The problem of the human soul in the works of Dostoevsky. Conclusions about the central problem of Dostoevsky’s work - man. The problem of faith in the works of Dostoevsky

30.10.2019

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky(1821–1881) - a great humanist writer, a brilliant thinker, occupies great place in the history of Russian and world philosophical thought.

Main works:

– “Poor People” (1845);

- “Notes from dead house"(1860);

– “Humiliated and Insulted” (1861);

– “The Idiot” (1868);

– “Demons” (1872);

– “The Brothers Karamazov” (1880);

– “Crime and Punishment” (1886).

Since the 60s. Fyodor Mikhailovich professed the ideas of pochvennichestvo, which was characterized by a religious orientation to the philosophical understanding of the destinies of Russian history. From this point of view, the entire history of mankind appeared as the history of the struggle for the triumph of Christianity. The role of Russia on this path was that the messianic role of the bearer of the highest spiritual truth fell to the lot of the Russian people. The Russian people are called upon to save humanity through “new forms of life and art” thanks to the breadth of their “moral capture.”

Three truths promoted by Dostoevsky:

- individuals, even the best people, do not have the right to rape society in the name of their personal superiority;

– social truth is not invented by individuals, but lives in the feeling of the people;

- this truth has a religious meaning and is necessarily connected with the faith of Christ, with the ideal of Christ. Dostoevsky was one of the most typical exponents of the principles destined to become the basis of our unique national moral philosophy. He found the spark of God in all people, including the bad and criminal. The ideal of the great thinker was peacefulness and meekness, love for the ideal and the discovery of the image of God even under the cover of temporary abomination and shame.

Dostoevsky emphasized the “Russian solution” social problems, which was associated with the denial of revolutionary methods of social struggle, with the development of the theme of the special historical calling of Russia, which is capable of uniting peoples on the basis of Christian brotherhood.

Dostoevsky acted as an existential-religious thinker in matters of understanding man; he tried, through the prism of individual human life, to solve “ last questions» being. He considered the specific dialectic of the idea and living life, while the idea for him has existential-energetic power, and in the end the living life of a person is the embodiment, the realization of the idea.

In the work “The Brothers Karamazov”, Dostoevsky, in the words of his Grand Inquisitor, emphasized an important idea: “Nothing has ever been more unbearable for man and for human society than freedom,” and therefore “there is no more limitless and painful concern for man, how, having remained free, to find as quickly as possible.” , before whom to bow.”

Dostoevsky argued that it is difficult to be a person, but it is even more difficult to be a happy person. The freedom and responsibility of a true personality, which require constant creativity and constant pangs of conscience, suffering and anxiety, are very rarely combined with happiness. Dostoevsky described unexplored mysteries and depths human soul, borderline situations in which a person finds himself and in which his personality collapses. The heroes of Fyodor Mikhailovich's novels are in contradiction with themselves; they are looking for what is hidden behind the external side of the Christian religion and the things and people around them.

From works early period creativity F.M. I read such stories by Dostoevsky as “The Christmas Tree and the Wedding”, “White Nights”, “Little Hero”, “The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree”. And although they constitute only a small part of Dostoevsky’s entire creative heritage, already from these stories one can judge the ideological and artistic originality of the works of the great Russian writer.

Dostoevsky pays special attention to depicting the inner world of a person, his soul. In his works there is a deep psychological analysis actions and actions of the characters, considering these actions not as activity from the outside, from the outside world, but as a result of intense internal work which takes place in the soul of every person.

Interest in the spiritual world of the individual is especially clearly reflected in the “sentimental novel” “White Nights”. Later, this tradition develops in the novels “Crime and Punishment”, “The Idiot”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, “Demons”. Dostoevsky can rightly be called the creator special genre a psychological novel in which the human soul is depicted as a battlefield where the fate of the world is decided.

Along with this, it is important for the writer to emphasize the danger of such a sometimes fictitious life, in which a person is confined to his inner experiences, disconnected from the outside world. Such a dreamer is depicted by Dostoevsky in White Nights.

On the one hand, before us is a kind, sympathetic, open-hearted young man. On the other hand, this hero is like a snail, which “mostly settles somewhere in an inaccessible corner, as if hiding in it even from the living light, and even if If he gets close to himself, he will grow to his corner..."

In the same work the theme “ little man", typical for the work of Dostoevsky and for all Russian literature of the 19th century. The writer strives to emphasize that the life of a “little man” is always full of “big” - serious, difficult - problems, his experiences are always complex and multifaceted.

In Dostoevsky's early prose we also see a depiction of an unjust, cruel, vicious society. This is what his stories “The Boy at Christ’s Christmas Tree”, “Christmas Tree Wedding”, “Poor People” are about. This topic is being developed in more late novel writer "Humiliated and Offended".

Devoted to Pushkin’s traditions in depicting social vices, Dostoevsky also sees his calling in “burning the hearts of people with a verb.” Upholding the ideals of humanity, spiritual harmony, ideas of the good and the beautiful is an integral feature of the writer’s entire work, the origins of which are already laid in his early stories.

A striking example of this is the wonderful story “Little Hero”. This is a story about love, human kindness, and responsiveness to the pain of others. Later grew into Prince Myshkin " little hero” will say the famous words that have become an aphoristic appeal: “Beauty will save the world!..”.

Dostoevsky’s individual style is largely due to the special nature of this writer’s realism, the main principle of which is the feeling of a different, higher being in real life. It is no coincidence that F.M. himself Dostoevsky defined his work as “fantastic realism.” If, for example, for L.N. Tolstoy there are no “dark”, “otherworldly” forces in surrounding reality, then for F.M. Dostoevsky, these forces are real, constantly present in Everyday life anyone, even the simplest, ordinary person. For a writer, it is not so much the events themselves that are depicted that are important, but rather their metaphysical and psychological essence. This explains the symbolism of the scenes and everyday details in his works.

It is no coincidence that already in “White Nights” St. Petersburg appears before the reader as a special city, filled with the fluids of otherworldly forces. This is a city where meetings of people are predetermined and mutually conditioned. Such is the meeting of the young dreamer with Nastenka, which influenced the fate of each of the heroes of this “sentimental novel.”

It is also not surprising that the most common word in the works of early Dostoevsky is the word “suddenly”, under the influence of which an apparently simple and understandable reality turns into complex and mysterious interweavings of human relationships, experiences and feelings, everyday events are fraught with something extraordinary, mysterious. This word indicates the significance of what is happening and reflects the author’s view of this or that statement or action of the characters.

The composition and plot of most of Dostoevsky's works, starting with his early stories, are built on strict timing of events. The time component is an important part of the plot. For example, the composition of White Nights is strictly limited to four nights and one morning.

Thus we see that the basics artistic method The writer’s ideas were laid down in his early works, and Dostoevsky remained faithful to these traditions in his subsequent work. One of the first in Russian classical literature he turned to the ideals of goodness and beauty. Problems of the human soul and issues of spirituality of society as a whole.

Dostoevsky's early stories teach us to understand life in its various manifestations, to find in it true values, distinguishing good from evil and resisting misanthropic ideas, see true happiness in spiritual harmony and love for people.

I want swans to live, And from the white flocks the World has become kinder... A. Dementiev Songs and epics, fairy tales and stories, stories and novels of Russian writers teach us kindness, mercy and compassion. And how many proverbs and sayings have been created! “Remember good, but evil...

The city is lush, the city is poor, The spirit of bondage, the slender appearance, The vault of heaven is green-pale, Boredom, cold and granite. A.S. Pushkin Petersburg... The city to which many writers from Lomonosov to the poets of our days addressed in their works....

