The main idea of ​​Berdyaev's philosophy. Philosophical ideas of N.A.

When we hear the word "philosopher", most often we imagine some ancient, ancient Greek or Roman elder wrapped in a sheet. Are we familiar with many thinkers - our compatriots? In fact, there are no fewer philosophers in Russia than there used to be in Ancient Greece, and today we will discuss the work and life path of one of them - Berdyaev. The biography of this man and even his origin was strongly reflected in his thoughts, worldview and attitude.

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It is difficult to tell briefly the biography of Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, since you can talk about his life and work for hours. But let's start from the beginning. The future thinker was born in Kievskaya on March 6 (18), 1874. His father was an officer-cavalry officer Alexander Mikhailovich, who later became the marshal of the district nobility. Nikolai's mother, Alina Sergeevna, had French roots (through her mother), and through her father she was Princess Kudasheva. This is one of the reasons why the biography of the philosopher Berdyaev is so non-standard and unique - he was brought up not like any Russian boy, but as a person from an international family. Parents instilled in him love for the whole world, and not just for their homeland.

Some people may be familiar with Berdyaev's biography and personality from writings such as The Russian Idea (1948), Dostoevsky's Worldview (1923), The Philosophy of the Free Spirit (1927-28).

Earlier time

Since Nikolai Berdyaev owes his roots to a noble noble family, he had the honor to study at the Kiev Cadet Corps, and later at Kiev University at the Faculty of Law and Natural Sciences. In 1989, he joined the Marxist movement, for which he was expelled from the educational institution and even exiled to Vologda for three years. In 1901, after returning from exile, an ideological evolution took place in the biography of Nikolai Berdyaev - a movement from Marxism to idealism. His guides in this were Mikhail Bulgakov, Peter Struve and Semyon Frank, who thought in a similar vein. By the way, it was these people who became the founders of a new philosophical movement, which in 1902 was called "Problems of Idealism". Thanks to Berdyaev and his like-minded people, the age-old problem of the religious and philosophical revival has arisen in Russia.

First works and creative activity

In 1904, significant changes took place in Berdyaev's biography: he moved to St. Petersburg and became the editor-in-chief of two magazines at once: Questions of Life and Novy Put. In parallel, drawing closer to such philosophers as Gippius, Merezhkovsky, Rozanov and others, he founded another movement called "The New Religious State". For several years, Berdyaev has been writing numerous articles in which he reveals the essence of the religious and spiritual state of Russia and expresses his personal opinion about all this. He combines all his works during this period into several books: "Sub specie aeternitatis: Philosophical, social and literary experiences 1900-1906".

Moscow and new travels

The biography of N. A. Berdyaev has been unfolding in Moscow since 1908. He moved here in order to continue his creative development and become one of the participants in the movement to continue and develop Solovyov's thought. Also, Nikolai becomes one of the figures in the book publishing house "The Way". There he became one of the authors-philosophers who contributed to the creation of the legendary collection "Milestones" in 1909. After that, the thinker had a chance to go on a trip to Italy. There he was imbued not only with the thought and spirit of the local people, but also with the beauty and grandeur of architecture and other cultural and religious monuments. This gave impetus to the development of a new philosophy in Berdyaev's head, which has already become autonomous, unique and belonging not to any group, but only to him alone. His reflections on the freedom of the individual and thought were supplemented by the idea of ​​creativity and the eternal tragedy that is inextricably linked with it ("The Meaning of Creativity", 1916).

Preparations for the revolution and its beginning opened new doors in Berdyaev's biography. Against the background of the erupted political situation, he began to work even more actively, expounding his thoughts and considerations on the account of everything that was happening in numerous articles and books. It is worth noting that Nicholas expected the arrival of the revolution, as he clearly knew that the period of emperors and Tsars in Russia had completely outlived itself and became, one might say, a rudiment. However, he did not like the power that replaced the former regime even more. He rejected communism and totalitarianism, arguing that this forced "equality" and "brotherhood" is only a mask under which evil is hidden. Note also that in 1919 he wrote a book (which was published in 1923) called The Philosophy of Inequality. In it, he rejected the former democracy and socialism, but this was before the Bolsheviks came to power. After the formation of the Soviets, Berdyaev came to the conclusion that the tsarist regime was not so bad, and democracy, going hand in hand with socialism, gave the people much more freedom than totalitarianism.

Also, telling the biography of N. A. Berdyaev, it can be briefly noted that after the revolution he began to hold weekly meetings at his home, which even received the name - "Free Academy of Spiritual Culture". Thanks to this activity, he became a recognized leader of the non-Bolshevik public.

Arrests and exile to Germany

Between 1918 and 1922, Berdyaev was arrested three times on behalf of the Soviet authorities for his cultural and philosophical activities. In 1922, he was exiled to Germany, fearing that because of his considerations and treatises, the foundation of the newly built "Red Russia" would shake. It should be noted that the thinker went to Berlin not alone, but with a dozen of his associates, many of whom were members of his "Free Academy". Being away from his homeland, Nikolai, again, organized the Religious and Philosophical Academy. He also took part in the creation and development of the Russian Scientific Institute, which allowed all our compatriots who were in Berlin to receive an education in accordance with Russian standards. Berdyaev also took part in the creation of the Russian Student Christian Movement. As he himself claimed, the exile to Berlin allowed him to do this to the extent that he himself desired, since in his homeland, alas, he would not have been able to do even a share of what he could do in Germany.

Period of emigration to France

France is the next country to which Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev fled from Soviet communism in 1924. The biography of the thinker in his mother's homeland was no less interesting and exciting than in Russia or Germany. First, he became the editor-in-chief of the magazine "The Way", which was published from 1925 to 1940. This edition was the only thread connecting all the migrants in France who left Russia but missed it. Nicholas also wrote the book "The New Middle Ages". It turned out to be small, but it was from the moment of its release that Berdyav's wide fame began throughout Europe. For many years, the philosopher has been holding meetings in which representatives of various currents of Christianity participate - Orthodox, Catholics and even Protestants. He often talks with representatives of the Catholic clergy and compares their culture with Russian. It is important to note that the ideology of the left Catholics, which was formed in France in the mid-1930s, was proposed by Nikolai Berdyaev.

