherland Faithfully
The country where Vladimir Solovyov for the third time met with the vision of Sophia as an image of eternal femininity and the wisdom of God
Palestine
Pavel Florensky
Vladimir Solovyov
Alexey Losev
Nikolai Berdyaev
Concept…. characteristic of Vl. S. Solovyova.
unity
intuitionism
Imyaslaviya
Slavophilism
One of the main ideas of the philosophy of unity
Inadmissibility of any form of violence in public and state life
Philosophy should help a person solve the pressing problems of life
The impossibility of reliable knowledge of the Absolute
Resurrection of all people who lived on earth
The highest, most perfect form of love, according to V.S. Solovyov, is
Love between a man and a woman
Love for truth
Mother's love for a child
Love to motherland
Domestic thinker who first created a comprehensive philosophical system based on Christian humanism
V.S. Solovyov
ON THE. Berdyaev
A.N. Radishchev
F.M. Dostoevsky
Russian thinker, who in his work "Names" proved that there is a deep connection between the name and its bearer
S.N. Bulgakov
A.L. Chizhevsky
P.A. Florensky
L. Shestov
One of the main works of S.N. Bulgakov
"The Meaning of Creativity"
"Justification of Good"
"The Pillar and Ground of Truth"
"Light of the Night"
Representative of Russian Marxism
G.V. Plekhanov
N.K. Mikhailovsky
N.F. Fedorov
V.S. Solovyov
Philosophy of Tolstoy.
Lenin developed the doctrine of Russia as
Third Rome
Agrarian country with a communal way of life
Weak link in the chain of imperialism
great power
The founder of Russian cosmism is considered
Alexander Radishchev
Nikolai Berdyaev
Nikolai Fedorov
Fedor Dostoevsky
Representatives of "Russian cosmism" are:
N. Berdyaev, V. Solovyov
F. Dostoevsky, L. Tolstoy
A. Losev, M. Bakhtin
K. Tsiolkovsky, V. Vernadsky
According to N.F. Fedorov, the highest moral duty of earthlings, the central task of all people is to
Unification of all religions
Resurrection of all ancestors
Turning humanity into radiant energy
Destroying suffering on earth
Synthesis of philosophical and scientific teachings, united by the idea of the relationship between man and nature, humanity and the universe
Philosophy of life
Philosophy of unity
Cosmism
Existentialism
One of the basic rules of "cosmic ethics" K.E. Tsiolkovsky
Treat others the way you would like them to treat you
Be merciful to all living things
Kill the sufferer
Love God more than yourself
The basic concept of epistemology V.I. Vernadsky
absolute truth
Empirical generalization
Thing in itself
A priori form of sensibility
The noosphere is
Realm of Mind
Sphere of life
divine sphere
transcendent realm
Founder of space ecology and heliobiology
P.A. Florensky
K.E. Tsiolkovsky
IN AND. Vernadsky
A.L. Chizhevsky
Russian philosopher, who wrote in the book “Self-Knowledge”: “The originality of my philosophical type is primarily in the fact that I put not being, but freedom, as the basis of philosophy”
Nikolai Berdyaev
Vladimir Solovyov
Alexander Herzen
Lev Shestov
The Russian thinker ... in his work "Self-Knowledge" stated that he put not being, but freedom, at the foundation of philosophy.
ON THE. Berdyaev
V.S. Solovyov
A.I. Herzen
N. Fedorov
The reason, the primary source of evil in the world according to N.A. Berdyaev
Uncreated freedom
Government
Elemental forces of nature
inert matter
The dualism of spirit and matter, God and nature is characteristic of philosophy
K.E. Tsiolkovsky
L. Shestova
ON THE. Berdyaev
L.N. Tolstoy
According to L. Shestov, a person can achieve the impossible only thanks to
Faith in God
scientific knowledge
Humility
Love for your neighbor
According to L. Shestov, the main enemies of man in the "struggle for the impossible" are
Loneliness and fear
Death and despair
Reason and morality
Faith and love
ONTOLOGY
The basis of being, existing in itself independently of anything else,
Substance
Consciousness
intention
The equality of the material and spiritual principles of being proclaims
Dualism
Skepticism
Relativism
The existence of many initial foundations and principles of being asserts
Pluralism
Empiricism
Relativism
Agnosticism
A statement corresponding to the metaphysical understanding of matter
Matter is eternal, uncreated and indestructible
Matter is identical to substance
Matter is created by God
Matter basically consists of ideal forms
The atomistic hypothesis of the structure of matter was first put forward by:
Augustine
Democritus
Matter is the primary source of being, says
Materialism
Idealism
Intuitionism
Irrationalism
Matter
Quality
In Marxism, matter is treated as
Unity of energy and consciousness
Substance
Objective reality
Which of the following is not an attribute of matter?
Structurality
Traffic
Reflection
Stability
The ideal phenomena are
Light
gravity
Conscience
Time
An integral essential property of a thing, phenomenon, object is called
Accident
Attribute
quality
The mode of existence of matter
Traffic
Mindflow
Immobility
Does not apply to the attributes of matter
Structurality
Traffic
peace
Reflection
The highest form of motion of matter is
mechanical movement
biological movement
social movement
physical movement
The essence of the cosmogonic hypothesis of the "Big Bang" is the assumption that
The universe will die as a result of the explosion of the nucleus of the Galaxy
Regular explosions occur in the center of the Galaxy, changing the space-time characteristics of the Universe
The universe arose as a result of the explosion of a microscopic particle
In a few billion years, the Sun will explode and destroy the Earth.
