Let’s agree on the terms first, suggested Descartes, and for once he had a point. ‘Mind’ in the title stands for the rational faculty; soul, for the irrational one.
The juxtaposition doesn’t mean to imply that the English are devoid of the latter or the Russians of the former. However, the balance of the two is so different that many dialogues between an Englishman and a Russian will soon sound like a game of Chinese whispers.
The two will blame each other. The Englishman will think the Russian is incapable of grasping rational arguments based on empirical evidence and sequential logic. The Russian will accuse his interlocutor of soulless, cold-blooded rationalism.
Both would be almost right, with neither completely so. The English can feel, the Russians can think, but the value they attach to these faculties differs dramatically.
Yesterday I argued that the civilisations produced by Christianity and Islam are so different largely because of their treatment of philosophy. Exactly the same observation applies to Russia and England (or the West in general).
The other day I visited the Rafael exhibition at the National Gallery, and one of the centrepieces was a faithful reproduction of his School of Athens fresco (the original is at the Vatican).
The fresco emphasises the contrast between Plato and Aristotle. Plato is depicted carrying his Timaeus in one hand and pointing at the ceiling with the other, whereas Aristotle holds his Ethics, while lowering his palm to the floor.
This reflected the popular image of the two thinkers, and it’s unclear whether Rafael’s knowledge of their work went beyond that. In fact, Timaeus deals with many earthly subjects, whereas Aristotle believed that life on earth was guided by heavens.
Where the two thinkers really differed was in their method. Plato tended to proceed deductively, from the general to the specific, while Aristotle’s stock in trade was induction, systematic extrapolation from empirical fact.
However, it’s true that Plato’s work mostly affected metaphysical philosophy, while Aristotle’s influence was mostly exerted through his rationality. Even though he made no great scientific discoveries of his own, Aristotle’s method, when added to Christian cosmology, lies at the foundation of not only Christian scholasticism, but also modern science.
If you’ll permit a time-saving generalisation, English thought owes more to Aristotle than to Plato, whereas with the Russians it’s the other way around. Like many generalisations, this one allows for numerous exceptions, which are, however, indeed exceptions.
If you read Nikolai Lossky’s History of Russian Philosophy, you’ll find many references to Plato and hardly any to Aristotle. When I lived in Russia, none of my friends read Aristotle, but Plato’s Republic adorned many coffee tables.
Even though few Russians of that circle actually read Plato, all of them pretended they had. That sometimes led to funny incidents.
In those days, many of my friends were musicians (a situation that still hasn’t changed, actually). One of them, let’s call him Valery, was an avid reader and an even more avid show-off. For that reason, he always had a volume of Plato prominently displayed in his flat, to remind his guests that Valery was an intellectual force to be reckoned with.
Once another musician dropped by and espied the coveted tome. “Have you read it?” asked Valery as a prelude to boasting that he himself had. “I have,” smirked the other chap dismissively. “It’s all crap. And anyway, Plato ripped everything off Montaigne.”
Such chronological mishaps aside, it’s telling that, while Plato’s idealism was highly productive in Russia, Aristotle’s rationality never quite reached it. In fact, many Russian intellectuals profess contempt for rationality, which they routinely confuse with rationalism.
There is an unhealthy element of Gnosticism there, and it’s discernible in the work of many Russian thinkers – and practically all significant ones. Russians are supposed to be privy to some secret spiritual knowledge that gives them ascendancy over a soulless, materialistic, rationalistic West.
Dostoyevsky expressed this dominant attitude in so many words. According to him, the Russians were “the sole ‘God-bearing’ people on earth who are destined to renew and save the world in the name of a new God and who have been vouchsafed the keys of life and of the new world… [Russian thought] is paving the way for the great spiritual regeneration of the whole world.”
Elsewhere he describes how savagely most Russian peasants beat their wives. Yet that little custom in no way reduced their spiritual superiority over the West:
“Every [German] house has its own vater, terribly virtuous and incredibly honest. He controls the whole family totally. They all work like oxen and save money like Yids… I don’t know what’s worse, Russian swinishness or the German way of saving through honest work.”
For what it’s worth, one could suggest that on balance industry and thrift are preferable to swinishness – but de gustibus and all that. By the way, Dostoyevsky’s virulent anti-Semitism wasn’t just his personal idiosyncrasy. It’s widespread among Russians, partly as an expression of the same Gnosticism. One can hear Russian anti-Semites say, “The Jews are much smarter than we are. But they don’t have our souls.”
That underlying contempt for reason, especially as manifested in quotidian life, explains much of Russian history. It also explains why the country boasting the world’s richest natural resources has never managed to create a decent life for most of its denizens.
Even in our age of high technology, some 40 million Russians (out of 140 million) have no indoor plumbing. As they trundle through snow at night to do their business in icy outdoor shacks, they doubtless contemplate the innate spiritual superiority of their country.
Such Gnostic idealism comes across in every Russian TV chat show, in every speech made by Putin and his acolytes. They all address Russian souls, not minds – and they certainly say things that Westerners find baffling.
The other day, for example, the namesake of the Russian Platonist philosopher, Vladimir Solovyov, suggested on his Kremlin-sponsored talk show that Russia’s natural border is Pas-de-Calais. To any Englishman or, more to the point, Frenchman this statement sounds like a symptom of a terminal mental disorder.
But Solovyov wasn’t speaking to Englishmen or Frenchmen, with their hopelessly rationalist empirical minds. He was bypassing reason to appeal directly to the innermost recesses of the Russian soul, where such lunacy makes perfect sense.
All this would be innocent enough if such irrationality didn’t have dire practical consequences. If you don’t believe me, talk to any Ukrainian you know.
Much like how trans folk claim to have been born in the wrong body, you seem to have been born in the wrong country, Mr Boot!
You are quite right. That was God’s punishment for some sin, and I’ve spent most of my life trying to atone for it.
Oh, Plato and Aristotle, what crimes are committed in your names!
I’ve read all of Plato (in Greek) and some of Aristotle (in Greek, but with the assistance of a Penguin translation, because no author who ever lived is as monstrously, disgustingly, and perhaps intentionally difficult as The Stagirite), and my conclusion is that they teach us how to think, not what to think. When I’m in doubt about what to think, I consult the Bible and the Fathers, and I interpret them in the light of my knowledge of how to think, which I learned from Plato and Aristotle.
Alas, the distinction between how to think and what to think is intentionally blurred by our lords and masters.
You are absolutely right. Greek philosophy, especially those two, is about method, not conclusions. But you’ve made me envious: I’ve read that stuff in two different languages, but neither was Greek. I’ve never made a serious enough effort to learn it, which I now regret. I’d love to read the New Testament in Greek.