VOLUME V / 2016 / ISSN 2392-0963 Vladimir Varava, Philosophy Born from the Spirit of Literature: The Experience of Russian Culture Natalia Rostova, Concept of Anthropological Chaos in Two Russian Philosophical Manifestos of the 20th Century Piotr Nowak, The Adventures of the Russian Soul Janusz Dobieszewski, Pushkin Through the Eyes of Vladimir Solovyov Fedor Girenok, Vvedensky: The Poetry of Constructive Misunderstanding Anastasia Gacheva, Millennium and Apocatastasis in Russian Philosophy at the End of 19th-First Third of 20th Century Irena Księżopolska, The Silent Malice of (In)animate Objects: Nabokov’s Things Carl A. P. Ruck, Soma and the Greek Mysteries Jeff Love, Alexandre Kojève and Emptiness Ivan Dimitrijević, The Announcement of the Kingdom and the Suspension of Politics Wawrzyniec Rymkiewicz, Time and Nation after the Collapse of World History PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL VOLUME V / 2016 / ISSN 2392-0963 Piotr Nowak, Editorial Introduction. 3 PRESENTATIONS Vladimir Varava, Philosophy Born from the Spirit of Literature: The Experience of Russian Culture ............................................................... 5 Natalia Rostova, Concept of Anthropological Chaos in Two Russian Philosophical Manifestos of the 20th Century ............................................ 13 Piotr Nowak, The Adventures of the Russian Soul .................................. 23 Janusz Dobieszewski, Pushkin Through the Eyes of Vladimir Solovyov . 34 Fedor Girenok, Vvedensky: The Poetry of Constructive Misunderstanding . 41 Marina Savel’eva, Lev Shestov and Shakespeare Authorship Question . 49 Anastasia Gacheva, Millennium and Apocatastasis in Russian Philosophy at the End of 19th-First Third of 20th Century .......................................... 58 Irena Księżopolska, The Silent Malice of (In)animate Objects: Nabokov’s Things . 64 ESSAYS Carl A. P. Ruck, Soma and the Greek Mysteries .................................... 78 John Uebersax, Divinus Plato: Is Plato a Religious Figure? .......................... 98 Peter Warnek, Platonic Displacements and the Strange Appearance of Socrates . 111 Edward P. Butler, Plotinian Henadology ......................................... 143 Apostolos L. Pierris, Prolegomena to the Enigma of the Johannine Prologue: An Inquiry into Ancient Philosophical Syncretism ..................................... 160 Jeff Love, Alexandre Kojève and Emptiness ...................................... 181 Svetozar Minkov, The Fortress of Faith, or the “Metrics” of Power: An Interpretation of Chapter X of Machiavelli’s The Prince ................................... 198 Ivan Dimitrijević, The Announcement of the Kingdom and the Suspension of Politics . 209 ARCHIVE OF POLISH THOUGHT Czesław Miłosz, The Child of Europe ........................................... 226 Piotr Nowak, The Living Against the Dead ....................................... 230 REDISCOVERED BOOKS Wawrzyniec Rymkiewicz, Time and Nation after the Collapse of World History . 237 REVIEWS Grzegorz Czemiel, George Herbert and the Church Ecological ....................... 248 David Kretz, Irony, Liberalism and Religion ....................................... 258 ABOUT THE AUTHORS .................................................... 265 VOLUME III / 2014 / ISSN 2392-0963 VOLUME IV / 2015 / ISSN 2392-0963 Leo Strauss, Introduction to Political Philosophy: A Course Gustav Shpet, Consciousness and Its Owner Given in the Winter Quarter, 1965, in the Department of Natalia Avtonomova, The Problem of the Philosophical Political Science the University Of Chicago Language in Gustav Shpet’s Works Thomas Pangle, Xenophon on Whether Socratic Political Tatiana Shchedrina, Boris Pruzhinin, On Specifcity Theorizing Corrupts the Young of Historical Knowledge: David Hume and Gustav Shpet Gabriel Pihas, Dante’s Return to Greece: The Sophist and Natalia Kuznetsova, Soviet Philosophical Underground the Philosopher in The Inferno Piotr Nowak, A Colloquy on the End of the World: The Marek A. Cichocki, The Concept of the Political Whole Letters of Konstantin Leontiev and Vasily Rozanov in Light of the Current Crisis in the West: Carl Schmitt Revisited Guido Ceronetti, “Blessed are the Perplexed.” enrk ęoki, Count Adam de GuroWski, 1805-1866 Thomas Bartscherer, Mimetic Images, Double Vision, and Dramatic Poetry in Plato’s Republic Count Adam de Gurowski, Manifest: Destiny of America and Russia, 1849-1866 Irena Księżopolska, The Garden of Circular Paths: Nabokov’s Symbols of Continuity Sergio Quinzio, Justice and Mercy Wojciech Kruszewski, Adam Jerzy Czartoryski’s Sergio Quinzio, The Birth of Political Realism from the Introduction to Lithuanian History, or Why Did a Polish Spirit of Eschatology: A Passage from Sergio Quinzio’s Prince Compose a Mythology on the Origins