العزلة والمجتمع Quotes

“Technology is the supreme result of knowledge thus objectified. At the same time, the fact of objectification contradicts the idea that the subject is passively penetrated by the object. Therefore the objectified world cannot be, as is often affirmed, a purely objective world. It is a real world, one possessed of a certain degree of reality, of a certain state of Being; but, above all, it is a world which manifests the activity of the creative subject and the reciprocal action of the knowing subject and the object known. Secondly, the subject can orientate himself by means of Existential philosophy, which dispenses with objectification: the human subject does not apprehend the object, but the revelation of human existence and, through it, that of the divine world. Thus in the fight of Existential philosophy, knowledge is both active and creative, though in a somewhat different way. It can illuminate the objective world wherein meaning is revealed, the meaning of human existence and of the universe as part of the Divine Being. But all revelation of meaning is the result of spiritual activity, of the integral rather than the partial reason. To apprehend existence is to illuminate it and to make it significant, to illuminate Being, and consequently to regenerate and to enrich it with hitherto undiscerned elements.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“No man can live without any basis of philosophy, however primitive, naive, childish or unconscious. Every man thinks and speaks, makes use of notions, categories, symbols, myths, and gives vent to appreciations. There is always a childish philosophy at the foundation of a childish faith. Thus the uncritical acceptance of Biblical science, that of primitive mankind, involves the use of certain categories of thought such as ‘Creation’, for example, envisaged as a moment in time.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“Reason is independent of all external authority, is outwardly autonomous; it is not, however, inwardly independent in relation to the whole life of the philosopher engaged in the pursuit of knowledge. It will not allow itself to be stripped of its feelings and volition, of its loves and hates, of its criteria of value. It discovers its ontological foundation in the depths of its own Being, in the intimacy of its own existence; it adapts itself to the philosopher’s belief or scepticism; it varies with his belief as the consciousness expands or contracts. But revelation transforms it.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“Philosophy is not synonymous with science; it is not even the science of essences; its function is to endow the spirit with a creative consciousness of the meaning of human existence.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“The task of philosophy is not to invalidate reason, but to discover its contradictions and to demonstrate its limitations while preserving its immanence.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“It is a prejudice to believe that knowledge is always rational, that there is no such thing as irrational knowledge. Actually, we apprehend a great deal more through feeling than by intellection; and it is a matter of some note, that not only love and sympathy, but also hostility and hate, may help to further our knowledge. The heart is the centre of the entire man. That is above all a Christian truth. The whole appreciative aspect of knowledge is affective, for it expresses the ‘reasons of the heart’.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“The egoist is not necessarily a man who loves himself. He may, indeed, detest himself and, for that very reason, bear a grudge against other people. This sense of humiliation may induce him to seek compensation in cruelty to others. The egoist may therefore be at war with himself as well as with other people. We are told, ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself!’ This does imply that we should love ourselves, that we should identify ourselves lovingly with our own personality, with its unique essence. Extreme self- hate can only obscure our awareness of the personality, since this awareness is founded upon love as the intuition of the personality. We should endeavour to exercise this intuition about our own selves as well as about others, for we cannot be expected to starve ourselves of love even when bidden to make a sacrifice of ourselves.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“To be in love with another’s personality is to perceive the identity and unity underlying its perpetual change and division; it is to perceive its nobility even in the midst of utter degradation. Love is the means by which the obscurity of the objective world is illuminated and the heart of existence is penetrated, so that the Thou may displace and, finally, annihilate the object. Thus authentic love is invariably the herald of the coming of the Kingdom of God, of another plane of Being, distinct from the degraded objective world wherein human life is not only perpetual change but also constant betrayal.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع

“Tragedy springs from the impossibility of attaining Being in an objective way, or of realizing communion between men considered as social beings; it springs from the everlasting conflict between the Ego and the object; and, finally, it arises from the gnosiological problem of solitude which is the special province of philosophy.”
― Nikolai Berdyaev, العزلة والمجتمع