The sequence of states reflects the category
time
spaces
Necessities
The form of existence of matter, expressing its extension, structure, coexistence and interaction of elements in all material systems
Traffic
Space
Quality
The substantial concept of space and time was defended by
Lucretius Kar
newton
Einstein
The essence of the relational concept of space and time is that
Time is eternal, space is infinite
Time and space are independent of each other
Space and time depend on material processes
Space and time are illusory, in reality there is only a motionless and unchanging substance
What concept of time does not allow the possibility of creating a "time machine"?
Substantial
relational
static
Dynamic
The most important specific property of biological time
reversibility
cyclicality
two-dimensionality
Anthropism
Economic ideas of L.N. Tolstoy
Despite the glorification of the name of Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy, his scientific views are still little known and understood by the general public. This applies in particular to the economic teachings of Tolstoy.
Philosophical ideas of L.N. Tolstoy
There is even an opinion that Tolstoy was great as an artist of the word, but weak as a thinker. At the same time, for some reason, it is not understood that it is Tolstoy's ideas that give the light of genius that comes from most of his works. So, in the words of Tolstoy himself, Anna Karenina is a plexus of a thousand thoughts.
Throughout his long creative life, Lev Nikolayevich paid considerable attention to economic doctrine, which he had very closely connected with religious ideas and reflections on the fate of Russia. His economic doctrine was supposed to be understandable to any person, therefore it is stated in the national language and concerns only economic issues that may be of interest to any person, no matter what business he is engaged in.
According to L.N. Tolstoy, the only task of economic science is to find a way to equitably distribute material wealth among all people, economists do not understand this task of theirs, and instead are occupied with various secondary issues: how to determine the value of a product, the function of money, what is meant by capital - only because of the lack of religious feeling, because only it helps to distinguish the important from the unimportant, good from evil - in any business.
For a religious person, the only problem of economics is solved very simply and easily: all people are brothers, then no one, if not sick, can use the labor of others, and no one has the right to receive more than others without labor - therefore, everyone must work, both by manual labor and by the mind, and everyone must receive the benefits they need for life.
Tolstoy's principle of equality does not mean egalitarianism. A slacker shouldn't get anything. The difference in talents will never disappear either - but you can equally respect any talented work, and create equal opportunities for the development of any people need capabilities. There is nothing fundamentally new in the economic principle of equality put forward by Tolstoy - the study of Russian folk legends and proverbs shows that the Russian people have been trying to establish this idea in their lives for centuries.
All of Tolstoy's economic teachings grow out of the age-old traditions of the Russian people.
The most important idea for the Russian thinker Tolstoy is the duty of industriousness. And he not only talks about it, but consistently applies it in his life, while achieving a highly efficient economy on his estates, and working on a par with his workers. In this, he follows the ancient tradition of Russian monasteries, where the abbot is obliged to work not only on an equal footing, but more than other monks - let us recall Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov, and finally, Patriarch Nikon, who, having engaged in stone construction in the Resurrection Monastery, dug ponds together with workers, planted fish, built mills, laid out gardens and cleared forests.
The principle of diligence according to Tolstoy is, first of all, to try to work for people as much as possible - and at the same time take as little work from them as possible. Whatever you can do yourself, do not force others to do it. Work until you are tired, but not through strength: from idleness people are both dissatisfied and angry; the same is true of working through force. Agricultural labor is an occupation peculiar to all people, and not only to the peasant class; this work gives most of all freedom and most of all happiness to any person. With this idea, Tolstoy continues the centuries-old tradition, which we can still find in the "father of economics" - Xenophon, who said that Agriculture is the most noble of all occupations, in the 20th century, despite the ever-decreasing number of villages, it was revived by the efforts of the outstanding Russian economist Chayanov, who was convinced that the time would come when cities would turn into large villages - so much their face would close continuous gardens, orchards and parks.
People who do not work physically do not stop thinking, speaking, listening or reading without giving their mind a rest, which makes the mind irritated and confused, it is already difficult for it to understand things sensibly. Handmade, and especially agricultural, occupies the whole person, and gives him rest from intellectual labors. This was always understood in Slavic monasteries, where every monk works both with his hands and with his head - and in this way an amazing flourishing of both the monastic economy, and monastic art and science was achieved.
Even the most unclean work is not shameful, only idleness is shameful. It is not worth working for the maximum reward for your work, because the highest wages are often received for the most immoral types of work, while the most important works - peasants - are usually valued very low.
Tolstoy embodied his economic teachings in vivid artistic stories, thereby bringing him as close as possible to any person. One can recall Levin from Anna Karenina, a great worker who works with the same enthusiasm both in the barnyard and at the table in his office, creating, by the way, an economic treatise. In the end, Levin's life turns out to be more successful than all the heroes of the novel - by this Tolstoy wants to show that only by following the duty of industriousness can one achieve both economic prosperity and spiritual happiness.
Leo Tolstoy had great respect for the ideas of the great American economist Henry George. He consecrated them in several articles, quoted in collections of thoughts of wise people, and repeatedly mentioned them in letters.
Tolstoy was close to the idea of Henry George that since a person can get wealth only in three ways: by labor, begging or theft, the working people receive so little in the modern social economy only because the majority are accounted for by beggars and thieves.
Following Henry George, Lev Nikolaevich argues that the exclusive right of some people over others to land is no different from serfdom or slavery. Take the invader away from people's house, money, his crime will end with him. But take the land away from the invader - and this injustice will continue for centuries. It is quite possible to imagine a situation when in any country of the world, subject to the free sale of land, it will pass into the hands of those who have the most money, that is, very few, and the whole people will turn out to be slaves of the rich, dictating any conditions to them.
