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Russian Religious Philosophy: Origins, Thinkers, and Intellectual Legacy
Russian religious philosophy occupies a distinctive place in the history of world thought. It developed at the intersection of Eastern Christian theology, European philosophical traditions, and the social and cultural crises of modern Russia. Its themes grew out of spiritual experience, moral reflection, and the search for cultural identity. The tradition formed gradually across several
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Sources on Socrates: Witnesses, Testimonies, and the Problem of Historical Truth
Reconstructing the life and teaching of Socrates is one of the most challenging tasks in the history of philosophy. This difficulty arises not only from the antiquity of the events, but above all from the fact that Socrates himself left no writings. Everything we know about him derives from the accounts of others, each shaped
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Zeno of Citium: The Founder of Stoicism
The story of Stoicism begins not in the halls of power or the temples of Greece but in a bustling Athenian marketplace, where a shipwrecked merchant from Cyprus found his destiny. That man was Zeno of Citium, the founder of one of the most influential schools of ancient philosophy. His ideas, born in the turmoil
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The Philosophers of the Trubetskoy Family: History, Lineage, and Intellectual Legacy
The Trubetskoy family occupies a distinctive place in Russian history. It is one of the oldest princely houses, carrying a lineage that reaches back to the medieval rulers of Lithuania and the early centuries of Eastern Christianity. Over time the family produced military leaders, statesmen, diplomats, scholars, and some of the most influential philosophers of
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Stoicism in the Roman World: Philosophy as a Way of Life
When Rome conquered Greece, it also inherited Greek philosophy. Among the many schools that entered Roman thought, none proved more enduring than Stoicism. What began as a Greek doctrine of reason and nature became, in Roman hands, a guide to conduct, politics, and personal virtue. The Stoics of Rome transformed philosophy from abstract speculation into
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Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov and the Path of Critical Philosophy
Mikhail Mikhailovich Filippov (1858–1903) belongs to the group of Russian scholars who helped introduce systematic European philosophy to a wider Russian reading public during the final decades of the nineteenth century. His name is not as widely known today as that of V. S. Solovyov, P. A. Florensky, or other major figures of the Silver
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The Last Theologian of Nihilism: Trubetskoy’s Reading of Nietzsche
When the Russian philosopher and jurist Evgeny Nikolayevich Trubetskoy published The Philosophy of Nietzsche: A Critical Essay in 1903, he was writing from the uneasy frontier where nineteenth-century Christian humanism met the cultural earthquake of modernity. Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of God had reached Russia not merely as a European import but as a
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Immanuel Kant: The Architect of Critical Philosophy
Few figures in the history of philosophy have exercised an influence as vast and enduring as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). His intellectual revolution in the late eighteenth century transformed not only metaphysics and epistemology but also ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion. Kant stands at the crossroads of the Enlightenment and modern philosophy — a
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Sergei Trubetskoy: Life, Thought, and Legacy
Sergei Nikolaevich Trubetskoy (1862–1905) occupies a significant place in the history of Russian philosophy. Though his life was short and his published works not large in volume, his intellectual influence was profound, extending into the fields of religious philosophy, metaphysics, and cultural thought at the turn of the 20th century. A representative of the so-called
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Evgeny Trubetskoy: A Bridge Between Faith and Modernity
Early Life, Education and Intellectual Milieu Evgeny Nikolayevich Trubetskoy was born in Moscow on 5 October 1863 (Old Style: 23 September) into one of Russia’s aristocratic families. His father, Nikolai Petrovich Trubetskoy, was prominent in cultural circles (he helped found the Moscow Conservatory) and his mother, Sophia Alekseievna Lopouchina, exerted a strong spiritual influence on
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Seneca: The Philosopher of Strength and Serenity
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known simply as Seneca, was one of the most remarkable figures of ancient Rome. He was a statesman, dramatist, and philosopher who lived through intrigue, power, and exile, yet managed to leave behind writings that still speak to modern readers with astonishing clarity. His life embodied the tension between philosophy and politics,
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Socrates: The Man Who Taught the World to Question
Socrates is one of the few people in history who changed the way human beings think, yet he left behind not a single written word. Everything we know about him comes from others, most famously his student Plato. Yet even through those secondhand accounts, Socrates stands out as one of the most original and influential
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Saint Augustine of Hippo: The Search for Truth and the Restless Heart
Few thinkers have shaped Western civilization as deeply as Saint Augustine of Hippo. Living at the turning point between the ancient and medieval worlds, he stood at the crossroads of philosophy and faith. He was a man of passion, intellect, and struggle, whose life tells the story of an unending search for meaning. Augustine’s ideas
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Nietzsche’s Philosophy: A Journey Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche remains one of the most provocative and misunderstood figures in the history of philosophy. He wrote not to explain the world in a calm academic manner but to shake it to its core. His works are passionate, poetic, and sometimes deliberately shocking. Nietzsche wanted his readers to question everything they had been taught