Russian philosopher in the global context

In our short biography of Berdyaev, it is also impossible to miss the fact that he became the conduit of true Russian history to the Western world. In his books The Russian Idea, he also described the main events and trends, as well as the social mood of Russia and, so to speak, conveyed to the people of the West the entire ideology of our country first hand. Neither before nor after him was there such a person who could convey to other ethnic groups and civilizations, who are used to living and thinking in a completely different way, in full colors all the charm of the native people, land, customs and, most importantly, the events that have become the reason for the formation of certain ideological currents in Russia.

The Second World War

The terrible and terrible war that went on in Russia from 1941 to 1945, oddly enough, gave Berdyaev hope that the Soviet government would become more humane towards the people and soften its totalitarian policy. With representatives of the ruling elite, he even came into contact at the end of the war (from 1944 to 1946). However, information soon reached him about the numerous repressions by Stalin and Beria, as well as about new ideological treatises that further fettered the common people. At this moment, his hopes for an enlightened future for Russia are cut short, and he ceases to be in contact with his native country. In 1947, Berdyaev published a book entitled "The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics". In the same year he is recognized as an honorary doctor of divinity from the University of Cambridge. Two years later, Nikolai released an autobiography with clear spiritual and philosophical overtones called "Self-Knowledge". On this moment behind the thinker more than forty books, and he is already considered a world-class author.

Features of philosophy

For the first time, it was possible to guess what kind of philosophy Berdyaev promotes and what his worldview is from his book The Meaning of Creativity. It describes the ideas of objectivation, creativity, personality and, of course, the meta-historical or eschatological meaning of history with accuracy to the smallest detail. Nicholas created a kind of dualistic theory of reality, it is often compared with the philosophical model of Plato. However, the ancient Greek thinker has two worlds - the spiritual and the physical - that exist apart from each other, as if in parallel. But according to Berdyaev, our spirituality, our thoughts and ideology, which does not have a bodily or other tangible shell, breaks into the material plane. And it is thanks to the interaction of these two "universes" that the whole world functions in which we live, think, develop and go our predestined path.

Conclusion

Having learned short biography Nikolai Berdyaev, there is a desire to study in more depth not only his life path, but also his creative, spiritual views and interests. His personality, thought, idea were so unique and atypical that they still remain relevant. Rereading any work of this author today, one is surprised at how timely it is, even despite the fact that it was written almost a hundred years ago.

N.A. Berdyaev (1874-1948) came from a noble family. While studying at Kiev University, he began to attend circles of social democrats and became interested in the ideas of Marxism. Already during this period, he began to be interested in reading Hegel, Kant, Schelling, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, L. Tolstoy. Gradually, Berdyaev's own philosophy was formed, the center of which was a religious idealistic philosophy. He eventually became one of the most consistent critics of materialism and Marxism.

His worldview evolved while working on the magazines "Questions of Life" and "New Way". He became the founder of a religious and philosophical society called "In Memory of V. Solovyov". In 1911 his first work was published. Berdyaev's "Philosophy of Freedom" marked the end of his search to substantiate the philosophy of "neo-Christianity" and the definition of "new" In 1916, his next work, The Meaning of Creativity, appeared, which consolidated his ideas.

First World War significantly influenced the attitude of the philosopher, who perceived it as the end of the humanistic Historical force, which was able to fulfill the mission of the Christian reunification of mankind, he saw only in Russia. Therefore, he warmly welcomed and sharply negatively perceived Oktyabrskaya. Bolshevik socialism in his work "The Philosophy of Inequality" he called "compulsory brotherhood."

Berdyaev created the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture. The rejection of the Bolshevik ideology aroused the close attention of the authorities to him, he was arrested twice, in 1922 he was sent abroad for

The main works, which expressed the individual philosophy of Berdyaev, were created during the period of emigration (first Berlin, then the French city of Clamart). His main works are "Philosophy of the Free Spirit", "The Meaning of Creativity", "On Slavery and "Spirit and Reality", "The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar", "The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics".

The center of his philosophical reflections is the theme of man. The philosophy of Berdyaev was based on the postulate of freedom of creativity and personality. His teachings are classified as currents of existentialism and personalism.

Berdyaev believed that a person is characterized by loneliness, insecurity and abandonment, which are rooted in a social environment that enslaves the individual and inspires melancholy in everyday life. From the oppressive fear of a person, only philosophy can free it, which is a breakthrough from a meaningless world that violates the personality (the work “I and the World of Objects”, which was soon written by Berdyaev).

The philosophy of freedom in his work was revealed in many works, among which is Self-Knowledge. His teaching was aimed at helping a person to take an active life and creative position, thus overcoming the imperfection of being.

His three main ideas are the idea of ​​"universal Christianity", the idea of ​​freedom and the apology of creativity. In general, his views are paradoscally characterized by a sense of the crisis of life and, at the same time, romantic confidence in the victory of the ideal.

As a religious thinker, Berdyaev created an original cosmogonic picture of the world. Before being, there was an abyss (an irrational state of freedom). That is, freedom preceded absolutely everything, and even God, who was born later and created the world and people. God pours out the spirit that he breathes into man. Therefore, the world has two foundations: spirit and freedom. These foundations are combined in a person and contradict each other. The spirit is primary in relation to the material world and is more significant for a person. People are associated with it.

Berdyaev's philosophy offered the ideal of freedom of society, which he called "personalistic socialism", which meant the primacy of the individual over society. But people can achieve real community not in society, but only in God (“catholicity”). Therefore, the meaning of human history is the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Earthly history is finite, but this is not a catastrophe, but the overcoming of enmity, depersonalization and objectification.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874 - 1948)- the largest representative of Russian idealistic philosophy of the twentieth century.

Berdyaev himself defined his philosophy as “the philosophy of the subject, the philosophy of the spirit, the philosophy of freedom, the dualistic-pluralistic philosophy, the creative-dynamic philosophy...”. The opposition between spirit and nature, according to Berdyaev, is the main one. Spirit is the subject, creativity, nature is immobility and passive duration, the object. The main element in this opposition is the subject, to the extent that, according to Berdyaev, the objective world does not exist by itself, but depends on the will of the subject, is the result of the exteriorization of his personal state: “I do not believe in the strength of the so-called “objective” world, the world of nature and history... there is only an objectification of reality, generated by a certain direction of the spirit.” This does not mean that Berdyaev was a solipsist, argued that the world is only a complex of elements created by the imagination of the subject. Nature, in which necessity reigns and freedom is suppressed, where the personal, the particular is absorbed by the universal, was generated by evil, sin. Some researchers believe that Berdyaev is “one of the founders of the philosophy of existentialism. In his opinion, being is not primary, it is only a characteristic of "existence" - the process of the creative individual life of the spirit.

