ARGUMENT

Vol. 4 (1/2014)
pp. 135–153

Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes

Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC∗

ABSTRACT
The paper contains the general characteristics of the relation between Lev Shestov’s philosophy
of existence and transcendental phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. The analysis was largely
inspired by Cezary Wodziński’s research on Shestov’s writings, including his book published in
Polish entitled Wiedza a zbawienie. Studium myśli Lwa Szestowa (1991). In 1931, inspired by
Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophiae, Husserl began a total transformation of philoso-
phy into a science absolutely founded, assumptionless and developed in the spirit of absolute
self-responsibility. Thus, the idea of philosophy as an exact science and Descartes’ idea of a s c i -
e n c e a b s o l u t e l y f o u n d e d became the aim. It resulted in a project of universal science
that — according to Husserl — has been the aim of European philosophy from the beginning.
Ultimately, this philosophy was to rebuild the whole model of European culture. Less than two
years after the first edition of Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenchaften und die transzendentale
Phänomenologie, Lev Shestov published his Athens and Jerusalem (1938) in which he agrees
with Husserl’s diagnosis that the whole of European culture was in a stage of a deep crisis which
goes to its very foundations. However, Shestov points at the radically different sources of that
crisis. Paradoxically, the remarkable friendship connecting these two thinkers did not affect
the similarity of their views. In fact, they are located at the opposite poles of the contemporary
philosophical scene. The friendship of Shestov and Husserl was born in the atmosphere of an
intense and uncompromising intellectual debate. Both thinkers are strongly convinced that
the fate of European culture and European understanding of what it is to be a man are decided
in the realm of philosophy. So, the philosophical projects they offer are two extremely critical
visions of culture. At the same time they suggest a way in which European culture should be
thoroughly reformed at its very basis.

KEYWORDS
crisis of culture; radical criticism; télos; the alternative e i t h e r – o r; overcoming the crisis;
source of knowledge

∗
Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Philosophy and Sociology, Pedagogical University
of Cracow, Poland. E-mail: [email protected].
www.argument-journal.eu Published online: 27.10.2014
136 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT…

Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint — O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, scene 5, 186–190)

The metaphorical words said by Hamlet disclose before us the phenomenon of

universal crisis. When the world is trembling in its foundations, and the universe
is breaking down into small glass pieces, we can see reality only in its mirror
fragments. The world in which we live cannot be comprehended in its entirety.
Nearly one century has already passed since The decline of the West of Oswald
Spengler (1921), The new Middle Ages of Nikolai Berdyaev (1924), The agony of
Christianity of Miguel de Unamuno (1924), and The revolt of the masses of José
Ortega y Gasset were published (1930). In 1936 Husserl published Die Krisis
der europäischen Wissenchaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. This
work is the deepest expression of Husserl’s mature thought, and includes a full
anatomy of t h e c r i s i s o f Eu r o p e a n w a y o f b e i n g h u m a n. It is entirely
subordinated to the question about the essence and causes of that historical turn
which brought Europe on the brink of a precipice. On the turn of the twenti-
eth Husserl did not have any doubt as to the occurrence of a universal turning
point in the world of European man. A vivid ideal of true science and scientific
responsibility was abandoned. Science ceased to believe in its absolute signifi-
cance. Man was doomed to live in an uncertain and incomprehensible world.
According to Husserl, it is a philosopher–scientist who bears responsibility for
this state of affairs, and this is why it is only him who is obliged to rebuild (in
accordance with the arché) the European way of being human. Seeing growing
pluralism in philosophy, Husserl writes:
We still have philosophical congresses. The philosophers meet but, unfortunately, not the
philosophies. The philosophies lack the unity of a mental space in which they might exist
for and act on one another (Husserl, 1977: 5).

Husserl notices the process of the undeniable collapse of Western philosophy,

starting already from the half of the nineteenth century. It manifests itself in
philosophy’s loss of unity as to its methods, problems and accepted purposes.
In the nineteenth century the faith of philosophy in its absolute value and sci-
entific rigour was shaken. This is how Husserl sees the state of contemporary
philosophy:
Instead of a unitary living philosophy, we have a philosophical literature growing beyond
all bounds and almost without coherence. Instead of a serious discussion among conflic-
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 137

ting theories that, in their very conflict, demonstrate the intimacy with which they belong
together, the commonness of their underlying convictions, and an unswerving belief in
a true philosophy, we have a pseudo-reporting and a pseudo-criticizing, a mere semblance
of philosophizing seriously with and for one another (Husserl, 1977: 5).

In 1931, inspired by Descartes’ Meditationes de prima philosophiae, Husserl begins

a total transformation of philosophy into a s c i e n c e a b s o l u t e l y f o u n d e d,
assumptionless and developed in the spirit of absolute self-responsibility. The
idea of philosophy as an exact science and Descartes’ idea of a science absolutely
founded becomes the aim. This results in a project of universal science which
— as Husserl claims — has been the aim of European philosophy from its very
beginning. Ultimately, this philosophy is to rebuild the whole model of Euro-
pean culture.
The genuine spiritual struggles of European Humanity as such — writes Husserl in his last
work — take the form of struggles between the philosophies. […] To bring latent reason
to the understanding of its own possibilities and thus to bring to insight the possibility
of metaphysics as a true possibility — this is the only way to put metaphysics or universal
philosophy on the strenuous road to realization. It is the only way to decide whether the
telos which was inborn in European humanity at the birth of Greek philosophy — that of
humanity which seeks to exist, and is only possible, through philosophical reason, moving
endlessly from latent to manifest reason, and forever seeking its own norms through this,
its truth and genuine human nature — whether this telos, then, is merely a factual, histo-
rical delusion, the accidental acquisition of merely one among many other civilizations
and histories, or whether Greek humanity was not rather the first breakthrough to what is
essential to humanity as such, its entelechy (Husserl, 1970b: 15).

