Philosophical Anthropology and Dostoevsky's “Legend of the Grand Inquisitor

Bibliographic Data

ID6397331
AuthorsEllis Sandoz (corresponding author)
Year1964
Volume26
Issue3
Pages353-377
Publication date1964-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670500005088
OpenAlexW1964139210
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited15

The political thought of Fyodor Dostoevsky grows out of his opposition to nihilism, atheistic humanism, and socialism in much the same way as the philosophy of Plato grew out of his opposition to the sophists. Indeed, the parallel of Dostoevsky's thought with that of Plato is to be seen in some further aspects of this fundamental opposition. Both the Russian master of the novel and the Hellenic founder of political science confronted adversaries for whom “Man is the measure of all things” and each based his opposition on the principle “God is the Measure,” to use Plato's formulation. This declaration, echoing like a thunderclap across more than twenty centuries of history, found consummate expression in the last great work of each writer: the Laws and The Brothers Karamazov

Art · Epistemology · Fyodor · Humanism · Literature · Nihilism · Opposition (politics · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Theology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Religious studies · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought