Formation of Russian philosophy. Characteristics of the religious and philosophical trend in the psychology of Russia and the main periods of its development Who is the Russian philosopher Frank

In the 19th century, the original Russian philosophizing was born, which was a manifestation of the spiritual revolution. There is now an extensive literature on the history of Russian philosophy, among which the works of V.V. Zenkovsky, N.O. Lossky, G.V. Florovsky, wrote a lot and brilliantly about the Russian philosophers N.A. Berdyaev.

Russian philosophy was originally religious and was formed differently than in Europe. European literature was born out of theological and philosophical tradition in the process of secularization of Christian medieval culture. In the beginning there was scholasticism and "The Sum of Theology" by Thomas Aquinas, then "The Divine Comedy" by Dante, only then Petrarch and Shakespeare created secular literature. Russian fiction, on the contrary, anticipated and gave birth to the original Russian philosophy, giving it artistic intuition and religious pathos. “The Russian thinker rises to true heights as a thinker contemplating with his heart. This explains a lot and sheds light on a lot. That is why the abstract theory of knowledge is not a Russian national product ... that is why philosophy is for him a kind of religious search and evidence ”(IA Ilyin).

At the same time, over the preceding centuries, the Russian mind has gone the path of philosophical propaedeutics. In the 17th-19th centuries, attempts to philosophize in theological academies, then in universities were unoriginal and were reduced to imitations of European scholasticism and rationalism: “In the 18th century. even the philosophy of the rationalist and educator Wolf was considered the most appropriate for Orthodoxy. Originally, according to Orthodox, it was not the professor of theology, not the hierarch of the Church, who began to theologize, but a retired horse guard officer and landowner Khomyakov. Therefore, the most remarkable religious and philosophical thoughts were expressed in our country not by special theologians, but by writers, free people. In Russia, a religious and philosophical freeman was formed, which remained on suspicion in official church circles ”(NA Berdyaev).

By the middle of the 19th century, the Russian philosophical mind passed good school Western philosophizing. Of the European philosophers, Schelling had the most favorable influence, which is not at all obvious after two centuries of Hegelianism in various forms. This is symptomatic and important for our topic. Schelling was very gifted from his youth and from the age of 18 he formulated his first philosophical system in natural philosophy. Then, over several years, he creates systems of transcendental (or aesthetic) idealism and a philosophy of identity. Hegel was five years older than Schelling, but under the influence of his younger colleague, he was first carried away by the ideas of transcendental (subjective) idealism, and then, on the basis of Schelling's philosophy of identity, he developed a system of absolute (objective) idealism. Schelling's philosophical research leads further, and by the age of thirty-five he creates a philosophy of freedom, then until the end of his life he develops the principles of positive philosophy, or the philosophy of revelation. If the philosophy of freedom began to formulate religious problems in philosophy, then the philosophy of revelation is the first system of religious philosophy in modern European history, which Schelling develops alone from 1813 until the end of his life. He turned Western European thought, secularized after Descartes, to the religious origins of philosophy. But in this he turned out to be little understood by his contemporaries. If for Schelling all the previous periods of his philosophizing were preparatory to the summit of creativity - the philosophy of revelation, then the followers were able to perceive only his earlier, and therefore more particular concepts. Hegel devoted his whole life to the development of the ideas of the philosophy of identity, through the prism of which he described all philosophical problems. This extremely rationalistic system, which looks universal, but in fact reduces the universe to several particular principles, was perceived by contemporaries as the highest form of philosophizing. Hegel was more in line with the order of the intellectual atmosphere of the era, in which the inertia of Enlightenment rationalism prevailed. When Schelling was invited in 1841 to lecture at the University of Berlin, where Hegel taught for about fifteen years before his death, the audience was already Hegelian and unable to accept a religious-philosophical approach. The Young Hegelians and F. Engels mocked the philosopher in pamphlets. But Schelling's lectures were listened to by both S. Kierkegaard and A. Schopenhauer, on whom he had a strong influence. Their philosophy goes beyond the narrow framework of the prevailing Western European rationalism, but they were also not in demand by their contemporaries.

At the same time, many Russian people attended Schelling's lectures. If Hegel in Russia was carried away by the radicals M.A. Bakunin and V.G. Belinsky (who knew him from the retellings of Bakunin), then P.Ya. Chaadaev, V.F. Odoevsky and other "wisdom" people, as well as the Slavophiles, preferred Schelling's religious philosophy to Hegel's rationalism. Schelling's philosophy of revelation, which was little accepted in Europe, influenced the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere in Russia. This tradition of Russian Schellingism influenced the formation of the views of Vladimir Solovyov, who creates an integral system of religious philosophy and in this most powerful way determines the appearance of Russian philosophy. At the beginning of the 20th century, Russian religious philosophers anticipated by two decades the main directions of European philosophical thought - personalism and existentialism. Only in the twenties did European existentialists discover the work of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer and perceive the influence of Schelling.

In its problems and methods, the original Russian philosophy turned to the tradition of patristic theology and philosophy: “We have a great school of theology, this is our mass, open to everyone” (FM Dostoevsky). Russian philosophy initially followed the ancient tradition of patristism and Russian medieval thought, combining theoretical and practical interest: true philosophy is the search for true life and salvation. “When in the XIX century. philosophical thought was born in Russia, then it became, for the most part, religious, moral and social. This means that the central theme was the theme of a person, the fate of a person in society and in history ”(NA Berdyaev). Russian philosophical thought at a new level reproduced the traditional forms of Russian speculation, which for centuries had been developing in irrationalistic forms: in aesthetic (medieval icon painting - philosophy in paints), in fiction... This left an imprint on philosophical thinking, which was initially whole. “Russian religious philosophy especially insists that philosophical cognition is cognition with an integral spirit, in which reason is united with will and feeling and in which there is no rationalistic split. Therefore, criticism of rationalism is the first task. Rationalism was recognized as the original sin of Western thought ”(NA Berdyaev). This holistic spirit among Russian thinkers has nothing to do with the abstract world spirit of Hegel, but is a living concrete subject of being: “Using a modern expression, one could say that Russian philosophy, religiously tinged, wanted to be existential; existential, expressed his spiritual and moral experience, a holistic, not torn experience ”(NA Berdyaev).

The philosophical mind turned to Orthodoxy for the first time in the work of the Slavophiles. The program of philosophy in Russia was formulated by Ivan Vasilievich Kireevsky, and it was the philosophy of life: “Philosophy is so necessary: ​​all the development of our mind requires it. Our poetry lives and breathes by it alone; it alone can give soul and wholeness to our infant sciences, and our very life, perhaps, will take from it the grace of harmony ... Of course, the first step towards it should be a manifestation of the mental wealth of that country, which in speculation has outstripped all peoples. But other people's thoughts are useful only for the development of their own. German philosophy cannot take root in our country. Our philosophy should develop from our life, be created from current issues, from the dominant interests of our national and private life. " In this program, the need to reunite the thinking of the educated estates with the national religious spirit was realized. Kireevsky and Khomyakov proclaimed the end of abstract philosophy and strove for holistic thinking, which testified to the weakening of the influence of Hegel and the strengthening of the influence of Schelling in the later period.