All men have an equal right to the whole earth, and a full right to their labor and the products of their labor. And this right to complete economic freedom of each individual is violated by the recognition of private ownership of land and the levying of taxes on the products of people's labor.
How to restore this right with which each of us is born? Recognize the existence of a single tax on land in society. Under him, people who enjoy all the benefits of the land would pay for it to society, while those who did not work on the land, for example workers in industry or scientists, would not pay anything.
The consequences of a single tax on land, according to Tolstoy, may be as follows. Large landowners who do not cultivate the land would soon abandon it. Tax spending by the working class would be reduced. Thus, Henry George proves in detail that one tax would be quite enough for the existence of society - after all, a large part of the people would be levied on it, and an easy tax would be paid honestly. A single land tax, by abolishing export and import duties, would open up the world economic space, giving everyone the opportunity to use all the products of labor and nature of all countries. By significantly increasing the incomes of ordinary people, the single tax will make it impossible to overproduce goods.
In practice, according to Tolstoy, the only tax on land could be introduced in this way. By popular vote, the people proclaim the whole land as common property. Then gradually, over a more or less long time, part of the interest on the tax is paid, and only over time - the entire rate. This time will provide an opportunity, firstly, to accurately assess the quality of each piece of land, and secondly, to adapt everyone to the new economic conditions.
The idea of a single tax turned out to be quite viable, and a hundred years later, at the end of the 20th century, it was implemented in modern tax policy.
Since the task of any government is to promote justice between people, the duty of the rulers should be the destruction of the main injustice of the modern economy - private ownership of land. And the Russian rulers, who are accustomed to imitate Europe in everything, should not be afraid to go against it, because. economic life Russia is peculiar - finally, the Russian people must also come of age, when they will live by their own mind and act in accordance with their own conditions.
It must be said that L.N. Tolstoy always consistently rejected the very idea of property. In many ways, he implemented these views in the practice of his life, renouncing the right to intellectual property in his works and from all his land holdings. Even his dying departure from Yasnaya Polyana was essentially an act of renunciation of all property.
Consideration of economic issues is also devoted to the great work of Tolstoy "So what should we do?". In it, Leo Tolstoy sharply criticized the political economy theories, originating primarily from Adam Smith and Karl Marx. So, for example, Tolstoy disagrees both with the idea that the main factor of production is labor, and with the statement that the main factor of production is capital. For any production, factors such as solar energy or the morality of workers, and many of them we do not yet know at all.
The reason for the existence of money, according to Tolstoy, is not the facilitation of exchange, as economists say, but the exploitation of the poor by the rich. With the help of money, it is very convenient for a king or leader to collect, store and accumulate his wealth - money is easily divided and almost does not deteriorate. Whenever there was no need to pay taxes to the treasury or tribute to the winner, people got along just fine with barter, immediately exchanging their goods for what they needed. With his refusal of royalties for his work, Leo Tolstoy actually renounced the monetary mechanism.
The division of labor, when some people are engaged only in physical labor, for example, peasants, and others only in mental labor, like scientists, teachers, writers, not only is not the progress of the economy, as Adam Smith and his followers thought, but there is its most undoubted regression. . The man of the future will easily combine manual and intellectual labor, developing both his body and his soul to the same extent - and only such a person will be able to achieve the maximum effect in his work.
The task of educating such a person, according to Tolstoy, lies with mothers. By her example, every real mother brings up such a perfect person - after all, she works, and very hard, both physically and mentally at the same time.
The most important economic principle for Lev Nikolayevich was also the rejection of all excesses, luxury, and wealth. As a young man, Tolstoy sewed for himself special clothes, a cross between a peasant shirt and a monastic cassock, and wore it all year round. The style of clothing he invented turned out to be very viable, and for more than a hundred years it has been known under the name "hoodies".
Modesty in eating resulted in vegetarianism, the denial of smoking and drunkenness. Largely thanks to this ascetic lifestyle, Tolstoy, who from childhood was distinguished by poor health and a tendency to tuberculosis, was able to live to an advanced age full of strength, and at 82 he rode a horse on complete impassability, overtaking his 20-year-old secretary.
Personal wealth, according to Leo Tolstoy, is completely inefficient economically.
It is always earned with great effort - and requires even more work for its preservation. And at the same time, it does not at all correspond to the real economic needs of its owner: one person does not need more than one room, more than the amount of food determined by the requests of his body - and, nevertheless, the accumulation of wealth leads to such unnatural situations when, for example, a family of two owns six bedrooms.
There is only one reason for striving for economic wealth: the wretchedness of spiritual life. For just as heavy clothing hinders the movement of the body, so wealth hinders the movement of the soul. Seeing all the immeasurable sea of poverty, any person, as a being endowed with conscience and shame, will give up his wealth. Tolstoy sees the source of wealth and poverty only in the moral savagery of the majority of people: after all, a tramp is always a necessary addition to a millionaire.
The effectiveness of Tolstoy's teachings was tested in practice by numerous Tolstoy communities that dispersed in the 20th century. around the world.
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (1828-1910) is one of the most significant Russian writers and thinkers. Leo Tolstoy was the founder of the Tolstoy movement, one of the fundamental theses of which is the Gospel “non-resistance to evil by force”.
This position of non-resistance is fixed, according to Tolstoy, in numerous places in the Gospel and is the core of the teachings of Christ, as, indeed, of Buddhism.
