THE FORMATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT IN UKRAINE AND RUSSIA

1. Ukrainian philosophical culture and its specificity.

2. Philosophical thought of the times of Kyiv Rus, Renaissance,

Enlightenment, Romanticism and the second half of the XIX- XX-th centuries in Ukraine.

3. An interlude on Russian philosophy.The Polarisation between

Westerners and Slavophiles.The influence of Russian

literature upon philosophy.The Religious philosophy.

Characteristic features of Ukrainian worldview become apparent in a succession of philosophical teachings, which reflect the specificity of Ukrainian spirituality (and thus differ from all other philosophical currents), and therefore have the common name Ukrainian national philosophy. As Д.Chyzchevsky, І.Мyrchouk, as well as other researchers, believe, characteristic for this philosophy is the “philosophy of heart”. It based itself on the feature, that neither the facts of consciousness, nor logic reasoning are determined as dominating in the mental life of a person, but mental experience, which is based on the phenomena of the unconscious sphere, “heart”, “abyss” and defines the surface of our mind, i.e. intellect, common sense (Skovoroda, Gogol’, Jurkevych, Kulish). So it defines the predestination of a human being as a “small world”, “microcosmos”, because in the heart, as in the source of mental life, or in an “abyss”,everything is hidden, what exits in the world, since “microcosmos” is the analogue of the big world, “macrocosmos” (Stavrovets’kyj, Skovoroda, Gogol’, Jurkevych).

To characterize Ukrainian philosophical culture certain difficulties emerge, due to the fact that Ukrainian spiritual life was not always distinctly and clearly defined (i.e. that it was particularly Ukrainian cultural life). The degree of political dependence, as well as the level of national consciousness, in particular national consciousness of the intelligentsia, that is to say the most important preconditions of cultural development, also changed. Ukrainian history was for a certain period of time reduced to the level of “regional history” (Russian, partially Polish). As a result of it a significant number of prominent representatives of Ukrainian thought worked outside Ukraine, and, vice versa, the representatives of other countries took active part in cultural life of Ukraine.

Even the language, which can often be the criterion of ascription of a personality to this or that culture, even in this case it cannot be taken as such – for instance, due to the fact that almost none of the Ukrainian thinkers wrote in the Ukrainian language. Nevertheless, national peculiarities show up in their way of thinking, as it always happens, “spontaneously”. All this makes the boundaries of analysis of the history of Ukrainian philosophical thought very “vague”. On the one hand, apparently, we exclude those from this history, who wrote in other languages, or worked abroad – at least for reason, that the features of national character emerge in the thought and beyond the conscious will of the thinker. On the other hand, it was quite normal when German, Polish and Russian professors lived and worked in Ukraine. Naturally, without analysis of the creations of these foreign representatives, which influenced on Ukraine, the picture of cultural life in Ukraine would be incomplete.

The character of philosophical thought in Xth-XIIIth centuries was conditioned by the specificity of socio-economic development of Kyiv Rus’, with its system of conventional (feudal) economic relations. Processes, which took place in socio-economic life of the Kyiv state, stipulated the character of public opinion of those times.

It is natural that Christianity became the predominant religion. New conditions of economic and socio-cultural life of Kyiv Rus’ evinced the necessity of a new religion. At first, the attempt was made to create so called “own” religion, using the traditional conceptions of eastern Slavs. After having failed, they searched for a religion, which would allow Rus’ to enter the groundwork of European culture. This attempt, as we know, resulted with the christening of Kyiv Rus’.

The history of development of public opinion at times of Kyiv Rus’ can be divided into three stages. First was the period of origination (X century) of Kyiv Rus’ up to 70th of the XIth century that was characterized by the significant progress of the state in economic and cultural life, as well as in the sphere of international relations. The second stage was from 70th of the XI century to 20th of the XIIth century; a reflection of social antagonisms in public opinion can be noticed. During this period, as well as in Europe, two motives were predominant in the development of spiritual life of Kyiv Rus’: anxiety for the future of our state under the real threat of foreign conquerors, and for the upgrowth of decentralizing forces in economic and socio-political life. The third stage was in the second quarter of the XIIth – the middle of the XIIIth century. As the result of action of decentralizing forces 15 comparatively independent principalities were formed. As for the degree of economic and cultural development these principalities were on the level of the leading countries of Europe.

At the end of the XIth century discrepancies between Christian and Slavic pagan worldview were still perceptible. From the philosophical point of view pagan worldview differs from Christian by the fact that it does not single out man from nature: pantheism was inherent for paganism (nature = god). Paganism did not separate the world from eternal circulation of nature, polytheistic deification of nature forces, totems and cult of the ancestors as the principle of social determination it was based on the acknowledgement of astral interdependence of all processes. In comparison with the mythological worldview of pagans, Christian conception of the Universe is built on another basis. Here accents are shifted from naturalistic equilibrium to intense opposition of soul and matter; in the world as a whole, and particularly in human being, a struggle between two opposite origins, which are identified with God and Devil, takes place. Spiritual primacy creates an objective-idealistic picture of the Universe, the soul rules everywhere, instead of the idea of eternal circulation of nature the idea of vector of development from the creation of the world up to its end appeares. In Christian ideology man was made morally responsible, he had to make a conscious choice between two forces, his life belongs to the supreme universal set, and his destiny becomes the part of the Universe’s destiny.

The main source of philosophical ideas in Kyiv Rus’ were worldview conceptions of ancient Slavs, their national culture, as well as teachings of early Christianity, Hellenistic philosophy, familiarization with spiritual culture of Byzantium and Bulgaria, where the Bible occupied the most important place. Philosophical thought during this period developed within the framework of Christianity. The needs of public practical life dictated the character of philosophical thinking. The World history, the role and place, which Kyiv Rus’ occupied in it, was the subject matter of the pursuits of philosophers. That is why “The Tale of Bygone Years” is active not only as a literary work or pseudo-scientific chronicle, but also as one of the commemorative monument of philosophical thought.