What is Pechorin's tragedy? I look sadly at our generation! Its future is either empty or dark, Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge or doubt, It will grow old in inaction. M. Yu. Lermontov. Roman M.Yu. Lermontov "Hero of Our Time"...

I would like to begin my work about Dostoevsky and his worldview with the words of L. Shestov, which perfectly express our idea of this personality. Dostoevsky,” he wrote, “is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable, but at the same time one of the most difficult representatives...

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Introduction

dOstoevskywriterwork

Precious features inherent in classical Russian XIX literature century and conditioned by its role as the focus of the spiritual life of the people - an intense search for goodness and social truth, saturation with inquisitive, restless thought, deep criticism, a combination of amazing responsiveness to difficult, painful issues and contradictions of modernity with an appeal to stable, constant “eternal” themes of existence Russia and all humanity. These traits received their most profound and vivid expression in the works of two great Russian writers of the second half of the 19th century. -- Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The creations of each of them acquired worldwide significance. Both of them not only had the broadest influence on literature and the entire spiritual life of the 20th century, but in many ways continue to remain our contemporaries today, having immensely expanded the boundaries of the art of speech, deepening, updating and enriching its capabilities.

The work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is primarily of a philosophical and ethical nature. In his works, the moment of moral choice is the impulse of the inner world of man and his spirit. Moreover, Dostoevsky’s works are so deep in worldview ideas and moral problems that the latter often do not fit into the framework of the literary and artistic genre. The constant and eternal dilemma of good and evil, Christ and Antichrist, God and the devil is a dilemma from which a person cannot escape anywhere and cannot hide anywhere, even in the most hidden corners of his inner “I”.

The defeat of the circle of the utopian socialist Petrashevsky, of which Dostoevsky was a member, the arrest, sentence and hard labor, the growth of individualism and immoralism in post-reform Russia and the dismal results of the European revolutions instilled in Dostoevsky a disbelief in social upheavals and strengthened his moral protest against reality.

The purpose of this work is to study the problem of man in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky.

1. Humanism

The main works in which Dostoevsky’s philosophical views are reflected are “Notes from the Underground” (1864), “Crime and Punishment” (1866), “The Idiot” (1868), “Demons” (1871-72), “Teenager” ( 1875), "The Brothers Karamazov" (1879-80) Literary dictionary(electronic version) // http://nature.web.ru/litera/..

G.M. Friedlander writes: “Deep sympathy for human suffering, no matter how complex and contradictory forms it may manifest itself, interest and attention to all the humiliated and rejected “pariahs” of the noble-bourgeois world - a talented person who fatally got lost in the confusion of his own ideas and ideas, a fallen woman, a child - made Dostoevsky one of the greatest humanist writers in the world” Friedlander G.M. F.M. Dostoevsky and his legacy. - In the book: Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. / Under general ed. G.M. Friedlander and M.B. Khrapchenko. - M.: Pravda, 1982-1984. - T. 1. P. 32. .

Developing the theory of “soilism”, which was close to Slavophilism, Dostoevsky assigned to the Russian people special role in the humanistic improvement of humanity. He focuses on the desire to realize the ideal of a “positively beautiful” person, searches for it artistic embodiment. In the theory of “environmental influence”, developed by French materialists, Dostoevsky is not satisfied with the removal of moral responsibility from a person declared a product of social conditions (“a piano key” Dostoevsky F.M. Collected works in 12 vols. - T. 4. P. 232. , according to the figurative expression of one of Dostoevsky’s heroes). The relationship between “circumstances” and morality does not seem to him to be a universal law.

Humanistic ideal human personality for Dostoevsky there was Christ. It was in him that goodness, truth and beauty were united for him. At the same time, the era in which the artist lived was actively destroying the ethical-religious ideal of Christ, and Dostoevsky was forced to resist this influence, which could not but give rise to doubts in him (the writer even admitted that Christ could be outside the truth).

Dostoevsky defined as the main, defining feature of his humanism the desire to “find man in man” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 9. P. 99. . To find “man in man” meant, in Dostoevsky’s understanding, as he repeatedly explained in polemics with vulgar materialists and positivists of that era, to show that man is not a dead mechanical “pin”, a “piano key” controlled by the movement of someone else’s hand (and more broadly - any strangers external forces), but that within it lies the source of internal self-movement, life, and the distinction between good and evil. Therefore, a person, according to Dostoevsky, in any, even the most unfavorable circumstances, is always ultimately responsible for his actions. No influence of the external environment can justify the evil will of a criminal. Any crime inevitably involves moral punishment, as evidenced by the fate of Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Ivan Karamazov, the murderer husband in the story “The Meek” and many others tragic heroes writer.

“Dostoevsky was one of the first to correctly feel that rebellion against the old, bourgeois morality by simply turning it inside out does not and cannot lead to anything good” Vinogradov I.I. Following the living trail: spiritual quests of Russian classics. Literary critical articles. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - P. 267. . The slogans “kill”, “steal”, “everything is permitted” can be subjective, in the mouths of those who preach them, directed against the hypocrisy of bourgeois society and bourgeois morality, for, proclaiming in theory: “thou shalt not kill”, “thou shalt not steal”, an imperfect world in practice elevates murder and robbery to the everyday, “normal” law of social existence.

The roots of good and evil go, according to Dostoevsky, not so much in the social structure as in human nature and deeper - in the universe. “For Dostoevsky, a person is the highest value” Skaftymov A.P. Moral quest Russian writers. - M.: Fiction, 1972. - P. 45. . But for Dostoevsky this is not abstract, rationalistic humanism, but earthly love, humanism addressed to real people, even if they are “humiliated and insulted” “poor people”, heroes of the “house of the dead”, etc. Although Dostoevsky's humanism should not be understood as unlimited tolerance for all evil and absolute forgiveness. Where evil turns into chaos, it must be adequately punished, otherwise good itself turns into its opposite. Even Alyosha Karamazov, when asked by his brother Ivan what to do with the general who hunted her child with dogs in front of the mother’s eyes - “shoot?”, answers: “Shoot!” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 192. .

It is important to emphasize that for Dostoevsky the main concern is, first of all, the salvation of the person himself and care for him. It is no coincidence that during a conversation between Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov, Ivan, at the conclusion of his long philosophical tirade about God, the world and man, says to Alyosha: “You didn’t need to talk about God, but you just needed to find out how your beloved brother lives” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 210. . And this is the highest pathos of Dostoevsky’s humanism. “By leading his man to the God-man and thereby caring for man, Dostoevsky differs sharply from Nietzsche, who preaches the idea of a man-god, i.e. puts man in the place of God” Nogovitsyn O. Freedom and evil in the poetics of F.M. Dostoevsky // Issues of cultural studies. - 2007. - No. 10. - P. 59. . This is the essence of his idea of the superman. Man is considered here only as a means for the superman.

One of the main problems that constantly torments Dostoevsky is whether it is possible to reconcile God and the world that he created? Is it possible to justify the world and the actions of people, even in the name of a bright future, if it is built on the tear of at least one innocent child? His answer here is unequivocal - “no high goal, no future social harmony can justify the violence and suffering of an innocent child” Klimova S.M. Suffering in Dostoevsky: consciousness and life // Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. - 2008. - No. 7. - P. 189. . In no case can a person be a means for other people, even their best plans and intentions. Through the mouth of Ivan Karamazov, Dostoevsky says that “I accept God directly and simply,” but “I do not accept the world created by him, God’s world, and cannot agree to accept it.” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 199. .

And nothing can justify the suffering and tears of even a single innocent child.