Criticizing the socio-political structure of contemporary Russia, Tolstoy relied on moral and religious progress in the consciousness of mankind. He associated the idea of historical progress with the solution of the question of the purpose of man and the meaning of his life, the answer to which was called upon to give the “true religion” he created. In it, Tolstoy recognized only the ethical side, denying the theological aspects of church teachings and, in connection with this, the role of the church in public life. He associated the ethics of religious self-improvement of a person with the refusal of any struggle, with the principle of non-resistance to evil by violence, with the preaching of universal love. According to Tolstoy, "the kingdom of God is within us" and therefore the ontological-cosmological and metaphysical-theological understanding of God is unacceptable to him. Considering all power to be evil, Tolstoy came up with the idea of negating the state. Since in public life he rejected violent methods of struggle, he believed that the abolition of the state should occur through the refusal of everyone to fulfill public and state duties. If the religious and moral self-improvement of a person was supposed to give him a certain spiritual and social order, then, obviously, the complete denial of any statehood could not guarantee such an order. This revealed the inconsistency of the initial principles and the conclusions drawn from them in Tolstoy's utopian philosophy.
Tolstoy saw the essence of knowledge in the understanding of the meaning of life - the main issue of any religion. It is it that is called upon to give an answer to the fundamental question of our being: why do we live and what is the attitude of man to the surrounding infinite world. “The shortest expression of the meaning of life is this: the world is moving, improving; the task of a person is to participate in this movement, obeying and contributing to it” . According to Tolstoy, God is love. In his artistic creations, Tolstoy appealed to the people as the bearer of true faith and morality, considering them the basis of the entire social building.
Tolstoy's worldview was greatly influenced by J.Zh. Rousseau, I. Kant and A. Schopenhauer. Philosophical searches of Tolstoy turned out to be consonant with a certain part of Russian and foreign society (the so-called Tolstoyism). Moreover, among his followers were not only members of various religious utopian sects, but also supporters of specific "non-violent" methods of struggle for socialism. Among them is, for example, M. Gandhi, an outstanding figure in the national liberation movement of India, who called Tolstoy his teacher.
The essence of Christianity, according to Tolstoy, can be expressed in a simple rule: Be kind and do not resist evil by force". "Be kind" is the positive, active content of morality, which includes all the commandments of the New Testament - love God, love your neighbor as yourself, etc. - all the active content of the teachings of Christ. But if we repay good with good, we don’t do anything special, “isn’t that what the Gentiles do?” In this case, we are within the framework of a cyclic, closed relationship of reciprocal gift: "you - to me, I - to you", in which there is no morality, since we, as it were, "pay" for the good done to us. Another thing is if we respond to evil with good. This is where the highest morality is manifested, since we stop the chain of evil on ourselves. After all, evil exists (spreads) in the causal chains of evil as a response to evil with evil, and good, on the contrary, in the causal chains of good as a response to good with good. Therefore, to respond with evil for evil, with violence for violence, means to allow evil to spread through us. It is impossible to recognize a forceful action in response to evil as remaining in the bosom of good. Therefore, the only answer to the evil done against us can only be a word, only a gesture addressed to conscience, but not counteraction by force! This is the negative, "inactive" content of morality. In this way, general rule morality can be reformulated as follows: create new chains of goodness (the positive, active part of morality) and stop the spread of evil chains (“do not resist evil by force” is the negative, inactive part of morality). This means giving the world good beyond measure - not only for all the good things done to us (which is natural), but also for all the evil. In this way, we do not close the good in discrete acts of mutual exchange, but make good our destiny - stopping the spread of endless chains of evil and generating endless chains of good.
The religious and philosophical searches of Leo Tolstoy were associated with the experience and comprehension of a wide variety of philosophical and religious teachings, on the basis of which a worldview system was formed, distinguished by a consistent desire for certainty and clarity (to a large extent - at the level of common sense) in explaining the fundamental philosophical and religious problems and, accordingly, a peculiar confessional and preaching style of expressing one's own "creed". The fact of the enormous influence of Tolstoy's literary work on Russian and world culture is absolutely indisputable. The ideas of the writer caused and cause much more ambiguous assessments. They were also perceived both in Russia (in philosophical terms, for example, by N.N. Strakhov, in religious terms, they became the basis of "Tolstoyism" as a religious trend), and in the world (in particular, Tolstoy's preaching found a very serious response from major figures Indian National Liberation Movement). At the same time, the critical attitude towards Tolstoy precisely as a thinker is widely represented in the Russian intellectual tradition. The fact that Tolstoy was a brilliant artist, but a "bad thinker" was written in different years V. S. Solovyov, N. K. Mikhailovsky, G. V. Florovsky, G. V. Plekhanov, I. A. Ilyin and others. However, no matter how serious the arguments of the critics of Tolstoy's teaching sometimes may be, it undoubtedly occupies its unique place in the history of Russian thought, reflecting the spiritual path of the great writer, his personal philosophical experience of answering the "last", metaphysical questions.