Byzantine works occupied an important place in the spiritual culture of Kyiv Rus’. Joann Damaskin, Byzantine philosopher, wrote in his “Dialectics”: Philosophy is the cognition of the essential, because it is essential, that is to say cognition of nature of the essential. And more: philosophy is cognition of divine and human, visible and invisible things. Further, philosophy is the thought about death… Further, philosophy is the adherence to God… Philosophy is the art of all arts and science of all sciences, since philosophy is the origin of every art. Further, philosophy is love to wisdom: the real wisdom is God. Therefore, love to God is the genuine philosophy”. Philosophy is “the cognition of divine and world things, which teaches, how close human can approach God and how, by means of actions, to become the image and likeness of the One, who created him”.

Particularly this “active aspect” in the understanding of philosophy, aspect, which does not perceive the abstract theoritization beyond interrelation of philosophy and the problem of substantiation of real action, is very characteristic for the style of philosophical thinking in Kyiv Rus’.

To begin with “The Speech on Law and Blessing” written by Illarion and up to “The Song of Perdition of the Rus Land” and “The Song of Igor’s Campaign”, through the ancient Rus’ sources the ideas of condemnation of internal struggle between principalities and the necessity of unification of Rus lands were the most important.

We come across the same ideas in the works of a number of thinkers of XIVth-XVth centuries. That was the period of formation of Ukrainian nation, which took place in extremely complex conditions of propagation of foreign expansion into lands, weakened by a Zolotohordian (Golden Horde) raid. At the end of the XV century the reunification of North-Eastern Rus around Moscow took place. Meanwhile, the majority of Ukrainian and Byelorussian lands turned into the outskirts of the Polish-Lithuanian state, Moldavia and Hungary. This restrained the development not only of our material, but also spiritual culture. Philosophical culture, deprived the opportunity to be developed on its own base, according to its own rules, could not fully experience the direct influence of progressive ideas.

The Renaissance came to Ukraine from North Europe, where it took place in the form of Reformation. That movement spread at first onto Rich Pospolyta, and from there onto Ukraine. The ideas of Protestantism engulfed part of Polish gentry (shljachta), as well as clergy, including the higher clergy. Calvinism propagated, in particular, appeals to simplicity of life and thrift, demanded for secularisation of territories of the clergy, establishment of control over its activity.

One of the first Byelorussian-Ukrainian thinkers of the epoch of the Renaissance was Francisc Scoryna. He studied at Krakow University, learnt the works of Aristotle, presocratics and stoics. He continued his study in different West-European countries, where he was imbued with the ideas of the Renaissance and Reformation. He was convinced that Ukrainian folk could restore the fame of Kyiv Rus’ through Enlightenment, the centre of which was the Bible. For this reason he dedicated his further activity to translating and publishing books of the Holy Scripture in his native language. As a result, his “Rus Bible interpreted by Dr. Fransisc Scoryna from the Slav town Polotsk” appeared. The translation of the Holy Scripture was in itself already a big impulse for development of spiritual life in Ukraine. The characteristic feature of this edition was the democratic interpretation of the Bible. The Bible, as he considered, grasps all the divine and world Wisdom of Solomon and Aristotle. On the first place (according to him) theology was as the highest wisdom. It embraced such secrets, which could not be explained by human being and exceeded the abilities of his intellect. For example, it concerns the question of creation of the world out of nothing. The Holy Scripture, according to F.Scoryna, executes the scientific and educational function; it includes grammar, logics, rhetoric, music, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomy. Scoryna talked not about the universality of the Bible in general, but only about the presence of “revelation knowledge” in it, which did not exist in other books. From here he deduced the dual essence of the Bible: divine and worldly.

It was at that time that Kyiv and Lviv Schools took the leading place in the propagation of ideas of Enlightenment and Reformation. Especially great success was reached by the Lviv School, in which such subjects as grammar, rhetoric, poetics, dialectics, and theology were taught. Petro Mogyla invited Orthodox teachers. These disciplines would become the basis of study at Kyiv-Mogyla academy.

Higher schools, in which philosophy was taught, appeared in Ukraine in the second half of the XVIth century. In the 70th Ostrozs’ka School (academy) came into being. Here the teachings of Aristotle were professed, and a textbook on dialectics was created. In the XVIIth century Lviv Brotherhood School was founded, where among the works of philosophers were Greek and Latin editions of Plato and Aristotle.

In 30-ies coalescence of the Brotherhood’s and Lavra’s schools took place and Kyiv-Mogyla collegium emerged on their basis. Here philosophy was taught first for three and then for two years. In the end of the XVIIth century Kyiv-Mogyla collegium received the status of Academy. Collegiums appeared in Vinnytsja, Kaments, Chernigiv, and in 1726 – in Kharkiv.

Thus, professional philosophy in Ukraine appeared in the XVI century and was developed in brotherhood schools and Kyiv-Mogyla collegium. Protestantism influenced Ukranian philosophy greately. This can be seen in the works of T.Stavrovetskyj, Petro Mogyla and Inokentij Gizel. In the Moscow state these books were burnt as heretical. The principal philosophical currents in XVI-XVII centuries were Platonism, Aristotleism, Stoicism and Epicureanism. This philosophy was used for rational explanation of Catholicism, as well as Orthodoxy.

In the XVII century the affirmation of self-appraisal of each individual went on in the spiritual culture of Ukraine, man’s individual self-consciousness was formed through self-assertion in unique public and political activity.

One of important characteristic features of Ukrainian Renaissance was the combination in philosophy of both ethical and religious ideas.

Ukrainian-Polish relations were of great importance for the development of Ukrainian culture, including philosophy, as at that time Ukraine was a part of the Polish state. Thus, during XV-XVI centuries 800 Ukrainians studied in Krakow University, many of them received bachelor’s and master’s degree of this university.

Elements of capitalistic relations actualy existed at the beginning of the XVIIIth century in Ukraine. This, of course, had its impact on the spiritual life of society, contributing to the development of the ideas of Enlightenment. Particularly there were the idea of appreciation of human, conception of informed absolutism, worry for the fate of Motherland, and the attempt to raise self-consciousness and self-assertion of a personality.

The second half of the XVIIth century was the period of formation of the worldview of Enlightenment in the development of the spiritual life of Ukraine. This was the time of the active mastering and contemplation of the age-old achievements of West-European culture, creation of own scientific tradition for development of philosophy and science of the New Age.