2. ABOUTtragicinconsistencyperson

Dostoevsky is an existential thinker. The most important and defining theme of his philosophy is the problem of man, his fate and the meaning of life. But the main thing for him is not the physical existence of man, and not even those social collisions that are associated with him, but the inner world of Man, the dialectic of his ideas, which constitute the inner essence of his heroes: Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Karamazov, etc. . Man is a mystery, he is entirely woven from contradictions, the main one of which, in the end, is the contradiction of good and evil. Therefore, for Dostoevsky, man is the most precious creature, although perhaps also the most terrible and dangerous. Two principles: the divine and the devil initially coexist in a person and fight among themselves.

In the novel “The Idiot,” created during the years of his wanderings abroad, Dostoevsky made an attempt, competing with other great novelists, to create the image of a “positively beautiful” person. The hero of the novel is a man of exceptional spiritual selflessness, inner beauty and humanity. Despite the fact that Prince Myshkin by birth belongs to an old aristocratic family, he is alien to the prejudices of his environment, childishly pure and naive. The prince is ready to treat every person with whom fate confronts him in a brotherly manner, is ready to sympathize with him and share his suffering. The pain and feeling of rejection that Myshkin knew from childhood did not embitter him; on the contrary, they gave birth in his soul to a special, ardent love for everything living and suffering. Kharabet K.V. Life and work of F.M. Dostoevsky in the context of deviantology // Russian justice. - 2009. - No. 5. - P. 20. . With his characteristic unselfishness and moral purity, which makes him similar to Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Pushkin’s “poor knight,” “Prince Christ” (as the author called his favorite hero in the drafts of the novel) is not by chance repeating the suffering path of the Gospel Christ, Don Quixote, Pushkin's "poor knight". And the reason for this is not only that, surrounded by real, earthly people with their destructive passions, the prince involuntarily finds himself caught up in the cycle of these passions.

The presence of a tragicomic element in the depiction of Prince Myshkin is quite obvious, the tragedy of which is constantly highlighted and enhanced by the comedy of the situations in which the hero finds himself, as well as his lack of “a sense of proportion and gesture.” And what could be more absurd and tragic than the figure of Christ (who became the prototype of Myshkin) in the context of pragmatic bourgeois St. Petersburg and capitalizing Russia? "The origins are hopeless tragic fate Myshkin, ending in madness - not only in the disorder and awkwardness of the world around him, but also in the prince himself” Bulgakov I.Ya. Problems of freedom of choice of good and evil in Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries // Socio-political journal. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 78. . For just as humanity cannot live without spiritual beauty and harmony, it (and the author of The Idiot realizes this) cannot live without struggle, strength and passion. That is why, next to disharmonious, suffering, seeking and fighting natures, Myshkin finds himself helpless at a critical moment in his life and the lives of those close to him.

Among the greatest creations of Dostoevsky, which had a tremendous influence on subsequent world literature, belongs to the novel “Crime and Punishment”. The action of the novel “Crime and Punishment” does not take place in squares with fountains and palaces and not on Nevsky Prospect, which for contemporaries was a kind of symbol of wealth, position in society, pomp and splendor. Dostoevsky's Petersburg is disgusting slums, dirty drinking bars and brothels, narrow streets and gloomy alleys, cramped courtyards, wells and dark backyards. It’s stuffy here and you can’t breathe from the stench and dirt; On every corner you come across drunks, ragamuffins, and corrupt women. Tragedies constantly occur in this city: from a bridge, in front of Raskolnikov’s eyes, a drunken woman throws herself into the water and drowns, Marmeladov dies under the wheels of a dandy gentleman’s carriage, Svidrigailov commits suicide on the avenue in front of the tower, Katerina Ivanovna bleeds to death on the pavement...

The hero of the novel, commoner student Raskolnikov, is expelled from the university due to poverty. He drags out his existence in a tiny closet, more like a “coffin” or “closet”, where “you’re about to hit your head on the ceiling.” It is not surprising that here he feels oppressed, downtrodden and sick, “a trembling creature.” At the same time, Raskolnikov - a man of fearless, sharp thought, enormous inner directness and honesty - does not tolerate any lies or falsehood, and his own poverty has widely opened his mind and heart to the suffering of millions. Unwilling to come to terms with the moral foundations of a world where the rich and strong dominate the weak and oppressed with impunity and where thousands of healthy young lives perish, crushed by poverty, Raskolnikov kills a greedy, repulsive old woman-loan-lender. It seems to him that with this murder he is throwing a symbolic challenge to all that slave morality to which people have been subject since time immemorial - a morality that claims that man is just a powerless louse.

It’s as if some destructive and unhealthy passion is dissolved in the very air of St. Petersburg. The atmosphere of hopelessness, despondency and despair that reigns here takes on ominous features in Raskolnikov’s inflamed brain; he is haunted by images of violence and murder. He is a typical product of St. Petersburg, he, like a sponge, absorbs the poisonous fumes of death and decay, and a split occurs in his soul: while his brain harbors the idea of murder, his heart is filled with pain for the suffering of people.

Raskolnikov, without hesitation, gives his last penny to Katerina Ivanovna and Sonya who are in trouble, tries to help his mother and sister, and does not remain indifferent to an unfamiliar drunken prostitute on the street. But nevertheless, the split in his soul is too deep, and he crosses the line that separates him from other people in order to “take the first step” in the name of “universal happiness.” Raskolnikov, imagining himself to be a superman, becomes a murderer. The thirst for power, the desire to achieve great goals by any means lead to tragedy. It seems impossible for Raskolnikov to say a “new word” without committing a crime: “Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?” He longs to play the main role in this world, that is, in essence, to take the place of the Supreme Judge - God.

But it is not enough that one murder leads to another and that the same ax strikes the right and the wrong. The murder of the moneylender reveals that in Raskolnikov himself (although he was not aware of this) was hidden a deeply hidden, proud, proud dream of domination over the “trembling creature” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 4. P. 232. and over “the entire human anthill” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 4. P. 232. . The dreamer, who proudly decided to help other people with his example, turns out to be a potential Napoleon, burned by secret ambition that poses a threat to humanity.

Thus, the circle of Raskolnikov’s thoughts and actions tragically closed. And the author forces Raskolnikov to abandon individualistic rebellion, to painfully endure the collapse of his Napoleonic dreams, so that, having abandoned them, “come to the threshold of a new life that would unite him with other suffering and oppressed” Buzina T.V. Dostoevsky. Dynamics of fate and freedom. - M.: RSUH, 2011. - P. 178-179. . The seed of finding a new existence for Raskolnikov becomes his love for another person - the same “pariah of society” as he is - Sonya Marmeladova.

So, according to Dostoevsky, a person is able to break out of a deterministic chain and freely determine his moral position on the basis of a correct distinction between good and evil. But Dostoevsky is aware of the duality of beauty and, to distinguish between good and evil in it, he relies only on conscience, turned to the personal ideal, which is embodied in the image of Christ.

3 . Difficultiesfreedom

Interpretation of good and evil proposed by the theory of “reasonable egoism” About this ethical concept, see: Dictionary of Ethics / Ed. I.S. Kona. M., 1981 // http://www.terme.ru/dictionary/522. , does not satisfy Dostoevsky. He rejects reason as the basis of morality for the reason that evidence and persuasiveness, to which reason appeals, do not attract, but are forced, forced to a certain conclusion by the necessity of logic, abolishing the participation of free will in the moral act. Human nature, Dostoevsky believes, is characterized by the desire for “independent desire” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 224., to freedom of choice.