One of the most important in the philosophy of Berdyaev - category of freedom. Freedom, in his opinion, was not created by God. Following the German philosopher-mystic of the 17th century. Jacob Boehme, Berdyaev believes that its source is primary chaos, nothing. Therefore, God has no power over freedom, ruling only over the created world, being. Berdyaev accepts the principle of theodicy, argues that, as a result, God is not responsible for evil in the world, he cannot foresee the actions of people who have free will and only contributes to the will becoming good.

Berdyaev distinguishes two types of freedom: primary irrational freedom, potential freedom, which causes the pride of the spirit and, as a result, its falling away from God, which as a result leads to the slavery of the individual in the natural world, objective reality, in a society where a person in order to successfully coexist with its other members, must follow the moral norms constructed by society, thus there is no real freedom; and “the second freedom, rational freedom, freedom in truth and good... freedom in God and received from God.” The spirit conquers nature, regaining unity with God, and the spiritual integrity of the individual is restored.

The concept of personality is also important for Berdyaev, he shares the concepts "personality" and "man", "individual". Man is God's creation, the image and likeness of God, the point of intersection of two worlds - spiritual and natural. Personality is a “religious-spiritual”, spiritualistic category, it is the creative ability of a person, the realization of which means movement towards God. The personality retains communication “with the spiritual world” and can penetrate into the “world of freedom” in direct spiritual experience, which by its nature is intuition.

Man, according to Berdyaev, a social being by nature, history is a way of his life, therefore Berdyaev pays great attention to the philosophy of history. In its development, mankind has gone through several stages of understanding history. An early understanding of history was characteristic of Greek philosophy, which realized itself in an inextricable connection with society and nature and considered the movement of history as a cycle. Then, with the emergence of the principle of historicism in the Western European philosophy of the Renaissance and especially the Enlightenment, a new interpretation of history as a progressive development appears. Its highest expression is " economic materialism” Marx. In fact, according to Berdyaev, there is a special spiritual being of history, and in order to understand it, it is necessary “to comprehend this historical, as ... to the depths of my history, as to the depths of my fate. I must place myself in historical destiny and historical destiny in my own human depth.

History is defined by three forces: God, fate and human freedom. The meaning of the historical process is the struggle of good against irrational freedom: during the period of the domination of the latter, reality begins to return to the original chaos, the process of decay begins, the fall of faith, the loss of the unifying spiritual center of life by people, and the era of revolutions begins. Creative periods of history come to replace after revolutions that bring destruction.

Berdyaev wrote the widely known book “The Meaning of History” in 1936. In it, he emphasizes that although the creative period of history begins again after the era of upheavals, its slogan is the liberation of the creative forces of man, i.e., the emphasis is placed not on the divine, but on the purely human creativity. However, a person, rejecting the high principle of the divine, is exposed to the danger of a new slavery, this time in the form of “economic socialism”, which affirms the forced service of the individual to society in the name of satisfying material needs. The only kind of socialism that Berdyaev can accept is “personalist socialism”, which recognizes the highest values ​​of the human person and his right to achieve the fullness of life.

Berdyaev outlined his thoughts about the fate of Russia and its place in the historical process in the book “The Origins and Meaning of Russian Communism”, published in 1937. Russia, in its geographical and spiritual position, is located between East and West, and the Russian mentality is characterized by a combination of opposite principles: despotism and anarchy, nationalism and a universal spirit prone to "all-humanity", compassion and a tendency to inflict suffering. But its most characteristic feature is the idea of ​​messianism, the search for the true kingdom of God, due to belonging to Orthodoxy. Berdyaev distinguishes five periods in the history of Russia, or “five Russias”: “Kiev Russia, Russia of the Tatar period, Moscow Russia, Petrine Russia, imperial and, finally, new Soviet Russia, where specific, Russian communism, conditioned by peculiarities, won.

Among the philosophers of the Russian diaspora, Berdyaev's work was the most significant, he made the most significant contribution to the development of ontology and epistemology, philosophical anthropology and ethics.

Existential-personalistic philosophy of N. A. Berdyaev

Berdyaeva (1874-1948) found a vivid expression characteristic of Russian philosophical thought religious-anthropological and historiosophical problems associated with the search for the deep foundations of human existence and the meaning of history. His views are in line with the aspiration to comprehend the inner spiritual experience of a person, which is clearly manifested in Western European philosophy, which is especially manifested in such philosophical directions like personalism, existentialism, etc. Berdyaev is characterized not by a dry and detached, but by a deeply personal, paradoxical manner of philosophizing, which gives the style of his works great emotionality and expressiveness.

Life path and stages of creativity

N. A. Berdyaev was born in Kyiv into a noble and aristocratic family. Studied in the cadet corps. In 1894 he entered the University of St. Vladimir at the Faculty of Natural Sciences, a year later he transferred to the Faculty of Law. He developed an early interest in philosophical problems. At fourteen he read the works of Schopenhauer, Kant and Hegel. Berdyaev believed that the features of his philosophical worldview are closely connected with the nature of his mental and spiritual structure, with his "nature". An acute experience of loneliness, longing for the transcendent as a different world, rejection of injustice and infringement of individual freedom gave rise in him to constant struggles of the spirit, rebellion, conflict with environment.

It is not surprising that already in his early youth, Berdyaev broke with the traditional patriarchal-aristocratic world, began to attend Marxist student circles, and then actively communicated with the revolutionary-minded intelligentsia, took part in the social democratic movement. In 1898, he was arrested along with the entire composition of the Kiev committee of the "Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class" and expelled from the university. During the "Marxist period" (1894-1900) he wrote his first book, Subjectivism and Individualism in Social Philosophy. A Critical Study on N. K. Mikhailovsky” (published in 1901), with a preface by P. B. Struve. In it, Berdyaev tried to combine the ideas of Marxism, understood in a “critical” sense, with the philosophy of Kant and, to some extent, Fichte. Later, he noted that the source of his revolutionary nature has always been in the initial impossibility to accept the world order, to submit to anything in the world. “From here it is already clear,” he wrote, “that this is an individual revolution rather than a social one, this is an uprising of the individual, and not of the masses.”

Even before meeting with the Marxists, his sympathies for socialism were determined, but he gave him an ethical justification. In Marxism, he was "most of all captivated by the historiosophical scope, the breadth of world perspectives." Berdyaev remained especially sensitive to Marxism for the rest of his life: "I considered Marx a man of genius, and I still do."

