(Anthropological Principal in Philosophy / Antropologicheskiy printsip v filosofii) 2 vols

St. Petersburg: Sovremennik / Contemporary, 1860. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. “The philosophical bible of the radical generation of the 1860s”

, H. . (CHERNYSHEVSKY, N.G.). (Antropologicheskiy printsip v filosofii) in No IV, (Sovremennik / Contemporary). St. Petersburg: April & May 1860. Vol I: Front wrapper + [357] - 500 + [259] - 558 + 2 leaves = contents + rear wrapper; Vol II: half-title + TP + [5] - 208 + [1] - 102 + [1] - 56 + 2 leaves = advertisements. 2-volume octavo. First Edition.

Chernyshevsky is quite possibly the most important intellectual in Russia in the 19th century, and his popularity is arguably the reason for both Notes from Underground and Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. Early in his academic career, he studied the utopian socialism of both Fourier and Saint-Simon. As he evolved, his vision soon embraced all the thinkers in this catalog. While What Is To Be Done? was his most successful work—the most popular novel in Russia in the 19th century—his essay “Anthropological Principal in Philosophy” is perhaps his most important. It is partly a response to Lavrov, whose anthropologism strayed from Feuerbach in favor of Kant. Chernyshevsky greatly admired Feuerbach, and, in fact, the title of this article is itself a tribute to Feuerbach’s more materialistic version of anthropologism. In “Anthropological Principle in Philosophy” Chernyshevsky “propounds a simple-minded materialism that sees man as subservient to the laws of nature.” Chernyshevsky insisted that philosophers and social theorists needed to stop splitting human beings up, but rather view the human being as unified and indivisible. “For Chernyshevsky the ‘anthropological principle’ supplied the theoretical foundation for the integral wholeness of man, the abolition of the eternal dualism of body and soul.” This established a basis for his rational egoism, a strange admixture of utilitarianism, egoism, and egalitarianism—the theory celebrated in his classic novel, What Is To Be Done?. For Chernyshevsky, altruism is the result of the rational pursuit of individual and personal advantage. Securing advantage for others secures advantage for self (and vice-versa). “The rational egoist accepts other people’s right to be egoists because he accepts that all men are equal; in controversial issues, where there is no unanimity, he is guided by the principle of the greatest good of the greatest number.” Chernyshevsky, in advancing Feuerbach’s (see item #9) critique of the idealism of the Enlightenment, believed “that objective, scientific criteria determining ‘what should be’ could be deduced from the laws governing ‘human nature,’ the totality of man’s ‘natural’ (i.e., material and spiritual) needs. From the ‘anthropological’ point of view, he argued, human nature is constant.” “Anthropological Principle in Philosophy” appears on pages [329] - 366 in volume I and pages [1] - 72 in volume II.

Dostoevsky’s critique of Chernyshevsky and rational egoism begins in Notes from Underground where, most pointedly in Part I, chapter 7, the narrator rails against so-called ‘advantage’ and the most advantageous advantage. Of course, one of the problems of the unnamed narrator in Dostoevsky’s novella is that he never acts. One can read Crime and Punishment, and specifically the character of Raskolnikov as the narrator from Notes… who finally acts according to those Chernyshevskian theories only to find within those motivations the very antithesis of those theories. While many of the specific references are to the novel Chto Delat? (What Is To Be Done?) “Anthropological Principle” serves as the philosophical foundation of that novel.

CONDITION: Good+ in two (unmatched) contemporary volumes. Minor repairs to hinges. Mixed & intermittent pagination (as is often the case in these 19th c. Russian journals). Moderate wear to covers. Corners bumped. Pages lightly browned. Label affixed to front wrapper of Vol I; Ink markings to title page of Vol II.

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