Important aspect Dostoevsky's consideration of freedom concerns the fact that freedom is the essence of man and he cannot give it up if he wants to remain a man and not be a “pin.” Therefore, he does not want the future social harmony and joy of living in a “happy anthill” if this is associated with the denial of freedom. The true and highest essence of a person and his value lies in his freedom, in the thirst and possibility of his own, individual self-affirmation, “to live according to his stupid will.” But human nature is such that “released” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 8. P. 45., he immediately begins to rebel against the existing order. “It is here that his hidden individualism begins to manifest itself and all the unsightly sides of his “underground” are revealed, the inconsistency of his nature and freedom itself is revealed” Sitnikova Yu.V. F.M. Dostoevsky on freedom: is liberalism suitable for Russia? // Personality. Culture. Society. - 2009. - T. 11. - No. 3. - P. 501. .

At the same time, Dostoevsky perfectly reveals the dialectic of freedom and responsibility of the individual. True freedom is a person’s highest responsibility for his actions; it is a very heavy burden and even suffering. Therefore, people, having received freedom, rush to get rid of it as quickly as possible. “There is no more continuous and more painful concern for a person than how, having remained free, to quickly find someone to bow to” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 6. P. 341. . That is why people rejoice when freedom is taken from their hearts and they are led “like a herd.” This rigid relationship between freedom and responsibility, which exists for every true personality, does not promise a person happiness. On the contrary, freedom and happiness for a person, if he is truly a person, turn out to be practically incompatible. In this regard, Dostoevsky speaks of “such a terrible burden as freedom of choice” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 202. . Therefore, there is always an alternative: either to be a “happy baby”, but part with freedom, or to take on the burden of freedom and become an “unhappy sufferer” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 252. .

Freedom, according to Dostoevsky, is aristocratic, it is not for everyone, it is for strong in spirit capable of becoming sufferers. Therefore, the motive of suffering is also at the center of Dostoevsky’s work. But by this he does not humiliate man, but calls on him to rise to the level of God-man, to make his conscious choice between good and evil. Along the path of freedom one can go towards both good and evil. To prevent a person from turning into a beast, he needs God, and he can only move towards good through suffering. In this case, a person is driven either by destructive self-will, asserting his freedom by any means, or by a feeling of “delight” in front of beauty.

God the personality, according to Dostoevsky, alone can atone for human suffering and satisfy the human need for perfection, salvation and the good of both the whole world and each individual person, giving meaning to his existence and immortality. At the same time, Dostoevsky recognizes only man’s free love for God, not constrained by fear and not enslaved by miracle. Accepting a religious understanding of evil, Dostoevsky, nevertheless, as a subtle observer, points out its specific manifestations in contemporary life. This is individualism, self-will, i.e. assertion of one’s “I” regardless of higher moral criteria, sometimes leading to self-destruction. This is despotism, violence against the will of others, no matter what goals (satisfaction of personal pride or achievement of universal happiness) the bearers of these qualities are guided by. This is depravity and cruelty.

The unlimited freedom that " underground man”, leads to self-will, destruction, ethical anarchism. Thus, it turns into its opposite, leading a person to vice and death. This is a path unworthy of man, this is the path of man-deity, who thinks that “everything is permitted” to him. Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 4. P. 392. . This is the path of denying God and turning man into God. Dostoevsky’s most important thesis about man is precisely that the one who denies God takes the path of man-divinity, as Kirillov does in his “Demons.” According to Dostoevsky, true path freedom is the path leading to the God-man, the path of following God.

So, God for Dostoevsky is the basis, substance and guarantee of morality. A person must pass the test of the burden of freedom, through all the suffering and torment associated with it, in order to become a man.

Dostoevsky expressed the idea that the basis for the development of any society is only one single law, which is given by nature only to him: “Peoples,” he says through the mouth of a character in the novel “Demons” by the nihilist Shatov, “are composed of a different force, commanding and dominating, but the origin of which is unknown and inexplicable. This force is the force of an insatiable desire to reach the end and at the same time denying the end. This is the power of continuous and tireless confirmation of one’s existence and the denial of death... The goal of every national movement, in every nation and in every period of its existence, is the only search for God, one’s own God, certainly one’s own, and faith in Him as one true. God is the synthetic personality of the entire people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never happened before that all or many peoples had one common God, but each one always had a special one.” The great writer emphasized the exclusivity of each people, that each people has its own ideas about truth and lies, about good and evil. And if great people does not believe that there is one truth in him (precisely in one thing and precisely exclusively), if he does not believe that he is alone and is recognized to resurrect and save everyone with his truth, then he immediately turns into ethnographic material, and not into a great people. A truly great people can never come to terms with minor role in humanity or even the primary one, and certainly and exclusively the first. Whoever loses faith is no longer a people...” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 7. P. 240. .

In general, Dostoevsky was unable to reconcile God and the world he created. And this, of course, is not accidental. And here we are really faced with a fundamental and insoluble contradiction within the framework of religious thought. On the one hand, God is an omnipotent creator, ideal and perfection, and on the other, his creations turn out to be imperfect and therefore discredit their creator. Several conclusions can be drawn from this contradiction: either God is not omnipotent, or he is imperfect, or we ourselves do not adequately perceive and understand this world.

Conclusion

So, Dostoevsky’s attempts to connect the humanistic social ideal with personal improvement are contradictory. His ethics is based not on knowledge of the laws of reality and not on the orientation of moral judgment on them, but on the will to affirm the absolute. Dostoevsky prefers “to remain with Christ rather than with the truth” Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. - T. 10. P. 210. .

Dostoevsky looked at the future of humanity and the future of Russia with great hope, passionately striving to find paths leading to the future “world harmony”, to the brotherhood of people and nations. The pathos of rejection of evil and ugliness of bourgeois civilization, the affirmation of constant quest, moral intransigence towards evil both in the life of an individual and in the life of society as a whole are inseparable from the image of Dostoevsky as an artist and humanist thinker. The great works of Dostoevsky - with all the acute internal contradictions inherent in them - belong to the present and the future.

The aspiration of Dostoevsky’s thoughts towards real life, passionate love for people, the persistent desire of the great Russian novelist to find a “guiding thread” in the “chaos” of life phenomena of his transitional era in order to “prophetically” guess the paths in the movement of Russia and all of humanity towards the moral and aesthetic ideal of goodness and social justice, gave his artistic quest the exactingness, breadth and majestic scale that allowed him to become one of greatest artists Russian and world literature, truthfully and fearlessly capturing the tragic experience of the search and wanderings of the human mind, the suffering of millions of “humiliated and insulted” in a world of social inequality, hostility and moral disunity of people.

Listusedliterature

1.Buzina T.V. Dostoevsky. Dynamics of fate and freedom. - M.: RGGU, 2011. - 352 p.

2. Bulgakova I.Ya. Problems of freedom of choice of good and evil in Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries // Socio-political journal. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 70-81.

3. Vinogradov I.I. Following the living trail: spiritual quests of Russian classics. Literary critical articles. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - 380 p.

4. Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. / Under general ed. G.M. Friedlander and M.B. Khrapchenko. - M.: Pravda, 1982-1984.

5. Klimova S.M. Suffering in Dostoevsky: consciousness and life // Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. - 2008. - No. 7. - pp. 186-197.

6. Literary dictionary (electronic version) // http://nature.web.ru/litera/.

7. Nogovitsyn O. Freedom and evil in the poetics of F.M. Dostoevsky // Issues of cultural studies. - 2007. - No. 10. - pp. 59-62.

8. Sitnikova Yu.V. F.M. Dostoevsky on freedom: is liberalism suitable for Russia? // Personality. Culture. Society. - 2009. - T. 11. - No. 3. - pp. 501-509.