In 1901, Berdyaev was sent to an administrative exile in Vologda for three years. On the eve of his exile, he began a spiritual crisis. The writings of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Ibsen, Nietzsche, communication with L. Shestov and other non-Marxist philosophers opened up new worlds for him, caused an internal upheaval. Already in the above-mentioned book, a tilt towards idealism was indicated. And the appearance of the articles “The Struggle for Idealism” and “The Ethical Problem in the Light of Philosophical Idealism” (the latter was published in the collection “Problems of Idealism”, 1902) meant Berdyaev’s decisive turn from “critical Marxism” to “new Russian idealism”, and he became one one of the main exponents of this movement.

Having moved to St. Petersburg in 1904; Berdyaev joined the editorial office of the Novy Put magazine, and in 1905, together with S. N. Bulgakov, he headed the Voprosy Zhizni magazine. During these years, there was a meeting of "idealists" who came from "legal Marxism", with representatives of the cultural and spiritual movement, called "new religious consciousness" (D. S. Merezhkovsky, V. V. Rozanov, Ivanov, A. Bely, L Shestov and others). At the religious and philosophical meetings of figures of Russian culture and representatives of the Orthodox church hierarchy, issues of renewal of Christianity, culture, the inner life of the individual, the relationship between “spirit” and “flesh”, etc. were intensely discussed.

In 1908, Berdyaev moved to Moscow and became actively involved in the work of the Religious and Philosophical Society in Memory of Vl. Solovyov, his interest in Orthodox teaching, which he had shown even earlier, was developed during meetings with its most prominent representatives.

Being one of the active participants and theoreticians of the movement of the “new religious consciousness”, Berdyaev did not agree with other representatives of the movement on many fundamental worldview issues, he never completely merged with him. He considered himself a "believing free thinker."

In 1909, Berdyaev co-authored the book Milestones. Collection of Articles on the Russian Intelligentsia”, which caused a wide resonance in Russia (his article “Philosophical Truth and Intelligent Truth” was published here). In the atmosphere of impending global social cataclysms, his works The Philosophy of Freedom (1911) and The Meaning of Creativity. The Experience of the Justification of Man” (1916). He considered the latter the first expression of the independence of his philosophy, its basic ideas.

Berdyaev perceived the October Revolution as a national catastrophe, believing that not only the Kobolsheviks, but also the "reactionary forces of the old regime" were responsible for it. In the first post-revolutionary years, he took part in the publication “From the depths. Collection of Articles on the Russian Revolution" (1918, article "Spirits of the Russian Revolution"), created the Free Academy of Spiritual Culture (1919-1922). In 1920, he became a professor at Moscow University and freely criticized Marxism (“At that time,” Berdyaev notes, “it was still possible”). But soon these “liberties” ended. He was arrested twice and in 1922 was expelled from Soviet Russia along with a large group of writers and scientists.

During his stay in Berlin, Berdyaev founded the Religious and Philosophical Academy. He became acquainted with a number of German thinkers, first of all with M. Scheller, the founder of modern philosophical anthropology. During this period, Berdyaev's interest in the problems of the philosophy of history increased. The book “New Middle Ages. Reflection on the fate of Russia and Europe ”(1924) brought him European fame. In 1924, Berdyaev moved to Clamart (a suburb of Paris), where he lived until the end of his days. Here he founded and edited the religious and philosophical journal "The Way" (1925-1940), participated in the work of the publishing house "IMKA-Press". He actively communicated and debated with famous French philosophers J. Maritain, G. Marcel and others.

In emigration, the most important works for understanding his own philosophical views were written: “Philosophy of a free spirit. Problems and apology of Christianity” (1927-1928), “On the appointment of a person. The experience of paradoxical ethics” (1931), “On slavery and human freedom. The Experience of Personalistic Philosophy” (1939), “The Experience of Eschatological Metaphysics. Creativity and objectification” (1947), “The Kingdom of the Spirit and the Kingdom of Caesar” (1949), etc.

In the foreign period, Berdyaev remained one of the prominent theoreticians of the Russian idea. While sharply criticizing the "Bolshevization" of Russia, the suppression of freedom in it, etc., he at the same time stood on patriotic positions, believed in a better future for his homeland. This was especially evident during the Second World War and after the victory over Nazi Germany. Already in his declining years, Berdyaev noted that, on the one hand, he was critical of much that was happening in Soviet Russia, and on the other hand, he always believed that “you need to experience the fate of the Russian people as your own fate”, felt the need to “protect .. ... motherland in front of a world hostile to it. This did not please many of the "irreconcilable" emigrants. Berdyaev's relations with the Russian emigration were difficult and contradictory. Realizing himself as a representative of the "left" wing of emigration, he was in conflict with the leaders of the "right" wing, rejected their calls to "return to the old." To some extent, he sympathized with the Eurasians, who had come to terms with the fact that a social upheaval had taken place in Russia and wanted to build a new Russia on a different social soil. But much in Eurasianism, especially its "ethical utopianism", was unacceptable for Berdyaev. Therefore, although the Eurasians saw him as their ideologist, he did not consider himself such.

Despite his active social and cultural activities and extensive connections, he felt lonely, as always. And yet, with all his creativity and social activities during the period of emigration, Berdyaev made an important contribution to the spread of Russian culture in the West, to the expansion of ties between Russian and Western European philosophical thought.

Ideas of "Neo-Christianity"

Berdyaev came to religious faith not as a result of an appropriate upbringing, which he was deprived of in childhood, but through inner experience, experiencing the crisis of European humanism and culture, and an intense search for the meaning of life. This revolution in worldview found expression already in The New Religious Consciousness and Society (1907). Later, Berdyaev's religious and philosophical ideas were developed in many of his other works, especially in The Meaning of Creativity (1916). Along with the figures of the "Russian religious and philosophical renaissance" of the early XX century. he was actively involved in the search for a "new religious consciousness". The closest thing to him was the idea of ​​God-manhood, which he considered the basic idea of ​​Russian religious thought (V. S. Solovyov, E. N. Trubetskoy, S. N. Bulgakov, and others). At the same time, Berdyaev's views differed from the prevailing current. According to him, he was not so much a theologian as (like Dostoevsky) an anthropologist, because the original idea for him was the idea of ​​personality as an “embodied divine spirit”, and not the problem of the relationship between “spirit” and “flesh”, the religious consecration of the flesh of the world (culture, publicity, sexual love and all sensuality), as was the case with other "neo-Christians".

