Under the sign of the university

Introductory lecture at Moscow University for the course “Critical study of the problems and ideals of political economy (essays on social philosophy). I enter this department of my native university, overwhelmed with solemn excitement before the greatness of the idea that this lofty institution is called to serve, before the purity of that spiritual banner that flutters over the walls of this building, before the exceptional significance of the ideological motto that is displayed on its pediment. This motto is the university, universitas litterarum, not knowledge, but knowledge, not science, but science, not particulars, but the whole, everything, Universum. Listen to this call, silent but powerful. The university as an idea, as the ideal of integral, universal, unified knowledge expresses the unquenchable spiritual thirst, the powerful need of every conscious person. As soon as he opens his eyes and looks at God’s world with a conscious gaze, he already asks: what is everything and what am I in everything? The idea of ​​a university, the need for integral knowledge, was then already emerging in his mind. Ancient religious teachings, the original philosophical systems with their simple constructions were guided by precisely this same desire, which finds conscious expression in modern philosophy. This ideal turns out to be so tenacious and ineradicable from our consciousness and our will, the desire to defeat the “vengeful chaos” of the world with the light of a unifying logos is so inextricably fused with the desire for knowledge in general that this universalism was, so to speak, the natural and original state of human thought, and the first university was born in this sense along with the first thinker. If we pay attention to the nature of ancient philosophy and science, which was still in a childish and undifferentiated state, we will see that this philosophy was truly integral knowledge, uniting all the sciences of that time and in its synthesis raising their disparate observations to a higher unity. Therefore, in the person of Plato or Aristotle (not to mention the earlier ones) we see representatives not only of philosophy, but also of the entire knowledge of the era. Athens Square and Plato's Academy were genuine universities of their time. Moving on to the Middle Ages, formally we notice the same feature in medieval thought and knowledge, the same desire to preserve their unity, at least at the cost of violence practiced by scholastic theology against free thought. The idea of ​​a university also lived under the crushed arches of medieval Gothic. The stamp of conscious universalism lies, finally, on the works of the greatest representatives of thought and knowledge of modern times, on the systems of Spinoza, Descartes and Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, Schelling and Schopenhauer, von Hartmann. The highest flight of their thought elevates it to the consciousness of world unity and directs it towards the ideal of the university as integral knowledge. In recent days, and within the walls of this university, our Russian philosopher Vlad appeared as a great herald of the ideal of the philosophy of positive unity and integral knowledge. Soloviev, and I come to you as a conscious supporter of his worldview, which so recently lost here such an irreplaceable and talented defender in the person of Prince. S. N. Trubetskoy. This struggle of the uniting logos with the chaos of the universe is not easy. In the development of human thought, each such attempt at unity turns out to be premature and imperfect and crumbles under the crushing effect of criticism and the reigning world disunity and chaos. For, in the words of the poet: Vengeful chaos does not sleep, The image of God in him trembles, And always full of deceptions, And the power of vengeful chaos overcomes the efforts of human thought to illuminate it from the inside, to make its thickness permeable, to defeat disunity, and gigantic efforts and high ups are followed by a breakdown and deep breakdowns. And at present, humanity is under the impression of the last such disruption, which occurred in the first half of the 19th century and for a long time, it seems, eliminated hopes for a new flight. The new time is most characterized by the decline of the truly university spirit, the triumph of knowledge over knowledge, the victory of centrifugal force over centripetal force. The development of special sciences and exact methods, the entire avalanche of modern knowledge, growing like a snowball, seemed to have buried the single channel of human thought and dammed its flow. Fractional specialization has become a condition for the successful development of knowledge; Only a specialist can know anything well, and the better, the more confined he is to his specialty. The former universalism of antiquity and the Middle Ages (and even modern philosophy) now seems like amateurism or simply scientific ignorance, which learned specialists do not even deserve their contempt. The single stream of knowledge continues to be divided into a countless number of separate streams, connecting more and more weakly with each other and forming rather lakes, sometimes swamps and rotting puddles. Never before has the whole tragedy of knowledge, the torment of Faust with his desperate conclusion that “we know nothing that is definitely worth knowing”, been so painfully felt by the most sensitive representatives of thought. In fact, in order to move towards the only ideal of integral knowledge worthy of man, humanity must go in the exact opposite direction, from universalism to specialization, from unity to fragmentation, and this path leads further and further from the desired goal, the twilight of thought with an abundance of knowledge becomes thicker, and science is now likened to King Midas, turning all living things into gold, into dead wealth