The creative history of the “The Justification of good” by V.S. Solovyov. Article one

Abstract

The article deals with the reconstruction of the history for the “The Justification of good” – the main work by V. Solovyov in the third period of his creative activity. According to the concept of E.N. Trubetskoy, V. Solovyov radically revised his philosophical system in the 1890s, which is why the writings of that period cannot be perceived as a continuation of early philosophical works. According to E.L. Radlov, there was no radical change in the views of V. Solovyov and thereby “The Justification of good” should be considered a development of those ideas of V. Solovyov that were expressed in two of his dissertations. Based on a systematic analysis of V. Solovyov’s articles for 1894, the author proves that in a certain sense both researchers are right. V. Solovyov began the year 1894 with the publication of selected chapters of his “Aesthetics”, still thinking of his new philosophical system as a development of the earlier – of “free theosophy”. However, at the end of the same year, he comes to the conclusion that a more convincing introduction to his system would be an autonomous ethics based on a systematic analysis of the idea of good. A certain turning point in the philosopher’s views in the early 1890s can therefore really be fixed.