Abstract
The St. Petersburg Theological Academy was the first of the four academies in the early years of the nineteenth century to undergo a remodeling along the lines of a new charter for the empire’s church-affiliated educational institutions. Instruction in philosophy was mandated, but the academy faced staffing issues at the outset. Courses were taught following Wolffian guidebooks that many found to be antiquated, raising pedagogical dilemmas for the teachers. Nevertheless, a divorce between faith and reason was proscribed, and adherence to a Christianized Plato remained prescribed and seen as central to the Orthodox religion.
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Notes
This and subsequent studies will be restricted to writings from those figures only while they were employed at the Orthodox schools. To do otherwise would entail significantly expanding the size of this study. Additionally, this particular investigation extends only to the era of the Great Reforms.
Evgenij, that being his self-given clerical name, had previously served as an instructor of philosophy at a seminary.
To be fair, Fessler, as a freemason, bore distinct traces of mysticism both in his writings and reportedly in his lectures (Chistovich, 1857, 193). Called before the official supervisory commission, it found Fessler’s requested summary of his views to be obscure and in April 1810 demanded another, clearer one set out along Wolffian principles and terminology. Archbishop Feofilakt (Rusanov) found the summary to be quite understandable but based on principles “harmful to the Church, to the fatherland, and dangerous to students.” Speranskij defended Fessler, remarking that the summary was completely consistent with the academic charter concerning the teaching of philosophy. He told Fessler to defend himself by citing passages from the Church Fathers supporting all the points made. This proved to be of no avail, and Fessler was dismissed in July 1810 (Avgustin, 2018, 184–185). Shpet, commenting on this incident, wrote that Feofilakt’s remarks on Fessler’s summary were “a vivid indication of the philosophical ignorance at even the highest ranks of the Russian clergy” (Shpet, 2008, 190).
He expressed himself in an official report thus “As for a philosophical system, I had to explain the limitations of Winkler’s textbook to the students. As soon as I became convinced that to achieve the goal of the Academy, which is oriented to the education of clergy and teachers in religious institutions, I recognized the need to do more than was demanded. … Philosophy today is almost completely different than it was one hundred years ago.” Quoted in Chistovich (1857, p. 199).
The five-page autobiographical sketch von Horn later published of his time in Russia merely mentions his employment as a professor of philosophy, providing no details (De Horn, 1843, p. 3).
At this time at the academy, there were three degrees offered: candidate, magister, and doctor. Unlike later, the magister’s degree was awarded not based on separate written work or the completion of extra course work, but on the reports of reviewers without the active participation of the student. The awarding of a doctoral degree was also based on reviewers’ reports as well as on a decision of the Commission of Theological Schools. See Sukhova (2010, p. 22).
According to the academic charter, “No new book may appear in the theological schools that does not adhere to the usual classical teaching except with the approval of the academic administration and with the knowledge of the supervisors” (Proekt, 1823, p. 8). Much of Pozzi’s work is devoted to displaying Vetrinskij’s debt to a 1807 text Elementa metaphysices by the now-forgotten Gottfried Immanuel Wenzel (1754–1809). She writes, “A comparison of the texts also shows how relevant the Wenzelian meditation was for the Russian author, who seems to have been inspired by Wenzel in determining the same internal articulation in his own Institutiones (Pozzi, 2017, p. 79).
Shpet wrote, “Professors, and especially professors of philosophy, were subjected to the stupidest censorship, and their pitiful teaching was conducted in an atmosphere of denunciations, persecutions, and absurd references to the true direction to which they must hold” (Shpet, 2008, p. 67). The law in force at this time reads: “The Censorship has the duty to examine books and writings of all kinds meant for public consumption. The chief object of this examination is to furnish society with books and writings contributing to a true enlightenment of the mind and the education of morals and to remove books and writings contrary to this intention. … The Censorship Committee and in particular each censor in examining books and writings is to observe that there is nothing in them contrary to Divine Law, the Government, morality, and the personal honor of any citizen. A censor, having approved a book or writing that is contrary to this prescription, having broken the law, is liable to the extent of the importance of the violation” (Sbornik postanovlenij, 1862, pp. 85, 88). Thus, the censor himself bore a legal obligation to enforce the censorship law lest he himself be charged with a criminal offense.
A Soviet-era encyclopedia entry states that Vetrinskij “was forced to leave” the Academy (Nikolaev, 1989, p. 438).
Vvedenskij did not name the individual.
Shpet too had high praise for Sidonskij’s book, writing that it was “positively the best book on philosophy to appear in Russia up to 1833. It is distinguished by its originality and stands in general alongside some of the tendencies of contemporary German philosophy” (Shpet, 2008, p. 178).
Later recipients of the prize were the mathematician Chebyshev and the chemist Mendeleev. In awarding the prize to Sidonskij for his book, the academy wrote, “His style is everywhere noble, consistent and fully corresponds to the dignity of the subject. In terms of oratorical eloquence and strong expression of feelings, it rises in places even above simple didacticism. But most of all we praise his style for its clarity and correctness, especially since these qualities are so rarely found in philosophical works proper” (quoted in Poljakova, 2009, 90).