with his touch. And what is perhaps most difficult is that the subtlety of philosophical sensations begins to dull, specialists cease to suffer from their specialization and even begin to be proud of it, and philistine complacency begins to distort the noble features of Faust. The fragmentation of thought corresponds to the fragmentation of life and feelings. That beam of rays, which, being collected into one focus, from there illuminates the surrounding with an even light, is now scattered in space, so that the random, fractional, and particular acquire more and more importance in life. However, the university still exists, its calling voice can be heard, albeit faintly, its banner has not yet been folded. This means that the ideal - universitas - has not completely faded in modern consciousness. Is it really possible that now the existence of a university is expressed only in the external connection in one building and under one roof of mutually alienated sciences, just as in a cabinet of curiosities or a museum in one room or hall various objects belonging to alien civilizations are collected? Does a university have such a museum or a cabinet of curiosities of knowledge, a mechanical connection of several faculties or special departments? But if this is so, then it should be said frankly that there is no university now, either because it cannot exist at all in our time with the current state of knowledge, or because current scientists are not able to create a university, and it is time to replace it with a mechanically organized polytechnic. The university will then remain only an administrative and everyday term, denoting a place where different specialties and, according to the newest version, different political factions come together, just as the Athenian agora was resounding with the speeches of the sophists, and their sworn enemy Socrates, and the political debates of different parties. Or the university exists not only as an agora and a polytechnic, constituting not only an external, but also an internal fact of consciousness, and then there must be some kind of thirst, an unquenchable desire for university, or, what is the same, universal, integral knowledge and teaching. There must be some threads that connect and, as it were, string together disparate knowledge, and under certain conditions they can be felt and tangibly touched. What are they? We remain still far from a general scientific synthesis, if it is possible at all, but we must not forget about it as the limiting point and the true goal of knowledge. A craft specialist should not kill the thinker in himself, yearning for complete knowledge. You need to feel this tragedy of knowledge and be sick of it, so as not to fall into complacency. The precept of Socrates: I only know that I know nothing, in a true, integral way, must constantly resound in the soul so that the external boundary delineating the circle of a given specialty does not turn into internal limitation. The coexistence of sciences under one roof should not lead to their final diversity of languages, which became the lot of the builders of the Tower of Babel, also conceived according to a proud and majestic plan. Representatives of a specialty must remember that it is only a point or degree on the globe of integral knowledge, and this consciousness encourages philosophizing within the boundaries of a given science, thinking about the real meaning of its conclusions and their connection with adjacent areas of knowledge, the desire for generalizations that crown and, in a certain sense, justify special sciences. It is difficult to formulate this more precisely, because we are, in fact, talking about a scientific-philosophical mood, which will affect everything, but also nothing in particular. It will be expressed, among other things, in bringing the conclusions of specialties into connection with a higher problem - with the riddle about man himself. For, no matter how our astronomical views have changed since the time of Copernicus, in the moral world the geocentric, or more precisely, anthropocentric, system of Ptolemy remains in force. At the center of all questions of science is the question of man himself, and science not only cannot forget about it, but each in its own way and in its own language tries to solve this question or provide material for resolving it. And this central problem collects scattered rays of knowledge, as it were, into one focus, merges the motley color of the spectrum into white light. And only this weakens the sarcasm of Bazarov’s nihilism, that science does not exist, only science exists. So, a philosophical attitude to knowledge and philosophizing within a specialty, the fight against excessive specialization, which will inevitably affect the very success of work - this is the desire that should be introduced into science in the name of the ideal of the university and integral knowledge. This postulate justifies and partly determines the content of the course that I have to offer to your attention and which can be defined as philosophical propaedeutics or a critical introduction to political economy and even to social science in general. It seems that the expression “philosophy of political economy” does not sound as familiar to the ear as, for example, the philosophy of law or history. However, it is time to accustom modern consciousness to this term and the range of ideas and problems it denotes. After all, political economy, like all social science in general, has as its direct subject the problem of man and his social existence, although in its special formulation, therefore, it is in the closest connection with philosophy and its problems. The boundary separating the general and the special, and together the connection that connects them, should appear here in consciousness with particular clarity. Therefore, it is natural to expect that in their development both