9. Skaftymov A.P. Moral quests of Russian writers. - M.: Fiction, 1972. - 548 p.

10. Dictionary of ethics / Ed. I.S. Kona. ? M., 1981 // http://www.terme.ru/dictionary/522.

11.Kharabet K.V. Life and work of F.M. Dostoevsky in the context of deviantology // Russian justice. - 2009. - No. 5. - pp. 20-29.

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Introduction

Dostoevsky writer work

The precious features inherent in classical Russian literature of the 19th century and due to its role as the focus of the spiritual life of the people are an intense search for goodness and social truth, saturation with inquisitive, restless thought, deep criticism, a combination of amazing responsiveness to difficult, painful issues and contradictions of modernity with an appeal to sustainable , constant “eternal” themes of the existence of Russia and all humanity. These traits received their most profound and vivid expression in the works of two great Russian writers of the second half of the 19th century. - Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. The creations of each of them acquired worldwide significance. Both of them not only had the broadest influence on literature and the entire spiritual life of the 20th century, but in many ways continue to remain our contemporaries today, having immensely expanded the boundaries of the art of speech, deepening, updating and enriching its capabilities.

The work of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (1821-1881) is primarily of a philosophical and ethical nature. In his works, the moment of moral choice is the impulse of the inner world of man and his spirit. Moreover, Dostoevsky’s works are so deep in ideological ideas and moral problems that the latter often do not fit into the framework of the literary and artistic genre. The constant and eternal dilemma of good and evil, Christ and Antichrist, God and the devil is a dilemma from which a person cannot escape anywhere and cannot hide anywhere, even in the most hidden corners of his inner “I”.

The purpose of this work is to study the problem of man in the works of F.M. Dostoevsky.

1.Humanism

Developing the theory of “soilism”, which was close to Slavophilism, Dostoevsky assigned a special role to the Russian people in the humanistic improvement of mankind. He focuses on the desire to realize the ideal of a “positively beautiful” person and seeks its artistic embodiment. In the theory of “environmental influence”, developed by French materialists, Dostoevsky is not satisfied with the removal of moral responsibility from a person declared a product of social conditions (“a piano key,” in the figurative expression of one of Dostoevsky’s heroes). The relationship between “circumstances” and morality does not seem to him to be a universal law.

For Dostoevsky, the humanistic ideal of the human person was Christ. It was in him that goodness, truth and beauty were united for him. At the same time, the era in which the artist lived was actively destroying the ethical-religious ideal of Christ, and Dostoevsky was forced to resist this influence, which could not but give rise to doubts in him (the writer even admitted that Christ could be outside the truth).

Dostoevsky identified as the main, defining feature of his humanism the desire to “find man in man.” To find “man in man” meant, in Dostoevsky’s understanding, as he repeatedly explained in polemics with vulgar materialists and positivists of that era, to show that man is not a dead mechanical “pin”, a “piano key” controlled by the movement of someone else’s hand (and more broadly, any extraneous, external forces), but that within him lies the source of internal self-movement, life, the distinction between good and evil. Therefore, a person, according to Dostoevsky, in any, even the most unfavorable circumstances, is always ultimately responsible for his actions. No influence of the external environment can justify the evil will of a criminal. Any crime inevitably involves moral punishment, as evidenced by the fate of Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Ivan Karamazov, the murderer husband in the story “The Meek” and many other tragic heroes of the writer.

“Dostoevsky was one of the first to correctly feel that rebellion against the old, bourgeois morality by simply turning it inside out does not and cannot lead to anything good.” The slogans “kill”, “steal”, “everything is permitted” can be subjective, in the mouths of those who preach them, directed against the hypocrisy of bourgeois society and bourgeois morality, for, proclaiming in theory: “thou shalt not kill”, “thou shalt not steal”, an imperfect world in practice elevates murder and robbery to the everyday, “normal” law of social existence.

The roots of good and evil go, according to Dostoevsky, not so much in the social structure as in human nature and deeper - in the universe. “For Dostoevsky, man is the highest value.” But for Dostoevsky this is not abstract, rationalistic humanism, but earthly love, humanism addressed to real people, even if they are “humiliated and insulted” “poor people”, heroes of the “house of the dead”, etc. Although Dostoevsky's humanism should not be understood as unlimited tolerance for all evil and absolute forgiveness. Where evil turns into chaos, it must be adequately punished, otherwise good itself turns into its opposite. Even Alyosha Karamazov, when asked by his brother Ivan what to do with the general who hunted her child with dogs in front of the mother’s eyes - “shoot?”, answers: “Shoot!”

It is important to emphasize that for Dostoevsky the main concern is, first of all, the salvation of the person himself and care for him. It is no coincidence that during a conversation between Ivan and Alyosha Karamazov, Ivan, at the conclusion of his long philosophical tirade about God, the world and man, says to Alyosha: “You didn’t need to talk about God, but you just needed to find out how your beloved brother lives.” And this is the highest pathos of Dostoevsky’s humanism. “By leading his man to the God-man and thereby caring for man, Dostoevsky differs sharply from Nietzsche, who preaches the idea of a man-god, i.e. puts man in the place of God." This is the essence of his idea of the superman. Man is considered here only as a means for the superman.

One of the main problems that constantly torments Dostoevsky is whether it is possible to reconcile God and the world that he created? Is it possible to justify the world and the actions of people, even in the name of a bright future, if it is built on the tear of at least one innocent child? His answer here is unequivocal - “no high goal, no future social harmony can justify the violence and suffering of an innocent child.” In no case can a person be a means for other people, even their best plans and intentions. Through the mouth of Ivan Karamazov, Dostoevsky says that “I accept God directly and simply,” but “I do not accept the world he created, God’s world, and cannot agree to accept it.”

And nothing can justify the suffering and tears of even a single innocent child.

. About the tragic inconsistency of man

Dostoevsky is an existential thinker. The most important and defining theme of his philosophy is the problem man, his destiny and the meaning of life. But the main thing for him is not the physical existence of man, and not even those social collisions that are associated with him, but the inner world of Man, the dialectic of his ideas, which constitute the inner essence of his heroes: Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Karamazov, etc. Man is a mystery, he is entirely woven from contradictions, the main one of which, in the end, is the contradiction of good and evil. Therefore, for Dostoevsky, man is the most precious creature, although perhaps also the most terrible and dangerous. Two principles: the divine and the devil initially coexist in a person and fight among themselves.

In the novel “The Idiot,” created during the years of his wanderings abroad, Dostoevsky made an attempt, competing with other great novelists, to create the image of a “positively beautiful” person. The hero of the novel is a man of exceptional spiritual selflessness, inner beauty and humanity. Despite the fact that Prince Myshkin by birth belongs to an old aristocratic family, he is alien to the prejudices of his environment, childishly pure and naive. The prince is ready to treat every person with whom fate confronts him in a brotherly manner, is ready to sympathize with him and share his suffering. The pain and feeling of rejection that Myshkin knew from childhood did not embitter him; on the contrary, they gave birth in his soul to a special, ardent love for everything living and suffering. With his characteristic unselfishness and moral purity, which makes him similar to Cervantes’ Don Quixote and Pushkin’s “poor knight,” “Prince Christ” (as the author called his favorite hero in the drafts of the novel) is not by chance repeating the suffering path of the Gospel Christ, Don Quixote, Pushkin's "poor knight". And the reason for this is not only that, surrounded by real, earthly people with their destructive passions, the prince involuntarily finds himself caught up in the cycle of these passions.

