This volume explores the influence of the Socratic legacy on philosophy and literature in the Russian, East European, and Soviet contexts, including the work of Skovoroda, Radishchev, Herzen, Dostoevsky, Rozanov, Bely, Narbut, Bulgakov, and many others.

This is an in-depth investigation into the life and work of one of the most prominent philosophers of Russian and Russian-Soviet history, Merab Mamardashvili, all of whose ideas are collected here in one book. However, each of his ideas leads much further - deep into philosophy itself, its cultural origins, and to the basis and roots of all human thought.

Traces the life of the mentor gas attendant of "Way of the Peaceful Warrior," discussing his origins as an orphan with both Jewish and Cossack ties, his journey from a military academy to America, and his discovery of how to live a peaceful life.

First published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This title was first published in 2000. This work identifies the differences between the Russian intellectual approach to reading Plato and that of other European countries. This study offers a complex perspective on Russian philosophical learnings up to 1930. The book contains five chapters with the first aiming to provide the general institutional context in which Russian 19th century Plato scholarship developed, caught as it were, between the rise of the historical sciences and the heavy hand of state interference in standardizing the educational system in the name of nation building and modernization. The second chapter attempts to illustrate how Plato served as a reference in Russian philosophical culture and the third deals with aspects of Russian philosophy of law. In the fourth chapter, the author shifts his approach to compare and contrast a number of reactions to a single dialogue, the "Republic" and in the final concluding chapter, addresses the question of whether it is legitimate to speak of a Russian Platonism.

In nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia an orphaned child born of Jewish and Cossack blood grows up in a land of wealthy aristocrats, struggling peasants, and growing discontent. Sent to an elite military academy at the tender age of four, Sergei Ivanov (Socrates) comes of age training to protect a way of life he doesn't understand. When a sudden death forces Sergei to flee, he escapes into the wilderness. With nothing to cling to but a memory of his grandfather and the promise of a gift buried near St. Petersburg, Sergei journeys across a harsh land to seek his place in the world. The adventure that unfolds is not about the revolutions of history, but about the revolution in one man's heart. A stirring story of tragedy and triumph emerges as Sergei encounters mentors and masters who reveal secrets about the arts of war and, ultimately, the path to peace. From the heights of love to the depths of despair, from the threat of a mortal enemy to the search for a child he has never met, Sergei Ivanov's odyssey unlocks hidden wisdom at the heart of life. He could never have imagined that from the moment of his birth he was destined to become the peaceful warrior who would change the lives of millions worldwide.

This groundbreaking work by one of the world's foremost theoreticians of culture and scholars of Russian philosophy gives for the first time a systematic examination of the development of Russian philosophy during the late Soviet period. Countering the traditional view of an intellectual wilderness under the Soviet regime, Mikhail Epstein provides a comprehensive account of Russian thought of the second half of the 20th century that is highly sophisticated without losing clarity. It provides new insights into previously mostly ignored areas such as late-Soviet Russian nationalism and Eurasianism, religious thought, cosmism and esoterism, and postmodernism and conceptualism. Epstein shows how Russian philosophy has long been trapped in an intellectual prison of its own making as it sought to create its own utopia. However, he demonstrates that it is time to reappraise Russian thought, now freed from the bonds of Soviet totalitarianism and ideocracy but nevertheless dangerously engaged into new nationalist aspirations and metaphysical radicalism. We are left with not only a new and exciting interpretation of recent Russian intellectual history, but also the opportunity to rethink our own philosophical heritage.

Since its inception, philosophy has struggled to perfect individual understanding through discussion and dialogue based in personal, poetic, or dramatic investigation. The positions of such philosophers as Socrates, Spinoza, Rousseau, Nietzsche, Foucault, and Derrida differ in almost every respect, yet these thinkers all share a common method of practicing philosophy--not as a detached, intellectual discipline, but as a worldly art. What is the love that turns into knowledge and how is the knowledge we seek already a form of love? Reading key texts from Socrates to Derrida, this book addresses the fundamental tension between love and knowledge that informs the history of Western philosophy. LoveKnowledge returns to the long tradition of philosophy as an exercise not only of the mind but also of the soul, asking whether philosophy can shape and inform our lives and communities.

Socrates, the great Athenian philosopher, was born during the Golden Age of Greece, one of the most glorious periods in human history. He grew up during the exciting days of Pericles in Athens, in the midst of the flowering of drama and poetry, the creation of magnificent architecture and sculpture, the writing of literature that has inspired mankind for 2,500 years. The glory of Athens, inspired by the Athenians’ victory over the Persians against great odds, lasted less than 50 years. Socrates lived to see his city conquered by the Spartans from without and by a terrible plague from within. He tried to convince his fellow citizens to examine their own beliefs and behavior. The Athenians, looking for someone to blame for their troubles, arrested Socrates. They accused him of corrupting the young men who were his students. He refused to run away to save his life and was tried and executed.