political economy and all social science will show the greatest philosophical consciousness, modesty and caution. Unfortunately, this assumption is far from being fully justified, and neither social science in general, nor political economy in particular stands up to the height of its calling. As for the first, it suffered the tragic fate of philosophical decline and even degeneration in connection with the general philosophical decline in the 2nd half of the 19th century. It is known that the middle of this century forms a turning point, a watershed, as it were, between two philosophical movements: in the first half of the 19th century, there was a flowering of speculative philosophy, which began with Kant and ended with Hegel, it’s time to call it that. classical German idealism. This ascent ends in a sheer cliff and the highest tension of philosophical speculation leads to the goal. The tightly stretched string broke. The dominance of classical idealism, largely not without the latter’s fault, is being replaced by the dominance of dogmatic, uncritical positivism, which brought down not only certain philosophical doctrines, but to a large extent the very problems posed in them, and calmly, almost complacently, without tragedy, regarding the most burning and urgent questions of philosophical consciousness, pronouncing the verdict: ignoramus or ignorabimus. The mottos and sentiments of positivism in the field of science, which still persist in it, differ from those ideals of university knowledge and consciousness that were outlined above. Rather, we can say about positivism that it calmed the specialist in his specialty and thereby cut or weakened the thread that connects sciences and departments in the university, isolating and scattering them. Since the call for specialization and deepening into detail contains truth and expresses inner necessity, the influence of positivism on the development of science was beneficial as a normal and healthy reaction against the excesses of the claims of speculation in Hegel. This entire movement, in the language of the same Hegel, was an antithesis against the thesis of the previous era and reproduced its one-sidedness in reverse. Turning to social science, which was christened by positivism with an ugly, bilingual name - sociology, it must be said that its fate turned out to be the most deplorable, like days of grief after days of happiness. For it already had a glorious beginning among the representatives of idealism. Although it was far from complete, a plan for the building was outlined, problems were posed; formally, she was already standing high. The era of positivism, together with philosophy, destroyed this work, starting to build everything all over again. A dogmatic belief in “sociological laws,” which can be grasped in all sorts of directions, came to the fore. Therefore, several “sociologies” soon appeared, all of them established the laws of social development, and it seems that, as I judge from my own experience and from the experience of others, one must overcome the infatuation with these schemes like the measles, in general, a disease of age. Without going into criticism of these teachings in terms of content, we will note here their distinctive formal feature, which consists in the weakness of criticism both in the formulation of problems and in the formulation of teachings. Their merit lies in the accumulation of a large amount of factual descriptive material relating to various areas of social life. At present, the time of anti-philosophical reaction seems to be passing. The number of voices calling for a critical examination of the theses of positivism and what can be called its science theory, the doctrine of science, is increasing. That current of philosophical thought, which is called neo-Kantianism, puts forward the immediate task of returning the lost acquisitions of at least the theory of knowledge and invites in this sense to return to Kant. Although in my eyes this is not yet the philosophical revival that is expected, it has had and is already having a beneficial effect. A number of writers and philosophers, Windelband, Rickert, Natorp, Stammler, Simmel in Germany, Struve, Kistyakovsky and others in Russia, again raised for reconsideration the question of the nature of social knowledge - what and how we can know in social science. In many cases, especially regarding some deep-rooted dogmas, posing a question already means answering it, as in Andersen’s fairy tale it was enough for one boy to shout that the king is naked for everyone to see. Therefore, there is hope that social science is already at the beginning of its undoubtedly slow and difficult revival, for it still has a long way to go before it can pick up the thread of social-philosophical thought where it fell from Hegel’s hands and lead it further, on the basis of all the achievements of the new science. However, the situation was even more unfavorable with regard to political economy, which does not know such a heroic past and at its birth breathed the stale air of a banker's office, factory, store, with the spirit of practicality and topicality reigning here. Practical tasks came to the fore here, which is why this side of it developed most successfully. The differentiation of applied departments of political economy and their development is happening before our eyes; The economic technology of life, becoming more complex, complicates the science that studies it. And if we see in political economy only this applied side, consider it as a social technique, then we can look at its development with a feeling of complete satisfaction. On the contrary, from a philosophical and, so to speak, university perspective, her condition does not inspire the same feelings. At first, political economy was in the hands of practical figures, such as the mercantilists, in a certain sense even Smith, Ricardo, List, and some