The main scientific and cultural centre was Kyiv-Mogyla Academy. The course at the Academy in the first half of the XVIII century consisted of 8 so-called ordinary classes: analogy, infima, grammar, syntax, rhetoric, pietics, philosophy, theology. In 1738 classes of Greek, Hebrew and German languages were added to these ones. Since the lecturing of philosophy was more-or-less free each professor could construct his own original course. But in the second half of the XVIII century Ukraine was overwhelmed by feudal reaction, material state of this educational institution got worse, rude interference of Synod into its affairs increased. The statute of 1747 made the most tangible blow for the development of science in Kyiv-Mogyla Academy. Professors were to hand over to chancellery (administrative support centre) the summary of their lectures to check-up whether it deviates from the teachings of Orthodox Church. Consequently, the original courses, which were created by the professors, were prohibited. Philosophy, deprived of creative thought, devoided of critical attitude towards traditions, lost its originality. Later, in 1817 Kyiv-Mogyla Academy was closed, and in 1819 an ordinary clerical academy was established.

Philosophy in Ukraine in the XVII-XVIII centuries was closely linked with theology. J.Kononovych-Gorbats’kyj, I.Gizel’ started to acquaint students with the philosophers of Antiquity, with the main streams of philosophy of Middle Ages, cultivating in their students philosophical culture and creating conditions to form independent philosophical conclusions. Many high-erudite professors appeared who left original courses of philosophy.

The most prominent person among Ukrainian enlighteners was Theophan Prokopovych (1677-1736), the professor and rector of Kyiv-Mogyla Academy the head of the “scientific society” of Petr I, well-known thinker of the first half of the XVIII century.

Participants of Ukrainian Enlightenment manifested humanism and breadth of philosophical views, religious tolerance, necessity of freedom of thought of a scientist, which found its shape and substantiation in the theory of two truths. This teaching stated that scientific-philosophical and theological truth could exist independently from each other. Theoretists and adherents of the theory of two truths among European philosophers were Descartes, Bacon, Scotus, among Ukrainian scientists this theory was used by Scovoroda, Jurkevitch etc.

Figures of Ukrainian Enlightenment highly valued scientific quest, paying special attention to the question of the method of scientific cognition. Studying the method of cognition, stated Prokopovych, dialectics prepared tools for investigation of all other sciences, because method is that tool, with the help of which the cognition of each science takes place and the more improved it is the better. In the understanding of this method he bases himself on Aristotle’s philosophy, i.e. in the centre of his attention stands deductive teaching. Paying great attention to mathematical methods, Th.Prokopovych revived the lecturing of math at the Academy. He was sure that a mind, which was not enlightened by the bright light of geometrical knowledge, was unable to practice philosophy.

The period of the end of XVII second half of the XVIII century is characterized by the intensification of the struggle of monarchic Russia for liquidation of the autonomy of Ukraine, Zaporizs’ka Sich, which carried out the functions of Ukrainian statehood. In Left-Bank and Slobods’ka Ukraine activates the enslaving of country folk by the foremen under the encouragement of the tsar administration. On the Right-Bank and West Ukrainian territories, which were under the Polish reign, the status of masses was even worse. Orthodox Church was persecuted; Uniate Church and Catholicism were imposed against will of society.

Intensification of social pressure aroused aggravation of national-liberation struggle, which found its reflection, for example, in gajdamac movement and kolijivshyna. Being spontaneous, these movements contributed to the propagation of social-nationalistic ideas of enlighteners, the most outstanding among which was Grygorij Savych Scovoroda (1722-1794).

G.S.Scovoroda was a philosopher, poet, stemmed from the family of a land-poor Cossack. Having graduated from Kyiv-Mogyla Academy, he renounced the clerical career, choosing the path of itinerant philosopher, a preacher.

Just as the genius thinkers of ancient Greece G.Scovoroda built his life as a living masterpiece. In his quest he proceeded from the conclusion that the behaviour of most people does not correspond to their desire for happiness. The philosopher strived to construct principles, which would help to avoid baneful path, and open the true way to happiness to people. His life became philosophy and philosophy became life.

In the centre of attention of Scovoroda were religious and moral problems. He created a practical philosophy, not paying too much attention to theoretical maturnity and formal systematisation of his ideas.

Hence there was the choice of the basis for his pursuit: the Bible, mythology, folklore, which actually was the essence and way of reflection upon real life problems. It explained the form of philosophising, which based itself on limited integration of artificial world-contemplation with rational-abstract. All these elements in the works of Scovoroda took part in a very intricate interaction, which happened on the basis of syncretism. As a result he achieved a universal allegory, in which things and phenomena manifested not in the whole range of features, not in integrity, but only in their abstract-schematic forms as symbols. Scovoroda continued the tradition of symbolism of folk poetry, antique Neoplatonism, Christian symbolism of the church fathers, German mystics and Ukrainian polemic literature of XVI-XVII centuries. Symbolism for Scovoroda was a world, in which the indispensable for a human being truth was hidden.

Ukrainian philosophy in the XVIII century was interested, within the framework of Neoplatonism, on questions of human, his spiritual world, freedom, initiative activity as self-perfection of man that showed its preromantic character. The problem of unification of human, god and the world was discussed in Ukrainian philosophy of XVII – beginning of XVIII century (in its later stage represented by the philosophy of Scovoroda) and it was not simply traditionally inherited, it found its specificity in the form of typical traits of preromantic consciousness. It became the spring of philosophic-theological thought, which led to the formation of Ukrainian romantic worldview.

The preromantism of Scovoroda was the development of European philosophical thought, but not on Ukrainian basis. Scovoroda, just like German philosophers-romantics, believed that human could comprehend the single whole (it was not immortal intellect as according to enlightened) spiritually, not with the help of discursive thinking, but through symbols. The access to symbols, and through them the approach to the single, to God, was a sacrament. Human can cognise the single, universe as the beginning, infinity, as God only in one way through the heart, entering the form of symbol.