Even earlier, Sidonskij had been transferred to teaching French, but this failed to mollify his critics. They charged him with indulging in philosophy while translating French pieces. See Poljakova (2009, p. 30).
In order for these ramblings to be understood at all, they must be set against Schelling’s speculations. So much is clear from Karpov’s footnote: “Schelling, looking at the world from the side of Absolute Being, came to the conclusion that Divine thought is already being. In contrast, seeing the world in the human being, we must say the contrary, that being itself for us in matters of cognition is only conceivable” (Karpov, 1840, p. 32f).
“In geometry, therefore, it is quite intelligible that general propositions should be derived from intuition” (Frege, 1986, pp. 19–20).
This faint praise is undoubtedly due to Karpov’s elevation of consciousness, which conceivably, however incorrectly, could be construed as a step toward phenomenology.
We see here that Husserl is interested in the essentials of the perceptual process. This is totally absent in Karpov.
A far more substantial piece dealing with Karpov’s Introduction immediately preceded the just mentioned review. Its author, Aleksandr Nikitenko, a freed serf and a literature professor at St. Petersburg University, found Karpov’s conclusion concerning the fundamental principle of philosophy to be “not completely satisfactory” (Nikitenko, 1840, p. 721). Yet, Nikitenko was willing to be generous, writing that “[i]f, in some places, the reasoning behind the train of thought is too abstract and the language somewhat vague, readers should remember how difficult it is to avoid these deficiencies in a philosophical, and, moreover, systematic work, especially in our country, where philosophy is still so new” (Nikitenko, 1840, p. 721). Nikitenko, most likely, was also the author of the short summary mentioned above.
Shpet characterized this and other restorations of Wolff’s teachings as “running in place or, more precisely, moving around on a short chain tied to a pole. Each new step was not a step forward, but only in a new direction around one place—theistic spiritualism” (Shpet, 2008, p. 194).
Vladimir Solov’ëv in 1880 wrote a short review of Karpov’s logic text, finding that it “takes a Platonic view of human thought and cognition and develops this view with indubitable originality” (Solov’ëv, 1911, p. 237). Sadly, Solov’ëv’s review was quite short and did not provide any critical remarks. In writing that Karpov’s text “takes a Platonic view,” did Solov’ëv see that as a compliment?
The similarities between Karpov’s philosophy of history and that of the Slavophiles, particularly of Kireevskij’s, is great. Karpov, though, provided no references to their writings, leaving us to conjecture as to the source for his ideas. Both Karpov and Kireevskij rejected scholasticism on largely similar grounds. In general, the secular Slavophiles placed greater emphasis on the integral “spirit” of the Russian people, whereas Karpov, a cleric, located that integrity in Orthodox Christianity, which was transmitted to the Russian people, who were amenable to such an infusion. A comparison of Karpov’s views to those of Kireevskij can also be found in the late nineteenth century. One such was P. M. Laskeev, who in 1898, relying almost exclusively on Karpov’s Introduction, wrote that, if we compare the respective projects of Kireevskij and Karpov, “one cannot help but notice that in many respects they are antipodes of each other. What for Karpov is the final result of a philosophical system is for Kireevskij its necessary principle. … Karpov wants to present in his philosophical system a rational grounding for the veracity of Orthodoxy and the need to obey positive laws; Kireevskj advises to start first with the construction of a philosophical system imbued not only with the truths of the Orthodox faith but with the works of the Church Fathers” (Laskeev, 1898, p. 748). There is much to be said for Laskeev’s juxtaposition, but its closer examination would require a special study of its own.
We should note that Karpov makes no mention of, let alone account for, those Slavic tribes that did not share Orthodox Christianity. He certainly could not have been ignorant of the Poles, in particular.
Many of the themes and even many words and phrases from this archival document found their way into Karpov’s (1856b) article. In the former, he already wrote of a love of wisdom and of a living sympathy for it that was brought from Byzantium into the bosom of the Slavic tribes along with the Orthodox Christian faith. For this reason, the Western scholasticism taught throughout the empire’s schools in the eighteenth century was unable to take root in Russian social life.
How a “spirit” is able to do anything like the feats Karpov ascribed to it is left unsaid and certainly unexplained.
Karpov’s linking of German Protestantism to Kant and German Idealism became a recurring conception in Russian philosophy. See, in particular, Trubeckoj (1994), but the same sentiment was expressed shortly earlier than Karpov by the Slavophile Ivan Kireevskij in his 1856 “On the Necessity and Possibility of New Principles in Philosophy.” See Kireevskij (1972).
See Mejson (1783). This Russian edition was reprinted in 1786 and again in 1800, a testament to its popularity, or to an official belief that it should be popular. For Karpov’s essay as epilogue, see Karpov (1865). There is no evidence that Karpov was aware of the eighteenth-century Russian edition. The “publisher,” presumably Mikhail Katkov, in a short prefatory note to the 1865 edition, noted without commentary that the translation was based on an 1818 English edition (Mejson, 1865, p. ii).
It must be said, though, that he often failed to distinguish individual self-knowledge from general human self-knowledge.
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Nemeth, T. Philosophy in the Early St. Petersburg Theology Academy: toward the roots of classical Russian idealism. Stud East Eur Thought 73, 495–515 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-021-09434-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-021-09434-1