Deep and retained its significance in subsequent years was the influence on the young Tolstoy of the ideas of J. J. Rousseau. The critical attitude of the writer to civilization, the preaching of "naturalness", which in the late L. Tolstoy resulted in a direct denial of the significance of cultural creativity, including his own, in many respects go back precisely to the ideas of the French enlightener. Later influences include the moral philosophy of A. Schopenhauer ("the most brilliant of men," according to the Russian writer) and Eastern (primarily Buddhist) motifs in Schopenhauer's doctrine of "the world as will and representation." However, later, in the 1980s, Tolstoy's attitude to Schopenhauer's ideas became more critical, which was not least due to his high appreciation of I. Kant's "Critique of Practical Reason" (whom he characterized as "a great religious teacher"). However, it should be recognized that Kant's transcendentalism, the ethics of duty and, in particular, the understanding of history do not play any significant role in the religious and philosophical preaching of the late Tolstoy, with its specific anti-historicism, the rejection of state, social and cultural forms of life as exclusively "external", personifying a false historical choice of mankind, leading the latter away from solving its main and only task - the task of moral self-improvement. VV Zenkovsky quite rightly wrote about the "panmoralism" of the teachings of L. Tolstoy. The ethical doctrine of the writer was largely syncretic, incomplete in nature. He drew his moralizing inspiration from various sources: J. J. Rousseau, A. Schopenhauer, I. Kant, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism. But this thinker, far from any kind of orthodoxy, considered Christian, evangelical morality to be the foundation of his own religious and moral teaching. In fact, the main meaning of Tolstoy's religious philosophizing consisted in the experience of a kind of ethicization of Christianity, reducing this religion to the sum of certain ethical principles, moreover, principles that allow rational and accessible not only to the philosophical mind, but also to the ordinary common sense justification. Actually, all the religious and philosophical writings of the late Tolstoy are devoted to this task: "Confession", "What is my faith?", "The Kingdom of God is within you", "On Life" and others. Having chosen a similar path, the writer went through it to the end. His conflict with the church was inevitable, and, of course, it was not only "external" in nature: he criticized the foundations of Christian dogma, mystical theology, and denied the "divinity" of Christ. The most serious philosophical criticism of the religious ethics of L. Tolstoy was once made by V. S. Solovyov (“Three Conversations”) and I. A. Ilyin (“On Resistance to Evil by Force”).
Essence of Tolstoyanism in the following:
- . many religious dogmas must be criticized and discarded, as well as magnificent ceremonial, cults, hierarchy;
- . religion must become simple and accessible to the people;
- . God, religion is goodness, love, reason and conscience;
- . the meaning of life is self-improvement;
- . the main evil on Earth is death and violence;
- . it is necessary to abandon violence as a way to solve any problems;
- . the basis of human behavior should be non-resistance to evil;
- . the state is a moribund institution and, since it is an apparatus of violence, has no right to exist;
- . everyone needs possible ways undermine the state, ignore it - do not go to work for officials, do not participate in political life, etc.
For his religious and philosophical views in 1901 L.N. Tolstoy was anathematized (cursed) and excommunicated from the Church.
L. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910) is an outstanding figure in Russian and world culture, a brilliant humanist writer, moral thinker, who has had and is still influencing the minds and hearts of people.
L. Tolstoy, except works of art, belongs to a number of works containing philosophical, religious-philosophical, ethical and aesthetic problems that characterize his worldview.
Here it is necessary to name: “On the goal of philosophy”, “Philosophical remarks on the speech of J.-J. Rousseau", "War and Peace" (philosophical digressions), "Confession", "What is my faith", "What is art?", "So what shall we do?", "Criticism of dogmatic theology", "The Way of Truth", "About Life", etc.
At the very beginning of life and creative way L. Tolstoy is occupied with philosophical questions about the meaning and purpose of human life. “The purpose of human life is all possible assistance to the all-round development of all existing ... mankind.” Interest in philosophical and social problems is noticeable in the philosophical sketch “On the Purpose of Philosophy”, where we read: “Man strives, that is, man is active. Where is this activity going? How to make this activity free? is the goal of philosophy in its truest sense. In other words, philosophy is the science of life. In order to more accurately define science itself, it is necessary to define the striving that gives us the concept of it.
The striving that is found in everything that exists in man is the consciousness of life and the striving to preserve and strengthen it. So the aim of philosophy is to show how a person should educate himself. But a person is not alone: he lives in a society, therefore, philosophy must determine the relationship of a person to other people. Noteworthy is the passage “Philosophical remarks on the speech of J.-J. Rousseau", containing the idea that "... science in general and philosophy in particular, which Rousseau so attacks, are not only not useless, but even necessary, and not for some Socrates, but for all."
The writer was deeply worried and occupied with the questions of the philosophy of history, which found its most vivid expression in his main novel War and Peace. Freedom and necessity, causes and goals in history, the ratio of active and conscious, the role of the individual and the masses - these and many other problems of the socio-historical existence of man received an original and in many ways correct solution in Tolstoy's work. Despite the elements of fatalism and providentialism, L. N. Tolstoy made great progress in the scientific development of history.
The Russian thinker argued that history should explore "the life of the people and mankind", that it reveals the laws underlying this life. Objecting to former historians, he wrote: “In order to study the laws of history, we must completely change the subject of observation, leave the kings, ministers and generals alone, and study the homogeneous, infinitely small elements that guide the masses ... It is obvious that this path only lies the possibility of capturing historical laws ... ".
The writer denied the decisive role of the "deity", "single" personalities ruling the peoples, denied the decisive historical role of "great" people. Not the government, not kings and other rulers are the driving force of social development, but the people - the creator of all material wealth, the creator and keeper of spiritual values. According to Tolstoy, not Napoleon, not Alexander I, not Rastopchin and other notable historical figures determine the course of history. It is driven by an ordinary person - a soldier, a peasant, in general, a "commoner", who, in the mass of their ordinary and inconspicuous activities, jointly create life and create history.
