Vladimir Solov'v's "Virtue Epistemology" Author(s): Edward M. Swiderski Source: Studies in East European Thought, Vol. 51, No.

3 (Sep., 1999), pp. 199-218 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099705 . Accessed: 19/12/2013 04:26
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EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI

VLADIMIR

SOLOV'?V'S

"VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY"*

I attempt to clarify the connection between two late texts by ABSTRACT. VS. Solov'?v: Justification of the Good and Theoretical Philosophy. Solov'?v drew attention to the intrinsic connection between moral and intellectual virtues. Theoretical Philosophy is the initial - unfinished - sketch of the dynamism of mind seeking truth as a good. I sketch several parallels and analogies between experience set out in Justification and the account of the intellect's dynamism based on immediate certitude set out in Theoretical Philos in the current ophy. Solov'?v can thus be considered as a 'virtue epistemologist' to this I conclude that Solov'?v's posi meaning given description. by suggesting tion on these questions does not easily cohere with the 'impersonalism' he appears to defend in Theoretical Philosophy. the doctrine of moral KEY WORDS: consciousness, moral and intellectual virtues, virtue epistemology, 'self the person and the philosophical VS. Solov'?v,

Solov'?v's late unfinished text Theoretical Philosophy is difficult to understand, both on its own ground and within the wider scope
of Solov'?v's work. career Here I will not be concerned to examine Philosophy in Solov'?v's for the sake of situating Theoretical

the main line of his development. My interest is rather to interpret Theoretical Philosophy as the beginning of an argument concerning
matters which Solov'?v considered as being of central importance

at the time he composed Theoretical Philosophy. To this end, I will juxtapose Theoretical Philosophy with The Justification of the
Good, arguably Solov'?v's masterwork, completed earlier in the

same decade. Solov'?v himself provides the pretext and occasion for the juxtaposition when, in the concluding paragraphs of Justifi
cation, he assesses in the foregoing of the results at which he arrived the significance avers that without a examination of Solov'?v pages.

just those questions which he was to take up in Theoretical Philos

An earlier version of this text was presented at the International Conference on Vladimir Solov'?v, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 15-18 September 1998. ^M Studies inEast European Thought 53: 199-218,1999. ? 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in theNetherlands. *

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200

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

ophy the moral doctrine set out in Justification may be less than in the first essay of Theoretical well founded.1 Correspondingly, ("Pervoe nachalo teoreticheskoj filosofii") he is clear Philosophy that, although the questions that belong to what he proposes to identify as theoretical philosophy are irreducible to those attrib uted to any other discipline, including therefore moral philosophy,
they do Solov'?v's the nevertheless endeavor presuppose in Theoretical to such Citing moral Philosophy qualities Francis considerations.2 Indeed, consistently requires as conscien of mind Bacon, among others,

thinker's

commitment

tiousness

(dobrosovestnosf).

Solov'?v
and fraud Solov'?v consistently

invokes our feelings of repugnance

in the face of deceit

Truth suffers no compromises.3 in cognitive undertakings. to and in effect is saying the thinker subscribes that, unless practices forward conscientiousness and closely related virtues, view

it will
inquiries assume, I have -

be only by chance
toward

that he will
the truth. In

succeed
short, on

in carrying his
Solov'?v's

of the matter,

the philosopher

not only bears, she likewise must

a question about the rela

for her endeavors. responsibility in order to raise said this much

tion between
as he

Solov'?v's

philosophical
and

attitude - not the doctrine

which he assumed

composed

Justification of moral as from

the attitude

in taking up theoretical philosophy.

autonomy as well religion, logical

In the first, he pleads for the

from metaphysics, revealed philosophy In the second, he the theory of knowledge.4

lays it down that certitude or validity in general must be ascertained

even for moral as soon as it holds out the philosophy 'theoretically', of making Solov'?v claims.5 However, prospect universally binding no more to than relative theoretical autonomy, grants philosophy

a circumstance evidenced by his insistence on the virtues which a thinker ought to inculcate. As it stands, however, this insistence is not 'justified' in Theoretical Philosophy, rather it is taken for
granted. that virtues Nor, as far as I can see, are the virtues in question moral and submitted

to scrutiny in Justification.6
there are qualities which without or inquiry of

Solov'?v
states becomes

appears to take it for granted

an empty intellectual which enterprise

of mind

cannot be neutralized, put out of effect, for the sake of a wholly

'impersonal' to cognition. assessment the values In other words, a philosopher would ascribe in the theoretical if a philos attitude,

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EPISTEMOLOGY" VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE

201

opher is conscious of her obligation to think well and thoroughly, she is ipso facto paying testimony to her commitment to such values as conscientiousness, and that these do play a crucial role in belief
formation and in the assessment of their validity.