The priority of symbolism in the cognition of the universe was neither the oddity of Scovoroda, nor his philosophical discovery, that was the method of negation of philosophical rationalism, a way of proving the narrowness of discursive thinking. It was used by all European philosophers, which adhered to the viewpoint of Neoplatonism. The appeal of philosophy to symbolism on the one hand meant that philosophy in this way manifested its integrative function in culture, and on the other hand in polemics with rationalism that was the manifestation of irrationalism, mysticism of philosophy.

Preromanticism in philosophy, as well as in Ukrainian culture of the second half of the XVIII century in general, witnessed, on the one hand, the international character of development of spiritual life of Europe, the belonging of Ukraine to general-European economic, socio-political and cultural processes, at least up to the middle of XVIII century. On the other hand, preromanticim in Ukraine showed the presence of sufficient material and spiritual preconditions for its formation.

The idea of historical method in European culture originated at the beginning of the XVII century. Gendel’s historical ideas, that the greatest value of historic epochs was in their national cultural uniqueness, were adopted.

Not many people nowadays can name a philosophical teaching, which would express the specificity of Ukrainian world perception, main characteristic features of national worldview and national psychology. But such philosophy, as thought by a number of researchers, first of all the representatives of Ukrainian diasporas, exists. It is in those folk creations and professional works of art, which are the manifestation of the people’s soul, cultural traditions and spirituality. Its name is philosophy of heart. In general features it appeared in the XVIII century in the works of Scovoroda, and completed its formation in the XIX century in the works of one of the most prominent Ukrainian philosophers P.Jurkevytch. This philosophy was as a firm worldview position in Ukrainian romanticism. It was demonstratesd in the works of M.Gogol’, P.Kulish, T.Shevchenko. Its impact on Ukrainian spirituality, culture was so great, that in a certain transformed form it found its outcome in the literature and arts of the XX century, as in the 20-ies, the same today. The secret of such influence was in the fact, that the essence of this worldview was based on the characteristic features of national psychology and imagination of the world by Ukrainians.

In the centre of philosophical teaching of Jurkevytch, just as of Scovoroda, was human small world. Jurkevych, like Scovoroda, appealed to the notion of the heart. The appeal to this notion was not new in philosophy.

Yurkevich, as well as Skovoroda, gave a multiple meaning to the symbol of heart. One of them was heart as a spiritual state of a human being. The soul contained its meanings only, they lived as a part of world outlook of man, they were mysterious, they defined the contents of man’s soul. “The heart”, Yurkevitch said, - “is the output point of everything that is good or evil in words, thoughts and actions, is a good or evil treasure-house of man”.

Another outstanding representative of Ukrainian and Russian romanticism was M. Gogol. His search for the truth was self-immersion (the immersion of his own soul), because the road to the world passed through the soul. According to Gogol, the real truth could be realized only by means of a soul. The world revealed its truth to a man only with his spiritual awakeness, his activity, but not with the rational cognition. For Gogol, man’s soul was not merely the way of cognition, but its deep source. As well as Skovoroda and Yurkevitch, Gogol spoke of the soul as of the “heart”. Man’s heart was unknown abyss, and every moment we made mistakes there. The only way of self-perfection, that would help to remove the mistakes was that of the favorite work, which took much of man’s time. Skovoroda also revealed the idea of related work and Gogol’s thoughts were very similar to it. The statement about the relations of man to his favorite work stressed the uniqueness of man, his unsimilarity to others, and the right to his own moral way in life and his own freedom. As a conclusion of the meaning of Gogol’s personality and his work for Ukrainian spirituality and culture, we may say that he was one of the founders of the Ukrainian love to the nation, merely because the man, who took the honorable place in literature together with Pushkin, spoke much about Ukraine.

Invaluable contribution in the development of philosophical thought in Ukraine was made by T. G. Shevchenko (1814 - 1861). Shevchenko was born in a family of a serf. He studied at the priest’s school, later served as a “cossack” in the manor-house of landowner Engelgardt, in 1831 moved to St. Petersburg where, with the help of Ukrainian artist I. Soshenko and writer E. Grebinka, he got acquainted with the outstanding cultural workers K. Brullov, V. Grigorovich, O. Venetsianov. In 1838 he was redeemed, and entered the Academy of Arts, which he successfully graduated from as the student of K. Brullov in 1845. He began to write poems early in 1837 and in 1840 his first collection of poems “Kobzar” was published. In 1846 Shevchenko entered the “Kirylo-Mefodiy Society”. The organization having been routed, he was imprisoned in Petropavlovskaya fortress, and then sent to the Orenburg corps with the strict interdiction to write and to draw. He was discharged from Orenburg corps with the help of the Academy of Arts vice-president F. L. Tolstoy. He died in 1861.

The poet-creator, public figure, T. Shevchenko did not belong to the circle of theoretic philosophers; he did not develop the onthological, gnoceological or other philosobhical problems. His philosophy belonged to the type that was sometimes characterized as “The philosophy of tragedy” in our spiritual tradition, which did not mean the theoretical meditation about a tragedy of man who made it as a topic of his research and who felt it from the outside. It was the philosophy as a state of soul of a suffering man, the revealing and understanding the tragedy of Ukrainian people, of Ukraine.

Ukraine in Shevchenko’s works is the world of existent being, which is full of disharmony and conflicts in its basis. He considered Ukraine as the land full of contradictions, which determined the impossibility of a normal existence of man in the state which the poet lived, where “They take a patched skirt off a cripple, they take it with skin together, as the prince’s children have no shoes to put on.”, where “People exchange their shackles, sell the truth, deny God”. His own life was not less tragic: “I cry as I remember the unforgettable deeds of our grandfathers. They were the hard deeds”. Shevchenko’s poetry is full of pain for the past of our land. “Oh my beautiful, my reach land! Is there anybody, who did not torment you? If it was possible to tell the truth about any baron, the Hades then would have been scared.”

Ukraine is also the existential statement of being, where the ideal existence may be achieved only “To live together, to understand the full truth with a brother, and not to share it”. For him Ukraine was a source of folk culture, which nourished his works with its motifs, the development of which permited to express his own philosophy of life. At first, it was the motif of fate, good and evil, the motif of truth, the themes of orphanage, of loneliness, the theme of foreign land, nostalgia and sorrow for the native land, which was connected to it, and he foreboded his death being away from the native land.