Aleksey Stepanovich Khomyakov argued that philosophizing proceeds from religious experience and should become a philosophy of action. Khomyakov shrewdly foresees the transition of Hegelianism to materialism, of dialectical idealism to dialectical materialism. Creatively comprehending the experience of European philosophy, Khomyakov, on the basis of patristics, lays the foundations for a new Russian philosophy, the doctrine of freedom, conciliarity, and the Church. The concept of conciliarity is fundamental in the Christian philosophy of A.S. Khomyakova: conciliarity is “freedom in unity”, the free unity of people based on Christian love and aimed at joint search for the path of salvation. The ideal of conciliarity is the Cathedral of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity, and the most conciliar reality is the Orthodox Church, leading Russia to the conciliar integrity of the spirit. Khomyakov develops the original principles of the theory of knowledge, which can be characterized by Orthodox epistemology: love as a principle of knowledge reveals religious truth, conciliar communication in love is the criterion of truth: “Knowledge of the truth is given only by mutual love” (A.S. Khomyakov). At the heart of consciousness is faith: knowledge and faith are identical, the willing mind contemplates things before the act of rational consciousness. Will-freedom is connected with reason in the integrity of the spirit. Khomyakov developed the concept of collegiality, organically uniting freedom and love. In the universality of the Church, uniting all by love, and at the basis of whose unity is love, Christian conciliarity is revealed: “Christianity is nothing but freedom in Christ ... The unity of the Church is nothing but the consent of personal freedoms ... Freedom and unity - such are the two powers that are worthy of being entrusted with the mystery of human freedom in Christ ”(AS Khomyakov). It is significant that Russian Orthodoxy provided great opportunities for religious and philosophical creativity: “Khomyakov's thought testifies to the fact that great freedom of thought is possible in Orthodoxy (I am talking about internal, not external freedom). This is due in part to the fact that Orthodox Church does not have an obligatory system and more decisively than Catholicism separates dogmas from theology ... In Russian religious, philosophical and theological thought, there was absolutely no idea of ​​natural theology, which played a large role in Western thought. The Russian consciousness does not make a division into frank theology and natural theology, for this Russian thinking is too holistic and sees the experience of faith as the basis of knowledge ”(NA Berdyaev).

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky was a brilliant philosopher-metaphysician. His philosophy in images for the first time posed many problems of human existence: the insoluble contradictions of personality, world harmony and revelry of evil, justification of good in a world filled with evil. The main question of Dostoevsky's thinker-artist: the meaning and purpose of human existence on Earth "The mystery of human existence is not only to live, but in what to live for." He combined personalism - the assertion of the divine value of the human person - with conciliarity and all-humanity. Dostoevsky, a realist of the spirit, was the first to reveal the depths of the human soul, in which the devil fights with God. “Dostoevsky, the great seer and thinker, expresses, as it were, the spiritual substance of the Russian people. His novels plunge into spiritual chaos, in which passions acquire a powerful voice, where they intertwine, collide and collapse in such tension and confusion, which is sometimes hardly bearable, and with such artistic force that sometimes cannot be experienced without disgust. However, if someone began to assert that Dostoevsky idealizes this chaos and delves into the darkness of the soul in order to "exalt" the disorder and vicissitudes of the soul, he would fall into a big mistake. On the contrary, everything that Dostoevsky writes is a breakthrough to God, a call to the Lord, a struggle for transformation and for the spirit of Christ. For Dostoevsky, only one motto is significant: "De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine!" ("From the depths cry to You, Lord!"), Only one slogan: "In the deepest abyss God shines!" And he himself, a suggestive master of human passion, knew absolutely exactly everything that concerns the form, and precisely the good-quality form of a person; he knew how groundless, in what deep abyss a person finds himself without God, and why only harmony reveals the true depths of the spirit, brings healing and enlightenment. That is why he understood and was able to express the essence of Pushkin's national-prophetic mission ”(IA Ilyin).

The writer discovers a deep psychology - an underground person, the subconscious: “He made great discoveries about a person, and from him begins new era in the inner history of man. After him, man is no longer the same as before him ... This new anthropology teaches about man as a contradictory and tragic being, extremely unsuccessful, not so much suffering, but also loving suffering. Dostoevsky is more of a pneumatologist than a psychologist, he poses the problem of the spirit ... He depicts the existential dialectic of human duality ... Dostoevsky expresses brilliant ideas that man is not at all a reasonable being striving for happiness, that he is an irrational being with a need in suffering, that suffering is the only reason for the emergence of consciousness ”(NA Berdyaev). Dostoevsky reveals the deep psychological motives of the crime and the dialectic of conscience. He is a singer of divine freedom in man: “Acceptance of freedom means faith in man, faith in spirit. Refusal of freedom is disbelief in man. The denial of freedom is the spirit of the Antichrist. The mystery of the Crucifixion is the mystery of freedom. The crucified God is freely chosen as the object of love. Christ does not rape in his own way ”(NA Berdyaev). But Dostoevsky sees how easily freedom passes into godless willfulness and slavery.

In the age of the beginning scientific and technological progress and the triumph of ideas about an earthly paradise, for the first time, the antihumanity of humanistic civilization was declared: “The underground man does not agree to world harmony, to a crystal palace, for which he himself would be only a means ... does not accept the results of progress, forced world harmony, a happy anthill, when millions will be happy, having renounced personality and freedom ... Dostoevsky does not want a world without freedom, does not want paradise without freedom, he most of all objects to compulsory happiness ”(NA Berdyaev). Irreligious self-assertion leads to the assertion of human deity, to the slavery of man and degenerates into inhumanity. Only in God-Man and God-manhood is man able to be affirmed in genuine spiritual freedom. If there is no God, then everything is allowed, without faith in immortality we will not resolve a single issue. F.M. Dostoevsky reveals the tragic metaphysics of evil.

Seeing deep spiritual realities, the writer was able to foresee a lot in history: “In Dostoevsky the prophetic element is stronger than in any of the Russian writers. His prophetic art was determined by the fact that he revealed the volcanic soil of the spirit, depicted the inner revolution of the spirit. He signified an internal catastrophe, new souls begin with him ... There is a fourth dimension in man. This opens with an appeal to the finite, a way out of the middle existence, from the universally binding, which is called “all-family” (NA Berdyaev).

Dostoevsky was worried about the problem of the historical destiny of the Russian people. “It is with Dostoevsky that the Russian messianic consciousness is most acute ... He owns the words that the Russian people are a God-bearing people” (NA Berdyaev). Dostoevsky believed that the Russian people had a great God-bearing mission - to say a new word to the world. In his famous speech about Pushkin, he says that the Russian man is an all-man who possesses universal responsiveness. At the same time, the writer foresees the great apocalyptic battles in Russia: “Dostoevsky's prophecies about the Russian revolution are the penetration into the depths of dialectics about a person - a person who transcends the boundaries of the average normal consciousness” (NA Berdyaev).

Dostoevsky's tragic outlook on the world unprecedentedly expanded the horizon of Christian mankind, opened up new dimensions of spiritual life. The understanding of Christianity itself becomes more complex and, at the same time, more in line with the Savior's gospel: "Dostoevsky preached John's Christianity - the Christianity of the transformed earth, the religion of resurrection, first of all" (NA Berdyaev). Christianity is the religion of saving the world through love. Elder Zosima in the novel “The Brothers Karamazov” says: “Brothers, do not be afraid of the sin of people, love man and in his sin ... Love all God's creation, and the whole, and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God, love animals, love plants, love every thing. Let us love every thing and comprehend the mystery of God in things ... Kiss the earth and love it relentlessly, insatiably, love everyone, look for this rapture and ecstasy. " This is life in the scorching dimension of the Sermon on the Mount.

Dostoevsky was discovered in mysterious ways in the 20th century by a reader of Western culture - both in Europe, and in America, and in Asia, at a time when in Soviet Russia he was virtually banned. From there - from the West, again inscrutable, Dostoevsky returned to Russia from the sixties.