This fact and the fact that Solov'?v regards the investigation in Justification to be logically autonomous from any other suggests, I want to argue, a reading of Theoretical Philosophy which shows that Solov'?v had a purpose inmind which was but remotely related to the main themes of 'modern' European theory of knowledge with which he was familiar. It has been contended that, in Theoretical Philosophy, Solov'?v was embarking on the path that Husserl was shortly to follow, whereas Justification is supposed to invite compar ison with the later value theory of Max Scheler.7 However, it is not implausible to interpret Solov'?v's ambitions, when juxtaposing the
two texts, as the attempt to restore to some degree a classical vision

of philosophy inwhich the 'transcendental' (i.e., the convertibility of being, the truth, the good) are the primary concern. I will be satisfied to show that, notwithstanding Solov'?v's talk of certitude
and pure consciousness, it was a means to his main aim, viz., to

demonstrate that if there is 'pure' philosophical knowledge, the formal object of which is the truth, then the truth is inseparable from the good, and that this insight should determine the shape of any so-called theory of knowledge. As I read it, then, his procedure
in Theoretical Philosophy consists in clearing a path to a 'virtue

epistemology' able to demonstrate that, with regard to the Truth and the Good, we do not need to invoke sheer metaphysical principles
or ideas. regulative and moral cognitive to the attuned Instead, states as we experience intrinsic them union in actu, of we our can

bring to insight our union with the Truth and the Good.8 I will divide my remarks into, roughly, three parts. In the first part, Iwant to focus on the question of philosophical knowledge per
se in Solov'?v in order to show briefly how value came to promi

nence in his conception of a properly philosophical knowledge. In the second, main part, I will delineate some parallels between the theory of moral experience in Justification and the movement set out in Theoretical Philosophy starting with immediate givenness and continuing to the rational aspiration to truth. In a sketch of a third part, Iwill say something about the theme to which Solov'?v

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202
returns time and again

EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI in Theoretical viz., the nature

Philosophy,

of the self m relation to the philosophical subject. The theme of the self in Solov'?v, especially as represented during his last phase, is as complex as it is controversial.9 On the basis of the pairing of Justifi I will suggest that Solov'?v cation and Theoretical Philosophy, arrived at an epistemology without a knowing subject, to borrow a phrase.10 It would seem that this is the price to be paid for concluding that the goal of cognition is union with the Truth and the Good. But is it coherent to argue in behalf of an epistemology which allies moral and intellectual virtues while jettisoning the virtuous subject?

I. FROM THEMETAPHYSICS OF THE ABSOLUTE TO THE STANDPOINT IN JUSTIFICATION OF THEGOOD to say that the young Solov'?v championed a religious metaphysics of the Absolute. As far as philosophy was concerned, that is, knowledge that is 'intrinsically' philosophical, Solov'?v at the time held a metaphysics of knowledge the gist of which may be captured by the phrase "philosophizing from the standpoint of the Absolute." The guiding inspiration is that the philosophizing mind, directed formally to the Absolute as the all It is uncontroversial
comes to grasp unity of being and thought, was not its object, the Absolute.11 Solov'?v adverse a we are to which understand one, grasp by mystical inclusive a-rational leap into the transcendent as rather as part of to calling this an not so much itself intellec

a Schellingian

tual intuition quantified, so to speak, over all possible contents of mind, including this very intuition. Theological concepts such as Sophia and the God-Man buttress, but do not in the first place
determine, this position.

This youthful project receded into the background and may in fact have been abandoned by the time Solov'?v undertook the tasks that were to occupy him throughout his last decade. To be sure, the Absolute in its several guises is still affirmed - God, the Good, the Truth - however Solov'?v appears to be reticent in affirming that there is an immediate philosophical intuition of the Absolute. the sophiological doctrine is missing altogether. This Moreover,
retreat or even disavowal could well stand behind the new emphasis,

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VLADIMIR

SOLOV'?V'S

"VIRTUE

EPISTEMOLOGY"

203

stated with full force in Justification, on the discursive autonomy of distinct systematic considerations in moral philosophy. In fact,
Solov'?v ical for turns away from philosophical qua philosoph knowledge treatment of the issues he now the sake of an extensive

regarded as central to the justification of the good. By "justifica

tion" Solov'?v meant ensuring words, "foundations," Solov'?v came viz., the foundations

of moral
discriminated.

experience
In other

and behavior

in the several dimensions

to believe

he

that there

is a properly philosophical treatment of moral issues which need not be preceded by a 'justification' of philosophy as such, and is therefore not concerned with the questions of truth in the 'theoretical
sense'.

In what does Solov'?v's philosophical treatment of moral issues consist? As this is hardly the place to summarize the length and breadth of Justification, I will restrict myself to some superficial indications regarding Solov'?v's method, if it can be called that. The basic consideration, to which I shall return in the second
part, is the delineation of fundamental moral givens, values let us

call them, starting from the evidence provided by corresponding types of experience. The experiences are identified by Solov'?v
as shame, ground the "reality sympathy them Solov'?v of or pity, works and out order" reverence a conception (dejstviteVnosf or to Seeking piety.12 of the moral order

nravstvennogo a on philosophical anthropology, comprises porjadka13) one hand, and a theory about the hierarchical structure and processes on the other. In the course of this argument, of the material world, which Solov'?v nature elaborate accounts of freedom for knowledge within the moral of Christ's moral and as well as for rationality order. The argument includes on the world scene not at its apex! to the an at

the moral

justification a time when the human

appearance was condition

Much of what Solov'?v

can be cast in the form

says about the reality of themoral order

argument" designed

of a "transcendental

answer the following question: given that humans do in fact experi ence shame, pity, and piety, and experience them as profoundly moral, what must the world be like, and in particular how must humans be in the world, for these experiences as well as their
consequences to be possible?14 Solov'?v's concentration on the

experience

of value leads him to define issues which

fall in part

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204

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

into empirical investigations (among them psychology, biology, anthropology) and in part into general metaphysics (emergence of categorially specific strata of being). But all are conducted in order to elucidate the ontic foundations of values and their conditions of
realization.