It permits to state that Shevchenko’s philosophy, was revealed in his works and in his own way of life, was a result of folk culture of Ukrainian people and its present quintessention.

Really, every thinker, philosopher revealed in his works the culture of the nation, he belonged to. But it is hard to find in the history of Ukrainian culture such an organic and realistic unification of a spiritual world with the fate of the nation, the philosophy of Shevchenko demonstrated.

The outstanding representatives of “Kirylo-Mefodiy Society” were Panteleimon Kulish, a writer, critic and historian, one of the representatives of so-called “Philosophy of heart”, and M. Kostomarov, a historian and writer. P. Kulish defended the idea of the world creation by God. The nature, as he thought, was “arranged by God’s wisdom”, and consciousness existed independently of matter, that was why the immortality of soul and heavenly life were possible. Concerning the national spirit as the basis of national development, Kulish created the theory about the peculiarities of Ukrainian soul, which had two sides: internal – heart (feeling), and external – thought (reason). With his internal side he was connected only with Ukraine and with external side with other nations. The Ukrainian was distinguished from other nations by the internal side, the essence of which was the national spirit. This side mainly, including national feelings and national spirit, united rich and poor men together. The external side, reason, telling the Ukrainian people about the necessity to have the relations with other nations and perceive the best sides of their life, bothered the internal side. Kulish thought that Ukrainian people should develop in their own way, to store the conservative (khutor) way of life that was the sign of higher morality and integrity of soul.

The second half of the XIX century and the beginning of XX century was the period of spread of Positivism ideas on the territory of Ukraine, supported and developed by V. Lesevich, who added the ideas of I. Kant to them. The “specialists” made philosophy a servant to other sciences. From these positions O. Potebnya developed the problems of the philosophy of language.

O. Potebnya was among the first who had been sent from Kharkiv University to study abroad in 1861.

The works of V. Gumboldt, which were devoted to the philosophy of language, influenced him greatly. O. Potebnya began his science research trying to answer questions, asked by V. Gumboldt in German philosophy and linguistics.

The most important one was the question about the origin of language, which showed that it was impossible to understand the sources of human language without understanding the meaning of word for the thought and the state of its relation to the life of soul in general.

Potebnya fully supported the opinion of V.Gumboldt, that language was not a lifeless creation, but an activity, that is, the process of production, where the language was constant effort of spirit to make the articulate sound to reflect thought.

Ivan Franko, a writer and poet influenced the development of Ukrainian culture greatly. Supporting the materialism in philosophy, he, as well as another outstanding cultural worker M. Dragomanov, did not accept the idea of dictatorship of proletariat, which had got a great support at the end of XIX among the ideologists of proletarian movement. Dragomanov thought that the laws of public development were to be searched on social-psychological bases of public and individual life.

At the end of XIX century the works of V. Vernadsky, a world –known scientist, the greater part of whose life passed in Ukraine, were being published. Under the influence of his lectures, the idea of the noosphere, as the spiritual shell of the Earth, had been implemented by Teyar de Shardin and Leroi in Sorbonne. V. Vernadsky made an attempt to answer the question where the real conditions of the creation of noosphere were, if they had already been made or were being still created in the process of man’s historical development. As he considered, those main condition were as following:

The mankind became united. The historical process changed fully. It is for the first time in the history of mankind that the interests of people and the opinion of personality defined the life of a human race; they were the measure of his opinion about justice. The mankind taken together became the powerful geological force, and the question arose about the rebuilding the biosphere in the interests of human race as the single being who thought freely.
With the change of the means of communication and exchange, mankind should become unique in economic and informational sense. The noosphere is the planet-wide phenomenon. There is a tendency to peaceful relations of mankind on the basis of economic life and information exchange.
The discovering of the new sources of energy.
Improving the wellfare of the population.
The equality of all people. The mankind must achieve the equality of all races, nations, independently of the color of skin and religious views.
Exclusion of war from the life of society.

In general we may say that the teaching about the transition of biosphere into noosphere was the top of Vernadsky’s scientific work. It contained the generalizations of a great role of mankind in the evolution of biosphere, about the unity of man and biosphere.

The science in the works of Vernadsky is realized as the system of knowledge, as the way of activity, as social institution.

The list of outstanding philosophers and thinkers would be not full if we did not remember Dm. Chizhevsky, an outstanding philosopher and philologist, the author of the first serious scientific research on the history of Ukrainian philosophy, and M. Grushevsky, the first president of Ukraine, the author of books in many volumes: “The History of Ukraine-Rus’” and “The History of Religious Thought in Ukraine”.

Russian Philosophy.

The foundation of Russia in the XVIII-th century had an effect of destruction of the old base of life. The reforms of Peter the Great, being carried out during the first quarter of the XVIII-th, were prepared by the previous century. A lot of the historians of Russian philosophy considered the XVIII-th century as a period of formation of national Russian philosophy with its specific features.

The beginning of materialistic traditions in Russian philosophy was connected, mainly, with the name of M.Lomonosov (1711 - 1765), the founder of science and environment research in Russia. He came into the history as the person of an encyclopedic structure, who had kept a deep track in all fields of knowledge. The philosophy of Lomonosov was the beginning of theoretical materialism. Lomonosov understood substance consisting of the smallest particles of atoms, which formed more composite shapes - corpuscle (molecule). These atoms having different combinations and amount caused all variety that was in nature. This concept was fundamental for his “full system of nature”. Lomonosov worked out the idea of material unity of the world, which was closely connected with the idea of universal link and development in nature. His method of cognition was - from experience through a hypothesis to the establishment of the true scientific theory.

At the same time it is necessary to say, that elements of deism were intrinsic to Lomonosov’s views. God was the main architect of the world, who did not interfere into the further course of global events. Therefore science, the thinker thought, should be disassociated from religion.

Lomonosov came nearer to the idea of connection of different hypostases of substance and the idea of transition of one form of motion to another.The law of conservation of matter and motion became the outstanding result of Lomonosov’s scientific research. This doctrine exposed the earliest attempts in science to show nature as such that constantly changes. Lomonosov became the founder of Russian science and materialistic philosophy and he was one of the greatest representatives of mechanistic metaphysical materialism.