The first Russian professional philosopher of a European scale was Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev, who strove to create a system of Christian philosophy. Soloviev was a European educated man, of the European philosophers Schelling is closest to him. Pm. Solovyov begins his independent philosophizing with the rejection of European rationalism, to which his dissertations are devoted: master's degree "Crisis of Western Philosophy" and doctoral degree "Critique of Abstract Principles". He managed to overcome the dominance of positivism in the then Russian thinking and instill metaphysical problems and depth. In his work - a powerful simultaneously analytical and synthetic mind, individual mystical intuition (the appearance of Heavenly Sophia in Egypt) and Christian theology. He wrote both great philosophical treatises and graceful mystically filled poems. This melting down of the dividing walls in the European intellect will be beneficial for subsequent Russian thought, which is characteristically synthetic. The broadest coverage of philosophical and theological problems developed by Solov'ev is also impressive, and this universalism of thinking was also inherited by further Russian philosophy. At the same time, relapses of abstract rationalism manifested themselves in the philosopher's work, the product of which was the concept of total-unity, which many highly appreciated and which S.N. and E.N. Trubetskoy, P.A. Florensky, S.L. Frank, S.N. Bulgakov, L.P. Karsavin, V.F. Ern, N.O. Lossky, A.F. Losev. Perhaps for the philosophers themselves, the idea of ​​the positive total-unity of everything played the role of a methodological device that allows one to fix and order some creative meanings, but all the true achievements of our philosophers lie outside this short-lived abstraction. Moreover, the development of the ideas of total-unity by Lev Karsavin led him to the vicious concept of ideocracy. Solovyov's fundamental intuition about total-unity limited his philosophical horizon: “He did not acutely experience the problem of freedom, personality and conflict, but with great force he experienced the problem of unity, integrity, harmony. His triple theosophical, theocratic and theurgic utopia is the same Russian search for the Kingdom of God, a perfect life ”(NA Berdyaev). The desire to impose the scheme of total unity led Solovyov to abstract concepts: about the Universal Church, inorganically and extrahistorically uniting Christian confessions (later Soloviev rejected these ideas); about a utopian world order based on the "social trinity" (reflecting the Divine Trinity), in which the unity of the Church, state and society is expressed in the spiritual authority of the ecumenical high priest (which the Pope should become), in the secular power of the national sovereign, as well as in the free ministry of the prophet; or the historiosophical concept of a third force, Russia, which avoids the monistic extremes of the Muslim East and the individualistic extremes of the West.

Vladimir Soloviev was creatively a contradictory figure: “He was an erotic philosopher, in the Platonic sense of the word, erotica of a higher order played a huge role in his life, was his existential theme. And, at the same time, there was a strong moralistic element in him, he demanded the implementation of Christian morality in the fullness of life ... Vl. Soloviev combines mystical eroticism with asceticism ”(NA Berdyaev). A major role was played by the fundamental work “Justification of Good. Moral Philosophy ”, which, along with excessive rationalization, is full of deep analysis of ethical problems, precise characteristics and definitions, many witty conclusions. Good is the highest essence of being, which is embodied in various aspects of human existence; virtues and good deeds are conditioned not by subjective arbitrariness, but by the fulfillment of the highest command of conscience - the spark of God in man. Moral issues were initially central to Russian philosophy, and Vl. Soloviev. In this book, along with the "Readings on God-manhood", one of the main ideas of Solov'ev's philosophy, about God-manhood, is systematically developed, which has gained great importance in Russian philosophy. In the personality of the God-man, the Divine and human natures were united, and in history God and man - God-manhood - must be united. “The understanding of Christianity as a religion of God-manhood is radically opposed to the judicial understanding of the relationship between God and man and the judicial theory of atonement prevalent in Catholic and Protestant theology. The manifestation of the God-man and the forthcoming manifestation of God-manhood mean the continuation of the creation of the world. Russian religious and philosophical thought, in its best representatives, decisively fights against any legal interpretation of the mystery of Christianity ... At the same time, the idea of ​​God-manhood refers to cosmic transformation, this is almost completely alien to official Catholicism and Protestantism ... the prophetic side of Christianity ”(NA Berdyaev).

In Solovyov, “behind universalism, behind the striving for total-unity, there is an erotic and ecstatic moment, a fall in love with the beauty of the divine cosmos, to which he will give the name of Sophia, is hidden” (NA Berdyaev). The concept of Sophia is associated with the Platonic world of ideas: “Sophia is an expressed, realized idea ... Sophia is the body of God, the matter of the Divine, imbued with the beginning of Divine unity” (Vl.S. Soloviev). Sophia is the connection between the Creator and creation, it manifests Divine wisdom in the created world, in space and humanity, there is an ideal humanity. Sophia's visions reveal the beauty of the Divine cosmos and the transformed world. The intuition of Sophia - Eternal femininity and the Wisdom of God - corresponded to the archetypal ideas of the Russian Orthodox world outlook: “Dedicating their ancient temples to Saint Sophia, the substantial Wisdom of God, the Russian people gave this idea a new incarnation, unknown to the Greeks (who identified Sophia with the Logos) ... along with The Mother of God and the Son of God — the Russian people knew and loved under the name of Saint Sophia the social embodiment of the Divine and the Universal Church ”(Vl.S. Soloviev). The sophiological theme, which runs through all of Soloviev's work, turned out to be very fruitful for the tradition of Russian philosophy and poetry.

Only in his last work, Three Conversations, the philosophy of Vladimir Solovyov approaches an organic form of expression devoid of rational schematism. The form of work - dialogues - turns Russian philosophical thought to the artistic-dialectical method of Plato, and, at the same time, anticipates the existential philosophy of the 20th century. “He seems to be approaching existential philosophy. But his own philosophizing does not belong to the existential type ... his very philosophy remains abstract and rational, what exists in it is crushed by schemes ... As a philosopher, Vladimir Soloviev was not at all an existentialist, he did not express his inner being, but covered up ”(N A. Berdyaev). In Three Conversations, Solov'ev renounces his theocratic utopia and prophetically describes the tragedy of human history, its eschatological perspectives. He portrays the Antichrist as a philanthropist who realizes the ideals of social justice and thereby spiritually enslaves man. Only the union of the Churches in the person of the Catholic Pope Peter, the Orthodox Elder John and the Protestant Doctor Paulus can oppose the kingdom of Antichrist, while Orthodoxy turns out to be the bearer of the most mystically deep tradition of Christianity. Solovyov's thought soared in heights from which he saw some historical problems quite utopian. He overlooked the main concern of Russian thought in the 19th century - the growth of ideological mania in the atmosphere of the era. As a result, we can agree with N.O. Lossky that “There are many shortcomings in Soloviev's philosophy. Some of these shortcomings were inherited by his followers. However, it was Solovyov who was the creator of the original Russian system of philosophy and laid the foundations for a whole school of Russian religious philosophical thought, which still continues to live and develop. "

Pm. Soloviev was poorly understood by his contemporaries and was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century by a generation that experienced the temptations of nihilism, positivism, and Marxism. “Only at the beginning of the XX century. a myth about him was formed. And the formation of this myth was facilitated by the fact that there was V.L. Soloviev during the day and there was V.L. Only in his poems did he reveal what was hidden, covered and crushed by the rational schemes of his philosophy ... He was a mystic, had a mystical experience, everyone who knew him testifies to this, he had occult talent that Slavophiles, but his thinking was very rational. He was one of those who hide themselves in their mental creativity, and do not reveal themselves ”(NA Berdyaev). With his mystical poetry, Soloviev contributed to the birth of symbolism in Russian poetry at the beginning of the century: “Vl. For Blok and Bely, Soloviev was a window from which the wind of the future was blowing ”(NA Berdyaev). Vladimir Soloviev instilled in Russian thought a philosophical professionalism, for the first time posed many religious and philosophical problems, and in this sense he can be considered the forerunner of Russian philosophy of the 20th century.

In the second half of the 19th century, a number of talented religious philosophers appeared in Russia. N. Ya. Danilevsky in his work "Russia and Europe" outlined the concept of cultural and historical types and anticipated many ideas of the 20th century, in particular O. Spengler and A. Toynbee. Humanity is a destructive abstraction, each cultural-historical type expresses a certain idea, and together they constitute the whole of humanity. The domination of one of the cultural and historical types leads to the degradation of civilization. Danilevsky notes the hostile and aggressive nature of the Romano-Germanic cultural-historical type in relation to the emerging Slavic type. In other works, Danilevsky criticizes Darwin's theory of natural selection from the standpoint of natural theology.

