Lev Shestov's Athens

Przyczynek do Szestowowskiej koncepcji rozumu

Abstract

This article is an attempt to present the symbolism of Athens in the works of Lev Shestov. For this purpose, the author refers to Shestov's concept of reason, which the Russian builds as part of his reflection on the history of philosophical thought. According to the author of Athens and Jerusalem, reason (through the activities of the overwhelming majority of philosophers) entangles a person in cognition exposed to various epistemic errors. Reason appears in the face of reality with the postulates of, inter alia: unity, strictness and universal validity, which eliminate from the horizon of cognition ambiguous and unique phenomena. These categories that serve the reason to describe reality resonated in the philosophy of great thinkers: Thales of Miletus, Socrates, Baruch Spinoza and Arthur Schopenhauer. The article analyzes Shestov's critique of the ideas advocated by the indicated thinkers.