The authors of Signposts abandoned the earlier philosophy of the intelligentsia. The Russian intelligentsia must withdraw from the outer to the inner life; the spiritual life must secure a theoretical and practical primacy over the outward forms of the life of the community; the inner life of the personality was the sole creative energy of human existence; it was impossible for the political order to be the basis of genuine social creation.
As their spiritual fathers and teachers, the authors of Signposts acknowledged Čaadaev, Solov'ev, Dostoevskii, Homjakov, Čičerin, Kozlov, S. Trubeckoi, Lopatin, Losskii, and Nesmělov; on the other hand sentence was in effect passed upon Bělinskii, Herzen, Černyševskii, Mihailovskii, and Lavrov.[1] Thus the writers make a distinction between Russian and unrussian philosophy. Russian philosophy is animated by the spirit of Plato, by classic German idealism, and by mysticism; essentially, its interests are religious; its mission is to mediate between religion and science. This Russian philosophy aims at the objectivation of mysticism.
Mysticism and positive science, we are told, are by no means mutually exclusive. The European west has succeeded in bringing to maturity a science that is neutral in religious and metaphysical matters.
Concerning the nature of Russian mysticism in particular, the writers inform us that it harmoniously combines the Dionysiac and Apolline elements, but needs to be objectivised and normalised in the philosophical aspect. Positive religion (i.e. the Orthodox faith) is full of the higher mysticism.
Conversely, the philosophy of the intelligentsia is the expression of nihilism, which on utilitarian grounds denies the existence of any absolute values. Nihilism is therefore atheism, and this means anthropo-idolatry. The members of the intelligentsia are the militant monks of a nihilistic religion of purely mundane wellbeing.
In political matters the intelligentsia is anarchistic, for it lacks the sense of the state and is devoid of a feeling for law.
Finally, we are told that the intelligentsia has grave moral defects. Reference is made to the sexual laxity and corrup-
- ↑ Kozlov (ob. 1901) was professor of philosophy in Kiev; Lopatin is professor at Moscow university; Losskii is professor of philosophy at St. Petersburg University and has written works in German; Nesmělov is professor at the seminary in Kazan.