For Husserl the history of modern philosophy is a struggle for t h e m e a n -

i n g o f h u m a n i t y and therefore it is possible to settle the question of the
meaning of human existence only within theoretical activity. The modern
age has its beginning in the acceptance of the Greek ideal of humanity, that
of man who derives his entire life from pure reason, in accordance to which
he shapes himself and the entire surrounding reality. Thus, the primary ideal
of philosophy is that of philosophy as an all-encompassing science speaking
about the totality of what is and not divided into any particular disciplines.
In its universality philosophy was to embrace all conceivable meaning-
ful problems, thereby ensuring the unity of the area of theoretical research.
According to the phenomenologist in the Enlightenment there occurs
a radical turn — abandoning the faith in the power of science and philosophy as
universal domains. Moreover, an internal disintegration into initially coherent
but unrelated systems takes place. The seemingly universal method turns out to
be useless when it comes to questions tormenting humankind. The only things
that still sustains it are successes of particular sciences. However, the loss of phi-
losophy’s “life significance” decided its ultimate fall. Husserl claims, that:
138 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

the crisis of European existence can end in only one of two ways: in the ruin of a Europe
alienated from its rational sense of life, fallen into a barbarian hatred of spirit; or in the
rebirth of Europe from the spirit of philosophy, through a heroism of reason that will
definitively overcome naturalism. Europe’s greatest danger is weariness. Let us as “good
Europeans” do battle with this danger of dangers with the sort of courage that does not
shirk even the endless battle. If we do, then from the annihilating conflagration of disbe-
lief, from the fiery torrent of despair regarding the West’s mission to humanity, from the
ashes of the great weariness, the phoenix of a new inner life of the spirit will arise as the
underpinning of a great and distant human future, for the spirit alone is immortal (Hus-
serl, 1970b: 192).

Less than two years after the first edition of Die Krisis der europäischen Wis-
senchaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie, in 1938, Lev Shestov pub-
lishes a book entitled Athens and Jerusalem, in which he agrees with Husserl’s
diagnosis that the whole European culture is in a stage of a deep crisis which goes
to its very foundations. However, Shestov points at radically different sources
of that crisis. Husserl and Shestov were great friends, even though they stand on
the totally opposite poles of philosophical thought. This is an extremely rare
paradox in philosophy.

Unfortunately, I am so tired I can barely write half a page each day. It’s not much. But I am
still happy to do it. The thing is: people still do not understand Husserl, and even less the
point of my struggle against him. Look at this short book by a Portuguese writer, it’s in
French, he speaks well of me in it. You see, in the footnote, he says that I was the first to
give “the right answer to a somewhat philistine thinker”. But you know very well that this
is not it at all. I am so sorry people understand me so badly. People who claim to have read
my books, and perhaps to even like me (Fondane, 1982: III).

This is how in conversation with Benjamin Fondane he described his own

work on the article in memory of Edmund Husserl, his philosophical oppo-
nent and great friend. It was the last text written by Shestov, called his “swan
song”. The work on the article was very exhausting for Shestov and lasted
almost half a year. A correction of the text arrived to him on the day of his
death. The text In memory of a great philosopher: Edmund Husserl was com-
missioned by the magazine Russkie Zapiski, and contains the most compre-
hensive interpretation of Husserl’s philosophy and its most radical criticism.
At the beginning of the twentieth century in Russia there was a quite large
group of philosophers inspired by Husserl’s phenomenology. First of all they
were participants of Husserlian seminars, for example Alexandre Koyré, Aron
Gurwich, as well as thinkers reading extensively works of the master (Nikołaj
Łosski, Aleksiej Łosiew, Henry Lanz, Gustav Shpet). Shestov himself for the
first time encountered Husserl’s work — probably at Shpet’s suggestion — in
1908. He started with the Logische Untersuchungen, what was very inspiring
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 139

for him.1 In the first article about Husserl Shestov writes: „Among philoso-
phers of the early twentieth century few indeed can rival Husserl in power,
boldness, depth, and significance of though” (Shestov, 1938: V).
The first article about the phenomenologist entitled Memento mori. Hus-
serl’s philosophy Shestov published in 1917 (Shestov, 1968a: VI). The article was
then published in French and was one of the very first texts concerning Husserl’s
philosophy which appeared in France (Shestov, 1927: 36–74); this is the reason
why some claim that Shestov made France acquainted with phenomenology.
Shestov’s first article caused a great commotion in the environment of phenom-
enologists and started 2
a dispute between the author and one of Husserl’s disci-
ples — Jean Hering. At the request of Helmuth Plessner and at the same time
in response to Hering’s article, Shestov published the next critical text against
phenomenology: What is truth? On ethics and ontology (Shestov, 1968b). These
polemics had a great importance for the thinker. In one of his letters he writes:
Dr. Hering’s objection […] has proven me once again, that the fight which I began 25 years
ago, is a fight indeed for that, what for us is most valuable and most important. The article
of Hering alone in itself does not present […] anything special. But it is all imbued with
Husserl’s spirit and through Hering I am talking with Husserl, or better to say — with the
“spirit of our time” (Fondane, 1982 as cited in: Wodziński, 1991: 105).