Tolstoy's desire to understand the historical "action", to grasp its causal relationships lead the writer to the conclusion: "The only concept by which the movement of peoples can be explained is the concept of a force equal to the entire movement of peoples." According to Tolstoy, when explaining this or that phenomenon, it is necessary to take into account the actions of “all people taking part in the event”: the life of the people will not interfere with the life of several so-called “great” outstanding people. In this regard, L. Tolstoy makes successful attempts to explain the role of the individual in history when he speaks of the significance of the environment and the circumstances that influence its formation and character. The personality and activity of M. I. Kutuzov expresses and generalizes the desires and actions of the masses. He is the bearer of folk traditions and the folk spirit, possessed the power of "insight", and was able to comprehend the "will of providence." Reflecting on history, the writer inevitably explores the problem of the relationship and interaction of freedom and necessity.
L. Tolstoy writes: “If the will of every person was free, that is, if everyone could do as he liked, then the whole history is a series of incoherent accidents. If even one person out of millions in a thousand-year period of time has the opportunity to act freely, that is, as he wants, then it is obvious that one free act of this person, contrary to laws, destroys the possibility of the existence of any laws for all mankind. . If there is at least one law that governs the actions of people, then there can be no free will, because then the will of people must be subject to this law. The above judgment, for all its categorical form - either "free will" or "law" - is nothing more than the writer's reflection, his raising the question of the dialectic of freedom and necessity in history. Answering it, L. Tolstoy claims that looking at a person “as an object of observation”, we find that he, like everything that exists, is subject to the law of necessity; looking at it “out of ourselves, as if we feel free”. Experience and reasoning clearly show that a person "as an object of observation" is subject to certain laws, but the same experience and reasoning show him that "complete freedom" is impossible, although a person strives for freedom: "All the aspirations of people, all motives are only striving for more freedom. Wealth is poverty, fame is the unknown, power is subject, strength is weakness, health is sickness, education is ignorance, work is leisure, satiety is hunger, virtues are vice are greater or lesser degrees of freedom.
Every historical event in which people take part "appears to be partly free, partly necessary." Each human action is a certain combination, interpenetration and mutual transformation of freedom and necessity. “And always, the more we see freedom in any action, the less necessity, and the more necessity, the less freedom.” Thus, Tolstoy keenly felt the dialectic, the contradictory nature of the unity of freedom, the goal-setting activity of people, and the necessity conditioned by the objective laws of socio-historical reality. "Will" is determined by "external circumstances", freedom depends on them, but life is created as a result of free action. In affirming the freedom of man in his mind, in his consciousness and action, the writer does not at all take the point of view of voluntarism. He denies "absolute freedom". L. Tolstoy's historical views are characterized by a dialectical understanding of the contradictions and clashes of various social forces. The struggle of the "old" and "new", the clash of "good" and "evil" is a kind of regularity. The course of events, the successes and failures of various tendencies depend on the "great multitude", on the "crowd of those who do not think", and their "thousands and darkness".
In Tolstoy's philosophy of history, perhaps, the strengths of his epistemological position, the writer's successes in understanding socio-historical development, are most clearly manifested. The writer attaches great importance to "feelings", "experiences", the moral consciousness of people, emphasizes the great importance of their "reason", figuratively and visually shows and affirms reliability in the great meaning of a person's "experience", real actions of people, the significance of "good and useful" deeds .
L. Tolstoy was distinguished by deep penetration into the psychology of people, highly appreciating the “word” - the great human “gift”, which is important for human knowledge and has the ability to connect and separate people, to serve love, enmity and hatred. All these are materialistic elements that characterize the peculiarities of his epistemological positions, which are revealed in his views on nature, society and its history, in his judgments about people and their lives. They are obvious and find their confirmation in his realism, in his teachings and theories.
L. Tolstoy deeply experienced the social and spiritual life of his day. The position and fate of the noble-landlord class, the life of the numerous peasantry of Russia, the working and living conditions of factory and railway workers, the urban lower classes - nothing escaped his gaze. Seeing social inequality, sharp contradictions between the rich and working people, the writer thought about methods and means of changing social life. Socio-humanistic, moral and metaphysical problems worried the writer at the very beginning of his life and creative path. Describing his youthful dreams and aspirations for the ideal, he later wrote: “All mankind lives and develops on the basis of spiritual principles, ideals that guide them. These ideals are expressed in religions, in science, art, forms of statehood, these ideals are getting higher and higher, and humanity is moving towards the highest good. I am a part of humanity, and therefore my vocation is to promote the consciousness and realization of the ideals of humanity.” Subsequently, when in the 70-80s. 19th century Tolstoy survived a spiritual crisis, moved to the positions of the patriarchal peasantry and at the same time realized in himself a social vocation to condemn social evil and preach the ideas of goodness and fair relations between people, his socio-philosophical views acquired a clearer outline, the reality of his contemporary era penetrated deeper and deeper into his views. , reality was reflected more and more diversely, deeply and truthfully. The feudal-landlord and capitalist system of that time was subjected to especially severe criticism. The humanity of Tolstoy's social quests consisted in the fact that he stated with all certainty that working people who are accustomed to work and deprivation, who have the ability to overcome obstacles encountered in their path, can overcome all difficulties, contradictions, negative sides social being. “Strength,” Tolstoy said, “is in the working people.” “Everything that is outside and around me, all this is the fruit of their knowledge of life. The very tools of thought with which I discuss life and condemn it, all this was not done by me, but by them, I myself was born, brought up, grew up thanks to them, they dug up iron, taught how to cut wood, tamed cows, horses, taught me to sow, taught me how to live together, ordered our life: they taught me to think, to speak. Labor activity- an essential source of development and movement of social life. Reflecting on the ways and means of human development, the writer comes to the conclusion that it is necessary to eliminate private property, especially land ownership. The liberation of the people "can be achieved only by the destruction of landed property and the recognition of the land as a common property - thereby, which has long been the sincere desire of the Russian people ...": the implementation of this people's dream "will put the Russian people on a high degree of independence, bliss and contentment" .