of Lithuania Early Reections arta iiska, Time, the Old and the Young, or Chaos Controlled Piotr Nowak, The Child of War free at www.kronos.org.pl Editor in Chief: Wawrzyniec Rymkiewicz Deputy Editor in Chief: Piotr Nowak Editorial Assistance: Irena Księżopolska, Krzysztof Rosiński, Andrzej Serafn Reviewer: prof. Marta Gibińska Published by Fundacja Augusta hr. Cieszkowskiego ul. Mianowskiego 15/65, 02-044 Warszawa, Poland ISSN 2392-0963 (print) ISSN 1899-9484 (online) All material remains © copyright of the respective authors. Please address all queries to the editor at the following address. [email protected] David Kretz IRONY, LIBERALISM, AND RELIGION1 [Richard J. Bernstein, Ironic Life (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2016)] Philosophy, it is widely held, really only started with Socrates. Another thing that Socrates is famous for is his irony. In his latest book Ironic Life, Richard Bernstein argues that the two innovations go together. Both philosophy and irony are here taken in a very rich sense: philosophy, for Bernstein, ought not merely to include what he calls (following Alexander Nehamas) theoretical philosophy, whose aim is primarily to get things impersonally right, but also philosophy understood as an art of living, whose basic, very personal question Socrates poses in the Republic: how should one live? (325d). Bernstein worries about an imbalance between the two philosophical traditions in contemporary academic philosophy, and the central aim of his book is to convince us of the need and possibility to restore the balance. Irony is crucial to that end for Bernstein, richly understood as designating a Socratic way of life, and not merely a rhetorical fgure of speech. Bernstein begins by assessing Jonathan Lear’s and Richard Rorty’s respective takes on irony. In the second chapter, he focuses on the fgure of Socrates and his irony as read through the works of Gregory Vlastos and Alexander Nehamas. The third chapter is in many ways the heart of the book as Bernstein puts the focus on Kierkegaard, whose understanding of Socrates and irony is crucial for Lear and Nehamas and to a lesser degree also for Rorty and Vlastos. Assessing their various readings of Kierkegaard (of Socrates), Bernstein develops his own views on irony. In the fnal chapter, he draws it all together, surveys once more what we learned from each of his interlocutors about irony, and builds it into a case for restoring the balance in contemporary philosophy between philosophy as impersonal inquiry and personal art. He brings the virtues to this project that he is most respected for: his ability to combine penetrating and passionate critique with the constant readiness to hold out a hand across disciplinary front ‑lines, to see what is good and valuable even in those interlocutors that he most disagrees with, all in the service of engaging issues of broad humanistic and civic importance. Bernstein opens with a discussion of Lear’s views on irony as presented in his Tanner lectures A Case for Irony. Lear argues that we constitute ourselves through the practical identities that we assume: being a husband, an employee, a citizen, a teacher, 1 I would like to thank Ewa Atanassow and Shaoul Sussman for helpful discussion of an earlier draft. 258 2016 IRONY, LIBERALISM, AND RELIGION etc. Such practical identities allow for pretense in the old, non ‑pejorative sense of “putting oneself forward as,” say, a teacher. There are certain norms and ideals embedded in these practical identities that I express in all the ways of putting myself forward as a teacher. The experience of a gap between the embedded aspirations and the ways in which I put myself forward might lead me to subject the way I live and express a practical identity to refective criticism. It might, however, also lead to an ironic experience, which for Lear is something quite different. It is a particular kind of disruption and revision of a practical identity and a form of erotic uncanniness. First, uncanniness, because what was familiar (say, being a teacher) suddenly becomes strange and unfamiliar. I ask myself whether all that I am doing really has anything to do with teaching; even whether among all those who profess to teach there is a single real teacher? Irony grabs us, pulls the rug from under our feet and brings our activity to a halt. Secondly, there is an erotic aspect, in the Platonic sense: while it has suddenly become unclear to me what being a teacher really means, I experience a strong desire for knowing what it means and experience myself as committed to the practical identity of being a teacher. Irony is not, as it is sometimes thought, a form of lofty detachment but, to the contrary, a form of commitment across a breakdown in intelligibility. Lear sees in Richard Rorty a