Lev Shestov is an artificial name, but it belongs to a genuine item. Yehuda Leib Schwartzmann (1866-1938), known under the assumed name of Lev Shestov, was born in Kiev, studied at Moscow University, and ended his life in Paris, which in those post-1917 Bolshevik Revolution years was the common unhappy choice of thousands of Russian intellectuals.
And here already comes a paradox. Shestov wrote primarily in Russian (later also in French, interspersed with German, Latin, Greek, etc.) and in his writings was indeed a typical Russian intellectual far more than he could ever be called a ‘Jewish’ philosopher, which would have been his primary qualification for getting a place in this subsection of Tikkun Olam in the first place. But I have a good reason for doing this, which I will explain in due time.
Known unfortunately to very few as an original existential philosopher, Shestov was a great admirer of my own favorites Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, admired in turn by Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov, and by many other notables, including Albert Camus, D. H. Lawrence, and Isaiah Berlin. His lack of a broader recognition is probably caused by poor advertisement of his works to the general reader. Even the estimable Britannica has failed to give him a place. This unfortunate situation is ironically perpetuated by the comical fact that just as his availability to the reader increases (mainly, via the Internet), the level of cultural literacy of the general population is going down at the same time and thus his well-deserving name may never enter the glittering pool of household names and recognized celebrities.
Shestov was a truly original thinker, and thus a kindred spirit. I read most of his works in Russian years ago and always treasured his originality. In his great work Athens and Jerusalem, he tackles one of my favorite subjects: the compatibility versus incompatibility of philosophy and science. Paradoxically, he proposes to make them compatible by eliminating the scientific method and rationality as such from any philosophical consideration, insisting that philosophy’s preoccupation must be with irrational subjects, such as freedom, God, and immortality. Realizing that these three subjects are effectively closed to science, philosophy and science are thus becoming complementary, consciously avoiding those common areas where their conflict is unavoidable, and thus avoiding the conflict itself.
The reader is by now familiar with my own take on philosophy versus science and on the metaphysical and physical equilibrium between rationality and irrationality. (See, for instance, my entry Reason And Passion, etc.) I do not find it necessary to go as far as Shestov does, but I greatly appreciate that we are going in the same direction which is probably much more philosophically important than the actual lengths to which we are going.
Shestov’s brilliant work Apotheosis Of Groundlessness (known in the English translation as All Things are Possible, which title I have used as the title of this entry), is written in the aphoristic Nietzschean style, not unexpected from any great admirer Nietzsche. It is so rich with splendid original ideas that I chose to write a long essay on it, currently still unfinished, placed in the Acorn section, and predictably titled Apotheosis Of Groundlessness.
And finally, the main reason why I have this Shestov entry here, in Tikkun Olam. Not only is this consistent with my logical interest in mentioning most notable Jews in this Jewish section, but in analyzing the way in which Shestov’s mind works, I have discovered certain unmistakable patterns of the very best of the Jewish thought. (Perhaps nobody can appreciate and embrace an authentic Jewish genius better than a Russian can.) It is therefore fully consistent with my original design to have at least one Shestov entry here, like a stake in the ground, promising for later much more than the stake itself is worth.
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