In 1928 Shestov was invited to Amsterdam to deliver a lecture at the meet-

ing of the Philosophical Society. When he arrived there he found out that they
expected Husserl, who was to arrive later. Husserl asked the Russian thinker to
wait for a meeting with him. From that moment their friendship began. Later
they met three times: 1928 in Freiburg, 1929 in Paris, and again in Freiburg in
1930. Also a lot of letters exist, in which the two philosophers conducted an
extensive polemic. Shestov himself was an initiator of inviting Husserl to give the
“Paris Lectures” at the Sorbonne. Those lectures were turned into the Cartesian
meditations. “No one has ever attacked me so sharply as he — and that’s why we
are such close friends” (Shestov, 1938: 1) — in these words Edmund Husserl
presented Shestov to their guests, few American philosophers, in November
1928 in Freiburg. The history of philosophy knows specific paradoxes. An ex-
ample of them is that remarkable friendship connecting the two thinkers, whose
views are situated on the opposite poles of contemporary philosophical streams.
The friendship of Lev Shestov and Edmund Husserl was born on the basis of an
intense and uncompromising intellectual dispute. The thing that most struck

1
That is in 1908, when Shestov was still in Saint Petersburg. A Russian translation of vol-
ume 1 of the Logische Untersuchungen was published in Saint Petersburg in 1909; Substantial
Russian studies of Husserl’s thought were produced by Boris Jakovenko and Gustav Shpet
(cf. Jakovenko, 1912; Shpet, 1914).
2
Hering published a paper in response to Shestov (Hering, 1927: 351–364).
140 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

Shestov in Husserl’s words was his disinterestedness, a rare feature even among
great philosophers. Husserl’s passion to search for truth and for knowledge ab-
solutely founded was for Shestov very attracting.
The first conversation of the two philosophers began with an acute attack
of Husserl:
You have turned me into a stone statue, raised me onto a lofty pedestal, and then with
hammer blows you have shattered this statue to bits. But am I really so lapidary? You don’t
seem to have noticed what compelled me to formulate in such a radical way the question
of the nature of knowledge, modifying the dominant theories of knowledge which pre-
viously had satisfied me as much as any other philosopher. The more deeply I probed into
the basic problems of logic, the more I felt that our science, our knowledge, is shaking,
tottering. And finally, to my own indescribable horror, I convinced myself that if contem-
porary philosophy has said the last word about the nature of knowledge, then we have no
knowledge. Once, when I was giving a lecture at the university, expounding ideas which
I had taken over from our contemporaries, I suddenly felt that I had nothing to say, that
I was standing before my students with empty hands and an empty soul. And then I reso-
lved both for myself and for my students to submit the existing theories of knowledge to
that severe and unrelenting criticism which has aroused the indignation of so many people.
On the other hand, I began to seek the truth precisely where no one had sought it before,
since no one had admitted that it might be found there. Such was the origin of my Logische
Untersuchungen. But you did not want to see in my struggle, in my impetuous “either-or”,
an expression of what it in fact was — namely, the consciousness that, if the doubts which
had arisen in me could not be overcome by the efforts of reason, if we are doomed merely
to go on smoothing over — more or less thoroughly — the fissures and crevasses which
have opened up in all of our epistemological constructions, then one fine day all of our
knowledge will crumble and we will find ourselves standing amid the miserable ruins of
former greatness (Shestov, 1938: 1–2).

In this way Husserl presented to Shestov the original source of his philosophy
which completely rejected the fundamental ideas of the greatest contemporary
thinkers. According to Shestov the Logische Untersuchungen and subsequent
works of the phenomenologist became a “slaughter”, but not of the “inno-
cents” — as Shestov writes (because the innocents do not philosophize) — but
“a slaughter of the old men”. For Shestov Husserl’s work constituted a wonderful
attempt to find a foundation for our knowledge. Questions posed by Husserl are
theoretical, but they concern life and death:
Husserl, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet, raised the terrible and fateful question, “to be or not to
be”. He saw with Hamlet (or with Shakespeare) that the time was out of joint. His words
had a truly shattering impact (Shestov, 1938: 2).

In response to Husserl’s objections Shestov writes:

I was faced by a fearful dilemma: either to accept your whole position and its as-yet-
unformulated philosophical implications — or to rebel against you. And if in the next
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 141

world I am accused of betraying philosophy because of my struggle against self-evidence.

I shall point to you, and you will burn in my place. You have pursued and persecuted me
so persistently and inexorably with your intuitive self-evidence, that I could find no other
way out. Either I had to submit to you in everything, or else steel myself for the desperate
step of revolt, not only against you but against everything that has always been considered
the unquestioned foundation of philosophy and of thought. I had to revolt against self-
evident truth. You were profoundly right when you said that the time was out of joint.
Every attempt to examine the least fissure in the foundation of human knowledge throws
the time out of joint. But must knowledge be preserved at whatever cost? Must the time
be put back in joint? Or rather, should we not give it a further push — and shatter it to
bits? (Shestov, 1938: 1).

Shestov’s quite sentimentally approaches Shakespeare’s horrifying and filled

with melancholy words: t h e t i m e i s o u t o f j o i n t. He writes:
From Shakespeare I turned eagerly to Kant, who, with the incomparable artistry of his
Critique of Practical Reason, by means of his famous postulates, attempted to gloss over,
and for centuries succeeded in glossing over, the ontological fissures laid bare by his own
critique of pure reason (Shestov, 1938: 1).

However, Kant’s response did not satisfy Shestov, so he turned to the Bible.
But can the Bible bear comparison with self-evidence? Shestov did not ask this
question yet:
Even those who acknowledge papal infallibility have not come to the point of raising it.
Men content themselves with the postulates of practical reason, using them to soften, —
or rather to forget, or fail to see — the all-destroying power of the truths of theoretical
reason (Shestov, 1938: 1).