The same should hold mutatis mutandis for a philosophical account of knowledge. Although the question, 'what is knowl is of the theoretical proper preserve edge?', philosophy, Solov'?v's vision of the objective moral order does in fact foreclose on the range of answers that can be given to it. In general, if in all our cognitive endeavors we rightly seek truth, believing that seeking
and attaining the truth are, on some plausible account, values in their

own right, then no account of how we come to hold our beliefs about the world can be complete until it coheres with our theory about the objective possibility of our response to value. As it is axiomatic for
a virtue epistemology intellectual and moral may One way be called Solov'?v's its that there be an intrinsic virtues, vision connection between belongs a purchase For to statement the foregoing foundations. 'ontological' of the moral order has

what

on

theoretical philosophy
of useful 'fictions'

is in the degree to which

of cognitional substantial

it restricts the range

example,

in accounts

structure.

what point would be served by imagining such bloodless, morally

neutered creatures as disembodied egos, transcendental

unity of apperception, pure intellectual

they of the ontic be cannot be shown to cohere with foundations of cognitive

intuitions, and the like? If

draws should likely the

the picture Solov'?v and moral values, they negative and agents values,

as so many indeed abstractions, scrapped our sense of ourselves as knowers to hinder moral order. Just to cite such virtues

within

objective herself

as the conscientious

ness of the inquirer seeking truth,who acknowledges

and, by virtue of her interaction in community,

it as a good for
as a common

good, is to understand that philosophizing about knowledge, too, falls not outside but within the objective moral order and acquires its 'justification' therein. That this is (some part of) Solov'?v's message
seems clear throughout in Justification those sections a substantive in which he defends notion of personal treatise freedom his of his

insight into themanner

very token empowered

in which
or enabled

the will
within

is constrained, but by that

the moral order15 and, on

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VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY" this basis, the amount argues of good that specific social and

205 institutions

arrangements

are best suited to the role humans in interaction play inmaximizing

in the world.16

II. PARALLELS BETWEEN JUSTIFICATION OF THEGOOD AND THEORETICAL PHILOSOPHY

I turn now to what I called above Solov'?v's

'virtue

epistemology', attuned are able

that is, to his Theoretical Philosophy.

Solov'?v's to demonstrate attempt to the intrinsic union of our moral

To reiterate, I read the text as

that if we are properly states, we

and cognitive

to experience, and can bring to insight, an innate attraction to the Good. In this light, the description of the chief types of moral exper iences as presented in Justification has demonstrated that underlying
the emotionally moral objective driven order response the existence to value of which there is, or must active be, partici an requires

pation in it on the part of human beings. Theoretical Philosophy explores the dynamism inhabiting first the experience, second the
to and involvement and third the assent with recognition, In other words, the intrinsic goodness of the world. whereas Justifi or objective cation side of value outward the, as it were, explored rational

experience, moving from the qualities given in the experience to the objective order underlying them, Theoretical Philosophy moves in
the opposite direction, so to say, that is, inwardly to the subject,

in order to elucidate the dynamism of mind drawn by the truth and increasingly pervaded by the intrinsic goodness of living in the
truth. This double movement suggests that in Theoretical Philos

ophy Solov'?v does not work in the blind. Rather he knows in advance where to seek, because for him the way is prefigured in the intellectual virtues without which, as I suggested above, inquiry in general and philosophical inquiry in particular, would lose their
sense. Responding to her conscience, that she must be understanding in her endeavors, the philosopher at first conscientious experiences a once at motivation and incentive is from which moral hand, within,

and epistemic
sions an attitude assessment

in its implications. To assent to this motivation

about given the course beliefs; inquiry it involves should take, prior commitment,

occa
to the

of any

honesty,

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206
perseverance, virtues

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

which

Solov'?v

will

encapsulate

in the norm

enjoining the thinker to be conscientious. So just as Justification was designed to identify the condi tions of possibility of our basic moral experiences in an objective moral order, Theoretical Philosophy could well be interpreted along
analogous without order lines, as the attempt that to identify in the end the conditions of possi

bility of the experienced

of course, saying, of value the argument

dynamism
for which

of mind.
there had been

It goes
is but one Solov'?v's

virtually
overall task in

Justification. Theoretical Philosophy amounts to being Solov'?v's insight into the 'reflexivity' or self-reference of the objective order of values in human cognition, more exactly through philosophy.
to reflexive the human being's awareness, Brought cognitive aspira to superior values tion and assent themselves comprise higher-order

values which as such intimate the intrinsic worth of the entire moral order in which they are embedded. There is after all a strong echo here of the early Solov'?v, philosophizing from within the Abso lute, the philosophizing act coming to grasp its inherence in the
totality which is its proper not on object. However, at least one differ

ence is apparent in the late Solov'?v:

lays emphasis some mystical

in Theoretical Philosophy
experience, but on

he

the exper

ienced dynamism of intellect, on what, in the last of the three studies comprising Theoretical Philosophy, he calls reason seeking or intending the Truth. Before suggesting several parallels between the Justification it will be instructive to see just what and Theoretical Philosophy, Solov'?v did not mean his theoretical philosophy to be. Earlier I suggested that from the perspective of his 'virtue epistemology'
Solov'?v would not countenance the bloodless abstractions -

substantial but disembodied egos and the like history of modern European philosophy abounds. these abstractions suggests the moral depravity of In general, I stated that, in these texts, Solov'?v
in broaching issues that, under primarily make the main line of up European theory some

with which the (As if trading in their inventors!) is not interested

construal, as he could

plausible of knowledge

have been familiar with it. These

idealism-realism tence of problematic, in relation the world

issues would

include, for one, the

over the exis i.e., the "controversy to consciousness," in one form which

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VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY"