The presence of a tragicomic element in the depiction of Prince Myshkin is quite obvious, the tragedy of which is constantly highlighted and enhanced by the comedy of the situations in which the hero finds himself, as well as his lack of “a sense of proportion and gesture.” And what could be more absurd and tragic than the figure of Christ (who became the prototype of Myshkin) in the context of pragmatic bourgeois St. Petersburg and capitalizing Russia? “The origins of Myshkin’s hopelessly tragic fate, ending in madness, lie not only in the disorder and awkwardness of the world around him, but also in the prince himself.” For just as humanity cannot live without spiritual beauty and harmony, it (and the author of The Idiot realizes this) cannot live without struggle, strength and passion. That is why, next to disharmonious, suffering, seeking and fighting natures, Myshkin finds himself helpless at a critical moment in his life and the lives of those close to him.

Among Dostoevsky's greatest works, which had a tremendous influence on subsequent world literature, is the novel “Crime and Punishment.” The action of the novel “Crime and Punishment” does not take place in squares with fountains and palaces and not on Nevsky Prospect, which for contemporaries was a kind of symbol of wealth, position in society, pomp and splendor. Dostoevsky's Petersburg is disgusting slums, dirty drinking bars and brothels, narrow streets and gloomy alleys, cramped courtyards, wells and dark backyards. It’s stuffy here and you can’t breathe from the stench and dirt; On every corner you come across drunks, ragamuffins, and corrupt women. Tragedies constantly occur in this city: from a bridge, in front of Raskolnikov’s eyes, a drunken woman throws herself into the water and drowns, Marmeladov dies under the wheels of a dandy gentleman’s carriage, Svidrigailov commits suicide on the avenue in front of the tower, Katerina Ivanovna bleeds to death on the pavement...

But it is not enough that one murder leads to another and that the same ax strikes the right and the wrong. The murder of the moneylender reveals that in Raskolnikov himself (although he was not aware of this) was hiding a deeply hidden, proud, proud dream of domination over the “trembling creature” and over the “entire human anthill.” The dreamer, who proudly decided to help other people with his example, turns out to be a potential Napoleon, burned by secret ambition that poses a threat to humanity.

Thus, the circle of Raskolnikov’s thoughts and actions tragically closed. And the author forces Raskolnikov to abandon individualistic rebellion, to painfully endure the collapse of his Napoleonic dreams, so that, having abandoned them, “come to the threshold of a new life that would unite him with other suffering and oppressed people.” The seed of finding a new existence for Raskolnikov is his love for another person - the same “pariah of society” as he is - Sonya Marmeladova.

3. Difficulties of freedom

The interpretation of good and evil proposed by the theory of “reasonable egoism” does not satisfy Dostoevsky. He rejects reason as the basis of morality for the reason that evidence and persuasiveness, to which reason appeals, do not attract, but are forced, forced to a certain conclusion by the necessity of logic, abolishing the participation of free will in the moral act. Human nature, Dostoevsky believes, is characterized by the desire for “independent desire”, for freedom of choice.

An important aspect of Dostoevsky’s consideration of freedom concerns the fact that freedom is the essence of man and he cannot give it up if he wants to remain a man and not be a “pin.” Therefore, he does not want the future social harmony and joy of living in a “happy anthill” if this is associated with the denial of freedom. The true and highest essence of a person and his value lies in his freedom, in the thirst and possibility of his own, individual self-affirmation, “to live according to his stupid will.” But human nature is such that when “set free,” he immediately begins to rebel against the existing order. “It is here that his hidden individualism begins to appear and all the unsightly sides of his “underground” are revealed, the contradictory nature of his nature and freedom itself is revealed.”

At the same time, Dostoevsky perfectly reveals the dialectic of freedom and responsibility of the individual. True freedom is a person’s highest responsibility for his actions; this is a very heavy burden and even suffering. Therefore, people, having received freedom, rush to get rid of it as quickly as possible. “There is no more incessant and more painful concern for a person than how, having remained free, to quickly find someone before whom to bow.” That is why people rejoice when freedom is taken from their hearts and they are led “like a herd.” This rigid relationship between freedom and responsibility, which exists for every true personality, does not promise a person happiness. On the contrary, freedom and happiness for a person, if he is truly a person, turn out to be practically incompatible. In this regard, Dostoevsky speaks of “such a terrible burden as freedom of choice.” Therefore, there is always an alternative: either to be a “happy baby” but give up freedom, or to take on the burden of freedom and become a “miserable sufferer.”

Freedom, according to Dostoevsky, is aristocratic, it is not for everyone, it is for the strong in spirit, capable of becoming sufferers. Therefore, the motive of suffering is also at the center of Dostoevsky’s work. But by this he does not humiliate man, but calls on him to rise to the level of God-man, to make his conscious choice between good and evil. Along the path of freedom one can go towards both good and evil. To prevent a person from turning into a beast, he needs God, and he can only move towards good through suffering. In this case, a person is driven either by destructive self-will, asserting his freedom by any means, or by a feeling of “delight” in front of beauty.

The unlimited freedom that the “underground man” strives for leads to self-will, destruction, and ethical anarchism. Thus, it turns into its opposite, leading a person to vice and death. This is a path unworthy of man, this is the path of a man-deity who thinks that “everything is permitted” to him. This is the path of denying God and turning man into God. Dostoevsky’s most important thesis about man is precisely that the one who denies God takes the path of man-divinity, as Kirillov does in his “Demons.” According to Dostoevsky, the true path of freedom is the path leading to the God-Man, the path of following God.

Dostoevsky expressed the idea that the basis for the development of any society is only one single law, which is given by nature only to him: “Peoples,” he says through the mouth of a character in the novel “Demons” by the nihilist Shatov, “are composed of a different force, commanding and dominating, but the origin of which is unknown and inexplicable. This force is the force of an insatiable desire to reach the end and at the same time denying the end. This is the power of continuous and tireless confirmation of one’s existence and the denial of death... The goal of every national movement, in every nation and in every period of its existence, is the only search for God, one’s own God, certainly one’s own, and faith in Him as one true. God is the synthetic personality of the entire people, taken from its beginning to its end. It has never happened before that all or many peoples had one common God, but each one always had a special one.” The great writer emphasized the exclusivity of each people, that each people has its own ideas about truth and lies, about good and evil. And “... if a great people does not believe that there is one truth in it (precisely in one thing and precisely exclusively), if it does not believe that it is one and is recognized to resurrect and save everyone with its truth, then it immediately turns into ethnographic material, and not to a great nation. A truly great people can never come to terms with a secondary role in humanity or even a primary one, but certainly and exclusively the first one. Whoever loses faith is no longer a people...”

Conclusion

The aspiration of Dostoevsky’s thoughts towards real life, passionate love for people, the persistent desire of the great Russian novelist to find a “guiding thread” in the “chaos” of life phenomena of his transitional era in order to “prophetically” guess the paths in the movement of Russia and all of humanity towards the moral and aesthetic ideal of goodness and social justice, gave his artistic quest the exactingness, breadth and majestic scale that allowed him to become one of the greatest artists of Russian and world literature, truthfully and fearlessly capturing the tragic experience of the search and wandering of the human mind, the suffering of millions of “humiliated and insulted” in the world social inequality, hostility and moral division of people.

List of used literature

Buzina T.V. Dostoevsky. Dynamics of fate and freedom. - M.: RGGU, 2011. - 352 p.

Bulgakova I.Ya. Problems of freedom of choice of good and evil in Russian religious philosophy of the late 19th - early 20th centuries // Socio-political journal. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 70-81.

Vinogradov I.I. Following the living trail: spiritual quests of Russian classics. Literary critical articles. - M.: Sov. writer, 1987. - 380 p.

Dostoevsky F.M. Collection Op. in 12 vols. / Under general ed. G.M. Friedlander and M.B. Khrapchenko. - M.: Pravda, 1982-1984.

