Alexander Herzen

Alexander Herzen is a figure of great importance in the history of Russian thought. He was interested in the historical development of the notion of personhood. Herzen, who from the early 1840s attached particular importance to individual liberty, succumbed to notions or ways of thinking that might be regarded as inconsistent to some degree with his libertarianism. The author pursues this claim with reference to Herzen’s writings in the early years of his emigration, 1847-854, especially his cycle of essays From the Other Shore, since this work is usually taken as the classic exposition of Herzen’s philosophy of history and his thinking on liberty. Herzen’s skeptical attitude toward democracy was not exceptional among western thinkers in his time and that in this respect, as in others, he resembled one of the classical nineteenth-century champions of negative liberty.

Art · Democracy · Epistemology · Exposition (narrative) · Libertarianism · Literature · Political science · Politics · Skepticism · Classics · German Social Sciences and History · History · Law · Philosophy