Teresa Obolevitch

In The Eastern Christian Tradition in Modern Russian Thought and Beyond, Teresa Obolevitch elucidates the main philosophical and theological ideas of the Eastern Christian tradition of neo-patristic synthesis and considers them in comparative philosophical context.

The Eastern Christian Tradition in Modern Russian Thought and Beyond

Voici la première grande introduction à la philosophie religieuse russe qui retrace, depuis le Moyen Âge et jusqu'au XIXe siècle, toute l'histoire intellectuelle et spirituelle de ce continent encore mal connu. Dans cette superbe épopée de la p

La Philosophie religieuse russe

Randall A. Poole

Prince Evgenii Trubetskoi (1863-1920), one of Russia's great philosophers, exemplified what was best in the Russian religious-philosophical tradition. His lifelong pursuit was "integral knowledge." This ideal affirmed that faith was integral to reason and that inner experience (moral, religious, aesthetic), and not just external sensory experience, offered truthful testimony to the nature of reality--precisely contrary to the reductive positivism and scientism of Trubetskoi's day and ours. Following Vladimir Soloviev he developed the concept of Bogochelovechestvo (divine humanity)--the free human realization of the divine principle in ourselves and in the world (deification)--and found in it the very meaning of life. Trubetskoi strikingly combined religious philosophy with an unwavering commitment to the main principles of liberalism: human dignity, freedom of conscience, the rule of law (based ultimately on natural law), and human perfectibility (progress). He worked tirelessly for a liberal, constitutional Russia. This is the first book in English devoted to Evgenii Trubetskoi's life and thought. It includes a comprehensive introduction, six chapters on his religious-philosophical worldview, and six chapters on an area of religious studies that he inspired--the philosophy of the icon.

Icon and Philosophy

Evgenii Trubetskoi

Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between science and faith in Russian religious thought. Teresa Obolevitch offers a synthetic approach on the development of the problem throughout the whole history of Russian thought, starting from the medieval period and arriving in contemporary times. She considers the relationship between science and religion in the eighteenth century, the so-called academic philosophy of the 19th and 20th century, the thought of Peter Chaadaev, the Slavophiles, and in the most influential literature figures, such as Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy. The volume also analyses two channels of the formation of philosophy in the context of the relationship between theology and science in Russia. The first is connected with the attempt to rationalize the truths of faith and is exemplified by Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Lossky; the second wtih the apophatic tradition is presented by Pavel Florensky and Semen Frank. The book then describes the relation to scientific knowledge in the thought of Lev Shestov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Alexei Losev as well as the original project of Russian Cosmism (on the examples of Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and Vladimir Vernadsky). Obolevitch presents the current state of the discussion on this topic by paying attention to the Neopatristic synthesis (Fr Georges Florovsky and his followers) and offers the brief comparative analyse of the relationship between science and religion from the Western and Russian perspectives.

Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought

Artur Mrowczynski-Van Allen

Pawel Rojek

Contemporary philosophy and theology are ever more conscious of the fact that the model of relations between religion and culture developed in modernity is fundamentally flawed. The processes of the secularization of society, culture, and even religion are rooted in the dualistic vision of religion and culture introduced in the late Middle Ages. In seeking a way out, we need to explore domains of culture unaffected by Western European secular thinking. Russian thought is remarkably well prepared to formulate an alternative to secular modernity. Indeed, in Russian culture there was neither a Renaissance nor an Enlightenment. Eastern Christianity retained an integral patristic vision of human nature that had not been divided into separate "natural" and "supernatural" elements. These pre- and non-modern visions are now gaining exceptional value in the postmodern reality in which we find ourselves. The heritage of Russian Christian thought may serve as a source of inspiration for alternative approaches to religion and culture. In this respect, Russian thought may be compared with nouvelle theologie, Radical Orthodoxy, and other recent movements in Christian postsecular thought. For this reason it remains astonishingly contemporary.

Religion and Culture in Russian Thought

Apology of Culture

Post-secularism is the fundamental evidence of the end of modernity. Modernity, as sleeping reason in Francisco Goya's painting, realizes that, although it thought that it was awake, it was producing monsters. We try to analyze post-secular philosophy from the point of view of Russian religious thought. We believe that such philosophers as Vladimir Soloviev, Pavel Florensky, Sergey Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Georges Florovsky, and Semen Frank may be helpful for understanding and overcoming post-secular order. Their unique views on the relations between religion and philosophy, science, and social life are apparently missing in the current Western debates. It seems to us that Russian religious philosophy becomes surprisingly up-to-date and attractive in the contemporary world. We hope that the present volume will be a significant step forward in the inclusion of the heritage of Russian religious philosophy in contemporary debates.

Teresa Obolevitch

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