The original philosopher was N.F. Fedorov, the author of "The Philosophy of the Common Cause", who created the concept of the general resurrection from the dead, proposed to interpret the prophecies of the Apocalypse as conditional. On the contrary, the philosopher-esthete and apocalyptic K.N. Leont'ev did not believe in universal salvation, was not striving for the transformation of humanity and the world, asserted the inevitability of the apocalypse. He believed that inequality contributes to the growth of being, while equality leads to the degradation of life and to non-existence; all civilizations, cultures, and societies after flourishing are doomed to inevitable decrepitude. From these positions, the monk-philosopher sharply criticizes the concept of progress, which is an example of degradation, “The Antichrist is coming,” he said about the state of the modern world. Leontyev foresaw the terrible catastrophe of Russia, and, at the same time, believed in her resurrection, but only on a Byzantine basis.

From the church environment A.M. Bukharev (Archimandrite Fyodor), developed Christology: the Son of God became man for the sake of every man, the Lamb was slain before the creation of the world, and God created the world by his own crucifixion. “The world appeared to me not only as an area lying in evil, but also as a great environment for the revelation of the Grace of the God-man, who took the world's evil upon himself” (AM Bukharev). Christian anthropology was developed by V.I. Nesmelov, who anticipated the principles of existential philosophy and thereby influenced Berdyaev. The concepts of the professor of the Moscow Theological Academy M.M. Tareev anticipated a number of ideas from the philosophy of life, existentialism and dialectical theology of neo-Protestantism of the 20th century. Very different Russian philosophers were united by common intuitions of being and close philosophical approaches, which from the very beginning distinguished them from their European colleagues: “Russian religious thought in general was characterized by the idea of ​​a continuing Incarnation, as well as the creation of the world continuing in the appearance of Christ. This is the difference between Russian religious thought and Western thought ... Russian religious and philosophical thought posed the problem of religious anthropology in a different way than Catholic and Protestant anthropology, and it goes beyond patristic and scholastic anthropology, humanity is stronger in it ... Russian thought is essentially eschatological, and this eschatologism takes different forms ”(NA Berdyaev).

Thus, during the formation of Russian philosophy of the 19th century, its main intentions were determined. First of all, the Russian mind abandons intellectual Eurocentrism and turns to the religious sources of culture, Russian philosophy becomes predominantly religious. Philosophical genius, following the literary genius, turns to Orthodoxy, looking for sources of inspiration in Russian culture, in domestic problems. And in pushing away from hypertrophied Western rationalism, and in themes, and in methodology, Russian philosophy develops in line with the Platonic tradition, from time immemorial transmitted through Orthodox Hellenism, patristics and the Russian Middle Ages: from Plato's figurative thinking to existential, from Plato's idealism, contemplation of the eternal world ideas - to the contemplation of God and contemplation of the drama of God's creation. From the very beginning, the Russian philosophical mind covered a wide range of problems. In posing questions of life and in methodology, Russian philosophy largely preceded the development of modern European philosophy. The philosophy of Russia in the 19th century enriched Russian culture and complicated national consciousness. Russian philosophy is initially meta-existential: it is focused on the spiritual foundations of being, responds to the questions of the national spirit, corresponds to the national character and speculation. All this largely predetermined the character of Russian philosophy in the 20th century.

FRANCSemyon Ludvigovich (1877 - 1950) - Russian religious philosopher and psychologist. Professor Saratov and Moscow un-tov. In 1922 he was expelled together with a large group of philosophers, writers and public figures from Soviet Russia. Until 1937 he lived in Berlin, where he taught at Berlin University. Enteredinto the structure of the organized N.A. Berdyaev of the Religious and Philosophical Academy. Participated in the publication of the "Put" magazine. In 1930 he published an article "Psychoanalysis as a Worldview", in which he noted the naturalistic orientations of psychoanalysis and analyzed the difference between the spiritual and the mental. For many years he was friends and corresponded with the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst L. Binswanger. After the Nazis came to power, he was removed from teaching. In 1937 he emigrated to France, where he survived the Second World War. In 1945 he emigrated to England, lived and worked in London. In his philosophical views, he supported and developed the idea of ​​total-unity in the spirit of V.V. Solovyov, tried to reconcile rational thinking with religious faith on the way to overcome the inconsistency of all existing, imperfect world and build Christian ethics. I saw the way out of Russia from the constant crisis in the implementation of "the ideal of spiritual unity and organic spiritual creativity of the people, the ideal of religious meaningfulness and national-historical justification of social and political culture" (" De profandis " ... - on Sat. "From the depth". M.-Pg., 1918, the circulation of which was completely destroyed and republished only in 1967 by the publishing house " Ymca - Press "). As a psychologist, F. upaid great attention to the study of human spiritual activity, arguing that psychology should remain primarily a science of the soul, and not of mental processes ("Human Soul", 1918). The main idea of ​​this book is the desire to return the concept of the soul to psychology instead of the concept of mental phenomena, which, from his point of view, have no independent meaning and therefore cannot be the subject of science. F. believed that psychology should give a person an understanding of the integrity of his personality and the meaning of his life, and this can only be given by the science of the soul. Explaining the state of public consciousness and the crisis of modern society as a crisis of worldview, F. argued that the emergence of psychology without a soul is associated with a person's loss of interest in himself and a lack of desire to understand the meaning of his existence. Psychology became natural science with such ease that scientific, theoretical interest in the knowledge of the essence of the human soul disappeared. By this loss of scientific interest in the human soul, he also explains the development of interest in mysticism. F. believed that the basis of psychology should be philosophy, not natural science, since it does not study the real processes of objective existence in their causal or other natural laws, but provides "general logical explanations of the ideal nature and structure of the mental world and its ideal relationship to others. objects of being ". Proving the necessity and opportunity to explore the soul, F. referred to the experience of intuitionism N.O. Lossky. At the same time, he understood the soul as "the general generic nature of the world of psychic being, as a qualitatively unique integral unity." Of great importance is the fact that F. in his work divorced such concepts as mental life, soul and consciousness. In anomalous cases, mental life, as it were, overflows the banks and floods the consciousness, it is precisely according to these states that one can give some characterization of mental life as a state of scattered attention, in which objects and vague experiences associated with them are combined. Coming to practically the same conclusions as psychoanalysis, F. writes that under a thin layer of hardened forms of rational culture smolders the heat of great passions, dark and light, which, both in the life of an individual and in the life of the people as a whole, can break through a dam and go outside, sweeping away everything in its path, leading to aggression, rebellion and anarchy. At the same time, again in unison with psychoanalysis, he proves that in play and in art, a person spills out this vague, unconscious mental life and, thereby, complements a narrow circle of conscious experiences. He believed that it is the unconscious that is the main subject of psychological research, and consciousness is only included in its subject, since the phenomena of consciousness have a side by virtue of which they are experiences and it is in this part that they are elements of mental life. The main characteristics of mental life, from the point of view of F., are its formlessness, unity, that is, its continuity and timelessness. It is therefore only natural that he opposes associationism and Wundt's sensory mosaic theory. The theory of knowledge developed by F., as well as his understanding of the essence of the soul, is largely based on the monadology of G.V. Leibniz: pure reason is superindividual and superpersonal and therefore cognition occurs not only and not so much on the basis of contact with the external world as developing from within. On its periphery, the soul comes into contact with the objective side of being and thus becomes the bearer of knowledge about the external world. However, through its internal channels, the soul connects with pure mind and thus is filled not with relative concepts, but with pure objective knowledge. Distinguishing two levels of the soul, F. wrote that a vague mental life associated with emotions and feelings is, as it were, the lowest level of the soul, which is associated with the body. The body not only makes it possible for the soul to be localized in time and space, but also obscures the content of mental life. However, the soul does not depend on the body and its limitations, as it bears the imprint of the highest faith, God. In this regard, true knowledge is always a revelation, since it revives the connection with the whole. Of all the psychologists of the first half of the twentieth century, F. most fully and accurately reflected the influence of religious philosophy (which originates in the position of Solovyov) on psychology. At the same time, both the advantages and disadvantages of such a position were fully reflected in his concept. The main works of F.: "Philosophy and Life", St. Petersburg, 1910; "The subject of knowledge", 1915; "Essay on the methodology of social sciences", M., 1922; Living Knowledge, Berlin, 1923; "The crash of idols", 1924; Spiritual Foundations of Society, 1930; "Incomprehensible." Paris, 1939; “Reality and man. Metaphysics of Human Being ”, Paris, 1956; "God is with us", Paris, 1964.

