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The founder of Russian socialism, Alexander Herzen, was also an original moral and social philosopher, anticipating much twentieth-century thought in his attack on "grand narratives" that endow history with a rational direction and a final goal. The critique of radical utopianism which he based on his observations of the French revolution of 1848 did not (contrary to the common view) deprive him of any further role as a revolutionary intellectual. Rather, it forced him to redefine this role. The key influences on him in this respect were the thought and the activity of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. He saw Proudhon's attack on the anthropotheism of Feuerbach's "religion of humanity" as completing the demystification of the world begun by the Left Hegelians' critique of religious alienation, and interpreted Proudhon's unpopularity with the French Left as confirmation of his role as a forerunner who had articulated a vision of freedom from transcendent authorities and systems much in advance of his time. During his subsequent involvement in the Russian political scene Herzen modelled himself to a significant degree on Proudhon, attacking systematizers on all sides, urging a pragmatic approach to the problem of political reform, and accepting his loss of influence among Russian radicals as the price for unmasking the authoritarianism hidden in the ideologies of the Left: a notable instance of cross-cultural influences at work in the history of nineteenth-century revolutionary thought.

SUMMARY:
Статья профессора Кембриджского университета Айлин Келли посвящена интерпретации того типа либерализма, который ассоциируется с именем Сэра Исайи Берлина. Для одних он являлся примером "классического либерала", для других — философом, чьи взгляды лишь с натяжкой умещаются в западную либеральную парадигму. Его упрекали в ультраиндивидуализме, субъективизме, в крайнем релятивизме, в непримиримости по отношению к традиции европейского просвещения, в то время как сам Берлин настаивал на том, что единственной определяющей его мировоззрение чертой является неприятие любых монистических систем.

Айлин Келли считает, что сложившаяся традиция интерпретации философских воззрений Берлина вне контекста его исторических исследований глубоко ошибочна и не позволяет правильно оценить суть его взглядов. Ключом к мировоззрению Берлина, по мнению Келли, являются его труды по истории русской интеллигенции XIX века. Именно моральные и этические дилеммы, сформулированные "русскими мыслителями" прошлого века (противоречия между разумом и чувствами, свободой и равенством, индивидуальным началом и социальным целым, целями и средствами), интересовали Берлина-философа века нынешнего. Особенную идейную близость ощущал Берлин с Герценом, и его прочтение герценовского феномена говорит многое о самом Берлине. Берлин называл Герцена "своим героем", стремился познакомить с его работами европейскую публику, вписать их не только в российский, но, прежде всего, в общеевропейский интеллектуальный контекст, настаивая при этом, что Герцен заслуженно занимает в нем совершенно уникальное место в качестве предтечи многих философских концепций XX века. Герценовская вера в то, что у истории нет "либретто", его борьба с милленаристскими теориями своего времени, с идеологическими абстракциями, под которые подгоняется реальность, были близки Берлину. Он цитировал Герцена в поддержку собственного кредо: либерализм, как любая другая идеология, не может претендовать на особое место в истории на том основании, что он строится на единственно верных посылках о человеческой природе.

История учит, что люди часто отвергают либеральные принципы ради других, более им понятных и необходимых. В ответ на упреки в "недостаточном" либерализме, в нежелании отстаивать его принципы любой ценой, Берлин ссылался на пример Герцена, доказывавшего своим современникам ошибочность веры в "абсолюты". Берлина роднила с Герценом и ненависть к насилию, которое является неизбежным следствием бескомпромиссного утверждения в жизнь любых идеологических абстракций. Приверженность принципу свободы для Берлина означала готовность искать компромисс между идеалом и требованиями жизни, между собственными убеждениями и ценностями, разделяемыми другими. Вслед за Герценом Берлин утверждал, что подчинение человеческой жизни любым, даже самым благородным абстракциям, будь то либерализм, справедливость или нация, ведет, в конечном счете, к насилию и страданиям.

Берлин не скрывал, что в интеллектуальном плане он многим обязан "русским мыслителям". Статья Келли убедительно показывает, насколько важно учитывать интеллектуальное и духовное родство между Берлиным и персонажами его исторических исследований для того, чтобы адекватно оценить философские взгляды этого "нефанатичного революционера" либерализма.