207

or another dominated somuch of European philosophy

Descartes onwards. Solov'?v's broadsides against cast.

from at least
the Cartesian

ego ipso facto discredit

problematic is little concerned had been to

the terms in which

still to be much importance

the idealism-realism
Solov'?v Further, in a Kantian-style

and was invest

critique of knowledge designed to test the possibility of substantive metaphysical statements. Although he does stipulate that validity is a salient issue for theoretical philosophy,17 he finally offers neither
an account of the formation of beliefs nor an analysis of the concept

of knowledge as, for example, warranted or justified beliefs. The reader is given to understand that Solov'?v's discrimination of immediate certitude (the main argument of the first study) as well as the logical form of reason (the question taken up in the second study) enter into a complete account of knowledge, but Solov'?v
short of giving such the motivating emphasize stops stress from Solov'?v immediate places a complete account, of remaining content In effect, to the dynamic on evidence, truth-seeking. in the first two

ingly mediated

studies, running to the increas states of sensory presentifications as later theorists were to say - evidence 'founded'

of cognitive acts (in Solov'?v's terms: myshlenie) is largely intended to ward off the threat of scepticism. There are intimations that Solov'?v had a sense of the intentional directedness of mental acts,18 thought he does not pursue the idea in
a direction work, never which mind and could with Brentano's earlier suggest familiarity like Frege, that of contemporaries the Gestalt at the time Solov'?v of course Husserl who,

psychologists,

was meditating
the remnants

about Theoretical Philosophy,

Finally, with

was just shedding

to the question

of psychologism.

regard

about meaning, it is doubtful that what Solov'?v has to say about language and linguistic acts in Theoretical Philosophy19 is of greater
importance in view of developments elsewhere at the time that were

already then building up towhat was to become the 'linguistic turn' inmainstream twentieth century philosophy. In short, on virtually no subject which would plausibly figure on a list of themes associated with modern European theory of knowledge does Solov'?v have anything to say which advances understanding, either because there is little sign that the themes interested him or because what he has to say is obsolete. It is

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208
another matter, of course,

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

whether

the text should

be read as a rejec

tion of this line of Western philosophical theory. There are good grounds for assuming that this is the more likely reading, if this
context Solov'?v's of interpretation much earlier remains work, one. the determining The Critique of Abstract In that case, Principles

and even his master's thesis, The Crisis inWestern (1877-1880), Philosophy: Against the Positivists (1874), would have to be taken
into account. the one However, dubbed there is the other context I have Solov'?v's attempt interpretation, a 'virtue to envisage of

in light of the proximity between Justification of epistemology', the Good and Theoretical Philosophy. To my mind, it identifies the constructive purpose behind Theoretical Philosophy.20 As I have argued for the close connection between Justifica I will put my point about the tion and Theoretical Philosophy, constructive purpose behind Theoretical Philosophy by exhibiting some salient parallels between the categories employed by Solov'?v in the latter and those he used in Justification.

"Givenness"

and "Perfectibility"

;
Moral sphere (Justification ...) Epistemic sphere

i
(Theoretical...)

(1) the indubitability of shame and the

concomitant states (2) awareness of higher moral their to be attained

(1) indubitability of immediate presenti

fications and concomitant scope in reflection experience form of reason awareness of restricted (2) of immediate the universal

as recognition in the sympathy/pity of spiritual of the universal quality brotherhood other

(3) reverence/piety

(3)

aspiring rationally to Truth

explicit motivating

recognition aspiration [religious

of superior (love)

value

experienced and

as a reality, self-perfection

to self-transcendence ?> wisdom]

experience

(4) the

'ascent

of man'

(4) the stages

of self-consciousness

psychophysiological
self-determining self-transcending -> "Good"

individual

psychological/empirical
rational self self ?>

self

person spiritual self

philosophical

"Truth"

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VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY"

209

The parallel numerals -

signified

in the columns by the corresponding

what I would regard as an analogy,

is construed

around

applied to themoral
(Theoretical

sphere (Justification) and the epistemic

between an internally motivated

sphere
move

Philosophy),

ment from immediate to increasingly mediated givenness and a movement from lesser to greater (higher) states of perfection. The
motivation hand, from from stage to stage comes the passage from, on one on to higher, positive the response values the other hand, and, as soon as the knower the dynamism of intellect recognizes for

the operations of the logical form of reason thanks to which the understanding moves beyond the restricted sphere of immediacy and particularity. Solov'?v makes it clear, both in Justification and in Theoretical Philosophy, that the standpoint on givenness is not that of an external observer, but the view from within living experience. Hence his emphasis, in the epistemic sphere, on indubitability (certi tude) matched in themoral sphere by the emotional impact of value
(e.g., shame). experience A further consideration between ness so the spheres. at the 'primitive' that the aptness of the analogy of immediate sphere experience, given in it an additional level carries within charge, sense of its restricted is to say, a concomitant In each reinforces

to speak,

ness and thus an intimation of a beyond. Thanks to this charge, the primitive state is reflexively surpassed for the sake of higher order states of personal moral being as well as the life of mind
aspiring to truth.21 Awareness of this kind does not rest content, and is to and moti to

so to speak, with being passive

to acknowledge contrary, the epistemic the basic the close

registration of the facts. On the

between the moral affinity of 'virtue epistemology'

vated - indeed, as he avers in Justification, determined - by a desire for ever perfectible states of being, including those which belong within the cognitive sphere.23 Though he nowhere says so, it is hardly disputable that Solov'?v means to refer to thewill of one and the same subject. In the terms of Justification, this 'subject' is the person. In speaking of the person Solov'?v has in view the essence of morality, which is the "integrity
of man."24 Nominally, one might assume that Solov'?v means the

premise see that the subject to pursue higher moral states is motivated to the truth.22 Accordingly, Solov'?v aspire speaks of a will

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210
ordinary of mortal engaging vision.

