Abstract
Solov’ëv in this chapter holds that there are three fundamental stages or “moments,” to use the Hegelian expression, of human social life. In the first, the human closed community is tied by blood and marriage. In the gens, to use the term employed by Lewis Morgan to whose work Solov’ëv specifically refers, we find human dignity realized in the most fundamental social sphere with respect to what is higher in the form of ancestor veneration. With the next stage, viz., life in the nation-state, we find human interactions increase not only quantitatively but also qualitatively. Whereas in the gens, morality largely concerned the family that surrounded the individual, in the nation-state morality, with its attendant obligations, concerns, in particular, an abstraction, viz., the state. Loyalty to the state takes a moral form, patriotism, which for all practical purposes is absent in the earlier phases of human sociality.
E] The first version of this chapter consisting of eight sections appeared as (A). In the first edition of the compiled book (B), these sections form the first eight sections of Chap. 8, pp. 250–279, and the chapter bears the same title as in the second edition of the compiled book.
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Notes
- 1.
C] as] Absent in B.
- 2.
C] For each of us … can we reach it.] Absent in B.
- 3.
C] would presuppose] presupposes B.
- 4.
C] real] actual B.
- 5.
C] We know that … of self-consciousness.] Absent in A
- 6.
C] through society.] by society. AB.
- 7.
C] them] it AB.
- 8.
C] them] it AB.
- 9.
E] That is, individualism or collectivism.
- 10.
C] wretches] beings AB.
- 11.
C] limit] boundary AB.
- 12.
C] are] appear AB.
- 13.
F] In terms of the inner connection between, and the relative distinction of, these terms, this sense of the image and likeness of God is in essence the same as that mentioned earlier in Part II. In fact, it is clear that an infinite power of representation and understanding of everything can give us only the image (the “schema”) of perfection, whereas an infinite aspiration, having as its goal the actual realization of perfection, is the beginning of our likeness to the living God, who is not only an ideal perfection, but an actual perfection to which we aspire. C] This entire note absent in AB.
- 14.
E] common concern] A reference to the views of Nikolaj F. Federov, with which Solov’ëv became acquainted already in early 1878 through Dostoyevsky. In an undated letter to Federov, though most likely from the mid-1880s, Solov’ëv wrote, “I accept your ‘project’ unconditionally and without hesitation. … For now, I will say only that your ‘project’ is the first movement forward of the human spirit along Christ’s path since the appearance of Christianity.” Pis’ma, vol. 2, p. 345. Federov’s main work was published posthumously by friends under the title Filosofija obshchego dela [Philosophy of the Common Concern]. See Federov 1906–1913.
- 15.
C] and legal] Absent in AB.
- 16.
C] and at its stage] Absent in AB.
- 17.
C] attitude towards it—not towards it in itself,] attitude—not towards this very content, AB.
- 18.
F] I take “gens” in the broad sense to indicate a group of people connected in a single closed community by ties of blood and marriage in whatever fundamental form this connection happens to take—be it “consanguine” or “punaluan,” matriarchical or patriarchical.
- 19.
C] the] our AB.
- 20.
C] pace] process AB.
- 21.
E] Lewis Henry Morgan (1818–1881), an American anthropologist whose studies of the gens organization of American Indian tribes led him to the claim that all human cultures develop along a single or unilinear path. Morgan’s 1864 work Ancient Society was to prove highly influential in comparative anthropology in subsequent decades.
- 22.
E] Morgan 1877: 90.
- 23.
C] culture] civilization AB.
- 24.
C] —the defense of one’s own … and the tribal union.] (the gens or blood revenge), remained unaltered with the formation of tribes and the tribal union. AB.
- 25.
C] forms] is AB.
- 26.
F] We can clarify this twofold point of view by an analogous example from a quite different sphere of relations. Even sincere and good Catholics can see the elimination of the Roman pope’s secular power and the abolition of the church as a state in different and frankly contradictory ways: either as a favorable condition for an increase of the inner moral authority of the pope, or as the deplorable belittling and debasement of his political role.
- 27.
E] A reference to one of Pushkin’s poems. “Gypsies” was written in 1824. In that year, Pushkin was banished for an indefinite period to his mother’s country estate for his alleged atheism. There, he was placed under police surveillance for 2 years.
- 28.
C] despite their supposed advantages] Absent in AB.
- 29.
F] Moreover, the same poet dedicates one of his more mature works “with respect” to the historian of the Russian state. E] Pushkin’s play Boris Godunov, written in 1825 and published in 1831 was dedicated to N. M. Karamzin (1766–1826), the author of the multi-volume History of the Russian State.
- 30.
C] in the sphere of religion, science and art, all] Absent in AB.
