Dostoevsky’s Dialectics and the Problem of Sin

Description

In Dostoevsky’s Dialectics and the Problem of Sin, Ksana Blank borrows from ancient Greek, Chinese, and Christian dialectical traditions to formulate a dynamic image of Dostoevsky’s dialectics—distinct from Hegelian dialectics—as a philosophy of “compatible contradictions.” Expanding on the classical triad of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth, Blank guides us through Dostoevsky’s most difficult paradoxes: goodness that begets evil, beautiful personalities that bring about grief, and criminality that brings about salvation. Dostoevsky’s philosophy of contradictions, this book demonstrates, contributes to the development of antinomian thought in the writings of early twentieth-century Russian religious thinkers and to the development of Bakhtin’s dialogism. Dostoevsky’s Dialectics and the Problem of Sin marks an important and original intervention into the enduring debate over Dostoevsky’s spiritual philosophy. Note on the Transliteration and Sources vii Acknowledgments ix Introduction 3 Approaches to Dostoevsky 3 Why Dialectics? 7 A Model for Dostoevsky’s Dialectics 9 Thesis, Antithesis, and Sin 10 The Principle of Dvuedinstvo (Duality-in-Unity) 13 Antinomies of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth 14 Bakhtin’s Dialogism and Dostoevsky’s (Non-Hegelian) Dialectics 16 How This Book Is Structured 18 A Word on Methodology 21 PART I: The Dialectic of Goodness Chapter One “If You Don’t Sin, You Can’t Repent; If You Don’t Repent, You Can’t Achieve Salvation” 27 Controversies About the Epilogue to Crime and Punishment 27 Saint Andrew of Crete and Dostoevsky’s Great Sinners 31 Raskolnikov at the Doors of Repentance 35 Chapter Two A Ray of Light in the Abyss 40 Dmitry Karamazov’s Journey to the Underworld 40 The Turning Point 46 The Way of the Grain 48 Chapter Three “The Devil Begins with Froth on the Lips of an Angel” 52 The Cherub Alyosha Karamazov 52 From Saints to Sinners: The Spectrum of Possibilities 56 The Novel’s Ending in Light of the Projected Sequel 61 PART II: The Dialectic of Beauty Chapter Four The Corridor of Mirrors in The Idiot 69 Krasivoe and Prekrasnoe: Two Conceptions of Beauty 69 Beauty and Charm (Prelest’) 73 Beauty, Passion, and Compassion: The Novel’s Finale 76 Chapter Five A Grain of Eros in the Madonna, a Spark of Beauty in Sodom 80 Madonna and Sodom 80 The European Aesthetic Ideal of the Madonna 83 The Madonna Cult in Russian Literature 85 PART III: The Dialectic of Truth Chapter Six Dostoevsky’s Case for Contradictions 97 Pravda and Istina, Two Conceptions of Truth 97 High and Low Truth (Pravda) in Notes from Underground 99 The Birth of Polarities in “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man” 105 Chapter Seven Antinomic Truth (Istina) 111 The Principle of Contradiction in Russian Religious Thought 111 Pavel Florensky and Mikhail Bakhtin on Antinomic (Dialogic) Truth 116 Two Truths in The Brothers Karamazov: Pro and Contra 118 Concluding Notes 121 Notes 125 Selected Bibliography 151 Index 163