Lev Shestov

1.1. Birth, background, and education

Shestov was born Yeguda Lev Shvartsman in Kiev (then part of the Russian Empire) on February 12, 1866 (January 31, Old Style), into a Jewish family. He was a cousin of Nicholas Pritzker, a lawyer who emigrated to Chicago and became the patriarch of the prominent Pritzker family in business and politics.

He pursued his education at various institutions, often encountering difficulties due to his fractious clashes with authority. He initially studied law and mathematics at Moscow State University. However, following a disagreement with the Inspector of Students, he was instructed to return to Kiev, where he completed his studies. His dissertation was subsequently rejected by the St. Vladimir's Imperial University of Kiev because of its expressed revolutionary tendencies, which prevented him from obtaining a doctor of law degree. He later continued his legal studies in Berlin.

1.2. Early intellectual development

In 1898, Shestov entered a vibrant circle of prominent Russian intellectuals and artists, including Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergei Diaghilev, Dmitri Merezhkovsky, and Vasily Rozanov. He began contributing articles to a journal established by this circle. During this period, he completed his first major philosophical work, Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche: Philosophy and Preaching, published in 1899. These two authors, Leo Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche, profoundly impacted Shestov's developing thought.

His thinking further evolved in a second book focusing on Fyodor Dostoevsky and Nietzsche, which significantly enhanced Shestov's reputation as an original and incisive thinker. In All Things Are Possible (published in 1905), Shestov adopted the aphoristic style characteristic of Friedrich Nietzsche to explore the distinctions between Russian and European literature. While it superficially appeared as an exploration of various intellectual topics, at its core, it was a sardonic work of existentialist philosophy that both criticized and satirized conventional attitudes towards life situations. D. H. Lawrence, who wrote the foreword to S.S. Koteliansky's literary translation of the work, summarized Shestov's philosophy with the words: "'Everything is possible' - this is his really central cry. It is not nihilism. It is only a shaking free of the human psyche from old bonds. The positive central idea is that the human psyche, or soul, really believes in itself, and in nothing else". Shestov himself emphasized this point, stating: "...we need to think that only one assertion has or can have any objective reality: that nothing on earth is impossible. Every time someone wants to force us to admit that there are other, more limited and limiting truths, we must resist with every means we can lay hands on". In this highly approachable work, Shestov addressed key issues such as religion, rationalism, and science, themes he would continue to examine in later writings like In Job's Balances.

Despite his growing reputation, Shestov's works were not universally embraced, even by some of his closest Russian friends. Many interpreted his philosophy as a renunciation of reason and metaphysics, and some even saw it as an espousal of nihilism. Nevertheless, he found admirers in writers such as D. H. Lawrence and his friend Georges Bataille.

1.3. Emigration and life in France

In 1908, Shestov moved to Freiburg, Germany, where he resided until 1910, before relocating to Coppet, a small village in Switzerland. During this period, he wrote prolifically, leading to the publication of Great Vigils and Penultimate Words. He returned to Moscow in 1915, a year marked by personal tragedy when his son, Sergei, died in combat against the Germans. During his time in Moscow, his work increasingly reflected themes of religion and theology.

The Bolsheviks' seizure of government in 1917 created significant difficulties for Shestov. The Marxists pressured him to write a defense of Marxist doctrine as an introduction to his new work, Potestas Clavium; otherwise, it would not be published. Shestov refused this demand but, with the authorities' permission, lectured at the University of Kiev on Greek philosophy.

Shestov's strong dislike of the Soviet regime prompted him to embark on a long journey out of Russia, eventually settling in France in 1921. He quickly became a popular figure in France, where his originality was recognized. In Paris, he soon befriended and significantly influenced the young Georges Bataille. He also developed close relationships with Eugene and Olga Petit, who assisted him and his family in relocating to Paris and integrating into French political and literary circles. His growing appreciation in France was further evidenced by an invitation to contribute to a prestigious French philosophy journal.