Klimova S.M. Suffering in Dostoevsky: consciousness and life // Bulletin of the Russian State University for the Humanities. - 2008. - No. 7. - pp. 186-197.

Literary Dictionary (electronic version) // #"justify">. Nogovitsyn O. Freedom and evil in the poetics of F.M. Dostoevsky // Issues of cultural studies. - 2007. - No. 10. - pp. 59-62.

Sitnikova Yu.V. F.M. Dostoevsky on freedom: is liberalism suitable for Russia? // Personality. Culture. Society. - 2009. - T. 11. - No. 3. - pp. 501-509.

Skaftymov A.P. Moral quests of Russian writers. - M.: Fiction, 1972. - 548 p.

Dictionary of Ethics / Ed. I.S. Kona. ? M., 1981 // #"justify">.Kharabet K.V. Life and work of F.M. Dostoevsky in the context of deviantology // Russian justice. - 2009. - No. 5. - pp. 20-29.

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In the 19th century, ideas and ideals of the universal ordering of Being and the life of society, based on the absolutization of objective laws of development, came to the fore. human history. Ideas about the rationality of the universe, including society, united both idealists and materialists. Rationalism became the basis of social theories of revolutionary change in the world, on the other hand, a simplified interpretation of the essence and purpose of man, who was considered in these theories as a mechanistic part of the class, people, masses. Dostoevsky's work became a clear contrast to this turn of thought. Dostoevsky's own fate led him to rethink his previous theoretical position, revise his previous understanding of social justice and ways to achieve it. For the thinker, it became almost a tragedy to understand the incompatibility of the social theories known to him, including socialist ones, Marxism and real life. Climbing the scaffold was ultimately recognized by him as the threatening prospect of a theoretically and practically unreasonable choice. Dostoevsky realized that the one-dimensionality of revolutionary programs for transforming society, which reaches the primitive level, lies in the fact that they do not include ideas about real people with their specific needs and interests, with their uniqueness and originality, with their spiritual aspirations. Moreover, these programs began to come into conflict with the complex nature of man.

The path chosen by Dostoevsky after life's upheavals became different, and when determining the value of theory, a different point of view: in the “society-person” relationship, priority is given to the person. The value of the human “I” appears not so much in the mass of people, in their collectivist consciousness, but in a specific individuality, in a personal vision of oneself and one’s relationships with others, with society.

As you know, eighteen-year-old Dostoevsky set himself the task of studying man. The beginning of such serious research was “Notes from a Dead House.”

Doubts about the truth of his contemporary social theories and the strength of his artistic imagination allowed Dostoevsky to experience the tragic consequences of the implementation of these theories in life and forced him to look for the only and main argument for the truth of human existence, which, now in his conviction, could only be the truth about man. The fear of being at least somewhat mistaken in his general conclusions became the basis that determined the thoroughness of his research process. Often it borders on psychoanalysis, largely anticipating its conclusions.

The answer to the question: “What is a person?” Dostoevsky began his search by trying to understand a person rejected by society, “no longer, as it were, a person” in the generally accepted sense, that is, in a sense, the antipode of man in general. Consequently, its research did not begin with the best examples of the human race, not with those who were considered (or were) carriers higher manifestations human essence and morality. And, strictly speaking, Dostoevsky’s research into man began not with ordinary people in ordinary human conditions, but with the comprehension of life on edges human existence.

Dostoevsky sees his study of man in two closely related aspects: he studies himself and tries to understand others through his “I”. This is a subjective analysis. Dostoevsky does not hide his subjectivity and even subjectivism. But the whole point here is that he brings this subjectivity to people’s judgment, he presents to us his train of thought, his logic, and not only offers the results of the study, forcing us to evaluate how right he is in his judgments and conclusions. His knowledge, thus, becomes self-knowledge, and self-knowledge, in turn, becomes a prerequisite for knowledge, and not spontaneous, but quite consciously purposeful, as a process of comprehending the truth. Recognition of the complexity of one’s “I” becomes inextricably linked with recognition of the complexity of the “Other,” whatever it may be in its essence, and Being is an expression of the ambiguity of people in their relationships to each other.

Dostoevsky sees man differently: both as a representative of the human race (both in the biological and social sense), and as an individual, and as a person. In his deep conviction, division along social lines explains little in a person. The features of the actually human rise above social differences; there are features of the biological, which in their expression reach typical, essential characteristics. Speaking about the “beggars by nature,” Dostoevsky states human lack of independence, wretchedness, and inactivity: “they are always beggars. I noticed that such individuals are not found among one people, but in all societies, classes, parties, associations” (39. P. 829). It is difficult to say with certainty whether Dostoevsky knew similar arguments of Aristotle that some people are free by nature, others are slaves, and it is useful and fair for the latter to be slaves.

In any case, Dostoevsky, as an independent thinker, is characterized by a desire for merciless truth. There are, he says, different types of people, for example, the type of informer, when informing becomes a character trait, the essence of a person, and no punishment will correct it. Exploring the nature of such a person, Dostoevsky says in the words of his narration: “No, better is fire, better is pestilence and famine, than such a person in society.” It is impossible not to notice the insight of the thinker in the characteristics of this type of person, and in the conclusion about the subjective nature of the person-informer, informing, inextricably linked with objective conditions and social orders for him.

Dostoevsky's future conclusions about the free will of man and the freedom of his choice in any, even the most tragic, situations, when the possibilities of freedom are reduced to a minimum, come from that careful analysis of man, which is carried out on the material of his own life, struggle and hard labor. Indeed, history more than once, and through the destinies of not only our country, has testified that in the darkest times, when a person was not only not punished for denunciations, but, on the contrary, was encouraged, not all people took this immoral path. Humanity has not been able to eradicate denunciations, but has always resisted it in the person of worthy people.

Dostoevsky’s path to the problem of man and its solution is difficult: either he tries to reduce his ideas about man to a typology of personality, or he renounces this attempt, seeing how difficult it is with its help to explain a whole person who does not fit into the framework theoretical image. But with all the variety of approaches, they are all aimed at revealing essentially person, Togo, what makes a person human. And paradoxically, it was precisely in the conditions of hard labor, then and there, that Dostoevsky came to the conclusion that the essence of man, first of all, is in conscious activity, in work, during which he demonstrates his freedom of choice, goal-setting, and self-affirmation. Labor, even forced labor, cannot be only a hateful duty for a person. Dostoevsky warned about the danger for the individual of such work: “It once occurred to me that if they wanted to completely crush and destroy a person, punishing him with the most terrible punishment, so that the most terrible murderer would shudder from this punishment and be afraid of it in advance, then it was worth giving the work the character of complete, complete uselessness and meaninglessness" (38. Vol. 3. P. 223).

Labor is a manifestation of human freedom of choice, and therefore, in connection with the problem of labor, Dostoevsky began his search to solve the problem of freedom and necessity. There are different points of view on the relationship between freedom and necessity. In Marxism, “Freedom is a recognized necessity.” Dostoevsky is interested in the problem of human freedom in all its various aspects and guises. Thus, he turns to human labor and sees in it the possibility of realizing human freedom through the choice of goals, objectives, and ways of self-expression.

The desire for free will is natural for a person, and therefore the suppression of this desire disfigures the personality, and forms of protest against suppression can be unexpected, especially when reason and control are turned off, and a person becomes dangerous to himself and to others. Dostoevsky meant prisoners, as he himself was, but we know that society can create convict conditions and turn people into prisoners not only by putting them behind bars. And then tragedy is inevitable. It can be expressed “in the almost instinctive longing of the individual for himself, and in the desire to assert himself, his humiliated personality, reaching the point of anger, rage, and clouding of reason...” (38. Vol. 3. P. 279). And the question arises: where is the limit of such a protest if it covers masses of people who do not want to live in conditions of suppression of humanity? There are no such boundaries when it comes to an individual person, Dostoevsky argues, and even more so when it comes to society, and an explanation for this can be found by referring to inner world person.