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

in the quest In Justification,

for self-integration. in speaking of

While

not

incorrect, this kind of formulation fails to scale the higher reaches

Solov'?v's the person,

he writes that according to the central axiom of moral philosophy the human person is "infinite."25 Significantly, as if rehearsing in
a preliminary reach of reason way what he was to write some four years later in

Theoretical Philosophy,
and

Solov'?v

ties this infinity to the universal

he juxtaposes the human

the will.

Moreover,

person with society, rejecting conceptions

persons are reduced to atoms. Quite of

the social order in which

the social should

to the contrary, the person,

be the outgrowth of the person

is the "intimate achievement"

in his sense of the term. Society

therefore as 'integral'

at its level as the person is 'integral' at her level.26 Analogy is at work here, too: just as the universality of reason and the will is matched by the infinite integrality of their respective 'objects', the
Good so only an intrinsically answers and Truth, integrative society essence to the of the person. of the 'moral essence' In Theoretical the analogue Philosophy, seems to be the unity in its conative, voli of self-consciousness

tional, and purely cognitional strivings. However, in the third inves tigation, notwithstanding Solov'?v's insistence that the distinctions
he introduces between a psychological, rational, and philosophical

self (see (4) in the figure) are no more than formal, what he says in this regard acquires added meaning when juxtaposed with the thesis
about Solov'?v order the reality has in Justification. order, as presented to I said, in the of the moral order, argued reality of value. The moral order is a the human experience of the moral order. Solov'?v works out a movement, in

to ground

hierarchical,

emergentist

states Justification, starting from base human psychophysiological and arriving at the sublime form of Godmanhood, passing through
the stratum of being which comprises sake of rational consciousness at

the level of which presumably Justification and Theoretical Philos

ophy are written. For the argument, one can assume that

personhood
cognizant of

comes into its own in just this middle

its infinite task, seeks accomplishment

stage, and that,

in communion

with still higher echelons of the Good. Likewise, having correlated self and the logical immediate givenness with the psychological
form of reason with the rational self Solov'?v goes on, in the

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EPISTEMOLOGY" VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE

211

third study of Theoretical Philosophy,

emerges of the movement meaning Are Solov'?v's who as soon as the rational from lower

to invoke a philosophical
subject to higher assents states. subjects

self

to the intrinsic

extrapolations

of these

several

consistent

with the demands of the virtue epistemology I claim to discern in the parallels between Justification and Theoretical Philosophyl

III. THE IDENTITY OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL SUBJECT (A SKETCHY INTERPRETATION) opinion, there are difficulties in this regard. In fact, the analogy I have construed between Justification and Theoretical Philosophy appears to break down on this point. In Justification, Solov'?v affirms that the process of perfection, realizing the maximum of good in the world, is historical, and that In my
for this reason its meaning or the unity is supra-individual. of Therefore, its essen

tial locus is in the community,

consciousness

in what he qualifies as collective

humanity, of ultimately moral incorporated

in the Church.27 The position derives

foundations sympathy. in the moral One's concern order for the other

in large measure
entails

from the

a salient

pity or given, of egoism the defeat to mankind encom

and thus (universal) solidarity. In turn themoral community under

goes a development passing from the family

passed by the universal Church. For present purposes it follows that for Solov'?v the individual as ordinarily understood is taken up into the wider compass of the moral order, participating actively in it, contributing to its realization, but in no way being the end of moral perfectibility. In Theoretical Philosophy, in the third and last meditation, Solov'?v has moved far enough that he is able to affirm that, first,
thinking in its form aspires to Truth as universal, cosmic; that, there

fore, second, rational assent to this Truth entails a kind of ascetic renunciation of the psychological or empirical self; and that, lastly, truth is coeval with the Absolute Good. However, Solov'?v does not introduce history into his narrative about the passage from one stage of selfhood to the next. Here there is a distinct disanalogy between Justification and Theoretical Philosophy. In the latter, the (in the Husserlian description is by far more 'phenomenological'

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212
meaning),28 given the

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

consistent

emphasis

on

the vital

evidence

of immediate presentification. The movement of perfectibility is therefore restricted in this sphere to the dynamism of intellect. But
for Solov'?v what the dynamism signals is not so much having as

rather being in, that is, growing into the truth (his expression is "the emerging reason of truth") only by leaving behind lesser states of
mind.29 human Had Solov'?v abided cognitive endeavors, by a more have he might account "pedestrian" settled for an account of of

truth relating it to the formation of true and justified beliefs. Men who develop the disposition to acquire their beliefs carefully and responsibly form their characters in a distinctive way. They combine moral and intellectual virtues in due measure (phronesis), attribute
significance to cognitive integration, and grow in wisdom.30