Almost all of conversations between Shestov and Husserl revolved around

these problems. Working on the first part the Athens and Jerusalem. Parmenides
in chains, Shestov tried to introduce Husserl to the issues tackled in that work,
quoting exactly his own words:
In 399 B.C. Socrates was poisoned. Socrates left behind his disciple Plato, who, “forced
by the truth itself ” (in Aristotle’s expression), did not, could not refrain from thinking
and saying that Socrates had been poisoned. All of his writings elaborate a single central
question: Is there any power in the world which can reconcile us to the fact that Socrates
was poisoned? For Aristotle such a question would have been nonsensical. He was co-
nvinced that the “truth”, “a dog was poisoned”, like the “truth”, “Socrates was poisoned”, is
permanently immune from human or divine objection. The hemlock makes no distinction
between Socrates and dogs (Shestov, 1938: 1).

After some time the discussion took a different turn, as if Husserl also started
to suspect that the Aristotelian certainty was built on sand and had something
to do with falsehood and betrayal.
142 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

II. WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?

I had said that philosophy is a great and ultimate struggle;
he had answered sharply, Nein, Philosophie ist Besinnung!
(Shestov, 1938: 1)

During the visit of the Russian thinker in Freiburg, the phenomenologist found
out that Shestov had never read Søren Kierkegaard. Husserl began not to a s k
but to d e m a n d — with enigmatic insistence — that Shestov reads the works of
the Danish thinker. Shestov was surprised, that a man whose entire philosophi-
cal life is a cult of reason, persuades him to familiarize himself with the cult of
absurdity practiced by Kierkegaard. Husserl himself became acquainted with
the writings of Kierkegaard only at the end of his life, although in his works
we cannot find any evidence that he knew the writings of the author of Either
– Or. However, Shestov was deeply convinced that the writings of the “recluse
of north” strongly influenced the father of phenomenology. Kierkegaard’s cat-
egory e i t h e r – o r discloses the essential plain of the dispute between Shestov
and Husserl. The phenomenologist definitely stands on the side of rationalist
philosophy and supports the claim on the indisputable value of knowledge, es-
pecially scientific knowledge. This assumption is not criticized and is accepted
as obvious, with no need for further justifications. Problems and disputes appear
only above — along with the question about the nature of knowledge and of sci-
entific knowledge. Replies to some basic epistemological questions circumscribe
the area of Husserl’s dispute with psychologism, naturalism, historicism, or even
also with objectivism. However, the dispute between Shestov and Husserl takes
place somehow below the epistemological tradition; it goes much deeper —
where rationalistic criticism does not reach. It takes place on the very foundation
of all rationality. Those questions — questions about the indisputable value of
our knowledge, about the base of our uncritical confidence in knowledge and
in scientific knowledge — mobilize Shestov to develop profound criticism of
Husserl’s phenomenology.
At the outset Shestov declares his opposition against the concept of truth for-
mulated in the first volume of the Logical investigations. This concept is a result
of Husserl’s reaction to psychological attempts to justify a priori sciences and
knowledge in general. The objection against psychologism is that it mixes up an
ideal content of a judgment with a real act of judging, what in consequence leads
to relativism. Those categories belong to completely different orders and there
is no logical connection between them. The fundamental distinction consists in
the fact that the act of judging is done within the order of “factuality” and has
nothing to do with the ideal content of that judgment. Yet, the psychologists
constantly mix up these two orders, so they identify the necessity of truth with
the contingency of facts. Husserl objects, that the psychologist thinkers:
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 143

ignore the fundamental, essential never-to-be bridge gulf between ideal and real laws, nor-
mative and causal regulation, between logical and real necessity, between logical and real
grounds. No conceivable gradation could mediate between the ideal and the real (Husserl,
1970a: 104).

Truth belongs to the ideal order, and therefore it is not possible to reduce it
to a fact, which in a way is marked with contingency and changeability in time.
Any real or fictional change can never affect truth. Moreover, identifying truth
with any experience of consciousness destroys its ideality and above — empiri-
cal nature. Every psychological experience is a real unit which arises and disap-
pears in a course of time; truth is by its very nature timeless and bears the seal
of eternity. Truth is one idea with a perfect unity of meaning, in contrast with
a dispersed diversity of individual acts of judgment. Truth must be absolute, nec-
essarily applying to everything and everyone. It cannot be relativized to human
or to any intelligent beings. “What is true — Husserl declares with magnificent
passion — is absolutely intrinsically true: truth is one and the same, whether
man or not-man, angels or gods apprehend and judge it” (Husserl, 1970a: 140).
Truth which remained in any reference to any intelligent beings would arise and
die with that beings; any relativization of the category (for example “objectivity”,
“subjectivity”, etc.) unavoidably results in relativization of each next category;
and any relativity of truth would be reflected in the relativity of the existence
of the world.
Shestov is strongly convinced that in the very source of rational knowledge
there lies an entirely arbitrary and sanctioned by nothing choice, an act of faith
of a certain kind into the value of knowledge, into the value of cognition. In
phenomenology he sees the rationalist tradition of granting knowledge the
status of knowledge indubitable, absolutely certain, absolutely founded. The
“eternization” of knowledge in Husserl — similarly as in Kant — is done by
appealing to reason — the only authority which provides reliable cognition.
In In Job’s balance, Shestov accuses Husserl that he sides with Kant in the faith
that reason does not need to be justified, but everything must be justified by
reason. Husserl’s straggle against psychologism became the struggle for the
autonomy of the rights of reason. What is at stake in this struggle is the exist-
ence of genuine science and genuine philosophy, and ultimately the existence
of culture founded on them. Husserl gives an alternative: either our human
reason is able to discover absolute truths, or we are doomed to an existence
deprived of assurance, of certainty, of rootedness. Shestov himself appreciates
the determination with which the phenomenologist demands the autonomy
of truths of reason:
Either self-evidence is the ultimate court of appeal, at the bar of which the human spirit
receives its full and definitive satisfaction, or else our knowledge is illusory and false, and
sooner or later a realm of chaos and madness will appear on earth, and those who are not
144 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

too lazy to stretch out their hands will begin to usurp the sovereign rights of reason, its
sceptre and crown (Shestov, 1938: II).