- 31.
E] A reference to, e.g., Hellen, the eponym of all the Greek tribes and himself the father of Dorus, the eponym of the Dorians, to Achæus, the eponym of the Achæns, and to Ion, the eponym of the Ionians.
- 32.
E] A reference to the work of Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903), who wrote, “The story of the foundation of Rome by refugees from Alba under the leadership of the sons of an Alban prince, Romulus and Remus, is nothing but a naïve attempt of primitive quasi-history. … Such tales, which profess to be historical but are merely improvised explanations of no very ingenious character, it is the first duty of history to dismiss.” Mommsen 1911: 45.
- 33.
E] In his Aeneid, Virgil tells of Dido, a princess of Tyre in Phoenica. Escaping tyranny in her own land, she ventured to Libya where she founded Carthage, a great city which Aeneas and his comrades, who survived the sack of Troy, visited seven years after the end of the Trojan War. Dido received the Trojans with hospitality. Having loved Aeneas, she felt betrayed when he left for Italy and committed suicide.
- 34.
E] A reference, of course, to Romulus and Remus, the central characters in the legend of Rome’s establishment.
- 35.
F] The absurdity of the points of view that negative historical criticism usually adopts avoids the general ridicule only thanks to the “gloom of time” in which the objects of its concern are hidden. If its favorite techniques and considerations were applied, for example, to Mohammad or to Peter the Great, there would be as little left of these historical heroes as there is of Dido or Romulus. Anyone who has read Whateley’s excellent little book on Napoleon has to agree that the biting significance of this mythological hero is revealed by the book’s use of the critical school’s rigorous principles. The book has a level of consistency, clarity and completeness that we find lacking in the more or less famous works of negative criticism, even though they were written not in jest but with the most serious of intentions. E] See Whateley 1985. This work originally published in 1819 was an attack on Hume’s position on miracles by showing that there is no evidence that Napoleon ever existed.
- 36.
C] with the participation of the ultimate units … the individual has always been the active principle] through the activity of the single elements that form it. The single element of human society is the individual, and the individual always was the dynamic principle A] with the participation of the single elements that form it. The single element of human society is the individual, who always was the active principle B.
- 37.
C] formations] footnote added here in AB: This important truth concerning the significance of the individual in history, which is rejected by certain popular theories, forms the dominant idea in many works of Professor N. I. Kareev, who from this point of view must be recognized as one of the nice and comforting phenomena of our contemporary literature. AB E] Regarding Kareev, see, for example, Kareev 1890. As for the other view, Solov’ëv had in mind at least the position expounded in L. Tolstoy’s War and Peace.
- 38.
C] can in no way be] in no way is AB.
- 39.
C] isolated group represents] group, as an independent whole, represents AB
- 40.
C] order.] organization. A.
- 41.
C] its general forms are] this very sphere is A.
- 42.
C] A personal accomplishment … human dignity.] Absent in AB.
- 43.
C] In the conflicts that originate from this,] In cases of such a conflict, AB.
- 44.
C] in the old] Absent in AB.
- 45.
C] the embodiment of the protective principle—] Absent in AB.
- 46.
C] political] Absent in AB
- 47.
C] It is impossible to agree … of Antigone as] Only a superficial and sentimental critique can see in Antigone AB.
- 48.
E] Greek: “I will stay with him, my brother; and my crime will be devotion” Sophocles 1973: 23, lines 72–73.
- 49.
E] Cf. Sophocles 1973: 24, lines 75–79.
- 50.
E] Cf. Sophocles 1973: 39, line 449. Here, Solov’ëv is clearly quoting from Antigone, but he omits in his text the quotation marks.
- 51.
E] Cf. Sophocles 1973: 39, lines 450–458.
- 52.
C] that has put on airs.] that has put on airs and become presumptuous. AB.
- 53.
C] popular] generally accepted AB.
- 54.
F] As is well known, the Greek word τύραννοζ did not originally have a bad meaning, but was used to designate any monarch. Thus, in the same trilogy of Sophocles the first drama is called οίδίπουζ τύραννοζ, which is not incorrectly translated as “Oedipus the King.” We should not translate this word differently in the Antigone in reference to Creon.
- 55.
E] This “Aristophanes” is commonly referred to in English-language literature as “Aristophanes of Byzantium.”
- 56.
E] Cf. Sophocles 1973: 28, lines 182–183.
- 57.
E] Cf. Sophocles 1973: 47, lines 667–668.
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Nemeth, T. (2015). Chapter 10 The Individual and Society. In: Nemeth, T. (eds) Vladimir Solov’ëv's Justification of the Moral Good. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12775-0_11
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