What we find in Solov'?v is a persistent step by step removal from his field of consideration, first, of any form of 'abstract' subject
and, then, that former, sure, form 'concrete' any admonitions Solov'?v's there is no ego, no of as well. subject to respect the evidence the self, or none As for the show, he is of the other

substantial

abstractions philosophers
Solov'?v's izes and is unwilling 'personalizes' is unsettling. been said,

have imagined.31 And as for the latter,

to countenance self-consciousness. any theory which natural Logically, to situate the resulting the seat of

situation

Where of

is Solov'?v

has

consciousness, so often

the agent

the dynamic the self that, as intellect, all acts? His my theory of the accompanies

objective moral order, in which

convertible, has convinced him

the Good and the True are mutually

that the reflexive appropriation of

the dynamism of intellect toward the Truth and the Good can only be achieved by what he calls the philosophical subject. His argu ment could be construed as follows. The properties that a subject has must be adequate to the tasks assigned to it (1). In this case, the
tasks in question are no less than to pay witness at least not on to universal, standard cosmic

truth (2). For that reason, the properties of the subject cannot be
I-centered, ence the of personal ourselves as properties, self-same any view

of the human person

conclusion with time

that is consistent with our ordinary experi

and knowers(3). agents is no set of there terms, means by cognitive acquiring, Or to put predicates endeavor that at and

in different what picks Solov'?v out

consistent the same

individuals

consolidating,

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EPISTEMOLOGY" VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V S "VIRTUE

213

over time identifying themselves as he subjects of their experiences

and beliefs.32

On one hand, this conclusion is consistent with the depiction of the human individual in Justification. We saw that there Solov'?v
uses the expression to seeking, respect 'person' manifesting, the person, to mean and a capacity for 'infinity' with the good.33 However, doing

as if to lighten the burden thus placed on the person's

Solov'?v incorporates and therefore the

shoulders,
'infinity' of

which he speaks, in the historical process of mankind's ongoing perfectibility. Logically, it would have been open to him here to
work out a view resembling of which a communitarian theory of knowl

edge for which

all the members

the proper subject is, say, the scientific community

share, that is, accept, a rational belief

system. He might in this way have stumbled across a kind of Popperian epistemology without a knowing subject. But Theoretical
Philosophy Cartesian conclusion forecloses on any such possible from as it were, move. The ahistor

ical approach buttressed by the arguments against abstractions like

any compensation egos without that Solov'?v deconstructs, earthly forms. elsewhere the yields the subject in any

of its prosaic

IV. CONCLUSION

I have interpreted Solov'?v as having held that our knowledge of the Truth and the Good may best be generated from within a reflexive grasp of the dynamism of intellect, and that among the signs to
follow ness beliefs However, alist in this regard, is a fundamental are and how I have we the thinker's For commitment a virtue are to conscientious what our datum. arrive epistemology

at them

just concluded

that Solov'?v seemingly

account

of consciousness,

matters. interdependent arrived at an aperson to sustain his concept of

the philosophical subject superseding the ordinary human person, the empirical subject. Is the conclusion consistent with the demands
of a virtue epistemology, tion of an apersonal, that is to say, can Solov'?v adopt a concep even a transpersonal philosophical subject and

still insist on the intrinsic unity of moral and epistemic values? If I philosophize conscientiously, knowing that or accepting that
conscientiousness is a value, do I not by that very fact not only

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214
bear but also assume

EDWARD

M.

SWIDERSKI

responsibility where

for what

I say correct

and

do when

philosophize? And if so, then am I not ready to, among other things,
put my beliefs in question, necessary them, whether

my reflections are conducted in isolation or in the company of others? But then Imust be conscientious also about the beliefs I hold about myself, including my beliefs about how to go about forming,
assessing, is, it may and, exert if necessary, a harmful modifying influence on my beliefs. If I am not, I form my I am

at fault, and it is a fault thatmay

impact my

'objective' beliefs,

that

the way

beliefs.

So can I conscientiously admit all these things and still believe that my choice to philosophize brings about a personal change in me, as if I thereby cease to be the person I took myself to be prior to this choice? Solov'?v apparently thought so, and having come to the conclusion he seems to have decided that 'philosophizing' is in
fact no longer a self-directed the existence of and, despite The truth is too awesome enterprise. the moral order, we are only parts of it

and had better supersede ourselves for the sake of the bigger picture.

NOTES
are Passages cited from Justification of the Good and Theoretical Philosophy taken from Sochinenija v dvukh tomakh, 2-e izd., t.l, edited and introduced by
A.F. Losev and A.V. Gulyga, M., 1990.

"But... so long as the justice of the Good has not become evident in everything and for everyone, a theoretical doubt remains possible, a doubt which cannot be resolved within the limits of moral or practical philosophy, although it is by no means of such a kind as to undermine the obligatory character of the rules of the Good for men of good will." Justification, 547. 2 "In the domain of moral ideas philosophy, despite its formal autonomy, is essentially subordinated to the vital interests of the pure will, which strives for the good and requires from reason a clear and complete explanation as to the nature of authentic good as distinct from everything which seems or is considered to be the good ..." Theoretical Philosophy, p. 759. 3 "... the greatest conscientiousness in thinking and cognition [which] is unques a determination_what draws us close to the truth likewise draws moral tionably us close to the good." Theoretical Philosophy, p. 760. 4 Cf. the Introduction to Justification "Nravstvennaja filosofija kak nauka," p. 98
ff.