Putting such an alternative to some extent settles the reply in advance. Shestov
considers phenomenology as a bold expression of the eternal longings of man-
kind:

what Husserl expresses philosophically is finally only the free and bold expression of the
state of mind of the immense majority of men: let the world perish, provided justice is
saved; let life disappear, but let us not sacrifice reason! So men have thought, so men will
think, and one can predict for rationalism a long, peaceful, almost “atemporal” existence
(Shestov, 1968a: VI).

Shestov supports Husserl’s belief that there obtains a correlation between

“truth in itself ” and “the existence in itself ”. He claims, however, that a dif-
ferent principle governs that relation. This is why when Husserl says that the
relativization of truth leads to the relativization of beings, Shestov claims that
the principle of inverse proportion there obtains. He accuses the phenomenolo-
gist that he does not notice the danger arising when truth is fully absolutize,
and writes:

we discover, then, between the ideal and the real or, to use Husserl’s terminology, between
reason and reality, an irreducible antagonism, a cruel struggle for the right to exist. In
the measure that reason triumphs, there remains less and less place for the real […] to af-
firm the absolute existence of the ideal is to relativize and even destroy all reality (Shestov,
1968a: VI).

Any attempt to connect the real with the ideal, the real to the rational with re-
gard to one transcendental ontological category is leading not to solving a prob-
lem, but to eliminating it. Shestov therefore regards Husserl’s theory of ideal
objects as erroneous, for it leads to nihilistic results. Thus, according to Shestov
each of our ideas, each of our truths, has in fact a purely empirical origin, for in
this concrete reality that we experience there are far more elements of “eternity”
than in all the ideas discovered by phenomenology. Over the centuries from
a true premise that reason made “a lot of ”, an entirely false conclusion was drawn
that reason is capable of “everything”. A limitless expansion of the prerogatives
of reason is a pure fiction, a myth. “A lot of ” does not mean “everything”, for
these are in fact two separate categories, irreducible to each other. This myth
falls down in the moment when it turns out, that reason that justifies everything
and uncritically justifying itself as well, must ultimately be justified by something
else. Shestov denies reason the power to establish the limits of what is possible
and impossible:
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 145

there is a judge and lawgiver above reason, and philosophy cannot remain a “rational” phi-
losophy insofar as it seeks the rhidzômata pantôn [the roots of all things]; it must be epeke-
ina noû kai noêseôs [beyond reason and knowledge] (Shestov, 1968b: VII).

Thus, Shestov tries to demythologize the character of reason. In this perspec-

tive, a dream of the rational mankind about truth, about absolute knowledge,
remains only a dream. This dream cannot come true, because with its roots it
reaches down to a-rational or before-rational, improvable, impossible to jus-
tify beliefs. Does then — in the horizon of the illusoriness of our aspirations
to absolute truth — remain for us to drop hands in the resignation? Are we
doomed to wandering amongst illusions and falsehood? And does the conse-
quent epistemological demythologization which Shestov shows lead straight
to a nihilistic wasteland? Finally the author of the Potestas Clavium does not
give up the search for truth. He makes attempts to deconceptualize the idea of
truth. In his case however it is difficult to speak about any concept or theory of
truth alternative to that of Husserl. Already at the point of departure a concep-
tual character of truth is questioned in favour of creating a certain vision — or
rather a metaphor — of truth, in a deliberate way escaping any conceptualiza-
tion with its antinomicity and incoherence. Abandoning any attempts to find
any veritates aeternae or verites de raison becomes a new task of philosophy, for
those truths do not exist. Shestov is deeply convinced that truth by its essence
is illogical, internally contradictory. Thanks to contradictions we may suppose
that we are on the best way to discover truth, that we are just dealing with it,
because contradictions simply constitute the nature of truth. There is no way to
prove the truthfulness of truth, for its kingdom extends beyond any evidence
and arguments. Truth cannot be locked in the cage of notions, in frames of one
idea — it is completely deprived of an abstract character; moreover, along with
the increase of the degree of abstractness, a degree of its falseness increases. The
genuine attitude towards truth is the attitude of disinterestedness, for truth can
be achieved only when we do not want to dominate it, to use it in order to meet
some historical needs within the limits of the only dimension of time which is
well-known to us. Secondly, truth is entirely incommunicable; it does not have
an interpersonal character; it disappears in the moment when we are trying to
relate it to the universal common denominator, to the universally understand-
able interpretation. Shestov’s final conclusion is: objectivisation slays truth,
because truth — being completely independent and transcendent with regard
to the human subject — undergoes only a process of interiorization, whereas any
attempt of exteriorization means the total annihilation of truth.

Truth gets through life without showing any sort of documentary titles. […] The ultimate
truth, that for which philosophy seeks, that which is to timiôtaton for living men, comes
“suddenly”. It knows no compulsion and compels none (Shestov, 1968b: 7).
146 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

Here through Shestov his spiritual master Plotinus speaks: Tote de chrê
heôrakenai pisteuein, hotan hê psychê eksaiphnês phôs labêi [but then indeed we
must believe that we have seen IT, when a light suddenly dawns on the soul]
(Plotinus, 1984: V, 3, 17).