Throughout the interwar years, Shestov continued to develop into a thinker of great prominence. During this time, he became deeply immersed in the study of major theologians such as Blaise Pascal and Plotinus, while also lecturing at the Sorbonne in 1925. In 1926, he was introduced to Edmund Husserl, with whom he maintained a cordial relationship despite radical differences in their philosophical outlook. In 1929, during a return visit to Freiburg, he met with Edmund Husserl and also Martin Heidegger, and was strongly urged by Husserl to study the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.

1.4. Later years and death

The discovery of Kierkegaard prompted Shestov to recognize significant similarities between their philosophies, such as a shared rejection of idealism and a belief that ultimate knowledge can be attained through ungrounded subjective thought rather than objective reason and verifiability. However, Shestov believed that Kierkegaard did not pursue this line of thought far enough, and he sought to continue where he felt the Dane had left off. The results of this philosophical extension are evident in his work Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy: Vox Clamantis in Deserto, published in 1936, which is considered a fundamental work of Christian existentialism.

Despite his weakening health, Shestov continued to write at a rapid pace, eventually completing his magnum opus, Athens and Jerusalem. This seminal work examines the dichotomy between freedom and reason, arguing that reason should be rejected as the primary discipline in philosophy. Furthermore, it outlines how the scientific method has rendered philosophy and science irreconcilable, as science is concerned with empirical observation, whereas philosophy, Shestov contended, must address issues of freedom, God, and immortality-questions that cannot be resolved by scientific inquiry.

In 1938, Shestov contracted a serious illness while at his vacation home. During this final period, he continued his studies, focusing particularly on Indian philosophy as well as the works of his contemporary and friend Edmund Husserl, who had recently passed away. Lev Shestov himself died at a clinic in Paris on November 19, 1938.

2.1. Critique of Reason and Rationalism

For Shestov, traditional philosophy has misused reason to subjugate both humans and God to "necessities"-truths that are considered eternally true, unchangeable, and ultimately tyrannical. It is crucial to note that Shestov did not entirely oppose reason or science in general, but rather targeted rationalism and scientism: the tendency to regard reason as an omniscient, omnipotent deity, eternally true and justified.

He pointed to the works of Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel as examples reflecting a belief in an eternal knowledge discoverable through reason-mechanistic, rational laws, such as the law of non-contradiction, that would constrain even God by logical necessity. According to Shestov, this tendency to deify reason itself stems from a deep-seated fear of an arbitrary, unpredictable, and potentially dangerous God. This fear, he argued, leads philosophers to deify that which is unchanging or "dead"-that is, opposed to life and the absolute. Shestov identified this as a repressed flaw in Western philosophy and, following Søren Kierkegaard, countered that God embodies the notion that "there is nothing that is impossible"-meaning the absolute need not be limited by reason. Consequently, no conclusive knowledge about how things necessarily must be can be attained through reason. As he explained in conversation with his student Benjamin Fondane:

"I know full well that Necessity reigns now... But who can prove to me that it has always been? That it was not something else before? Or that there will not be something else afterwards? It's up to men to side with Necessity, perhaps... But a philosopher must search for Sources - beyond Necessity, beyond Good and Evil."

In Athens and Jerusalem, he further articulated this critique, questioning the imposition of human logical order onto the divine:

"Why attribute to God, the God whom neither time nor space limits, the same respect and love for order? Why forever speak of 'total unity'? ... There is no need at all. Consequently, the idea of total unity is an absolutely false idea. ... It is not forbidden for reason to speak of unity and even of unities, but it must renounce total unity - and other things besides. And what a sigh of relief men will breathe when they suddenly discover that the living God, the true God, in no way resembles Him whom reason has shown them until now!"