Solov'?v states this requirement succinctly at the end of Justification. "... when rational faith based on ... internal religious experience takes the form of universal

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VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V S "VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY" 215 theoretical statements, a theoretical justification is required." In the same vein, he goes on, "... as the question of the source of evil is purely intellectual it can be resolved only by an authentic metaphysics which, in its turn, presupposes an
answer to questions regarding the nature, the certitude, and the means of know

ledge and the truth." p. 547. 6 Chapter 5 of Part I of Justification is devoted to the virtues (O dobrodeteljakh). An analysis will no doubt show a strong correspondence between Solov'?v's more sense of virtue in his 'virtue epistemology' and the general consideration of virtue in the earlier treatise on morality. 7 in considerable is the line of interpretation developed This detail by in Vladimir Solov'?v und Max Helmut Dahm Scheler. Ein Beitrag zur im Versuch einer vergleichenden Geschichte der Ph?nomenologie Interpreta tion. M?nchen/Salzburg, 1971. Translation: Vladimir Solovyev and Max Scheler. Sovi?tica 34, Reidel Publ. Co.: Attempt at a Comparative Interpretation, Dordrecht, 1974. 8 I use the term in the meaning given to it by Linda 'virtue epistemology' Trinkaus Zagzebski, Virtues of theMind. An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. In the introduction to her study, Zagzebski outlines the argument that follows in terms thatwould have been congenial to Solov'?v: "... Iwill argue that the relationship between the evaluation of cognitive activity and the evaluation of acts in the overt sense usually reserved to ethics is more than an analogous one_the intellectual virtues are so similar to the moral virtues in Aristotle's sense of the latter that they ought not to be treated as two different kinds of virtue. Intellectual virtues are, in fact, forms of moral virtue. It follows that intellectual virtue is properly the object of study of moral philosophy. This claim is intended,
not moral xv. to reduce concepts to moral concepts concepsts epistemic to include dimension the normative ... but to extend the range pp. xiv of of cognitive activity."

und die "werdende Vernunft der Cf. Peter Ehlen, ""Impersonalismus" in this issue of SEET. Wahrheit in Solov'?vs Sp?tphilosophie," 10 The phrase is taken from Karl Popper's celebrated proposal for a theory of knowledge without a knowing subject. Popper is clear about what he means when he speaks about knowledge; Solov'?v is not so clear, as I will argue below. Cf. Karl Popper, "Of Clouds and Cuckoo Clocks," Objective Knowledge: An Evolu tionary Approach, Oxford: Clarendon, 1974. 11 "The highest duty of philosophy consists in determining the absolute primor idal ground or themetaphysical being in its veritable significance. This determina tion is possible because the actual universe, as the expression of themetaphysical being, is accessible to us by way of internal and external experience, and because the specificity of that which expresses itself is determined by the specificity of the expression. And if it should prove that the relations of the actual universe neces sitate the assumption of determinations of its metaphysical primordial ground, which are similar to those which we are aware of in our own spiritual being, then in accordance with this similarity to our own being we would acquire an indeed

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216

EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI of themetaphysical 1877, as quoted in

not only extraordinarily universal but also positive knowledge being (Wesen) of the universe," Opyt sinteticheskoj filosofii,
Dahm,

Cf. the first chapter of part I, "The Good in Human Nature," entitled "The Primordial Givens of Morality." The corresponding experiential forms are identi
fied, for all three cases,

12

p. 4.

13 Chapter three of the part II, "The Good Originates in God.' 14 Transcendental arguments, in this sense, are not Kantian (though they do not exclude Kantian considerations); Solov'?v can be considered as a 'moral realist' in the current sense of the term, and moral realists do in fact develop a species of transcendental argument akin to arguments of scientific realists regarding so called 'theoretical entities'. 15 The argument for this kind of "moral necessity," as Solov'?v terms it, comes earlier, in the fifth subsection of the Introduction to Justification. 16 Solov'?v investigates this theme in the third part of Justification, "The Good

as chuvstva,

feelings,

that

is, emotions.

the History of Humanity," paying attention, in particular, to the Throughout economic and juridical arrangements within the state defined as the minimum degree of constraint conducive to the greatest good for the greatest number. One would have thought that Solov'?v may have had some reflections about the role and impact of the scientific enterprise within
question.

society. However,

he is silent on the

Solov'?v broaches the question of validity (dostovernosf) in section IV of the first study of Theoretical Philosophy. 18 Solov'?v writes of "...the initial directedness of immediate consciousness,
i.e., .. .the fact that it [immediate consciousness EMS] does not antecendently

17

distinguish the appearance of an object from its reality, being occupied solely by the presentation itself in its actual immediacy, which is identical in both cases." [the passage is cited after the translation of the first article of Theoretical Philos ophy by Viada Tolley and James Scanlan inRussian Philosophy, vol. Ill, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965, p. 111] In the second study devoted to reasoning in its 'formal' dimension, much of what Solov'?v says brings to mind the notion of 'categorial intuition' put forward by Husserl in his Logical Investigations. For instance, "... there exists the presented psychic fact, the proper content of which (the thought about the universal validity of direct consciousness) goes beyond the confines of every presentation - a fact is given signifying something more than any [given EMS] fact." Theoretical Philosophy, p. 801. 19 The discussion of language, in fact of slovo (the word), occurs in the seventh section of the second article in Theoretical Philosophy. The account of language and redolent of a private-language Solov'?v puts forward is psychologistic argu ment, in the sense thatWittgenstein was to criticize. 20 It should not be thought that contemporary virtue epistemology forsakes the more recent of and classical panoply epistemological questions. Zagzebski's book cited above is eloquent testimony to the contrary. As for the historical sources, one is best served by looking at the ancients, perhaps Aristotle above all,

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VLADIMIR SOLOV'?V'S "VIRTUE EPISTEMOLOGY" and throughout theMedieval

among others.