Etc. Martsinkovskaya, V.I. Ovcharenko

The outstanding Russian philosopher, religious thinker and psychologist Semyon Ludvigovich Frank (born January 16, 1877 in Moscow; died December 10, 1950 in London) became widely known in Russian society, primarily as one of the authors and inspirers of collections of articles idealist philosophers directed against the revolutionary theory and practice "Problems of Idealism" (1902), "Vekhi" (1909) and "From the Depths" (1918), which were characterized by V. Lenin as "reactionary" and "Black Hundreds ". The fundamental feature of his philosophical style was that he strove for the synthesis of rational thought and religious faith in the traditions of apophatic philosophy and Christian Platonism, in particular under the influence of Nikolai Kuzansky and Vladimir Solovyov (in particular, the doctrine of the positive total unity of the latter).

The historian of Russian philosophy, Archpriest Vasily Zenkovsky, who died in Paris, wrote that among the thinkers of this generation, Frank was the most philosophical - in the truest sense of the word: “It was a powerful philosophical intellect. He was not a publicist, he was not a theologian, although, of course, he also had to write sharp journalistic articles, and in a number of his books directly go out on theological topics. He was a man of thought, similar to many classics of world philosophy. He himself jokingly said about himself: "I have dreamed all my life." This, of course, was not an idle dream, but deep contemplation. He seemed to be diving into the ocean of thought, into the ocean of abstract schemes deeper and deeper and, finally, reached the very bottom of reality. "

Semyon Frank was born into a family of Polish Jews. His father, physician Ludwig Semyonovich Frank (1844-1882), moved to Moscow from the Vilnius province during the Polish uprising of 1863, graduated from Moscow University in 1872, and then as a military doctor participated in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877 -1878 (in particular, in the heroic defense of Sevastopol), for which he was awarded the Order of Stanislav and the nobility.

In 1891, 9 years after the death of her husband, S.L. Frank's mother - Rosalia Moiseevna Rossiyanskaya - remarried the pharmacist V.I. will ". As a child, Semyon Frank was educated at home by his grandfather, Moisei Mironovich Rossiyansky, who was one of the founders of the Jewish community in Moscow in the 1860s and from whom he took an interest in the philosophical problems of religion. Grandfather was a deeply religious and religiously educated person. He brilliantly knew the Hebrew language, the Bible, ancient sacred literature; and when he was dying, he took from Semyon (who was then 14 years old) the word: always study the Scriptures, Hebrew and theology. The philosopher himself later recalled: “Formally, I did not fulfill his covenant, but what my heart, my mind, my spiritual quest and, finally, my Christianity (he converted to Orthodoxy in 1912) were directed towards, all this was natural and an organic continuation of the lessons I learned from my grandfather. " His stepfather also had a significant influence on the formation of the worldview of the young S. Frank, but on the other hand: on his recommendation, he got acquainted with the works of the Russian democrats Mikhailovsky, Pisarev, Lavrov.

In 1892, the S. Frank family moved to Nizhny Novgorod where he graduated from high school. While still a high school student, S.L. Frank took part in Marxist circles, under the influence of which he then entered Faculty of Law Moscow University. While still a schoolboy and then a student, he was interested in Marxism (like N. Berdyaev, S. Bulgakov and the Trubetskoy brothers in his youth), because his supporters assured that Marxism finally provides a scientific explanation of social processes. S. Frank gladly studied Karl Marx's Capital (then only the first volume came out), because he, like any young man with a developed intellect, was attracted by the fact that this huge book, written in a heavy Hegelian language, but who understood it, that reached some heights. However, later, having already become a fairly prominent sociologist, S. Frank mercilessly criticized Marxist philosophy and sociology, showing their helplessness and extrascientific nature. He pointed out that all these words that were written around, all these thick volumes actually "gave birth to a mouse."

For participation in Marxist circles, S. Frank was arrested. He spends some time in prison (1899), and then turns out to be exiled. Soon after, he went abroad, where he worked in Berlin and Munich. It was in the 1890s. he finally breaks with the revolutionary milieu (mainly Socialist-Revolutionaries and populists), because his own scientific thinking by that time had already formed on completely different foundations.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the first published work of S. L. Frank, The Theory of Marx's Value (1900), was devoted precisely to the criticism of Marxism. In 1902, in the collection Problems of Idealism, his first philosophical study (Nietzsche and Love for the Far Away) was published - since that time, S. L. Frank's work has become entirely associated with the problems of philosophy itself.

In 1908, the philosopher gets married and begins to work on his master's thesis, in which he raises the most important questions of the theory of knowledge. After passing the master's exam (1912) S. L. Frank became a privat-docent at the University of St. Petersburg and in the same year converted to the Orthodox faith. In 1915. he defends his master's thesis ("The Subject of Knowledge"), in which he concerns the ontological conditions of the possibility of intuition as a direct perception of reality, thereby adjoining the current of intuitionism that was just emerging in Europe at that time.

The book "The Soul of Man", published in 1917, was presented by S. L. Frank in 1918 as a doctoral dissertation, but because of the outbreak of the revolution and the civil war, its defense did not take place. In 1917, S. L. Frank was asked to become the dean of the Faculty of Philosophy at Saratov University, one of the last centers of intellectual freedom. But then he returned to Moscow and in 1922 was arrested there and, together with his family - his wife and three children, was expelled from Russia on the famous "philosophical steamer", on which N. Berdyaev and two hundred other people who made up the Russian intellectual elite sailed. objectionable to the Bolshevik regime.

The European world was no stranger to Frank, as he spoke several languages ​​fluently. He originally settled down to teach in Berlin. The philosopher lectured in Berlin, Paris and worked a lot. During these years he wrote the famous book The Meaning of Life, addressed primarily to young people; the book "The Downfall of Idols", in which he debunked Marxism and some other false and outdated, in his opinion, concepts. At the same time, he wrote the books "Light in the Dark" and "Spiritual Foundations of Society", where he showed that a healthy society can only be when it has a spiritual foundation.

In the thirties, under the Nazis, S.L. Frank was deprived of his chair in Germany, he left for France and finally, after the German occupation, was forced to emigrate to England, to London, where he lived in the last post-war years until his death in 1950 g.

In the philosophical doctrine of S. L. Frank, one of the central places is occupied by such a pervasive theme for Russian religious philosophy (starting with V. Solovyov) as the theme of total unity. In its line, S. L. Frank believed that there are serious philosophical and logical arguments against subjective idealism. Since subjective idealism comes from the "I", which stands at the center of the universe. In dialogue with the world, a person discovers something in himself - that which can be called "you". But there is also something else - what we call "we". Like his predecessors, Sergei Trubetskoy and Vladimir Solovyov, he emphasized that human consciousness, human "I" is not cut off from each other. Real cognition, real being are possible only when contact arises between people, unity arises. We do not live on isolated islands, the philosopher emphasized, but on a single continent. And this continent, which unites all of us, is the last and true subject of knowledge. A person cognizes not only the reflection of his own feelings, but also cognizes a certain substrate, depth.