Through this relentless attack on "self-evident truths," Shestov implied that individuals are often left alone with their experiences and suffering, and cannot be genuinely helped by rigid philosophical systems. Echoing Martin Luther, Dostoevsky, and Kierkegaard, he argued that true philosophy involves thinking against the limits of prescribed reason and necessity. It can only begin once, "according to the testimony of reason, all possibilities have been exhausted" and "we run up against the wall of impossibility." His student Fondane clarified that genuine reality "begins beyond the limit of the logically impossible" and only once "every humanly thinkable certainty and probability has proven its impossibility." This perspective explains Shestov's deliberate lack of a systematic philosophical framework, an approach that would later influence thinkers like Gilles Deleuze.

2.2. Despair and Faith

Shestov's philosophical starting point is not a theory or an idea, but a profound experience: the experience of despair. He described despair as the loss of certainties, the loss of freedom, and the loss of the meaning of life. The root cause of this despair, as he frequently articulated, is what he termed 'Necessity', but also 'Reason', 'Idealism', or 'Fate'. These terms refer to a particular way of thinking-and simultaneously a very real aspect of the world-that subordinates life to abstract ideas, generalizations, and ultimately stifles it by ignoring the unique and living essence of reality.

However, for Shestov, despair is not the final word; it is merely the 'penultimate word'. The ultimate truth, the "last word," cannot be fully articulated in human language or captured within any theoretical framework. While his philosophy begins with despair and is deeply imbued with a desperate quality, Shestov endeavors to point towards something beyond despair-and indeed, beyond philosophy itself.

This "something beyond" is what he called 'faith'. For Shestov, faith is not a mere belief or a certainty, but an alternative mode of thinking that emerges amidst the deepest doubt and insecurity. It is the profound experience that "everything is possible," a concept he drew from Dostoevsky. He argued that the true opposite of Necessity is not chance or accident, but possibility-a divinely given freedom without boundaries, walls, or borders.

In Athens and Jerusalem, he elaborated on this distinction:

"Within the 'limits of reason' one can create a science, a sublime ethic, and even a religion; but to find G-d one must tear oneself away from the seductions of reason with all its physical and moral constraints, and go to another source of truth. In Scripture, this source bears the enigmatic name 'faith,' which is that dimension of thought where truth abandons itself fearlessly and joyously to the entire disposition of the Creator."

Although a Jewish philosopher, Shestov saw in the resurrection of Christ a powerful symbol of this victory over necessity. He described the incarnation and resurrection of Jesus as a transfiguring spectacle that demonstrated the purpose of life is not a "mystical" surrender to the "absolute," but an ascetical struggle:

"Cur Deus homo? Why, to what purpose, did He become man, expose himself to injurious mistreatment, ignominious and painful death on the cross? Was it not in order to show man, through His example, that no decision is too hard, that it is worthwhile bearing anything in order not to remain in the womb of the One? That any torture whatever to the living being is better than the 'bliss' of the rest-satiate 'ideal' being?"

The final words of his last work, Athens and Jerusalem, encapsulate his philosophy as a continuous struggle: "Philosophy is not Besinnen^German [think over] but struggle. And this struggle has no end and will have no end. The kingdom of God, as it is written, is attained through violence." This echoes the biblical verse from Matthew 11:12.

2.3. Key Influences on his Thought

Shestov's philosophical outlook was profoundly shaped by a diverse array of thinkers and writers. His early intellectual development was significantly impacted by the contrasting philosophies of Leo Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche, leading to his first major work. He further engaged with Nietzsche's ideas, alongside those of Dostoevsky, in his second book, which solidified his reputation. He also wrote extensively on Anton Chekhov.

Later in his life, particularly after his emigration to France, Shestov immersed himself in the works of great theologians and philosophers such as Blaise Pascal and Plotinus. A pivotal moment in his intellectual journey occurred in 1929 when he was urged by Edmund Husserl (and also met Martin Heidegger) to study the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. This encounter led Shestov to recognize deep similarities between his own thought and Kierkegaard's, particularly their shared rejection of idealism and their belief in attaining ultimate knowledge through subjective experience rather than objective reason. Shestov, however, felt that Kierkegaard had not taken these ideas far enough, and he sought to extend them in his own work.