III. EITHER – OR
There are scales upon which human suffering
weighs heavier than the sands of the sea.
(Shestov, 1938: IV)

All authentic cultures immanently have an idea of pluralism, multitude,

tolerance and freedom against which any totalitarian culture of reason opposes.
Thus, in order to overcome the crisis of the European way of b e i n g h u m a n
one must liberate himself from the authority of reason and find an authentic
origin of culture. The arché of culture — Shestov suggests — lies outside of
the scope of reason and rational knowledge. The source of our civilization has
been hidden and defamed by the rationalistic tradition. Athens governed by
the despotic reason cannot be the first and the only spiritual capital of Europe.
If Europe is to rise up from the fall and regain freedom it once possessed, one
should look somewhere else for its spiritual capital. Shestov indicates that the
original meaning of culture is preserved only in the Book of Books, in the Bible,
the capital of which is Jerusalem.
We stand between two “madnesses” — between the madness of a reason for which the
“truths” which it reveals about the horrors of real being are ultimate, definitive, eternal tru-
ths, obligatory for all, and the madness of Kierkegaard’s “Absurd”, which ventures to begin
the struggle when, on the testimony of reason and self-evidence, struggle is impossible, is
foredoomed to humiliating failure (Shestov, 1938: IV).

In the perspective of the crisis which we are facing there remain only t w o
a l t e r n a t i v e s: A t h e n s o r J e r u s a l e m. However, what is madness for
Athens, for Jerusalem is wisdom, what is a truth for Jerusalem, for Athens is
a falsehood. This attack conducted by the Russian thinker on the philosophi-
cal tradition does not only aim at negating the entire tradition, but above all
to help finding “the authentic and true philosophy”, which originates from
a tradition — forgotten and distorted, but constantly present in European cul-
ture — of religious thinking, the source of which is Divine revelation from
Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the only alternative to enslaving reason which totalizes
the entire culture of the West. So Athens and Jerusalem are e i t h e r – o r of the
European thinking. Accepting one of them excludes the other. There is nothing
in between, there is no compromise.
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 147

What is the place and the function of Husserl’s phenomenology in Shestov’s

vision of the rationalistic tradition? Can one justly accuse the philosophy of
the author of the Logical investigation of a strong tendency towards a tradition
employing the category of totality and violence? There is no doubt that Shestov
considers phenomenology not merely an element integrated into the ration-
alistic tradition but above all the most consistent and radical expression of it,
giving it an inner unity and coherence. So, phenomenology becomes a perfect
realization of the idea of philosophy as a pure, universal and absolutely grounded
science. Husserl adopts the role of a zealous advocate of a “scientific character” of
philosophy. He grants science privileges, till now belonging only to the Highest
Being. The infallibility of a scientific judgment in phenomenology is to have
the same power as Pope’s infallibility and superiority of his authority within
Catholicism. Shestov passionately fights against self-evidences:
Phenomenology, the faithful disciples of Husserl declare, ignores the difference between
homo dormiens (sleeping man) and homo vigilans (waking man). This is true. It does ignore
this difference, and herein lies the source of its power and persuasive force. […] the man
who is asleep tends to consider the conditions from which his dreams flow as the only
possible conditions of existence. That is why he calls them “self-evidences” and guards and
protects them in all kinds of ways (logic and the theory of knowledge: the gifts of reason).
But when the moment of awakening comes (the rumbling of the thunder is heard: revela-
tion), one will begin to doubt the self-evidences and to put up a struggle against them that
is completely unreasonable — that is to say, one will do precisely what, for the man who
is asleep, is the height of absurdity. Can there, indeed, be anything more absurd than to
answer logic with claps of thunder? (Shestov, 1966: IV, 55).

This preposterous struggle against self-evidences, which Husserl sees as the

foundation of rational knowledge, is for Shestov the one and only authentic
aim of philosophy. Everything what we regard as claire et distinque, all evidences
science is based on, ultimately turns out to be an enigma and a mystery. The
power of necessity which is the end of human enquiry, an understanding of
reality — distorted by reason and transilluminated by rationality, constitutes
for a real philosopher the proper area of a struggle for regaining lost freedom.
Shestov’s conception of authentic philosophy presents to us anti-rationalism
and anti-totalitarianism. “Self-evidence is only a hypocritical sine effusione san-
guinis (without effusion of blood) behind which pyres and tortures are hidden”
(Shestov, 1966: III, 6), and o n t h o s e s e l f - e v i d e n c e s Hu s s e r l g r o u n d s
h i s t r a n s c e n d e n t a l p h e n o m e n o l o g y, a v a l i d i t y o f i t s c o g n i -
t i o n. Husserl was the first philosopher who ascribed strictly philosophical
meaning to the notion of “evidence” as knowledge “absolutely grounded”. This
was the most daring and radical representation of the traditional aspiration to
complete rationalization of knowledge and reality. According to Shestov in
order to comprehend fully the radicalism of the phenomenologist’s research
148 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

one needs to confront him with ideas taken from antipodes — Kierkegaard’s
existential philosophy. Grasping a deep and internal connection between Hus-
serl and Kierkegaard allows us to see the meaning and greatness of achievements
of the author of the Cartesian meditation. Shestov writes:
for Husserl, as for Kierkegaard, moderate solutions were a turning away from philoso-
phy. Both of them faced the gigantic problem of the “either-or” in its full dimensions.
Husserl despaired at the thought that human knowledge is conditional, relative, transi-
tory, that even an eternal, unshakeable truth like “Socrates was poisoned” might totter,
that indeed it has already tottered and does not exist for angels and gods, and that we
have no ground for asserting that it will not someday cease to exist even for ordinary
mortals. At this point, the reader will recall, Husserl formulated his own “either – or”
with unprecedented power: either we are all insane, or “Socrates was poisoned” is an
eternal truth, equally binding upon all conscious beings. Kierkegaard’s “either – or” has
just as resolute and threatening a sound: either the “eternal” truths which reason di-
scovers in the immediate data of consciousness are only transitory truths, and the hor-
rors which Job suffered, the horrors which Jeremiah lamented, the horrors of which
John thundered in his “revelation,” will be turned into nothing, into an illusion, by the
will of Him who created the universe and “all that swell therein,” just as the horrors of
a nightmare which absolutely dominates the consciousness of the sleeping man turn into
nothing when he awakens — or we live in a world of madness (Shestov, 1938: V).

