Variants of Images of the Future in the Work of Lev P. Karsavin

ABSTRACT

This article examines the evolution of Lev P. Karsavin, the connection between the philosopher’s historical perspective and his ontological constructions, his postulation of the personhood principle of being’s organization, and the common mindsets of the philosophy of all-unity. The author of this article distinguishes between reflections on the future found in Karsavin’s pre-emigration work and the image of the future he creates within the framework of the Eurasianist paradigm. This article presents three variants of representation of the future: the universal, the national-cultural, and the state. The author analyzes the image of the future associated with the coming-to-be of the All-One Humanity, its transformation into a truly symphonic person, and show how this image turns into a concept of the future that affirms the self-development of national culture. The prospect of developing Russia-Eurasia as an ideocratic and statist state that acts as a form of manifestation of the national culture represents the final stage of this evolution.

KEYWORDS:

• Lev P. Karsavin
• philosophy of all-unity
• doctrine of personhood
• image of the future
• image of Russia’s future

Notes

Notes have been renumbered for this edition.—Ed.

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20. The Slavophile term sobornost’/sobornyi indicates a form of communal sensibility with a religious and spiritual texture; it is related to the word sobor, derived from “gathering” and now used for cathedral or synod.—Trans.

21. L.P. Karsavin, “Ideokratiia kak sistema universalizma,” Evraziia, 1929, no. 12.

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24. P.N. Savitskii, “Poddanstvo idei,” in Mir Rossii—Evraziia: Antologiia (Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, 1995).

25. L.P. Karsavin, O lichnosti, in L.P. Karsavin, Religiozno-filosofskie sochineniia, ed. S.S. Khoruzhii (Moscow: Renessans, 1992), vol. 1, pp. 3–234.

26. L.P. Karsavin, Filosofiia istorii (St. Petersburg: AO Komplekt, 1993), p. 53.

27. Ibid.

28. Ibid., p. 200.

29. Ibid., p. 263.

30. Ibid., p. 263.

31. L.P. Karsavin, “Osnovy politiki,” in Mir Rossii—Evraziia: Antologiia, pp. 111–115.

32. S.L. Frank, “Russkoe mirovozzrenie,” in S.L. Frank, Dukhovnye osnovy obshchestva (Moscow: Respublika, 1995), p. 483.

33. Karsavin, “Osnovy politiki,” pp. 111–113.

34. Ibid., p. 129.

35. Ibid., p. 116.

36. Ibid., p. 128.

37. Ibid., p. 129.

38. Ibid., pp. 111-115.