The First Edition of “The Justification of Good” (1897): the Responses by Contemporaries. Part One

Abstract

This article presents the first historiographical attempt to examine and analyze systematically all the newspaper and journal responses to the first edition of the basic treatise on the moral philosophy by Vl. Soloviev – The Justification of Good (1897). The first part of the article examines the positive reviews of the book that were submitted or published by the closest friends of the philosopher, supposedly, at his personal request. The analysis of the responses allows us to conclude that The Justification of Good was generally received by the Russian readership unfavorably. The reason for this was a problem of assigning the philosopher to one or another camp of Russian thought. Vl. Soloviev’s moral metaphysics and especially his socio-political views did not satisfy either liberals or conservatives, much less representatives of the radical left movements in social thought. The article notes that among the closest friends of Vl. Soloviev who gave a positive review of this treatise only E.L. Radlov was ready to accept the philosophical conception contained in The Justification of Good and support Soloviev in his polemic with the ethical views of Leo Tolstoy. Additionally, an examination of the positive reviews of The Justification of the Good is also important, because their authors as Soloviev’s friends could interpret some of the most difficult theses of the book based on the explanation given by the philosopher himself. It is possible to suppose that in preparing to publish his new philosophical work Vl. Soloviev expected that the first sympathetic reviews would contribute to a correct perception of his moral philosophy in Russian society.