So both — Husserl and Kierkegaard — grasped the essence of the alterna-

tive “either – or”. The alternative which is faced not only by the philosophical
tradition, but by most of the entire European culture, and thus by the whole
humanity. Either we accept the absolute value of knowledge, along with all
consequences of that fact (if knowledge is to have meaning and importance, it
must be rational, absolute, total), or we reject the value of knowledge facing all
consequences: abandoning self-evidences together with necessary, indisputable
and enslaving truths, abandon reason for the sake of total “irrationalization” of
reality. For Shestov the alternative takes the following form: either we absolutize
truth and relativize life, or we absolutize life and relativize truth. Tertium non
datur. Husserl favors the first possibility. The entire phenomenology is a con-
scious and radical expression of this choice. The second possibility is adopted by
Kierkegaard. Thus, his existential reflection became an uncompromising rebel-
lion against self-evidences and enslaving truths of reason in order to defend an
individual human existence. For Shestov the second possibility is a leap into the
reality of Absurdity, at the same time opening a new dimension of thinking and
existence — faith. In the perspective of the ultimate alternative phenomenol-
ogy is the final element of the rationalistic tradition of European philosophy
and the “ultimate nail in its coffin”. It is because it has enlarged a nightmare of
humanity which entrusted reason and recognized knowledge as the only path to
salvation. The radicalism of phenomenology is the greatest threat to philosophy
which — following Kierkegaard’s example — should reject reason, and which —
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 149

according to Shestov — has the power to wake up the humanity from an eternal
dream and to give it back freedom — the freedom of ignorance.

IV. ATHENS OR JERUSALEM. HERMENEUTICAL DILEMMAS

Husserl and Shestov are strongly convinced, that the fate of European culture
and European understanding what it is to be man are decided in the realm of
philosophy. So, the philosophical projects of these two philosophers offer two
extremely critical visions of culture, and at the same time they offer a way by
which it should be fully reformed at its very basis. The postulate of salvation
usually appears as a result of connecting philosophical notion of “crisis” of Eu-
ropean culture with the phenomenon of its fall in the perspective of cultural
and religious categories. Along with the awareness — growing among thinkers
— of a universal crisis, decline of cultural and existential significance in the way
of being human, there are proportionally growing soteriological aspirations of
philosophy. Let us then try to look again at the European way of being man in
the perspective of Husserl’s and Shestov’s philosophies.
Asking a question of what is a “European way of being man” in Husserl’s
project, one should discover the sense of the idea, which constitutes the foun-
dation of the “spiritual character of Europe”, show its immanent teleology, its
innate entelechy, which in a way determined the history of European culture
by defining its ideal aim of “spiritual becoming”. Greece from the turn of the
seventh and sixth century BC as a spiritual birthplace of Europe is essential for
Husserl — and he does not mean the birthplace as understood in geography or
history, but he means a certain topography of sense. Husserl’s question on the
source of European culture:

does not concern the relation between facts and empirical dependences, which are not af-
fected by perturbations and difficulties of empirical enquiry, since they belong to another
order and domain of research. […] “Back to the ultimate source” of sense can mean recon-
structing and repeating, reactivating situation of question (another words an intentional
spiritual situation), in which there occurred an articulation of certain theoretical basis —
and not reconstruction of facts (Syski, 1980: 215).

Transcendental historicalness becomes a purpose of an inquiry of a phenom-

enologist, who asks about an intention accompanying the birth of European
culture in ancient Greece. According to Husserl there then occurs a new kind
of spirituality, completely different from a religious — mystical spirituality
anteceding it. Thus, a “proto-phenomenon of spiritual Europe” comes into be-
ing, a new autonomous cultural form — a philosophical culture whose essence is
constituted by its tasks which take the form of infinite ideas. In Husserl’s view:
150 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

scientific culture in accord with ideas of infinity means, then, a revolutionizing of all
culture, a revolution that affects man’s whole manner of being as a creator of culture. It
means also a revolutionizing of historicity, which is now the history of finite humanity’s
disappearance, to the extent that it grows into a humanity with infinite tasks (Husserl,
1970b: 164).

This specific cultural metamorphosis is a result of arising a new kind of

Greek’s attitude towards reality — entirely theoretical one. Man cut to the heart
by passion to cognize the world which goes beyond practical interests, aims at
“pure theory” that is free from all practical applications. In that new attitude he
notices an opposition between a representation of the world and the real world
and therefore asks new questions concerning truth. Yet, he does not ask ques-
tions about common truth practically understood but about truth binding all
beings with theoretical attitudes — universally about t r u t h i n i t s e l f. This
new type of attitude constitutes a new way of being human. This is how a new
community arises, a community connected by ideal, theoretical interests. It is
the universal community since for a philosophical culture there are no national
boundaries. Ideal and universally valid truth and universal scientia become ab-
solute values, a common good of initially alien nations that in those values
have found the principle of the unity of a supranational community. Thus, the
spiritual form of Europe realizes itself in a community directed at infinite ideals.
Husserl writes:
the expanding synthesis of nations too has its infinite ideals, wherein each of these nations,
by the very fact that it strives to accomplish its own ideal task in the spirit of infinity
contributes its best to the community of nations. In this give and take the supranational
totality with its graded structure of societies grows apace, filled with the spirit of one all-
inclusive task, infinite in the variety of its branches yet unique in its infinity. In this total
society with its ideal orientation, philosophy itself retains the role of guide, which is its
special infinite task. Philosophy has the role of a free and universal theoretical disposition
that embraces at once all ideals and the one overall ideal-in short, the universe of all norms.
Philosophy has constantly to exercise through European man its role of leadership for the
whole of mankind (Husserl, 1970b: 177–178).

