Lesesaal

The Crisis of Western Philosophy (Against the Positivists)

Vladimir Solovyov

Master's thesis defended in St Petersburg on 24 November 1874. It surveys modern philosophy from Descartes to Hegel, Schopenhauer and Hartmann and argues that, rationalism and empiricism having been exhausted, Western thought leads to the need for an integral knowledge reconciling reason with faith and mystical experience. Positivism appears not as a way beyond but as a symptom of that crisis. It was the young Solovyov's public debut and the programme of all his later work.