217

period. Zagzebski

recites passages

from Acquinas,

Given the significance Solov'?v ascribes to shame - as a kind of "root" out of which grows the morally mature human individual - itwill be useful to quote one passage to illustrate the point made in the main text. "The sense of shame is not merely a distinctive characteristic which, to an outside observor, detaches and separates man from the rest of the animal world: by shame a man in reality separates himself from the whole of material nature, from that which surrounds him and from that which is proper to him. A man's experience of shame for his own natural tendencies and the functions of his own organism shows that he not merely this material entity, but that he is also something more and superior." 123. Justification^. 22 "In order for the idea of the good, in the form of duty, to acquire the force of a sufficient reason or of amotive for action, two factors have to come together: a and a sufficient moral clarity and adequate fullness of this idea in consciousness on the of the 116. part subject." Justification, p. sensitivity 23 In Theoretical Philosophy (p. 819) Solov'?v writes that the intention (zamysel) to come to know the truth itself is a "vital act of decision" (zhivoj akt reshenija) which becomes a "principle of movement." Analogously, in Justification (p. 22) Solov'?v affirms that "[t]he good determines my choice in its favor by the entire infinity of its positive content and its reality. This choice is thus infinitely deter mined; its necessity is absolute; there is nothing arbitrary in it." 24 The essence, largely modelled on Kant's moral doctrine, finds its expression in the following law: "you must subscribe in all respects to the norm of human exis tence, to preserve the integrity of the human being, or negatively: you must not let pass anything opposed to this norm, any violation of this integrality." Justification, 234.
25 Justification, p. 282: "The human personality and, consequently, each human

21

individual, presents the possibility of realizing a plentitude of being or, in other words, [she] is a particular form of an infinite content." This means, he continues, that human reason is unbounded in its capacity to know the truth, and that the will is similarly unbounded in its capacity to do good in the world. 26 Justification, pp. 283-84. 27 Part III is titled "The Good Throughout of Justification the History of a and the successive for of moral theory Humanity," chapters argue 'progress' in the main spheres of civilized insitutional life. 28 in Nothing suggests that Solov'?v may have had a Hegelian phenomenology as no is in there of the hint Theoretical mind, especially Philosophy 'negativity' which drives Hegelian phenomenology from one form of consciousness to the 29 "In the immediately certain, self-evident fact of dissatisfaction with formal rationality (razumnostju) the philosophical subject shows itself to be stanov reason of truth)." Theoretical Philosophy, jashchisja razum istiny [the emerging
p. 820. next, 'higher' form.

30

Linda Zagzebski,

op. cit., writes

(p. 275): "A person who

is cognitively

inte

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218

EDWARD M. SWIDERSKI

grated has positive higher-order attitudes toward her own intellectual character and the quality of her epistemic states. Not only does she know, but she is in a position to know that she knows. In addition, her belief structure is coherent, and she is aware of its coherence. Further, she has a sense of the relative value of the different truths or aspects of reality to which she is related. She has, in short, a good intellectual character." For Zagzebski "... to perform an act [of intellectual virtue - EMS] it is not necessary that one actually possess the virtue in question. That is, it is not necessary that to perform an act of, say, intellectual courage one have the entrenched habit that courage requires. (...) Acts of virtue V require the component of V and that one act the way a person possession of the motivational with V would or might act in the same circumstances, but the agent need not actually possess V. This is important because intellectual virtue probably requires some time to develop and mature in an agent, and yet it is likely that such an agents can have knowledge long before they are fully virtuous" (276). Zagzebski does not need to add that the agent in question is just the human person in search of truth within the community to which he and she belong. 31 Cf. Peter und die "werdende Vernunft der Ehlen, ""Impersonalismus" Wahrheit in Solov'?vs Sp?tphilosophie," in this issue of SEET. 32 "Whoever thinks about the truth itself... does not think about his Ego, not in but in that, on the contrary, he acquires the sense that he loses self-consciousness, for his empty Ego a new and thus far better, unconditional content, though initially only as intended, intimated. Already in the act of deciding to know the truth the thinking ego becomes the form of truth, an emerging (v zarodyshe) form, as it were. But even in its emerging cognizability, unconditional truth possesses its distinctive quality, it can in no way be something partial, restricted and abstracted. The emergence of truth itself is the emergence of its universality (vsecel'nosti), and the inner growth of this emerging [truth] can only be the development of universal truth." Theoretical Philosophy, p. 822. 33 No doubt in Justification Solov'?v conception of the person is Kantian, that of a noumenal self within the realm of pure intelligibility. He himself provides confirmation of this given that the Russian edition of Opravdanie contains an appendix consisting of a text written twenty years earlier, originally intended as a part of Critique of Abstract Principles, "Formal'nyj princip nravstvennosti - izlozhenie i ocenka s kriticheskimi (Kanta) zamechanijami ob empiricheskoj etike." Cf. Sochinenija, vol. 1, pp. 549-580. Institut interfacultaire de VEurope orientale et centrale

Universit? de Fribourg Portes de Fribourg

CH-1763 E-mail: Granges-Paccot, Switzerland Edward.Swiderski@unifr.ch

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