For S. L. Frank, as a philosopher, the relationship between science and religion was very important. Because he was not only a philosopher, but also a sociologist and a religious scholar. He has one small but fundamentally important book called Religion and Science. It was reprinted many times in the West, but for the first time it came out in those years when there was fierce anti-religious propaganda. In it, S. L. Frank briefly answers the questions posed by the era. “We affirm,” he says, “contrary to the prevailing opinion, that religion and science do not and cannot contradict one another, for the simple reason that they speak of completely different things, a contradiction is possible only where two opposite statements are expressed about the same subject. " He explains his idea with a number of specific examples. A man sits on a train, sits motionless; a neighbor turns to him and says: "Can you sit still?" He says: "Excuse me, I am already sitting motionless." Which one is right? Of course, the person who says that he sits motionless is right. But the one who reproached him is also right, because he is rushing at high speed - with a train. They speak on different levels. The approaches to the same phenomenon can be so different that it is impossible to put them on the same plane. It is the same with regard to science and religion, the thinker argues. Here are his words: “... science takes the world as a closed system of phenomena and studies the relationships between these phenomena outside the relationship of the world as a whole, and therefore, each, even the smallest part to its highest basis, to its root cause, to its absolute the beginning from which he came and on which he rests. " Science takes as a working hypothesis that the world is a ready-made closed system. "Religion, however, cognizes precisely the relation of the world, and therefore of man, to this absolute fundamental principle of being, to God, and from this knowledge it draws an understanding of the general meaning of being, which remains outside the field of vision of science."

To understand the worldview and psychological concept of S. L. Frank, his book The Soul of Man, first published in 1917, is of key importance. foreign languages, including Japanese, Czech, Polish, German, English, etc. This book brilliantly analyzes the issue of the unity of spiritual life, which cannot be cut, cannot be divided. This unity concerns not only our “I”, but also the field in which those “I” to which we are turned are located. That is, "I", then "we" and, finally, some mysterious substrate, which is the incomprehensible.

The ideas of "Human Soul" are organically linked with another work of S. L. Frank - "The Meaning of Life", where he, showing the unconditional primacy of the spiritual over the material, at the same time substantiates the necessity and meaningfulness of everyday life of a person. In it, in particular, he writes about this: “The covenant not to worry about tomorrow, for“ his anger prevails for days ”, there is not only a covenant not to overload oneself with excessive earthly concerns, but at the same time the requirement to limit oneself to concerns about real life, and not about objects of dreams and abstract thoughts. Today I live, and the people around me live; today there is a matter of will and life. Tomorrow is the realm of dreams and abstract possibilities. Tomorrow it is easy to accomplish the greatest feats, to bless the whole world, to start an intelligent life. Today, now, it is difficult to overcome and destroy one's weakness, it is difficult to give a beggar and a sick person a minute of attention, to help him and a few, it is difficult to force oneself to perform a small moral deed. But it is this small thing, this overcoming of oneself, albeit in trifles, this at least an insignificant manifestation of effective love for people is my duty, it is a direct expression and the closest test of the degree of true meaningfulness of my life. " Proceeding from such premises, he absolutely logically comes to the conclusion: “Thus, the external, worldly work, being a derivative of the main, spiritual work and only being comprehended by it, should stand in our common spiritual life in its proper place, so that the normal spiritual balance. The forces of the spirit, strengthened and nourished from within, should freely pour out, for faith without works is dead; the light coming from the depths must illuminate the darkness outside. But the forces of spirit should not go into service and captivity to the senseless forces of the world, and darkness should not drown out the eternal Light. This is, after all, that living Light that enlightens every person who comes into the world; this is the God-man Christ himself, who is for us "the way, truth and life" and who precisely because of this is the eternal and inviolable meaning of our life. "

Having resolved for himself at the level of methodology and epistemology the problem of the correlation and interaction of "I", "you" and "we", S. L. Frank then uses these developments in his social theory. So, he had a negative attitude towards collectivism, which oppresses the individual. Any diktat, in his opinion, contradicts freedom, and divine unity cannot exist without freedom, it is free in its very essence.

Proceeding from this, S. L. Frank makes a disappointing diagnosis of socialism: “Socialism in its basic socio-philosophical idea is to replace the entire individual will with the collective will ... replacing it with the existence of a“ collective ”, as if to blind or glue the monads into one continuous the dough of the "masses" is a senseless idea that violates the basic irreducible principle of the public and can only lead to paralysis and decomposition of society. It is based on an insane and blasphemous dream that for the sake of a planned and orderly economy and a fair distribution of economic benefits, a person is able to give up his freedom, from his “I” and become completely and without a remainder a cog in the social machine, an impersonal environment for the action of common forces. In fact, it cannot lead to anything other than the unbridled tyranny of despotic power and stupid passivity or bestial revolt of subjects. "

S. L. Frank's social theory was not just a theory for him - his political position was always principled. When, at the end of the war, N. Berdyaev, as a sign of solidarity with the belligerent Russia, wanted to accept Soviet citizenship and involuntarily got carried away by the calls of those who came from Soviet Union and said that now we will have freedom, now everything will be fine with us, S. L. Frank was outraged. He wrote: “I knew people who were assigned the task of attracting emigrants. One hierarch, whom I knew, in general, a noble man, went to Paris with a whole bag of Russian soil: he threw it from the balcony, emigrants caught it with tears and took Soviet passports, and left straight for the camps. " It was a tragedy for many people. Some wanted to believe, others did not want to believe - it was suspicious: those who were leaving disappeared, as if they had sunk into the water, all information ceased to come from them. But the moment was joyful - victory was approaching. S. Frank had an acute disagreement with N. Berdyaev on this matter, S. Frank wrote to N. Berdyaev that he had succumbed to the influence and thought that everything was fine there, behind the cordon, but he, S. Frank, did not believe in it, believes that tyranny continues its work, despite the victory of the people.

Speaking about the significance of S. L. Frank and his teachings for modern times, it would be most appropriate to quote here the words of Father Alexander Me: “... in his philosophy, Frank showed that the religious worldview, Christianity is by no means something irrational. Now it often happens that a person, having turned to the Christian faith, thinks that for this he must throw overboard his thinking, his logic, his reason. And people like Vladimir Solovyov, Sergei Trubetskoy or Semyon Frank show that the powerful work of the mind not only does not undermine the foundations of the religious worldview, but, on the contrary, gives it meaning, and sometimes even justification. Of course, the fundamental rationale for Frank was his experience, the deep experience of comprehending reality as a whole, the deep experience of contact with the divine as something that can never be defined by human language. But this experience, common for all mankind, for all Christianity, he passed through the crystallizing gates of reason and was able to tell about it not only in the language of poetry, in the language of mysticism, but also in the transparent, clear language of the sage-philosopher. And Frank remained a sage not only on the pages of his books, but also in his appearance - a calm, clear, imperturbable, happy man, despite the mournful pages of his life (exile, wandering around Europe), despite all the bitterness of our century. He walked along it and looked like a burning candle, which is not shaken by the wind. "