Husserl believes that philosophy in its ideal project is throughout rational,

and that ratio is its pan-ideal which encompasses absolute, eternal, timeless and
absolutely valid norms and ideas. So, if philosophy is to fulfill an a r c h o n t i c
function for the whole humanity, if it is to be considered a “brain”, as Husserl
claims, on which normal functioning and health of the European spirituality
depends, then European culture should become through and through rational
and European way of being human necessarily becomes “being towards reason”.
For Husserl man is a creature governed exclusively by reason, and at the basis of
culture there lies the endless and limitless idea of similarly endless and limitless
reason. In order not to fall into barbarism and actual non-existence, European
 Husserl and Shestov: philosophical antipodes 151

culture must follow the path to reason, to its source, to the original arché, the
télos instilled in the moment of its birth and to authentic eídos. Thus, Athens
is the spiritual capital of Europe, whereas eternal and infinite reason is the star
of salvation of the whole humanity. European humanity is the one which con-
stantly aims at its original intention of being rational.
The all-encompassing ratio constitutes the original arché of culture, its ulti-
mate foundation which ensures durability and continuity. Reason as a timeless
eídos is the warrant of the unity of culture. Phenomenology is to restore an au-
thentic sense of that ratio, once lost in the meanders of history. Transcendental
archaeology is to reach the very sources of this sense, the sense revealed in the
moment of the s p i r i t u a l b i r t h of Europe which was in history mysteriously
obscured and above all distorted. Only through leading the “strayed rational-
ism” to the true path compatible with its immanent teleology we may save the
“European way of being human”. A Husserlian search for a transcendental télos
is a constant and conscious act of going beyond history. The télos the as well as
authentic eídos of humanity give history the sense in its continuity, but they are
not its creation, a product or an element, but an un-empirical potency fulfilling
itself in history.
Going beyond history is the price which — according to Husserl — we
need to pay in order to preserve continuity of rational European culture.
Phenomenology in an extraordinary way purifies the culture of reason from
erroneous theoretical influences and certain historical accumulations. Hus-
serl is ultimately fighting for reinforcement and grounding of the transcen-
dental foundation of European culture through a restoration of the original
sense. Shestov, however, radically aims at breaking the cultural continuum
through a negation of the paradigm of European culture. If one agrees with
Husserl that the edifice of human knowledge is falling apart at its very ba-
sis, then Shestov offers not its reconstruction, but its complete destruction
in order to lay a foundation for “spiritual Europe” with an arché contradict-
ing the idea of reason. We then have here a radical approach with two faces:
a “critical affirmation” and a “critical destruction”. What the two radically differ-
ent conceptions have in common are their inefficient, mystifying hermeneutical
categories, leading to analogous deformation. One may wonder whether “meta-
rationalism” many times postulated by philosophers is not a more efficient way
of interpreting the phenomenon of culture — that is an idea of “reason aware
of its limits”, ready to recognize the existence of the different, does not aiming
at imposing its “rationality” on all domains of culture. However, there occurs
a question of whether “metarationalism” as a rationalism aware of its limits is not
a self-contradictory concept and whether it can stem from the idea of total and
expansive reason. European culture probably will never reject its ratio. Probably
it is a task for philosophy to determine the limits of competences for reason,
since the internal sense of culture consists in its tolerance, plurality and dialogi-
152 Katarzyna SZEPIENIEC

cality. This is why culture should originate from many sources and take its sense
from many archés. Subordinating culture to only one arché renders it dangerously
one-sided. This leads to intolerance, totalitarianism, and monologue what in ef-
fect becomes a negation of the very idea of culture. Therefore neither Athens nor
Jerusalem can ultimately become a capital of spiritual Europe. European culture
needs a place for meeting, the place where in the face of an apparent “philosophi-
cal Tower of Babel” both sense and understanding are possible.
Shestov, just like Husserl, searches for a spiritual form of Europe. Shestov’s
style of philosophizing immanently stems from the same fundamental principles
on which European culture as a whole is based, and is a result of some evolution of
their original sense. Thus, it inscribes itself as a certain model of thinking into the
spirit of the epoch. Yet, Shestov’s research does not inscribe itself into a scheme
of strictly historical or empirical research, but it constitutes a certain archaeology
of sense which at its beginning influenced a further development of the Euro-
pean way of existence. One can say that Shestov does not fully appreciate the
originality of phenomenology in relation to the whole philosophical tradition.
He does not develop a discussion with Husserl on the level of particular theses
and solutions, and even considers insignificant those views which do not directly
correspond to a general vision adopted by him or are neutral with regard to it.
On the other hand it allows him to detect and expose totalistic dangers hidden in
phenomenological realism, and grasping an essence of those dangers becomes for
Shestov a prevailing aim of his criticism. A view of the author of Athens and Jeru-
salem bring charges against European culture in general, and above all against the
European way of being human; and those charges are expressed in a final conclu-
sion that a culture through and through rational, a culture of reason is effectively
a totalistic culture. Considering non-philosophical consequences it is hard to
disagree with that thesis that in some way presents potential dangers. Of course,
one can debate about the true sense of the idea of reason or the idea of rationality.
Yet, one needs to consider that this original vision of European culture is one of
the first ones in the philosophy of the twentieth century, the vision which makes
us more sensitive for dangers of totalitarianism, despotism and intolerance that
reside in our culture. This is why it is worthwhile to listen intently into Shestov’s
vexation and take a critical look at European culture qui sola ratione ducitur.

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