The materialistic approach, that had appeared half-century back, continued its development in Russian philosophy in complicated conditions of ideological and political atmosphere of the second half of XVII century. It was represented by enlighteners Anichkov, Kozelsky, Desnitsky, and Radischev. They raised the whole complex of philosophical problems that were not developed by the founder of Russian science, namely: the place of philosophy in the system of sciences, its subject and structure, the nature of consciousness, the mechanism of gaining knowledge etc. By the other word, enlighteners and Radischev completed Lomonosov’s doctrines of the nature and supplied it by sensualistic epistemology and sociology. Russian philosophy in the second half of the XVIII-th century made a considerable step forward, having received the right of existence in the end. The historical merit of enlighteners and Radischev was in the confirmation of philosophy as the theoretical science.

In the beginning of the XIX-th century plenty of professors were invited to Russia from Germany, among them the experts in philosophy Schwartz, Shaden, Buley Shad, Fischer etc. At the same time the new idealistic doctrines of Kant, Fichte and Shelling penetrated into scientific medium. Shelling found the diligent adherents in the circles of Russian philosophers and naturalists, which were receiving education abroad. It seemed to many scientists, that in Shelling’s naturalistic philosophy, which really had an attempt of philosophical generalization of achievements in natural study was found the breadth of the philosophical fundamentals, all embracing view on nature and human, it overcoming a gap between thinking and being, empiricism and speculation. To counterballance contemplative epistemology of French materialism, Shelling’s system underlined activity of the subject in the process of cognition. In Russia its influence touched the whole epoch. The outstanding followers of Shelling’s philosophy were Vellansky, Galich and Pavlov. Materialistic philosophy acquired popularity in Decembrist’s circles in that time.

As far as Russia over much of its history was only half interested in Europe but was culturally often inclined to look to the South, Constantinople, and the East, to its growing North Asian empire, its philosophies were not fully engaged in the mainstream of European thought. Nevertheless, there was much of interest, which became increasing during its literary renaissance in the nineteenth century. One of the main issues parallels those, which concerned non-Western cultures the question of Russian identity was. The polarization between the Westerners and the Slavophiles was developed. This partially was tied to the issues of religion: for the Slavophiles Eastern Orthodoxy was integral to Slav civilization and Moscow came to be thought of as the Third Rome. Moscow stood out as the new center of Christian civilization.

Much of the nineteenth-century debate was heralded by Peter Chaadaev (1794 - 1856), particularly because of his first Philosophical Letter, published in 1829. It brought on him the attention of the censors, who forbade him to write further. In that work he harshly criticized Russia for cutting itself off from Western society. Its isolationism he perceived as a kind of egoism. He emphasized the importance of love and social solidarity both of individuals who formed society or nation and of societies. So Russia was implicated in collective egoism. He also considered Russia to be virtually historyless, like a blank sheet of paper. Any nation has true history when it is gripped by an idea: in the West - mainly through the role of Catholicism in carrying Europe through its post-Roman disintegration - societies had involved themselves in social progress and the development of science. In all this Chaadaev could be said to be taking a Western line. Yet on the other hand, there were Slavophile elements in his thinking. Each nation has its own destiny: Russia had both open mindedness and an ideal, which had once been enshrined in village communities. Now we could look forward to a future utopia in which the kingdom of God is realized on the earth, in a new solidarity. Chaadaev saw his ideal as universal, but it of course was directly` addressed to those who were looking for Russia’s destiny. Russia’s mission might lie in Russia’s openness, so that she could become a leader in the historical movement of the future. Chaadaev’s ideas thus incorporated differing motifs, which were taken up in the subsequent Westerner-Slavophile debate. In this sense he was the father of Russian philosophy.

Slavophilistic position in philosophy can be determined as a version of religious - idealistic view on the world. Outcomming from Shelling's “philosophy of revelation”, they tried to give the universal meaning to Christian religious doctrine and to build philosophy on its basis. Instead of human mind as source of knowledge, they put intuition and divine revelation on the foreground. They saw in it originality of the future Russian philosophy, which as against Western-European, arose not on the shaky rationalistic basis, but on the solid base of true faith. To say nothing of materialism, which seemed to them as an ugly fruit of a human thought, slavophilists did not admit any of systems of rational idealism, including Hegel’s.

Among the most influential Slavophiles was I.V. Kireevsky (1806-1856), who was influenced by the theologian A.S.Khomyakov (1804–1860) who was a factor in his conversion to Orthodoxy. Khomyakov was hostile both to European rationalism and materialism and emphasized the Russian notion of sobornost or intimate community. He also held that knowledge is a collective affair. Without sobornost, which had religious implications, the pursuit of knowledge only separates human beings. Kireevsky was specially served on Western rationalism, which he perceived as stemming from Aristotle’s abstract characterization, and exaltation of reason. From this came scholasticism in Western Christianity, then reformed and finally non-religious rationalism. Rather, he favored the epistemology (which he did not spell out very clearly) where the whole human being is integrated into the act of understanding.

Considerable property in that period (30s - 40s of the XIX-th century) was dialectics, which enriched Russian philosophy. For the first time the dialectic ideas achieved Russia together with Shelling’s philosophy and were picked up by Vellansky and Pavlov. This line was continued by Chaadaev in 30s. But it was Stankevich circle that made a particular contribution for propagation of idealistic dialectics, nevertheless already in Hegel’s understanding. This circle, which united Belinsky, Bakunin, Granovsky, Botkin, etc., from the very beginning, was extremely multicolored in its structure. Figures of different directions, including the founders of revolution - democratic philosophy came from it. This stream, which representatives were Belinsky, Hertzen, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov began to play more and more appreciable role in public life of Russia. Hertzen and Chernyshevsky left the steepest track in Russian philosophy. The central problem of “Letters on study of a nature”, the main work of Hertzen(1812 - 1870), there was a problem of dialectic unity of life and thinking, which is considered in different aspects. Hertzen comes from a reality of nature, which exists independently. Outside of man there is an infinite variety of things, which are original and independent of man. They existed, when he was not yet: they are indifferent to his existence. In the basis of nature there is a matter or substance. Man is a part of nature and therefore he is subordinated to its laws. But without man “the nature does not comprise all sense - that is its different character: just thinking supplements and develops it”.In other words “history of thinking is continuation of history of nature, and laws of thinking are the realized laws of being”.