The writer's thought about the need to turn the land into a public property was a reflection of the needs and requirements of millions of small and landless peasants, meant the condemnation of large private landlord and capitalist landownership and had a revolutionary orientation.
Justifying his dream of improving social forms of life arrangement, the idea of uniting the peoples of the whole Earth, L. Tolstoy refers to those signs in the development of civilization that gave hope for the realization of his cherished desires. “Unconsciously, this truth is confirmed by the establishment of means of communication, telegraphs, the press, the greater and greater general availability of the blessings of this world for all people, and consciously - the destruction of superstitions that divide people, the spread of the truths of knowledge, the expression of the ideals of the brotherhood of people ... ".
“Everything that we live, that we are proud of, that makes us happy, from railway, opera and celestial mechanics to the good life of people - if it is not a complete product of this activity, then nevertheless it is a consequence of the transmission of science and arts in a broad sense. If it were not for the knowledge handed down from generation to generation of how to forge, weld, temper and separate iron into strips, screws, sheets, etc., there would be no railway; without the art, passed down from generation to generation, to express feelings through sounds, words and pictures, there would be no opera; without the knowledge of geometry as ratios of magnitude, also transmitted from generation to generation, there would be no celestial mechanics. And just as without the transfer of knowledge about what is characteristic and not characteristic of the nature of man and human society, there would be no good life for people, if there were no science and art, there would be no human life.
From Tolstoy's point of view, "true science and true art have always existed and will always exist like all other types of human activity, and it is useless to dispute or prove their necessity."
Among the criteria for the authenticity of science and art, L. Tolstoy named humanism and democracy. Other qualities of true culture for Tolstoy are the accessibility and intelligibility of its achievements. Art should be understandable to the most ordinary person of the people - this is one of the most important provisions of the aesthetic code of the artist. Speaking against the principles of aestheticism, Tolstoy writes: “... To say that a work of art is good, but incomprehensible, is the same as saying about some food that it is very good, but people cannot eat it ... perverted art can be incomprehensible to people, but good art is understandable to everyone. For Tolstoy, art can and should replace "lower feelings, less good and less necessary for the good of people with kinder ones, more necessary for this good." Therefore, it must be popular and exist for the people. Assigning a great socially transformative mission to art, the writer tried to formulate his ideas about the art of the future. From his point of view, it should be the art of not just one circle of people, not one estate, not one nationality, it should convey feelings that unite people, attracting them to fraternal unity. "Only this art will be singled out, allowed, approved, distributed." In the communication and unity of people, a great role belongs to the word. “The word is a great thing. A great cause because it is the most powerful means of uniting people. With the help of words, speech, we express our thoughts. "The expression of thought is one of the most important things in life." As a great humanist and educator, he spoke and fought with the art of his word and his thought against the unfair use of the achievements of material and spiritual culture. The development of science and technology, art and literature, all the achievements of the human mind must be oriented towards all people living in society, towards the development and preservation of human life itself. The fruits of culture in all its forms should promote fraternal unity, love and respect among people, increase their knowledge and power, and contribute to the mastery of the elemental forces of nature. The word of the great thinker is relevant, condemning the use of the achievements of science and technical inventions - everything that is created by the mind and hands of people - "for the enrichment of capitalists who produce luxury goods or weapons of human destruction" .
In Tolstoy's worldview, ecological motives are clearly heard. He persistently defended the purity of nature, vegetable and animal world and all living things. He demanded a loving and moral attitude towards the natural reality surrounding us. The trend he noted towards the destruction of the natural habitat of people caused him concern and anxiety. Speaking about the ideal of a happy life, L. Tolstoy wrote: “One of the first and universally recognized conditions of happiness is a life in which the connection between man and nature is not broken, that is, life in the open air, in fresh air, communion with the earth, plants, animals...
Dreaming of social transformations, Tolstoy believed that in order to realize them, it is necessary to elevate the importance and role of the human mind. Adhering to the theory of “non-resistance to evil by violence”, following the idea of “moral” perfection, condemning “violence”, the thinker considered moral and ethical and specifically understood religious activity to be the decisive and determining means of social progress. All this gave his social quests the features of idealism and utopianism, his ideals were largely turned to the past and in this sense were reactionary in nature. The ideals of a new way of life were formed by the writer in the process of distinguishing between the Russian autocratic-feudal state, European bourgeois-democratic states and Eastern despotisms, up to the denial of "any power", any statehood. “The transition from state violence to a free, rational life cannot happen suddenly; just as state life has been put together for millennia, so, perhaps, for millennia it will be divided up.
Changes leading to the elimination of statehood should, in his opinion, follow the path of democratization of management: “If people bring government to the point that all people participate in management, then there will be no management - people will each manage themselves.” L. Tolstoy thought about many other social issues. He saw the contrast between working conditions in the city and the countryside, between the city and the countryside, between mental and physical labor.
