Andrzej Słowikowski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń):
THE DOUBLE – KIERKEGAARD AND DOSTOYEVSKY. THE CONCEPTION OF KIERKEGAARD’S EXISTENTIAN SPHERES AND DOSTOYEVSKY’S “THE KARAMAZOV BROTHERS”
In the early phase of his writing, Kierkegaard presented a philosophical vision of human life development in the form of three spheres of existence (aesthetic, ethical, and religious). A perfect illustration of Kierkegaard’s consideration is Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s last novel The Karamazov Brothers, in which three main protagonists can be read as living in the three indicated spheres (Dmitri – aesthetic sphere; Ivan – ethical sphere, and Alyosha – religious sphere). The following paper is an attempt to juxtapose the two texts in order to, on the one hand, strengthen Kierkegaard’s philosophical analyses with a ‘living’ example of human existence as supported by Dostoyevsky’s novel and, on the other hand, to point at a deep philosophical potential and a possibility to read the Russian novelist’s work with this key. It is important to mention that the two authors did not know each other’s works but are merged together with one (though deriving from different traditions) Christian vision of a man’s development.
The paper consists of three parts. The first one comprises a thorough presentation of spiritual relation of thoughts of the authors in reference to the three anthropological levels present in their texts: level of action and choice, level of consciousness and instance, and level of truth and freedom. The levels become the basis for an analysis of The Karamazov Brothers in the prism of the three spheres, which takes place in the second part. This part is composed of three sub-parts, each referring to three spheres and to three Dostoyevsky’s protagonists. The last part presents a possibility of focusing on a convergence between Kierkegaard’s philosophy and Dostoyevsky’s writing with a resort to the former’s theory of communication concept of the double. It can be said that in this context the vision of a man in the two authors is doubled, i.e. one another they add to their works in an original way so that when read together prove to reveal their hidden threads.