physiocrats. It was difficult for a philosophical tradition to be created. Later, in an era of philosophical decline, the development of political economy, with very few exceptions, passed into the hands of people alien to philosophical aspirations and gripped either by philosophical reaction or by indifferentism. The most general chapters of so-called theoretical economics bear obvious traces of this philosophical rootlessness. The absence of its own style, strong traditions, some kind of innate amateurism characterize it, due to which the scattered work is wasted, scattered in space, and we do not see anything that could undoubtedly be called continuous progress in this area. In view of this, many prominent economists now simply do not deal with theoretical problems, abandoning the philosophical development of political economy and directing all their efforts into the practical area. And indeed, due to the absence of a critical basis, preliminary clearing of the ground, many dozens of different theories on various issues of political economy represent a discord, a certain cacophony; Without agreeing on the main tasks and concepts, everyone here talks about their own and all about different things. You can find the guiding thread here only without going into these winding alleys and dead ends, but by going completely outside and returning to your original starting point. (I know that this characteristic remains dark and unclear until more detailed development and confirmation of it in further readings, and in addition, they presuppose significant preparation in the form of a general acquaintance with political economy. But at the risk of remaining unclear at this point, I must still draw these basic strokes of my future drawing today and outline the general tasks of my course.) Kant once remarked that it is a sign of the greatest stupidity or reasonableness to be able to ask in such a way that one can get an answer. Applying this aphorism to the current state of theoretical economy, we have to say that it is now especially useful for it to have a propaedeutic study of its very problems, Kant’s critical doubt, confined to its subject. A number of researchers of economic problems are now taking this path (to name Stoltzman, Sombart, Struve, Frank, Stammler). But, besides this weakness in the sense of unpreparedness of the research ground, political economy was beset by another temptation, another danger lay in wait - usurpation and self-exaggeration. The fact is that it has acquired a very special and exceptional significance for modern humanity due to the fact that within its framework the most burning and greatest problem of our time is now being posed - the social question. Various teachings answer this question in their own way: socialists, communists, anarchists, liberals, individualists. Each of these teachings, which claim to establish a correct idea of ​​​​the proper or normal structure of society, corresponding to the true calling and dignity of man, implies as a premise an entire philosophical and even religious doctrine. Religion, ethics, philosophy of history - all this is included as basic elements in the teachings on the social question, which constitute the subject of social philosophy proper. True, socio-philosophical prerequisites still need an economic shell; the methods and limits of their implementation, the technical, so to speak, side of the social question is already in charge of political economy, as a largely applied discipline. However, in the history of its development, political economy was not content with this useful, albeit modest role, but largely usurped the rights and problems of social philosophy. Thus, she seemed to occupy the philosophical throne that was temporarily empty in the second half of the 19th century and silently, or even loudly, proclaimed that the true philosophy itself is I. In the doctrine of economic materialism, which declares economic development to be the true substratum of all spiritual and historical existence, these claims of political economy received a kind of philosophical sanction. For a specialist who loves his work, it is too tempting to recognize in his science the philosophy of the world and life, to believe that political economy has not only primary practical, but also much greater and general significance. Political economy itself suffers from this excessiveness of its claims and lack of self-criticism, but even more social philosophy, which drags out a miserable existence in the grip of political economy and is disfigured by this logical corset. This necessary demarcation and division should be made: to pose the social question as a socio-philosophical and economic question, to highlight and formulate the general philosophical and special economic elements of the social question. It is also necessary to understand it as a question of universal human, and therefore religious-philosophical consciousness. For these purposes, it is useful to apply the sword of critical analysis of modern teachings precisely at the places where different metals are welded together, where the metal of philosophical thinking is fused into one block with the iron of political economy. I do not at all think, of course, to diminish the enormous importance of political economy, which is impossible. Fortunately, sciences do not have the egos of living persons, and the delimitation of their actual tasks turns out to be only useful. In many respects, the moment has now arrived for such a philosophical revision, for a confrontation between political economy and philosophy. There is a crisis and breakdown in the philosophical and social consciousness, in which worldviews collide, differing not so much in applied socio-economic ideals as in the foundations of social philosophy. For example, socialism and anarchism collide with each other not as worldviews of different social classes or hostile