The reasons for the existential crisis that occurred at the turn of two eras, the collapse as a result of the "October coup" in 1917, all kinds of idols, abstract humanistic values, superficially educational understanding of the individual. Analysis of the personality, its inner world, the ontology of this world, the connection of man with being, with God, the manifestation of human being in creativity, art, morality, religion - all these are the themes of F.
The most important problem of philosophy F. - the problem of being, the study of which is devoted to his main book. “Incomprehensible. Ontological in the philosophy of religion ”(Paris, 1939). As a result of a change in the usual practical, utilitarian attitude, we can, according to F., open up a completely different kind of reality - the experience of being. Everything known, the familiar is revealed to us as an incomprehensible mystery, and the greater the more it is rooted in the last depths of being - in concrete reality there is more than in abstract contents, in a living being there is more than in an inorganic body, in the human soul there is more than in plant or animal. Therefore, any (for F. "reality" and "" coincide in meaning) in its concreteness is metalalogical and therefore super-rational, i.e. incomprehensible in essence. It surpasses everything that can be expressed in concepts, and the most subtle and accurate corresponds to the transdefinite essence of reality only in the way (using I. V. Goethe) “a fairly knitted cross is suitable for a living body, which is crucified on it”. Being is, directly experiencing itself, it is the inner root and bearer of everything that exists, incl. and consciousness. Being, which is deeper and more primary than either consciousness, is not something that can be revealed and illuminated from outside by K.-N. instance of being, external to him. It is “having” and “being”, the unity of being and being-for-itself as the ideal possession of oneself. This all-embracing being is always with us, with us and for us, it does not depend on the boundaries of what the cognitive gaze reveals in it, because we ourselves in this being, arise from it, are immersed in it and are aware of ourselves through its own self-revelation. in us.
F. in his works realized a unique consciousness, trying to answer the questions: what is between transcendental and psychological consciousness, between a priori forms of "pure" consciousness and a concrete living person. Perhaps a metaphysical soul reality? Is the spiritual reality, the stream of experiences of consciousness that element, which is the element of humanity? F. continued his studies of the human psyche, begun by W. Dilthey and A. Bergson, and gave his original interpretation of this complex sphere of human existence. Philosophy of the soul, F. believed, that which alone deserves the name of psychology, until very recently developed only due to the fact that it was constantly fed by religious intuitions, depended on the experimental achievements of religious consciousness. Only a religious person, according to F., feels in himself “the soul I live”. Such a religious experience is directly opposite to empirical psychology, for which mental life is a mechanical mosaic of some kind of “soul stones” called sensations, ideas, etc. At the same time, the attitude of a person to reality, the orientation of the human soul towards, which forms the very essence of what is called human life - all this remains outside the field of vision of the so-called. empirical psychology. Meanwhile, mental life is not a heap of mental grains of sand, but a continuous and integral unity that embraces mental states, the entire time stream of a person's life from birth to death. This is not an objective picture unfolding before us, not a rationally conceived picture of the subject, but life that forms the human being and is perceived at the moment of its experience. In such areas of being as art, moral and social life, taken not from the side of the objects at which they are directed, and not from the side of their connection with nature and the process of their external realization, but in their natural inner being as a form of human consciousness or human life - we have, according to F., the expression of this own inner nature of man, which forms the subject of his self-knowledge.
In the book. "God is with us", "The meaning of life", "Light in the darkness" F. expressed a deep modern state of spirituality, tried to show the ways of "salvation" of the individual in a mass society, in the context of the devaluation of basic humanitarian values.

Philosophy: Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M .: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

FRANK Semyon Ludvigovich

Most of the people on earth are believers and are related to one of the religious trends. Someone more, some less, but people believe in the existence of a higher power and a great creator. There is no doubt that faith is very important for any person and allows a person not only to live, but to live with pleasure.

In turn, psychology, like modern science, does not speak of the existence of a higher power, but it seems as if it does not deny it.

I'm afraid I was mistaken in my previous sentence. Surely psychologists, as representatives of one of the psychological directions, or simply from the standpoint of an ordinary person, have their own point of view on this topic.

In general, this is what today's round table will be about.

It seems to me that religion and science began to merge a long time ago, if we talk about the phenomenon faith, and not just about the performance of a number of rituals and adherence to some kind of moral standards. Psychology does not deal with rituals and morality, yes, but not because it is a science, but because it is designed to build a kind of therapeutic contact that would help the client through a non-judgmental look. They are just different tasks. And a psychologist cannot and does not have the right to talk about, for example, whether it is good to have sex before marriage or whether homosexuality is a sin. His job is to accept a person as he is, to help form his goals and find his own path, even if this path turns out to be the path of an atheist or a skeptic.

But on the other hand, it is VERA that can be a serious help to a psychologist. For example, scientists have conducted a number of studies of the state of prayer, and found that it is fundamentally different from the 3 main ones: REM sleep, NREM sleep, and wakefulness. The state of a person during sincere prayer is not similar, according to the encephalogram, to any of those mentioned. And it can significantly change the situation inside the human body - for example, there is a recovery from diseases that doctors considered almost hopeless. Accordingly, a psychologist can use a person's faith as an additional support in the person himself to achieve the goals of this person.

There are situations when the psychologist has to raise the question of faith himself. Not about religion (I share these concepts, a believer may not be religious at all and it is not necessary that faith and religion should intersect at all). And about faith. Because a person sometimes faces questions in which the usual means of psychology are not enough. The young spouse died. Why is that? How to survive? Just to accept a seemingly "meaningless" death is not something that a psychologist can help here. Because the client most often tries to find meaning in this death and in his life after it. And these are already questions to which the science of psychology is not able to give an answer. And then we need to go further - to help the client to realize whether he can believe in something, what is his general relationship with the universe, with the forces that surround him. And a psychologist can help a person to form his faith (not to impose a religion! But to form faith and trust in higher powers, and the client himself will decide what look for them to choose). Or, for example, a sick child was born. How did it happen? You can work with the mother's guilt and work it off, but she will continue to look for the cause and meaning of what happened, even if the guilt goes away. What is it for her? What is meant to teach parents? What to rely on in yourself to try to cure the child? Without faith, even if only in the possibility of a person himself, the treatment of a complex disease is a heavy burden. And again, we need to help to form faith, and often the clients themselves put their request in this way.

I had a chance to graduate from the Faculty of Philosophy and study at a theological college, and therefore I read almost all religious "primary sources" - the Bible, Koran, Dhammapada, Tao de Jing, Vedas, Confucius, etc. And I am more and more imbued with the thought that in fact there is one and the same knowledge, but with different accents inherent in different civilizations and cultures. And this knowledge is very helpful in psychology and complements psychology. Because the clients themselves often go beyond a simple analysis of everyday situations.

There is some line, a line beyond which psychology is powerless. For example, the client realizes as a result of therapy that certain of his life collisions and vicissitudes were caused by negative parental experience. Working through this experience, letting go of grievances. But she is tormented by the question: why did I end up in this particular family? Why did I get such parents? The person himself often wants to go beyond "this is so and everything, nothing can be done".

Viktor Frankl is for me one of the brilliant examples of the ability to combine science and religion. He argued (and wrote a book based on observations in a concentration camp) that it is faith that helps a person to pass the most difficult psychological tests, to survive even in the most inhuman conditions. The highest meaning is what keeps a person afloat when everything around him promises a threat.

And religion - you can choose it partly according to your own taste. Or accept what came from the ancestors. Religion is just a shell for faith, and if a religious person is not filled with faith, then he is simply the one who performs rituals out of fear that a higher power will "be offended" by him, trying to make ritual sacrifices "just in case." But such a confession of God does not really help, it does not give those beneficial conditions for the psyche, capable of curing diseases and giving the will to live.

It seems to me (but this is only my personal opinion in this matter) that the psychologist cannot completely ignore this phenomenon of faith. Psychology, if translated from Greek, is the science of the soul. And the soul is inclined to believe, needs it. In addition, the soul cannot be fully investigated by scientific means, quantitative methods and calculus. And therefore it is necessary to go beyond the boundaries of scientific methods. If we are truly willing to deal with the soul, not just behavioral reflexes and biosocial instincts.

Above, colleagues said about a lot and about important things! I will not repeat myself ...

I collaborated with an organization that, in addition to a wide range of activities, also developed a helpline for Orthodox Christians.

I will tell you my vision on this issue: the majority of people who turned to a psychologist (by phone) do not want to do anything for themselves, for their spiritual comfort - preferring to devote most of their time to prayers, in the expectation that everything will work out by itself. Only a few "get" to the face-to-face consultation. There are many people who talk about "demons" and other evil spirits (I never understood this!) And at the same time do not want to accept that it is important to start with themselves, and not blame others who, in their opinion, prevent them from being happy! Somehow about the commandment "Love your neighbor as yourself" is forgotten. Or not understood ...

It is also important to realize that one believer and another believer - differently "believe".

At the Orthodox exhibition in the Manege, I communicated with a fairly high rank in the Church, which I had visited the day before ... systemic family constellations! This, you see, is amazing! The method is extraordinary, although its founder is a priest (in the past). This person, enthusiastically describing his impressions, is open to accepting something new, does not deny what he has not seen, has not read, is not familiar, he is flexible and wise!

Someone does not accept psychology, someone does not accept religion - everyone has their own path in this life! Many, after the psychologist, go to the priest, and someone, after confession, rushes to the psychologist.

Religion and psychology are not that incompatible ... They are like two roads that run in parallel, then intersect, then merge into one wide one!