The root cause of the modern loss of the meaning of life, Berdyaev believed, should be sought in the dualism of traditional religious consciousness, in the gap between religion and the earthly problems of mankind. The attitude of Christianity towards man, notes Berdyaev, has always been ambivalent. On the one side,

it seems to humiliate a person, considering him a sinful and fallen su-being, called to humility and obedience. On the other hand, it extraordinarily elevates a person, presenting him as the image and likeness of God, recognizing in him spiritual freedom, independent of the kingdom of Caesar. Berdyaev was convinced that only this second side of Christianity could serve as the basis for a reassessment of values ​​and the construction of a "neo-Christian" doctrine of the individual and God. He believed that God never created the so-called "world order", the "harmony" of the world whole, which turns a person into a means. God creates only concrete beings of people as spiritual and creative personalities. It exists not as some special reality located above the person, but as an existential-spiritual meeting with him. God does not want a person who should glorify him, but a person as a person who responds to his call for freedom and creativity and with whom fellowship in love is possible.

The Divine is revealed not in the uni-universal-general "world order", but in the individual, in the rebellion of the suffering personality against this order. Berdyaev objected to those theologians who argued that only Jesus Christ was the God-man, and not man as a created being. Meanwhile, the freedom and ability to create inherent in the human personality testify precisely to the manifestation of God-humanity. Certainly not in the same sense as Christ, the only one of his kind. But in man, who is, as it were, the intersection of two worlds, there is a divine element. The divine is transcendent (otherworldly) to man and at the same time it is mysteriously united with the human, appearing in the divine-human image.

Berdyaev proceeded from the fact that "historical Christianity" is in crisis. He associated hopes for a religious revival with a “new revelation”, with the creation of a revelation of man about man, which would mean, as it were, the completion of God’s plan and the onset of new era in the world history of God-manhood, i.e., supernatural humanity. The "new culture" and "new society" will be established not on the old anti-personal principles of statehood, self-sufficient organization of social order and management system, but on new mystical-free foundations - the union of individuals in catholicity. According to Berdyaev, this task is quite real, since the mystical principle inherent in every person, becoming "sightful", leads to the subordination of the natural to the divine, the connection of personal reason with the world, as a result of which the management of the world becomes divine-human.

Berdyaev's attempts to give Christianity a personalistic spiritual and personal character did not meet with understanding from the official clergy and Russian orthodox religious thinkers. V. V. Zetkovsky (following L. Shestov and others) noted that Berdyaev exalted man in his constructions, but did not consider it necessary to take into account the traditions of the church and moved towards weakening the reality of God. To others, these attempts were regarded as a rebellion against traditional theology. Berdyaev himself has repeatedly stated that he belongs to the believing philosophers, but his faith is "special" - not dogmatic, but prophetic, that is, prophetic, turned to the future.

Existential method of cognition and philosophizing

Philosophical views Berdyaev are closely connected with the peculiarities of that direction in European philosophical thought, which was widely developed in the second half of the 19th century. Representatives of this trend, rejecting the principles of rationalism that dominated the history of "classical" philosophy (characteristic primarily of Hegel's philosophy), turned in their work to intuitive, emotional-volitional, etc. principles. ways of mastering the spiritual experience of a person, his concrete existence. A special role among them belongs to S. Kierkegaard, who had a strong influence on all the prominent heralds of a new, non-classical type of philosophizing. This line of development of philosophical thought is called existential. It includes such currents as the philosophy of life (A. Schopenhauer, E. Hartmann, F. Nietzsche, V. Dilthey, A. Bergson), existentialism (K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger, J. P. Sartre, A. Camus , G. Marcel), philosophical anthropology (M. Scheler), etc. It was in this series that the philosophical views of Berdyaev were formed, who also relied on the achievements of Russian writers and philosophers of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Of the writers, M. F. Dostoevsky and L. N. Tolstoy had a great influence on him, of the philosophers - A. S. Khomyakov, K. N. Leontiev, V. S. Solovyov, V. V. Rozanov and others. his social views, K. Marx, T. Carlyle, G. Ibsen and L. Blois played an important role in their formation.

Philosophical views Berdyaev do not form any complete system with a developed conceptual apparatus. He did not aspire to this, since he was never an academic type of philosopher and did not set himself the task of creating a certain system of strictly logical justifications and proofs. The peculiarity of his method of philosophizing is that it is associated with internal experience, passed through personal feelings and experiences, and is often expressed in an aphoristic form.

Berdyaev unequivocally defines the subject and tasks of philosophy from existential anthropological positions: philosophy is called upon to cognize being from a person and through a person, drawing its content from spiritual experience and spiritual life. Therefore, the main philosophical discipline should be philosophical anthropology (and not, say, ontology).

Kant's theory of knowledge had a great influence on the formation of Berdyaev's philosophical views. He was "shocked" by Kant's distinction between the world of appearances and the world of things and itself, the order of nature and the order of freedom. Having shown that the object is generated by the subject, Kant revealed the possibility of constructing metaphysics based on the subject, substantiating the philosophy of freedom, i.e., existential metaphysics. However, Berdyaev believes that, although he owes a lot to German idealist philosophy, he was never schooled in it and tried to overcome it, given that the development of German idealism after Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel went in the direction of eliminating the “thing in itself” , the loss of freedom in the necessity of the triumphant world mind (Logos). With this approach, being is decomposed, replaced by a subject and an object opposing each other; it is not a living person who cognizes, but some abstract epistemological subject that is outside of being and cognizes not being, as a current, but an object mentally created (“supposed”) specially for cognition. As a result, true being also disappears from the object, and man turns into a function, an instrument of the “world spirit” (as, for example, in Hegel).

It follows from this that existential philosophy is called upon to be the knowledge of the meaning of being through the subject, and not through the object. The meaning of things is revealed not in the object entering into the thought, and not in the subject constructing his own world, but in the third, neither objective nor subjective sphere - in spiritual world. Spirit is freedom and free energy breaking through into the natural and historical world. Spiritual power in man, according to Berdyaev, initially has not only a proper human, but also a divine-human character, since its roots are in a higher spiritual being - God.