camps, but as different faiths, different socio-philosophical schemes. And in the general bracket of socialism, despite the commonality of immediate economic tasks, different spiritual paths, different religious-philosophical coefficients are increasingly outlined: for example, between materialist and Christian or idealistic socialism there is hardly a significant difference in the field of economic programs, but there is a complete contrast in the religious-philosophical field. It is obvious that such differences cannot be felt within political economy within its special framework. Meanwhile, the socio-philosophical consciousness is being presented with ever new tasks; it now needs to cope with such teachings as Nietzsche’s rebellion or Stirner’s militant nihilism, which remain undigested in lumps in the spiritual stomach. In general, for the representative of social philosophy, for the philosophical, and therefore also the university, sub specie aeterni et universi, formulation of social issues, a favorable summer should come. But in general, abstracting from the immediate subject of our conversation, we can say that such a philosophical revision, a deepening of consciousness, is becoming more and more necessary not only for the needs of theoretical science, but also for the practical needs of the time, arising from its distinctive features. There is no more important and urgent spiritual need in our life now than to look at it and at ourselves from above, from some higher point of view, to rise to it in order to understand ourselves. Our society is now experiencing not only a political, but also a spiritual crisis, a time of menacing and painful, painful and significant reflection. During this stormy time, so many unexpected and stunning things happened that you feel the need to come to your senses, somehow understand, internally cope with what happened. Over the course of several years, even months, everyone seemed to become different people; what seemed unshakable, calmed, gave answers just recently, now turns out to be unusable or insufficient, what seemed solid has become liquid, turned out to be inflammable. We need to again feel for the foundations of life, look for the strength of a conscious, ideological attitude towards life in such an era when it is increasingly ruled by raging elements, to catch and hold the steering wheel in our hands when oncoming waves spin us around as if in a whirlpool. A terrible, but also creative, responsible time, and grief because it meets it with empty crayfish, having no gods, no shrines behind the soul, except for what today’s wave carries on its surface or what the fickle street impatiently and imperiously asserts as the last word of truth. Without such spiritual renewal, the sources of life dry up, despondency and bewilderment settle in the airless atmosphere, faith in life and in man itself wavers, indifference to life develops, turning into nihilistic bravado and some kind of terrible game with death. We need to learn to love life again, to love it not in its ugly, naked, bestial form, but in that divine, immortal value that can be revealed to our spirit, which is now beginning to plunge into some kind of apathy. In an era of greatest historical tension and exceptional nervousness, it is useful for a hot and dusty traveler of the earth to at least occasionally immerse himself in the fresh and cold spring of eternal ideas and values, to come into contact with the philosophical pantheon in which the great and holy shadows of the ascetics of thought hover, to refresh himself from the evil fire of life and its burns, to draw new faith and inspiration. Stepping away even for a moment from the hot battle of life into the quiet of reflection, everyone hears in the soul a calling and questioning voice about meaning and goals, about the connection of everything with everything, about the highest ideals. Nowadays it is customary to be ashamed of these questions and drive them away from the surface of life, but, driven underground, they do not lose their sharpness, for silent voices are the loudest, and the loudest is the silence and silence of the judging and testing conscience. In this silence, the constructive work of history also takes place, that organic growth and nourishment of the roots takes place, which will affect the flowering of life. For only from great thoughts and feelings will great deeds be born, and, on the contrary, life becomes smaller and duller as soon as its roots become impoverished. And if our era is truly called to be an era of great deeds, then for this it must also be an era of deepened and inwardly directed consciousness, for figs will not be born from the thorn bush, and true greatness will not be born from superficial life. The call to deepening is therefore a call not from life, but to life, to its sincere creativity. Turning inward, we invariably feel the pain of the fragmentation, chaos of the world, the longing of world, cosmic love, the thirst for the creative eros presensing Plato, the connection and fusion of everything with everything in thought, in feeling, in action. Then the spiritual call of the university, to which we listened today, becomes clear. An ideal that is unattainable, but also irremovable from it, becomes victorious in consciousness, without which life, knowledge, and history would lose all meaning. This ideal, lying at the bottom of philosophy and religion, is the final and universal harmony, positive unity, won from the battle of vengeful chaos, or, as Vladimir Solovyov defined this main motive of his philosophical constructions, integral knowledge, integral life, integral creativity! Seeking the truth of life, we are looking for the path to a life of righteousness and deeds of righteousness, and therefore we should not spare ourselves and should not despair in our search, firmly believing in the truth of the words: seek and you will find!