Symbolist movement

see Nietzsche, influence of in Russia (§1). Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance (§4).

Rationality and cultural relativism

By Simon, Lawrence H.

Under what conditions may we judge the practices or beliefs of another culture to be rationally deficient? Is it possible that cultures can differ so radically as to ...

Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

The Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance was created by lay intellectuals who found rationalism, positivism and Marxism inadequate as explanations of the world or guides to life. They were deeply ...

Nietzsche: impact on Russian thought

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

Nietzsche’s thought had a massive influence on Russian literature and the arts, religious philosophy and political culture. His popularizers were writers, artists and political radicals who read his ...

African traditional religions

By Appiah, K. Anthony

Religion has been at the centre of recent philosophical debate in Africa for two major reasons. The first is that the answers to many central canonical philosophical questions ...

Benjamin, Walter (1892–1940)

By Roberts, Julian

Walter Benjamin was one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers of culture. His work combines formal analysis of art works with social theory to generate an approach which ...

Schellingianism, Russian

By Terras, Victor

Schelling’s philosophy, spread by German professors teaching at Russian universities and by Russians who had studied in Germany, some with Schelling himself, had an early and lasting influence ...

Trubetskoi, Sergei Nikolaevich (1862–1905)

By Poole, Randall A.

Prince Sergei N. Trubetskoi came from one of the most enlightened and distinguished noble families in Russia. By 1890 he had emerged as one of the country’s major ...

Bulgakov, Sergei Nikolaevich (1871–1944)

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

A luminary of the Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance, Bulgakov moved from Marxism, to idealism, to Christianity in the early twentieth century. He rejected historical determinism, class struggle and all ...

Russian aesthetics

By Terras, Victor

Aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, or in the sense of an explicitly stated theory of art, appeared in Russia no earlier than the seventeenth century, under the ...

Florenskii, Pavel Aleksandrovich (1882–1937)

By Slesinski, Robert

A figure of genius in the history of twentieth-century Russian religious philosophy, Florenskii did much to influence the directions of subsequent Russian thought, both within the Soviet Union ...

Religious language

By Alston, William P.

The main philosophical interest in religious language is in the understanding of what purport to be statements about God. Can they really be what they seem to be ...

Signposts Movement

By Kelly, Aileen

The symposium Signposts (Vekhi, sometimes translated Landmarks), published in 1909, was a succès de scandale which provoked a long debate of extraordinary intensity and scope on ...

Solov’ëv, Vladimir Sergeevich (1853–1900)

By Walicki, Andrzej

It has been widely acknowledged that Vladimir Solov’ëv is the greatest Russian philosopher of the nineteenth century; his significance for Russian philosophy is often compared to the significance ...

Russian Idea, the

By Walicki, Andrzej

‘The Russian Idea’ is a term used by Russian thinkers to define specific features of Russian culture, the spiritual make-up of the Russian nation, the meaning of Russian ...

Ivanov, Viacheslav Ivanovich (1866–1949)

By Bird, Robert

Viacheslav Ivanov was a leading theoretician of the symbolist literary movement and a prominent figure in the renaissance of religious thought in Russia at the turn of the ...

Art, abstract

The widespread use of the term ‘abstract’ for a category of visual art dates from the second decade of the twentieth century, when painters and sculptors had turned ...

Rozanov, Vasilii Vasil’evich (1856–1919)

By Rosenthal, Bernice Glatzer

Vasilii Rozanov, a prominent spokesman of the Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance, is known for his writings on sex, marriage and the family, his attacks on Christian asceticism, and his ...

Vianu, Tudor (1897–1964)

By Alexandrescu, Vlad

In his fertile activity in the fields of aesthetics, philosophy of culture, theory of values, stylistics, literary history and criticism, Vianu integrated the academic philosophical style with the ...

Russian philosophy

By Kelly, Aileen

Russian thought is best approached without fixed preconceptions about the nature and proper boundaries of philosophy. Conditions of extreme political oppression and economic backwardness are not conducive to ...

Shakespeare and philosophy

By Newman, Ira

Known for their attention to literary logic in general, philosophers have not usually focused on the works of specific literary writers. Yet unanticipated benefits often come from grounding ...

Skovoroda, Hryhorii Savych (1722–94)

By Zakydalsky, Taras D.

Skovoroda was the first truly independent philosopher produced by Ukraine and the last brilliant exponent of its Baroque culture. Departing from the Aristotelian tradition of the Kiev Academy, ...

Askol’dov (Alekseev), Sergei Alekseevich (1870–1945)

By Poole, Randall A.

A prominent philosopher of the Russian Religious-Philosophical Renaissance, Sergei Askol’dov was Aleksei Kozlov’s son and philosophical disciple. (Askol’dov was a pseudonym; his legal name was Alekseev, i.e., ‘son ...

Losev, Aleksei Fëdorovich (1893–1988)

By Kline, George L.

A leading Russian philosopher, religious thinker and classical scholar of the twentieth century, Losev made important contributions to the theory of language, myth and symbol, as well as ...