4.1. Influence on Contemporary and Later Thinkers

Shestov was highly admired by prominent Russian thinkers such as Nikolai Berdyaev and Sergei Bulgakov. In France, his work resonated deeply with figures like Jules de Gaultier, Georges Bataille, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Paul Celan, Gilles Deleuze, and Albert Camus. In England, he found admirers in D. H. Lawrence, Isaiah Berlin, and John Middleton Murry. Among Jewish thinkers, he influenced Hillel Zeitlin.
Isaiah Berlin highly regarded Shestov, stating:
: "When I give Shestov's books to anybody, they are usually delighted. There are two authors whom I make propaganda for: one is Herzen, the other is Shestov. They are both totally decent, open-minded, open-hearted human beings."

Albert Camus wrote about Shestov in his influential essay The Myth of Sisyphus. Benjamin Fondane was a direct pupil of Shestov, deeply engaging with his ideas. The poet Paul Celan also found inspiration in Shestov's thought. Notably, Emil Cioran expressed a profound connection to Shestov's philosophy, writing: "He was the philosopher of my generation, which didn't succeed in realizing itself spiritually, but remained nostalgic about such a realization. Shestov [...] has played an important role in my life. [...] He thought rightly that the true problems escaped the philosophers. What else do they do but obscure the real torments of life?"

Shestov's ideas also appear in the work of Gilles Deleuze, who refers to him sporadically in Nietzsche and Philosophy and Difference and Repetition. Leo Strauss's work "Jerusalem and Athens" was written in part as a response to Shestov's Athens and Jerusalem, indicating the significant intellectual dialogue Shestov provoked.

More recently, Shestov's struggle against the rational, self-consistent, and self-evident has resonated with scholars. For instance, Bernard Martin of Case Western Reserve University translated his works, making them more accessible. Scholar Liza Knapp, in her book The Annihilation of Inertia: Dostoevsky and Metaphysics, evaluates Dostoevsky's struggle against the "wall" of the self-evident, making several references to Shestov's insights. According to Michael Richardson's research on Georges Bataille, Shestov was an early influence on Bataille, introducing him to Nietzsche. Shestov's radical views on theology and his interest in extreme human behavior likely shaped Bataille's own thoughts.

Despite his significant influence on these thinkers, Shestov remains relatively little known in the English-speaking world today. This can be attributed partly to the limited availability of his works and partly to the often sombre, yet ecstatic, atmosphere of his writings, which can be perceived as "foreign." His quasi-nihilistic position combined with a deeply religious outlook presents an unsettling and incongruous combination at first glance, making his philosophy challenging for some audiences.

4.2. Reception in Russia and Europe

Within Russia, Shestov's philosophical tendencies, particularly his assertion that truth transcends reason and his anti-rationalist stance, aligned with the broader anti-realism movement that gained momentum after the 1890s. His articulate and rhetorical style garnered appreciation among Symbolist writers. Nikolai Berdyaev, a contemporary, noted Shestov's "nihilism" as a characteristic trait of the Russian spiritual temperament.

Following World War I, Shestov's works found a receptive audience in Europe, where his philosophy was often embraced as a "philosophy of anxiety." This reception reflected the intellectual landscape of post-war Europe, marked by widespread disillusionment and a search for meaning beyond traditional rational frameworks.

4.3. Reception in Japan

Shestov's philosophy was introduced to Japan with the publication of the Japanese translation of The Philosophy of Tragedy in 1934. This translation sparked a temporary but intense wave of popularity among Japanese intellectuals, who were grappling with ideological suppression and social anxiety in the wake of the Manchurian Incident. The translator, Tetsutaro Kawakami, also translated Shestov's Creation from Nothingness.

His ideas resonated so strongly within literary circles that the term "Shestovian anxiety" (シェストフ的不安_{Shestofu-teki fuan}^Japanese) was coined to describe a particular intellectual malaise. Other works by Shestov, including Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Night in Gethsemane, Parmenides in Chains, Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy, and Athens and Jerusalem, were also translated and contributed to his impact on Japanese thought.