In the decade between the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, many of the Russian radical intelligentsia believed that Dostoevskii had anticipated their moral dilemmas. Critics, such as D. S. Merezhkovskii, argued that the experience of that turbulent period confirmed Dostoevskii's discovery about the nature of moral choice: Namely, there existed no single system of beliefs, no coherent ethical code, that could resolve all problems of ends and means and that this was so because, on some of the most fundamental issues of moral choice, the promptings of reason and feeling could not be reconciled. To be internally consistent, any ethical systems (and the religious and political creeds that embodied them) must therefore ignore or deny some of the moral imperatives rooted in man's nature. No system of belief, however compelling, could thus confer immunity from guilt, doubt, or self-contempt.

How long ago was it that, terrified from childhood, we ceased to kill in ourselves the most innocent desires? How long ago did we cease to shudder when finding in our souls passionate impulses unrecorded in the tariff of romanticism?Aleksandr Herzen, From The Other ShoreIn a letter to his friends in Russia in 1850, Aleksandr Herzen complained of the "democratic orthodoxy" that was forming among the exiled revolutionaries of 1848:They have established their own radical inquisition, their poll tax on ideas: ideas and thoughts which satisfy their demands have the rights of citizenship … the others are … the proletariat of the moral world: they have to be silent or win their place by a head-on attack. Against rebellious ideas there has appeared a democratic censorship, incomparably more dangerous than any other, because it has neither police, nor packed juries … nor prisons, nor fines. When the reactionary censorship takes a book from your hands, the book receives universal respect: they persecute the author, close a printing house, smash the machinery, and the persecuted word acquires the status of a belief. Democratic censorship achieves the moral destruction of its object: its accusations are promulgated not … from a procurator's mouth, but from the distance of exile, the darkness of prisons. A verdict written by a hand which bears the marks of chains leaves a deep impression on the heart, which does not prevent it from being unjust.

Aileen Kelly, Empiriocriticism: a Bolshevik philosophy?
In the first decade of this century a group of Bolshevik theorists attempted to construct a new philosophical basis for marxism with the aid of the empiriocriticism of Avenarius and Mach. Their attempt is usually treated by historians as merely a brief episode in Bolshevik party history. This article examines its significance within the wider framework of the collective psychology of the Russian radical intelligentsia, in which voluntarism was uneasily reconciled with a predilection for deterministic philosophies of history. The empiriocriticist movement can be seen as a final attempt on the part of the members of the intelligentsia to achieve a synthesis of these elements in their outlook. Their writings and the ensuing polemics are examined with particular regard to the light which they shed on the social psychology of the Russian radical intelligentsia and on the part played by its subjective aspirations in the formulation of its historical goals.

Aileen Kelly, "What is real is rational" : The political philosophy of B. N. Chicherin.
B. N. Chicherin is generally regarded as one of the foremost theoreticians of Russian liberalism; but there is a wide area of disagreement among historians as to the precise nature of his liberalism and the reasons for his extreme political isolation. The present study attempts to refute the most common view of Chicherin — namely, as a moderate liberal who sought a middle path in a country polarised into extremes of right and left. Through an analysis of Chicherin's doctrine of "liberal conservatism" it is argued that Chicherin cannot be regarded as a liberal at all: the conception of liberty which he developed in the immediate post-reform period on the basis of a doctrinaire right-wing Hegelianism was incompatible with all forms of liberalism, including Hegel's, and ultimately provided an ideological justification for absolute rule.

Despite the fact that citizens of advanced market democracies are satisfied with their material progress, many are haunted by a spirit of unhappiness. There is evidence of a rising tide of clinical depression in most advanced societies, and in the United States studies have documented a decline in the number of people who regard themselves as happy. Although our political and economic systems are based on the utilitarian philosophy of happiness-the greatest good for the greatest number-they seem to have contributed to our dissatisfaction with life. This book investigates why this is so.Drawing on extensive research in such fields as quality of life, economics, politics, sociology, psychology, and biology, Robert E. Lane presents a challenging thesis. He shows that the main sources of well-being in advanced economies are friendships and a good family life and that, once one is beyond the poverty level, a larger income contributes almost nothing to happiness. In fact, as prosperity increases, there is a tragic erosion of family solidarity and community integration, and individuals become more and more distrustful of each other and their political institutions. Lane urges that we alter our priorities so that we increase our levels of companionship even at the risk of reducing our income