Although Berdyaev's understanding of the tasks of philosophy is largely in line with the ideas of the founders of the philosophy of existentialism, there are also significant differences. Thus, recognizing M. Heidegger as the most powerful of modern existential philosophers, Berdyaev at the same time criticizes his attempt to build another ontology, in fact, in the same way that rational academic philosophy builds it. Heidegger, in essence, develops not the philosophy of “existence” (genuine, deep being of a person), but only the philosophy of non-personal human existence, thrown into the world of everyday life, care, fear of abandonment and inevitable death. Berdyaev reproaches Heidegger for not leaving a person the possibility of breaking through into infinity, into the sphere of the divine, as a result of which a person finds himself in a position of “God-forsakenness”. In contrast to this pessimism, he sees his task in developing the existential dialectic of the divine and the human, which takes place in the very depths of human being. At the same time, the method of creative intuition is used, the intuitive disclosure of the universal in the individual, personal nature of spiritual and religious experience.

Another difference between Berdyaev's philosophy and traditional ("classical") existentialism is that it does not use the concepts of "existentialism", "being-in-the-world" and other "existentials" inherent in existentialism. The most important category of his philosophizing is personality. Existentialist theorists, on the contrary, use this concept extremely rarely, because they believe that it is traditionally burdened with social, object-grounded characteristics that “obscure” the true, non-objective existence of a person and, as a result, interfere with the knowledge of his own dignity, his innermost essence.

From the foregoing, it follows that Berdyaev should rather be called an existentially thinking philosopher, and not just a follower of the philosophy of existentialism as an established trend with its own terminology. “My final philosophy,” he wrote, “is a personal philosophy connected with my personal experience. Here the subject philosophical knowledge existential". The concepts of "existential type of thinking" and "existentialism" are not the same thing. The first is broader in nature and denotes a method of philosophizing that is characteristic not only of the theorists of existentialism, but also of the philosophy of life, the work of Dostoevsky and other "existential" writers And it is no coincidence that Berdyaev himself in various places defines his views not only as a philosophy of the “existential type,” but also as personalism, philosophy of the spirit, and eschatological metaphysics.

The objective world surrounding a person seems to Berdyaev not real. Behind the finished, the infinite is hidden, giving signs about itself, about entire worlds, about our destiny. Therefore, the goal of existential cognition, he believes, should not be a reflection of objectified reality, but finding its meaning. The mind tends to turn everything into an object, from which existentiality disappears. Due to the initial defeat of a person original sin(“fallen”) is his submission to the conditions of space, time, causality, throwing a person outside, in other words, objectification. This concept is one of the most important in Berdyaev's philosophy. It forms, as it were, an antipode to other fundamental concepts - free spirit and creativity. Objectification is the result not only of thought, but also of a certain state of the subject, in which his alienation occurs. Objectification of mental formations begins to live an independent life and gives rise to pseudo-realities. Berdyaev establishes the following main signs of objectivation: 1) alienation of the object (the world of phenomena) from the subject of being (personality), 2) absorption of the uniquely individual impersonal, universal, 3) dominance of necessity and suppression of freedom, 4) adaptation to the world of phenomena, to the average person, human socialization, etc.

Berdyaev's understanding of objectification is to some extent akin to the concept of objectification in German philosophy 19th century and the theory of alienation in existentialism. However, he believes that Heidegger's criticism of the tendency towards averaging and leveling of the individual in the conditions of the dominance of everyday life and the massization of culture ("Man") still remains in the power of objectification, since it does not indicate the possibility of overcoming it by way of a mystical breakthrough of the spirit to the mysteries of cosmic life.

As forms of the objectified world, Berdyaev analyzes the dehumanizing impact on human spirituality of various economic systems, technology, the state, church organizations, etc. egocentrism, recognition of each person as the highest value. He did not identify the concept of spirit with either the soul or the psychic. As for consciousness, it is not only a psychological concept, since it contains a spiritual element that constructs it. Consciousness is connected with the spirit. This is the only reason why the transition from consciousness to superconsciousness is possible. Spirit is the action of superconsciousness in consciousness.

Philosophical anthropology and "paradoxical ethics"

At the center of Berdyaev's worldview is the problem of man. He defines man as a contradictory and paradoxical being, combining opposites in himself, for he belongs to two worlds - natural and supernatural. The spiritual basis of man does not depend on nature and society and is not determined by them. Man, according to Berdyaev, is a mystery not as an organism or social being, but precisely as a person. He distinguishes the concept of personality from the concept of the individual. The individual is a naturalistic category, it is a part of the genus, society, the cosmos, that is, in this hypostasis, he is associated with the material world. Personality means independence from nature and society, which

provide only matter for the formation of an active form of personality. Personality cannot be identified with the soul, it is not a biological or psychological category, but an ethical and spiritual one. The individual is not part of society or the universe. On the contrary, society is a part of the personality, its social side (quality), just as the cosmos is a part of the personality, its cosmic side. This explains that in every personality there is also something in common that belongs to the whole human race, to one or another professional type of people, etc., but this is not its essence. In other words, a person is a microcosm, a universe in an individually unique form, a combination of the universal and the individual. The secret of the existence of personality lies in its absolute indispensability, in its singleness and incomparability. A person is recognized to perform original, original creative acts.

According to Berdyaev, there are two opposite ways for a person to overcome his self-enclosed subjectivity. The first is to dissolve in the world of social everyday life and adapt to it. This leads to conformity, alienation and egocentrism. Another way is a way out of subjectivity through transcendence, which means spiritual insight, transition to life in freedom, liberation of a person from captivity in himself, an existential meeting with God. Often the personality of a person is divided. Berdyaev cites examples from the writings of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and other writers who drew attention to the double life of a person: an external conditional, full of lies, inauthentic life, adapted to society, the state, civilization, and an internal, genuine life in which a person appears before deep primary realities. “When Prince Andrei looks at the starry sky, this is a more authentic life than when he talks in a Petersburg salon.” in the spirit famous saying Dostoevsky, Berdyaev exclaims about the moral value of a child's tear! the whole world is nothing in comparison with the human person, with a single person, a man, with his only destiny.

Berdyaev assigns a central place in the knowledge of the spirit to ethics. He believes that two main types of ethics have developed in the history of mankind: the ethics of law (in pre-Christian and socially ordinary forms) and the ethics of redemption (Christian morality). The ethics of law organizes the life of the human masses, demonstrates the dominance of society over a specific person, over the inner individual life of a person. The paradox is that the law also has a positive meaning, since it not only cripples personal life, but also protects it. Ethics of Kant, according to Berdyaev, is legalistic ethics, because it is interested in the universally binding moral law, the same “nature” of a person for everyone. With the problem of freedom, Berdyaev connected the solution of the problem of the emergence of the new and the process of creativity. Everything really new in the world arises only through creativity, that is, through the manifestation of the freedom of the spirit. Creativity is the transition of non-being into being through an act of freedom. In other words, it means growth, addition, creation of something that has not yet been in the world. Creativity presupposes non-existence, just as in Hegel's becoming presupposes non-existence. From being (which is secondary to freedom and subject to objectivation), only the outflow and redistribution of the elements of the given world is possible.