The great humanist paid much attention to the issues of militarism and war. Violence, armed struggle, the history of military conflicts between peoples and countries were a constant subject of his thoughts. As a result of studying military conflicts, L. Tolstoy came to the conclusion that it is necessary to eliminate wars as phenomena that are contrary to reason and human nature. L. Tolstoy sought to penetrate into the causes of the ongoing and ongoing wars, he saw them in social inequality, in the desire for enrichment, in the interest and selfish motives of people. The ruling exploiting classes, organizers and ideologists of the war are subjected to crushing criticism by him. Expansionist, chauvinistic, national-racial doctrines are evaluated as anti-human, hostile to the interests of working people. In a number of cases, L. Tolstoy takes a militant and anti-war position. It is necessary to arrange the life of mankind so that the rights and equality of all countries and peoples are recognized. “The people are the same everywhere”, all people crave constant calm and peace, they can and should not argue and exterminate each other, but mutually respect and develop comprehensive ties and relations among themselves. The time has come when the consciousness of the brotherhood of people of all nationalities has been formed and people can live “in peaceful, mutually beneficial, friendly, commercial, industrial, moral relations, which they have no sense or need to violate.” L. Tolstoy’s thoughts are in tune with the aspirations of modern humanity: “Whoever you are,” he wrote, “Frenchman, Russian, Pole, Englishman, Irishman, German, Czech—understand that all our real human interests, whatever they may be— agricultural, industrial, commercial, artistic or scientific, all interests, as well as pleasures and joys, in no way contradict the interests of other peoples and states, and that you are bound by mutual assistance, the exchange of services, the joy of wide brotherly communication, the exchange of not only goods but also thoughts and feelings with people of other nations. L. Tolstoy was optimistic about the future. He emphasized: "... the system of militarism must be destroyed and replaced by disarmament and arbitration."
Tolstoy said a lot about man, the goals and meaning of his life, which is a significant contribution to the development of humanistic thought, to the enrichment of the moral experience of mankind. The writer did not at all deny the “biological” or, as he put it, “animal” nature of man, but he brought to the fore the “spiritual”, “reasonable” and “good”, inherent in a human being, his ability to creative activity. Although Tolstoy's philosophy of man sometimes appears in an abstract-idealistic form, many of his thoughts and judgments about man and his life are distinguished by deep productivity and truth. “Life, whatever it may be, is a good, higher than which there is nothing. If we say that life is evil, then we are saying this only in comparison with another, imaginary, better life, but after all, we do not know and cannot know any other better life, and therefore life, whatever it may be, is the highest. the good that is available to us."
Rejecting "disbelief" in life, Tolstoy resolutely defends human life in the real objective world as opposed to theological myths about the afterlife and other worlds. “This world is not a joke, not a vale of testing and transition to a better, eternal world, but this world is the one in which we now live, this is one of the eternal worlds, which is beautiful, joyful and which we not only can, but must make with our efforts more beautiful and joyful for those who live with us and for all who after us will live in it.
Tolstoy's search for the meaning of life, not free from religious vestments, is of particular interest: he speaks entirely about life in work. This is the main thing in a person’s life and his moral character, “The dignity of a person, his sacred duty and obligation to use the hands and feet given to him for what they are given for, and the food he eats for the labor that produces this food.” Only by working tirelessly and creating everything necessary for life, people will become real people; then their highest human qualities will manifest themselves and they will master the forces of nature; the new social system must be a working community of people, where everyone will work for himself and his loved ones. “When a new, sensible, more sensible form of social life comes, people will be surprised that compulsion to work was considered an evil, and idleness a blessing. Then, if there had been a punishment then, deprivation of work would have been a punishment.
The above judgments of the writer are genealogically connected with the experience of social behavior, as it was developed in the people's environment, where labor and the working man, his activity act as the highest value. This is how life is done: people create all the diversity and beauty of life with their efforts. And in this activity, the meaning of people's lives - this idea permeates many pages of his creative heritage. Man in the works of Tolstoy appears in all the contradictory nature of his social existence. The writer passionately denounced the possessive world, the world of violence and stupid self-sufficing philistinism, contrasting this world with his humanistic idea of man as the creator of material life and a high spirit. He must always be on the move, not stop in spiritual growth, in improving the ability to understand and sympathize, act and call on others. Man must engage in constructive activities to achieve the greatest prosperity of all mankind.
The analysis shows that the search for answers to questions about the purpose, meaning, value of life was not limited to religious, but led Tolstoy to deep reflections on the most important human problems that worried him throughout his life.
The creative heritage of L. Tolstoy is complex and contradictory. It reflects the concepts, feelings and moods of the patriarchal peasantry, the ideology of the largest productive class in pre- and post-reform Russia. L. Tolstoy's worldview contains both peasant revolutionary democratism and reactionary religious preaching of passivity. But L. Tolstoy created a vivid and truthful picture of his era. As a thinker, he was distinguished by an active search for social justice and high citizenship. He raised important "sick" and "cursed" questions, questioning the foundations of the political and social structure of his time. It is necessary to preserve and increase the valuable ideas of the writer's spiritual heritage that have stood the test of time. L. Tolstoy will always be dear to progressive mankind as a supporter and defender of life and work, as a great humanist who actively sought ways to universal happiness on our planet.
There. T. 64. S. 94.
Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. op. T. 30. S. 108.
There. T. 30. S. 179.
There. T. 81. S. 120.
There. T. 78. S. 373.
Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. op. T. 23. S. 418.
There. T. 23. S. 441.
There. T. 55. S. 172.
Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. op. T. 55. S. 239.
Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. op. T. 90. S. 429.
There. T. 90. S. 443.
There. T. 68. S. 54.
There. T. 45. S. 480.
Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. op. T. 45. S. 481.
There. T. 25. S. 396.