The problems of sociology take a considerable place in Hertzen’s works. Hertzen considered that history progressively comes from animal development. He searched the source of development of society in self-perfection of human knowledge and in distribution of education among people. He wrote that the progress of man is a progress of his thought.

It meant that the richer man’s knowledge of the world, the richer his practical activity, it is especially conscious and purposeful. Only due to mind and reasoning man left “animal dream”, and then, learning natural and public laws, became more independent of them. Thus, the history is “constant liberation from one sort of slavery after another, from one authority after another, until it comes to the fullest conformity of mind and activity, when man feels himself free”.

Philosophy of Chernyshevsky(1828 - 1889) follows and provides further development of Hertzen’s doctrine. At the same time it has incorporated achievements of Western-European scientific and philosophical ideas of the middle of XIX-th century.

Chernyshevsky defines materialism as the doctrine, in the basis of which there is a respect to the relevant validity of life, mistrust to prior, even pleasant for imagination, hypotheses. Materialism outflows from all total of scientific data, takes substance as primary in relation to consciousness. The unity of the world Chernyshevsky sees in the existence of a substance that is manifested in different forms. He justifies permanent connection between inorganic and organic nature, between vegetative and fauna, between man and highest animal.

One of major point in philosophy of Chernyshevsky is a problem of man, which is solved on the basis of the data of physiology and is opposed to idealism. He opposed materialistic view to idealistic separation of human from nature and the animal empire, bifurcation of man to a spiritual and solid essence.

A large achievement of Chernyshevsky is his reference to practice as the criterion of the validity of scientific knowledge. A feeble place of the theory of cognition of Hertzen was misunderstanding of the role of practice in cognition. He, in the end, was declined furthermore to rationalism, on one-sidedness of which he himself indicated in his “Letters on study of nature”. Chernyshevsky raised the question about practice more deeply and more widely. He termed it “as a firm touchstone” of any theory.

Chernyshevsky’s sociology as a whole was inconsistent. The appearance of a reasonable being gave an impulse to all further progress of human life. In the process of development under the influence of favorable living conditions an improvement of organization of man’s brains and intellectual abilities of man grew which became, in turn, the reason of moral and material progress. In this brief scheme one can see the essence of the anthropological principle as far as history is concerned.

A particular feature of the development of philosophical thought of Russia in XIX-th century was a large influence upon all world philosophy, made not by philosophers, but writers Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Their works are the subject of scientific researches all over the world till now.

F.Dostoyevsky(1821 - 1881) gave a way to the specific analysis of the whole complex of questions about personal and public life of man. He mentioned questions of nationality, socialism, morals, and religion. But the main interest he concentrated on man, his natural and social conditionality, motives of his behavior in a composite drama situation; he penetrated into the steepest basis of spiritual world of man, including even unhealthy manifestations of his mentality.

The problem of man and the world arisen by Dostoevsky as a consequence of empirical observations of Russian life and relations, which transform man into a solitary being. Laws of being were usually unknown to man, but at the same time he had to live and, whatever possible to determine his behavior correctly. The transformation of these questions into philosophical equivalent allowed comparing Dostoevsky with Kant. So Dostoevsky’s main social antinomy: incompatibility of interests of man and the society, which have opposite problems and purposes, arose. For Dostoevsky the essence and genesis of this antinomy lied outside public life, in the structure and mystery of human soul, which was motivated naturalistically, that was explained by “pure” extra-social human nature.

The great Russian writer L.Tolstoy (1829 - 1910) was at the same time the outstanding thinker. He created the ethical-religious doctrine of man, of the sense of life and public reorganization which had received the name ‘tolstovstvo’.

Russo, Schopenhauer and Bergson were spiritually the most close to Tolstoy; they had large influence on his works. So, Russo affected Tolstoy’s social philosophy and his pedagogical views. Tolstoy is much in common with Schopenhauer in understanding the categories of will, conscience, decency. Both of them set forth ascetic and pessimistic doctrine. Bergson probably influenced Tolstoy in understanding general philosophical and epistemological problems, such as causality, expediency. As well as Bergson, Tolstoy was declined to irrationalism, highlighting, intuition.

All plans of transformation of life Tolstoy connected with the development of human. The problems of morals were put in the center of his philosophy and sociology. In Tolstoy’s opinion mankind during long period of its existence opened and produced spiritual fundamentals, which all people were guided by. In vital practice he found four widespread points of understanding the sense of life, wherein people searched for a way from vital situations. The first way was ignorance, the second was epicureism, the third was “forces and energy”, accessible only for the one who was strong enough to chose the way of struggle, the fourth was weakness, selected by the people who used to live deceived.

All these items Tolstoy considered illusory, as they were deduced with the help of mind. But, except of mind, man possesses such internal "super consciousness of life", which corrects activity of mind. This vital force is placed in common people and means understanding the sense of life which was not deformed by influence of lighter misleading knowledge or simulated civilization, Church divinity.

In his novels he was the most interesting perhaps in “War and Peace” which decisively rejected the idea of patterns and determinism in the historical process. He gave a vivid sense to his position, which rejected Hegelian and Marxist interpretations of history among others. History is a swirl of individual events, feelings and processes. The actors do not understand what is going on, and still less they foresee the consequences of what they are doing. Some try, but fail, to control events. So Tolstoy argued for a highly contingent account of history, which emerged from the chaotic summation of a vast swarm of contingencies. Nevertheless in his Epilogue to “War and Peace” he played with the idea of a scientific approach to history: but this would have to be merely in principle, since it could never accomplish the task in practice. His historical views had got fatalistic coloring.

Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyev (1853 - 1900) was the most systematic of religiously oriented thinkers in the nineteenth century. Solovyev came from an academic background, and after a period of youthful atheism, which, though passing, imbued him with ideals of social reform, he attended first Moscow University and the Theological Academy in Zagorsk. He taught in Moscow and St. Petersburg; traveled widely, and pioneered ecumenical contacts with Catholicism. While his values were up to a point Slavophile, he did not approve of the excessive criticism typically leveled, in a chauvinistic way, at the West. He was also an influential poet.

