Forms of Love: Vladimir Solov’ev and Lev Tolstoy on Eros and Ego

Abstract

Vl adimir Solov'ev and Lev Tolstoy challenged both sides of an intellectual controversy raging in Western Europe throughout the course of their careers. Each took issue with tenets of Catholic-based Christianity, on the one hand, and positivist philosophy, on the other. They expressed this joint disaffection in their readings of Plato, readings fundamental to their respective moral doctrines. These interpretations deviated from both conventional "Catholic" appropriations of the Greek philosopher, beginning with St. Augustine, and positivist rejections of Platonism, inspired particularly by Charles Darwin and evolutionary theory. Yet despite their similar starting points, the philosophy of Solov'ev and Tolstoy came ultimately to diverge in radical and even bitter ways. Although each anchored his metaphysical formulations around the intertwined concepts of love and unity, their differing interpretations of these terms inspired a defense of irreconcilably rival religious and political views.The nature of their disagreements shifted over the years, as each scholar's philosophical position evolved. However, with Tolstoy's publication of the Kreutzer Sonata in 1889, debate between the two men crystallized around the issue of eros, or sexual love (polovaia liubov'). Tolstoy's position at the time was notoriously controversial. Although readers initially accepted his novel as a blood-drenched indictment of adulterous behavior, Tolstoy in a later Afterword pushed them to acknowledge what he claimed had been his much broader argument in favor of chastity and against all forms of romantic attachment. Eros is consequently portrayed in the Afterword as a sensation both manufactured and misdirected. Manufactured, in that it results from a lover's attempts to justify sexual hunger by projecting an array of complimentary attributes onto the object of his or her affections. And misdirected, in that it is the consequence of thought focused on lust, rather than aimed at what Tolstoy terms "any goal considered worthy of mankind," much less toward the highest of The author is grateful to Laura Engelstein, Judith Deutsch Kornblatt, Inessa Medzhivbovskaya, Michael Wachtel, and this article's two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. Special thanks go to Caryl Emerson for her time, inspiration, and insight.

Discourse and intercourse inThe Kreutzer Sonata: A Schelerian perspective

“…11 Cynthia Hooper, who, in her juxtaposition of Tolstoy and Vladimir Soloviev, arrives at similar conclusions as I do with the help of Schelerian insights, correctly points out that “Tolstoy’s theory of evolution is aimed at rejection of the flesh, Soloviev’s at transfiguration of the flesh” (2001: 365). (For a discussion of Scheler’s relationship to Soloviev’s philosophy and the question of Soloviev’s possible influence on Scheler’s phenomenology, see Dahm, 1975.…”

“…8 In a highly relevant article on Tolstoy and Soloviev, Cynthia Hooper notes that, in contrast to Soloviev’s view of human individuality as fundamental and irreducible (in many ways consonant with Scheler’s thought), Tolstoy “sees formal distinctions [between human persons] as adhering to the surface world of appearances; spiritual love, he maintains, must involve their progressive stripping away, until an ‘ideal’ relationship of fundamental identity between self and other is attained” (2001: 372).…”

Anna Kariênina

“…O componente ético e moral, tão caro a Tolstói, está fortemente presente na composição de Anna Kariênina. O romancista russo tem, de acordo com Cynthia Hooper (2001), no artigo "Forms of love", uma concepção pejorativa do amor romântico. Ele parece considerar que não existe um valor imanente e eterno nessa ideia, mas, sim, uma construção social, um fato efêmero, a consequência de um sentimento convencional.…”