In the creative act, a person emerges from closed subjectivity in two ways: objectification and transcendence. On the paths of objectification, creativity adapts itself to the conditions of this world. On the paths of existential transcendence, it breaks through to the end of this world, to its transformation, i.e., into a potential, deeper reality.

Assessing the views of Berdyaev on the problem of creativity, VV Zenkovsky and some other historians of Russian philosophy noted their inconsistency. For creativity, on the one hand, inevitably leads to objectification, and on the other hand, it is called upon to destroy it. Thus, creativity seems to be deprived of any meaning and is reduced only to "messianic passion." However, Berdyaev, apparently, himself was aware of this "inconsistency", therefore he stipulates that it would be a mistake to conclude that creativity is objectified, the products of creativity in this world are devoid of meaning and meaning. Without them, man would not be able to maintain and improve the conditions of his existence in this world. He is called upon to work on matter, to subordinate it to the spirit. But, Berdyaev emphasizes, one must understand the limits of this path and not make it absolute. It should be borne in mind that an era will come, a new historical zone, when the eschatological (final) meaning of creativity will be fully revealed. The problem of creativity, therefore, rests on the problem of the meaning of history.

Historiosophy and the Russian idea

In the analysis of historical and socio-cultural processes, Berdyaev denies all forms of their linear interpretation, linear theories of progress. History is not an ascending line of progress and not a regression, but a tragic struggle of opposites, good and evil.

Every culture, according to Berdyaev, goes through periods of birth, flourishing and disappearance. But only temporary, transitory values ​​disappear, while the enduring ones continue to live as long as human history exists. roman law, Greek art and philosophy, etc. live to this day.

Analyzing the historical destinies of “Western culture” as an integral phenomenon, Berdyaev (independently of O. Spengler) came to the conclusion that it had gone through two stages: the barbaric medieval Christian stage (which ended in the 13th century with the Renaissance) and the humanistically secular stage (which ended in the 19th century). V.). The 20th century is a transitional period from the humanistic phase to the "new Middle Ages".

The period of secular humanism is a non-Christian and sometimes anti-Christian phase Western culture. Humanistic culture, although it rose to the idea of ​​man as a creator, full of joy and self-confidence, at the same time eventually led him to demoralization, as man relied more and more on himself and moved further and further away from the Christian, divine understanding of nature. personality characteristic of the medieval period. The invasion of machines and technology into human life dealt a mortal blow to humanism Humanistically oriented culture has exhausted its creative energy. Now it turns into a simple means of "practically organizing life", "enjoying life", etc. The creative spirit of culture disappears, it is replaced by a utilitarian civilization, devoid of the highest ups of artistic creativity. Spiritual genius is impoverished. Such is the "dialectic of history". bourgeois civilization is

the lingering transition from the old Middle Ages to the "new Middle Ages", a new barbarism, an increase in tension, drama and tragedy of history, when, despite all the achievements, the rays of Christian light often cannot break through to people. Non-religious humanism leads to dehumanization and bestialization (brutality) of a person. But Berdyaev did not rule out that the transitional culture of the West would choose a different path - the religious-Christian transformation of life, the assertion of enduring values ​​and the realization of true existence in creative life. As a philosophical justification for such a "transformation", Berdyaev developed eschatological metaphysics - a kind of doctrine about the end of the world and history. He is convinced that history should be seen in an eschatological perspective. But, in contrast to the passive and "vindictive-sadistic" eschatology of the Christian Apocalypse, which predicts "brutal reprisals against the evil and infidels", Berdyaev professes an active creative eschatologism.

The solution of this problem is connected with the analysis of the problem of time. Berdyaev distinguishes between cosmic, historical and existential time. The latter is not calculated mathematically, its course depends on the intensity of experiences, on suffering and joy, on creative upsurges. History also happens in its historical time, but it cannot remain in it. It comes out either during the cosmic time (and then the person turns out to be only a subordinate part of the world natural whole), or during the existential time, which means the exit from the world of objectification into the spiritual plane. Existential time indicates that time is in a person, and not a person in time, there is no difference between the future and the past, the end and the beginning. (The existential perception of time is also reflected in human experience when it is said that “happy hours are not watched.”) History must end, because within its limits the problem of personality is insoluble. History only makes sense because it will end. Its meaning cannot be contained within it, it lies outside the boundaries of history. An endless history would be meaningless, and if continuous progress were found in it, then it would be unacceptable, for it would mean the transformation of each living generation into a means for future generations. The meaning of the end of the world and history means the end of objective being, the overcoming of objectification. It is impossible to conceive the end of the world in historical time on this side of history. And at the same time, it cannot be thought of completely outside of history, as an exclusively otherworldly event. The end of the world is not an experience of smooth development, but an experience of shock, catastrophe in personal and historical existence. The “other” world is our entrance and another mode of existence. The end of the world is not a fate weighing on the sinful world and man, but freedom, a transformation in which man is called to actively participate. The contradictions of man in the world can be finally overcome only in this process. God needs the response of a person who is not only a sinner, but also a creator. The eschatological perspective is not only the perspective of the indefinable end of the world, but also the perspective of every moment of life. Throughout life, one must end the old world, begin new world as the realm of the spirit. Therefore, the end, according to Berdyaev, should be understood as a transformation, the transition of mankind to a new dimension of its existence, to a new zone - the era of the spirit, where love, creative and transforming, will receive central importance. The painful contradictions of life and suffering, which will intensify in the end, will turn into joy and love as a result of the development of human activity and creativity.

According to Berdyaev, his thoughts are based on a keen sense of evil reigning in the world and the bitter fate of man in the world. They reflect the revolt of the individual against the oppressive objective "world harmony" and the objective social order. Therefore, he opposed not only communism and fascism, but also against liberalism associated with the capitalist system. Berdyaev condemned any form of social lies, totalitarianism, violence, both "right" and "left". The human masses, he said, have been and continue to be manipulated through myths, pompous religious rites and festivals, through hypnosis and propaganda, through bloody violence. Lies play a huge role in politics and truth occupies little space.