As a young man he was strikingly influenced by Spinoza: he was indebted to the German idealists from Hegel onward, and especially to Schelling. But he was also inspired by some of the classical Christian mystical writings, not unnaturally. What he tried to express in his metaphysics is something of a synthesis between traditional Christian thought and a world view derived from Western philosophy.

Solovyev begins from the notion that there is a single reality or total unity. This is God or the Absolute, and Solovyev’s full schema could be characterized as pantheism. As things emerge the Absolute appears as nature and as human beings, which form a bridge, as it were, between the divine life and material life. Solovyev attempts to show that human beings are necessary to the unfolding of the Absolute into nature. He also tries to exhibit the necessity of the Trinity doctrine.

The idea of total unity or the one reality has an effect in epistemology. Since it is not given in experience and cannot be deduced by reason alone, it is known by intuition or direct mystical experience. This he thinks of as interior. He was therefore critical of empiricism, rationalism and positivism.

Solovyev held, in the manner of Schelling, that the emergence of individuals, through necessary in the scheme of things, is a kind of Fall. The original unity becomes differentiated. The task of religion is to guide people towards a union between human beings and the one reality. There needs to be a harmonization of science, metaphysics and faith. But this is more than an intellectual matter: it has to be practically understood. Conversely, as he stressed in his Lectures on Godmanhood, religion is not just pragmatics: religious thought is an inescapable ingredient in the progress of human beings towards the ultimate reconciliation. But this is not just theology, at least as traditionally conceived, because it does not properly allow the free exercise of reason (which Solovyev of course holds leads to a synthesis with religion), and it does not properly take into account the findings of science and so forth.

Interestingly, Solovyev regarded also the figure of Sophia or Wisdom. His account of her varied: at one time he viewed her as the soul of the cosmos, and later identified her with the Holy Spirit, and also with the Virgin Mary. He had vivid visions of her. At any rate the concept injected a feminine aspect into the Divine Being, for which there are precedents in the Hebrew Bible.

Nikolay Berdyaev (1874 - 1948), the son of a high class family in Kiev, he became for a short period Professor of Philosophy in Moscow during the early years of the Revolution, but was expelled from Russia because he rejected Marxism. He lived much of his life in exile, mainly in France. Many of his most important writings date from his time in exile. He followed Solovyev in positing a reality beyond the phenomenal world, but his picture of the whole was somewhat different, since he saw the phenomenal and nomenal world in a kind of dualistic relationship. He also while indebted to Kant, had a more Nietzschean outlook, emphasizing the fluidity of creativity. He saw human fredom as of primary importance; beyond the phenomenal world of determinism his emphasis on freedom gave him an anarchistic tinge: he spoke of the sacred duty of lawlessness. The human being displays freedom in relation to God, and has sacred worth, which rejects the regimentations of theocracy, Marxism, capitalism and other systems. He called for humans to live in expectation of a transformed future, which would transfigure and dissolve present institutions such as the State. Berdyaev’s godlike human cannot help living without creating his own life, his own world, his own destiny, himself. Creativity is simultaneously the purpose, the essence, the means, and the way of human life. His emphasis on freedom made him one of the founders of existentialism and Christian personalism.

Other Russian thinker, P.Florensky (1882 - 1937), tried to synthesize diverse fields of knowledge into integral wordview system. Divinity and history of philosophy, philology and ethnography, art criticism and history, physics and mathematics, electronics and biology found their place in his researches. The philosopher was sure, that any achievements of science cannot shape human soul that accumulated knowledge is not the guarantor of a rich spiritual world of the person. In his opinion, a standard of all cultural phenomena can be a method of mutual exposures to radiation of different areas of knowledge one in one, “where the major aspects of this” multivariate flashing “are the spiritural inheritance of church and scientific thought of future Russia”.

Florensky was the supporter of sophiological direction in new divinity. The idea of Sofia is manifested as the philosopher thinks, in different areas: in God in space, society, culture, engineering, economy, logic, and poetry. The doctrine about Sofia is a system that embraces all sides of human existence. So, Sofia - word (logos); - the purpose; Sofia - freedom, Sofia - creativity, Sofia - time (eternity); Sofia - space; Sofia - religious organization. The word - symbol is the basis of “organization”, there is a doctrine about an alive word, which is capable to excite (or on the contrary, to quench) energy of weights. From here we see, that sophilogy is the doctrines about activity not of the matter itself but ideal image that interacts with God.

Florensky, who considered Church as an earthly implementation of sofia, tried to prove that outside of religious organization as “assembly” unity the person is not able to persist chaos of being, its nonspirituality.

Florensky was one of the first persons of a church rank, which ruling in church began to work in the Soviet establishments, he never betraying little his convictions or holy order. He considered, that the person should aim to immortality and stated an assumption, that the spiritual coverage of the Earth (Florensky consist in correspondence with Vernadsky and knew his noosphere theory) is closely bound with people’s souls, who live on the Earth, and termed it not as noosphere, but pneumatosphere. The doctrine about pneumatosphere is a synthesis of not only divine, where the creator is Sofia, but also of human, where man, his aspiration and his activity make the essence of this sphere. And from the depth of its spiritual content the type of the whole planet depends.

The conclusions:

1. Ukranian and Russian philosophies may be refered to neo-classical trend in West European philosophical flow. This trend regards the transcendental ontologically, the personality being a unique microcosm.

2. Ukranian and Russian philosophies are rather similar in their essential characteristics. We can combine them into Slavic type of philosophizing but personalism as their common principle in Ukranian philosophy is combined with individualism, while in Russian one with the idea of “sobornost”. Nevertheless one can see the deepest genetic links of Ukranian and Russian philosophies, great influence of Scovoroda and Jurkevish upon Solovjev and Berdyaev.

3. Ukranian philosophy is famous for its “heart principle” while Russian philosophy is characterised by man’s spiritual self-creation towards the way of Godlike life including altering the world.

Ukranian traditon of human’s self-penetration into his heart and Russian philosophy of spiritually-moral alterning man and the world obviously supplement each other. Their free and mutually independent dialogue is fruitful nowadays as it does away with limitedness and onesidedness of each of them.

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