It seems to me that religion and psychology are incompatible. Take Christianity, it teaches humility, forgiveness of offenses, giving up the caftan if asked for a shirt, setting the right cheek if hit on the left, teaches that problems are given for the good and for spiritual growth, that it is not necessary to hinder evil and adversity, but to accept them humbly. And psychology teaches and strives to help people value themselves more, focus on their needs and desires, be confident and defend their boundaries, and even be aggressive towards the aggressor, i.e. psychology teaches us not to accept difficult situations and not to accept those who attack us, but to fight them back and overcome difficulties. Religion - self-denial and humility, psychology - love yourself (I am the center) and overcoming.

« psychology, like modern science, does not speak of the existence of a higher power, but it seems that it does not deny it ... ..»

Psychology, as a science, says a lot and in its own language, including about a higher power, calling it collective unconscious - one of the forms of the unconscious, the same for society as a whole and is a product of inherited brain structures. The main difference between the collective unconscious and the individual is that it is common to different people, does not depend on individual experience and the history of the development of the individual, it is a kind of single "common denominator" for different people. " From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

There is no person without faith, we are in a space where we simply would not survive if we did not perceive many things on the basis of faith.

Well, let's imagine lessons in school, where we are constantly trying to test all the formulas presented to us as researched experimentally.

Man is a social being and lives in close dependence with people.

Great saints, leaving people for a while and receiving some signs and enlightenment of consciousness, still return to people or allow a huge number of people to their cells and caves!

We just need each other in order to exist and perceive and receive some kind of developing our CONSCIOUSNESS catharsis, we just need the very OTHER person whom we, of course, BELIEVE!

I really like this topic raised by you and has a more philosophical orientation. I agree with my favorite author, A. V. Kurpatov, that a psychologist, first of all, should be a philosopher. He has a very interesting book on this topic, "The Philosophy of Psychology New methodology". The book examines the religious, philosophical and scientific worldview systems, as well as a methodological analysis of the development of psychological knowledge. He is not the first and not the last who touches on the topic of faith and global issues, what still determines our consciousness?

I am writing this article and I believe, I believe that both my colleagues and the author of the topic and readers will read these lines, and someone, perhaps, will write me their comments. Isn't this a part of my consciousness.

I believe that people: mothers and fathers, reading our articles, talking to us or reading our answers, think and stop screaming and humiliating their children, of different ages.

Reconciling science and religion is obtained by William Arntz in "The Book of Great Questions. What do we even know?" and in the documentary on which this book is written - Forces of thought: What the Bleep Do We Know !?(William Arntz, Betsy Chase):

“Forty years ago, innovative thinkers led by Professor Abraham Maslow realized that psychology focused almost exclusively on problems and violations: neuroses, psychosis, dysfunctions. Why not study healthy or even "exceptionally healthy" individuals, they thought? Why not explore the highest and highest human capabilities - to help everyone develop these powers ? ………….

Perhaps the greatest legacy of Maslow and his colleagues is that they conveyed to the people a simple truth: each of us has tremendous hidden potential! We all have powers and abilities that have never been fully realized ”!

Some philosophers call psychology - the religion of the future. And there is some truth in this. An appointment with a psychologist often reminds both clients and psychologists of a confession to a priest. For many millennia, conversations have relieved mental stress in a person. He reflected on the sin he had committed and strove to end the torment of his conscience. It's just that in modern confession, we pay more attention to explaining to a person how to overcome this very " sin"Haunting a person.

And the role of a preacher, you must agree colleagues, is also inherent in us, it is enough just to read some of our answers. And you know, it doesn't scare me at all. I often like to repeat that even before psychology, people lived with the help of religious ministers, they strove to be above animal reflexes and they succeeded. Psychology relies not only on the discoveries of Freud and Pavlov, Vygotsky and Ukhtomsky, Bekhterev and Sechenov, but also on those who came before them and relies on research and the philosophical legacy we inherited from the great teachers and saints from the East and West.

Good luck to everyone and success.

In my opinion, belief in a higher power (and it has many types, including belief in God) is a way to support oneself in life. God is a support for man. He teaches life, gives commandments, watches over you, judges and decides whether your soul will go to hell or to heaven. It is an external support. It is necessary for many people who do not have an inner support, if you will, an inner God. Those who have this inner support do not need external objects of influence and control over themselves, they do not need rituals and magical actions in order to make decisions and carry out their life activities. All this happens in their curled up form inside, in the soul, in the psyche. But what happens is essentially the same thing as the believers in the church. Simply, in my opinion, the difference is whether there is an inner support in a particular person. If it is not there, he seeks support in God through religion.

It's hard for me to describe this inner support, it's a complicated thing. But it seems to me that this is some kind of mechanism of self-regulation and decision-making when we check them against our inner yardstick, our inner God. It is precisely psychology, it seems to me, that teaches the tools, methods and ways of forming this very inner support.

I would not want this thesis of mine to be perceived as a contrast between religion and psychology, or as the fact that an internal support is better than an external one. Not at all. This is simple various ways to get the support you need to live, but they are both necessary and important, because someone can create this support inside, and someone needs external. And that, and another in our life was, is and will continue. It is a matter of choice, the personal choice of each person.

Religion and Psychology ...

Contact ..., interpenetration ..., disagreements (?) ...

Speaking about psychology as a practitioner, I mean psychotherapy, psychological help, counseling, support.

That which in religion is called counseling, mentoring.

In my opinion, all psychological teachings, all theories and practices came out of religions and continue to feed on life-giving meanings and practices taken from the same place.

All theories are part of the teachings of the Church Fathers, translated into the professional language of theories by psychologists.

I say this without belittling such arrangements.

Such a topic is a topic for a large and, rather, theoretical conversation about religion and psychology.

For me, as a practice, the concept of FAITH is important, without which I do not see the work of a practical psychologist, psychotherapist.

It is difficult to resist and not to quote the words of his friend, psychotherapist A.E. Alekseychik from his book "Psychotherapy with Life":

“Very few patients, let alone healthy ones, have any real idea of ​​faith, even the simplest one, not to mention faith in all its complexity, concreteness, dynamics, liveliness, vitality, efficiency, development, personality. Most often, faith is understood as a consumer: it is better to believe than not to believe, one must believe, I want to believe, show, prove .... They do not imagine that faith can be general, concrete, fanatical, perverted, powerless, crafty ... Even professionals do not recognize, do not recognize the "miraculous" faith: doctors - religious, priests - the faith of the sick. They do not know how to "use" faith, "serve with faith and truth."

Faith is the main, one might say, "trunk" essence "(psychotherapy - my note - GI).

W-loyalty, no-trust, little-faith, trust-are secondary, although they can be successfully worked with.

How blessed are the lives of those people who from childhood receive such concrete faith instead of knowledge. Believing that father and mother are for him the most kind, best, smart…. Exemplary... What kind of him most…. That he is for them the most, well, if not the best, then the appropriate one.

Unfortunately in modern world, in our world this does not happen often. From childhood, people do not receive such a "small", warming, activating faith, with tradition, in the church, in the community, in their parish. And they will have to look for such faith with a delay, in trouble, in pain, in illness. Or - in oblivion. Or in psychotherapy. "

The task of the psychotherapist - I think the main task - is to do so, to create such an "atmosphere" of work so that the patient - to trust, to believe, to come closer to faith - in himself, in his strengths and capabilities.

To see, hear, feel, understand - with faith - that his life to a greater extent can be different.

That his faith in himself, in another, can be healing.

I work with such concepts as soul, spirit.

The task is to help the patient - to open the soul. Towards yourself, towards new experiences and understandings.

I work - not with the unconscious, but with the soul. And then it works - with a soul.

But at the same time I remember that religion is concerned with the salvation of the soul. Psychotherapy is a secular craft - healing the soul.

There is no Orthodox, Muslim, etc. psychotherapy.

But people are involved in psychotherapy. And faith helps a believer who is engaged in our work to see more clearly, deeper and wider a person with his difficulties, helps to find ways out - to the light, to life.

From delusions, from childhood - to youth, adulthood and maturity.

To a healthy childhood, to a healthy adulthood, maturity.

To wisdom.

To accept life and find meaning in it.