However, unlike the Western theorists of existentialism, Berdyaev emphasized that he did not stand on the positions of asocialism. On the contrary, he believed, it must be recognized that a person is a social, communicative being and that he can fully realize himself only in society. A breakthrough of spirituality into everyday social life is possible. But a better, more just and human society can only be created from the spiritual in man, and not from objectification. The most spiritually significant thing in a person does not grow out of the social environment that plunges him into an atmosphere of “useful lies” and conformism, but from within a person who is called to constantly perform creative acts in relation to himself, that is, to form himself as a person. While sharply criticizing the traditional doctrine of socialism and its real implementation in life, Berdyaev nevertheless declared himself a supporter of "personalist socialism", which is based on the primacy of the individual over society and thus radically differs from socialism based on the primacy of society over the individual.

In the historiosophical constructions of Berdyaev, a special place is occupied by thoughts about the role and place of Russia in history, its fate and destiny in the world historical process, that is, the whole range of questions that is associated with the concept of the Russian idea. In the interpretation of the named theme, he, along with other figures of the Russian cultural renaissance at the beginning of the 20th century. V. S. Solovyov continued the religious and philosophical analysis of the Russian idea. He began to deal with this topic back in the years of the First World War, which sharply raised the question of Russian national self-consciousness (the essay "The Soul of Russia", 1915). Then Berdyaev's judgments were reflected in the works The Fate of Russia (1918), The Russian Idea (1946) and others. Middle Ages (the religious doctrine "Moscow - the Third Rome"), through the Slavophiles, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Solovyov to the religious-philosophical and non-religious (including Marxist) currents of the 20th century.

The uniqueness and originality of the Russian idea lies, according to Berdyaev, primarily in religious messianism as the core idea of ​​the socio-cultural life of society. But the messianic consciousness should not be interpreted as a nationalist consciousness. It is possible to approach the solution of the mystery of the “soul of Russia” if we recognize the antinomy (controversy) of the Russian national self-consciousness. The Russian soul is a combination of theses and antitheses: “On the one hand, humility, renunciation; on the other hand, a revolt caused by pity and demanding justice. On the one hand - compassion, pity; on the other hand, the possibility of cruelty; on the one hand, the love of freedom, on the other, the propensity for slavery. Berdyaev analyzes numerous factors that influenced the formation of the features of the national character of the Russian people. Here is the influence of the geographical factor (huge expanses of steppes and forests), the predominance of the feminine principle (passivity) over the masculine in the Russian soul, admiration for holiness as the highest state of life, etc. into the interaction of two streams of world history - East and West The Russian people are not a purely European and not a purely Asian people. Russia is a huge East-West, designed to connect two worlds. Peculiar to Russian religious consciousness the eschatological idea takes on the first form of striving for universal salvation - in contrast to Western Christianity, where it predominantly takes on the form of individual salvation. Therefore, the essence of Russian identity lies in "community" (community), which is a kind of metaphysical variety of collectivism. Russian people are more communitarian than Western people. They are looking not so much for an organized society as for community, communication. The Russian idea, concludes Berdyaev, is the idea of ​​community and brotherhood of people and peoples. He subjected to fundamental criticism various forms of Russophobia, as well as other manifestations of nationalism. Berdyaev's interpretation of the Russian idea is full of lively interest, contains a wealth of ideas that have not lost their cultural and educational significance even today.

Creativity Berdyaev and today is of great interest for its search for the meaning of life and the purpose of man, tireless substantiation of the values ​​of a free spirit. Despite some touch of utopianism, romanticism, not always justified radicalism, it captivates with its sincerity and inner excitement. Berdyaev looked deeper into the Russian soul than many others. He always remained a patriot of Russia and believed in its national revival.

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About philosophy briefly and clearly: PHILOSOPHY OF BERDYAEV. Everything basic, most important: very briefly about BERDYAEV'S PHILOSOPHY. The essence of philosophy, concepts, trends, schools and representatives.

PHILOSOPHY N.A.

Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) - philosopher and publicist.

Berdyaev's philosophy is based on two "central" ideas: a) the principle of objectification; b) “the primacy of freedom over being”, but, in essence, these are the ideas associated with the personalistic constructions of Berdyaev.

At the core philosophical outlook Berdyaev lies the distinction between the ghostly “world” (this is the “world” in quotation marks, the empirical conditions of human life, where disunity, fragmentation, enmity, slavery reign) and the real world (the world without quotation marks, “space”, ideal being, where love and freedom reign). ). Man, his body and spirit are in captivity of the "world" of ghostly existence. The task of a person is to free his spirit from this captivity, “to get out of slavery into freedom, from the enmity of the “world” into cosmic love.” This is possible only thanks to creativity, the ability for which a person is gifted, since the nature of a person is the image and likeness of God the Creator. Freedom and creativity are inextricably linked: “The secret of creativity is the secret of freedom. To understand the creative act means to recognize its inexplicability and groundlessness. The consideration of man as a being endowed with enormous creative power and at the same time forced to submit to material necessity determines the nature of Berdyaev's understanding of such deep-seated issues of human existence as questions of sex and love. Berdyaev sees the deep foundation of sexual desire in the fact that neither a man nor a woman in themselves is the image and likeness of God in the full sense of the word. Only united in love, they form an integral personality, similar to the personality of the Divine. This reunion in love is at the same time creativity, leading a person out of the givenness of the world, the realm of necessity, into the cosmos, into the realm of freedom.

Speaking about the subject and nature of philosophical knowledge, Berdyaev emphasized the tragic position of the philosopher. He saw the external aspect of this tragedy in the hostile attitude towards philosophy, which is found throughout the history of culture. Philosophers, who have always constituted a small group in humanity, are not loved and something cannot be forgiven by theologians, church hierarchs and ordinary believers, scientists and representatives of various specialties, politicians and social figures, people of state power, conservatives and revolutionaries, engineers and technicians, ordinary people, laymen. At the same time, he notes the presence of religious claims in philosophy itself: "Great philosophers in their knowledge have always strived for the rebirth of the soul, philosophy was for them a matter of salvation." Berdyaev sees the source of the dramatic relationship between philosophy and science in the universal claims of science itself, which he associates with scientism. However, "scientific" philosophy, he believes, is the philosophy of those deprived of a philosophical gift and vocation - it is invented for those who have nothing to say philosophically. Philosophy is possible only if there is a special, different from scientific, path of philosophical knowledge. A necessary condition for philosophical knowledge is philosophical intuition, and the basis of philosophy is the experience of human existence in its entirety.

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