The content of the concept of “man” in Dostoevsky is significantly different from that of many of his contemporary philosophers; it is richer in a number of respects even than the concepts of the twentieth century. For him, a person is an infinite variety of special, individual things, the richness of which expresses the main thing in a person. Characteristic features do not serve as a way for him to construct a scheme; the typical does not outweigh the individual in importance. The path of understanding a person does not come down to the discovery of the typical, or does not end with this, but with each such discovery it rises to a new level. He reveals such contradictions of the human “I” that exclude the absolute predictability of human actions.

In the unity of the individual and the typical, a person, according to Dostoevsky, is a whole complex world, having both autonomy and close connection with other people. This world is valuable in itself, it develops in the process of introspection, and for its preservation it requires inviolability of its living space, the right to solitude. Having lived in penal servitude in a world of forced close communication with people, Dostoevsky discovered for himself that it is one of the forces detrimental to the human psyche. Dostoevsky admits that hard labor brought him many discoveries about himself: “I could never imagine what is terrible and painful about the fact that during all ten years of hard labor I will never, not even for a single minute, be alone?” And further, “forced communication increases loneliness, which cannot be overcome by forced community life.” Looking mentally into history many years in advance, Dostoevsky saw not only the positive, but also the painful aspects of collective life, which destroys the individual’s right to sovereign existence. It is clear that, turning to a person, Dostoevsky thereby turns to society, to the problem of social theory, its content, and the search for the truth about society.

In conditions of penal servitude, Dostoevsky realized what is most terrible for a person. It became clear to him that a person cannot normal life walk in formation, live only in a team, work without any personal interest, only as directed. He came to the conclusion that limitless coercion becomes a type of cruelty, and cruelty begets cruelty even further. to a greater extent. Violence cannot become the path to happiness for a person, and therefore for society.

By the early sixties of the nineteenth century, Dostoevsky was already convinced that social theory that does not take into account the complex human “I” is sterile, harmful, destructive, infinitely dangerous, since it contradicts real life, since it comes from a subjective scheme, subjective opinion. It can be assumed that Dostoevsky criticizes Marxism and socialist concepts.

A person is not a predetermined quantity; he cannot be defined in a finite enumeration of properties, traits, actions and views. This conclusion is the main one in the further development of Dostoevsky’s concept of man, presented in his new work “Notes from Underground.” Dostoevsky argues with famous philosophers; the ideas of materialists regarding man and his connection with the outside world, which supposedly determines his essence, behavior, etc., seem primitive to him. and ultimately shapes the personality. A person, according to Dostoevsky, cannot be calculated using mathematical formulas, based on the fact that 2´2 = 4, and trying to calculate him using a formula means turning him in your imagination into something mechanical. Dostoevsky did not accept mechanicalism in his views on man and society. Human life, in his understanding, represents the constant realization of the endless possibilities inherent in him: “the whole human thing, it seems and really consists only in that a person constantly proves to himself that he is a man, and not a cog, and not a pin! At least he proved it with his sides..." (38. Vol. 3. P. 318).

Dostoevsky persistently addressed the theme of man as a living person, and not as material from which someone can “make a type.” And this concern is caused not simply by an understanding of the absurdity of such a theory, but by the danger to life if translated into political programs and actions. He foresees possible attempts at such action, since in society itself he sees the basis for the tendency to depersonalize people, when they are considered only as material and a means to achieve a goal. Dostoevsky’s great philosophical discovery was already the fact that he saw this danger, and later – its implementation in Russia.

Dostoevsky comes to the conclusion that there is a fundamental difference between nature and society, that natural scientific approaches and theories based on them are not applicable to society. Social events are not calculated with the same degree of probability as in nature, when discovered laws become the answer to all questions. He needed this conclusion in order to refute the rational-unambiguous approach to history (including in Marxism), mathematical calculations progress public life, the strict design of all its sides.

Society cannot be understood without taking into account the fact that man is a different creature compared to all life on Earth. He, more than anything else, cannot be a number; any logic destroys a person. Human relations do not lend themselves to strictly mathematical and logical expression, since they are not subject to all the endless turns of human free will. Either the recognition of free will, or logic - one excludes the other. A theory that does not take into account the essence of the endless manifestation of human free will cannot be considered correct. According to Dostoevsky, such a theory remains within the limits of reason, while man is an infinite being, and as an object of knowledge exceeds the capabilities of rational and rational approaches to him. Reason is only reason and satisfies only the rational abilities of a person, that is, some 1/20th of his ability to live. What does the mind know? Reason knows only what it has managed to recognize, but human nature acts as a whole, with everything that is in it, conscious and unconscious.

In his reasoning about the human soul and the possibility of knowing it, Dostoevsky is in many ways united with I. Kant, his ideas about the soul as a “thing in itself,” and his conclusions about the limitations of rational knowledge.

Dostoevsky not only denies the rational approach to man, but also foresees the danger of such an approach. Revolting against the theory of rational egoism, materialistic concepts that consider material interests and benefits to be decisive in human behavior, he does not accept them as decisive in the approach to a person, believing that a person is not unambiguous, and the benefit itself, economic interest can be interpreted in different ways.

Dostoevsky was able to understand that all material values cannot be reduced to economic benefits, although they are necessary for man. But he also realized that precisely at turning points in history, when the question of economic benefits is especially acute, recedes into the background or is completely forgotten, the significance of spiritual values is not taken into account, the importance for a person of not only economic benefit, but also a completely different – the benefits of being a person, and not a thing, an object, an object. But this benefit exists, and the ways to defend it can be completely ambiguous. Dostoevsky does not admire human self-will. He speaks brilliantly about this in Notes from Underground. It is enough to recall the reaction of the hero of this work to the idea of the future crystal palace, which the theorists of the revolution promised to man as the ideal of the future, in which people, going for revolutionary transformations of today, will live. Reflecting, Dostoevsky’s hero comes to the conclusion that this will most likely be a “main house” for the collectively living poor, rather than a palace. And this idea of artificially created “happiness” and the idea of a collectively wretched community, one destroying human independence, the other - the independence of the “I”, are completely rejected by Dostoevsky.

By exploring man, Dostoevsky advances in his understanding of society and in what a social theory that works to improve society should be. In contemporary social theories, he saw how the problem of man was solved. And this clearly did not suit him, since all of them had as their goal “remaking” a person. "But why do you know that it is not only possible, but also necessary to transform a person in this way? From what did you conclude that it is so necessary for human desire to be corrected? Why are you so surely convinced that not to go against the normal benefits guaranteed by the arguments of reason and calculations, is it really always beneficial for a person and is it a law for all of humanity? After all, this is still just one of your assumptions. Let us assume that this is a law of logic, but perhaps not of humanity at all” (38. Vol. 3. P. 290).

Dostoevsky proclaims a fundamentally different approach to social theories, based on a person’s right to evaluate a theory from the standpoint of the person himself: after all, we are talking about his own life, the specific single life of a specific person. Along with doubts regarding the content of the proposed social projects, Dostoevsky has another doubt - doubt about the identity of the one who proposes this or that social project: After all, the author is also a person, so what kind of person is he? Why does he know how another person should live? What is the basis of his belief that everyone else should live according to his project? Dostoevsky connects the content of the theory and its author, with morality becoming the connecting link .