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Notes From Underground
''Notes from Underground'' ( pre-reform Russian: ; post-reform Russian: ; also translated as ''Notes from the Underground'' or ''Letters from the Underworld'') is a novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, first published in the journal ''Epoch'' in 1864. It is a first-person narrative in the form of a "confession": the work was originally announced by Dostoevsky in ''Epoch'' under the title "A Confession". The novella presents itself as an excerpt from the memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator (generally referred to by critics as the Underground Man), who is a retired civil servant living in St. Petersburg. Although the first part of the novella has the form of a monologue, the narrator's form of address to his reader is acutely ''dialogized''. According to Mikhail Bakhtin, in the Underground Man's confession "there is literally not a single monologically firm, undissociated word". The Underground Man's every word anticipates the words of an other, with whom he enters into an ...
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Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky (, ; rus, Фёдор Михайлович Достоевский, Fyódor Mikháylovich Dostoyévskiy, p=ˈfʲɵdər mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj, a=ru-Dostoevsky.ogg, links=yes; 11 November 18219 February 1881), sometimes transliterated as Dostoyevsky, was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and journalist. Dostoevsky's literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. His most acclaimed novels include '' Crime and Punishment'' (1866), '' The Idiot'' (1869), ''Demons'' (1872), and '' The Brothers Karamazov'' (1880). His 1864 novella, ''Notes from Underground'', is considered to be one of the first works of existentialist literature. Numerous literary critics regard him as one of the greatest novelists in all of world literature, as many of his works are considered highly i ...
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Socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the economic, political and social theories and movements associated with the implementation of such systems. Social ownership can be state/public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. While no single definition encapsulates the many types of socialism, social ownership is the one common element. Different types of socialism vary based on the role of markets and planning in resource allocation, on the structure of management in organizations, and from below or from above approaches, with some socialists favouring a party, state, or technocratic-driven approach. Socialists disagree on whether government, particularly existing government, is the correct vehicle for change. Socialist systems are divided into non-market an ...
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Nikolay Nekrasov
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov ( rus, Никола́й Алексе́евич Некра́сов, p=nʲɪkɐˈlaj ɐlʲɪkˈsʲejɪvʲɪtɕ nʲɪˈkrasəf, a=Ru-Nikolay_Alexeyevich_Nekrasov.ogg, – ) was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about the Russian peasantry made him a hero of liberal and radical circles in the Russian intelligentsia of the mid-nineteenth century, particularly as represented by Vissarion Belinsky and Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He is credited with introducing into Russian poetry ternary meters and the technique of dramatic monologue (''On the Road'', 1845). As the editor of several literary journals, notably '' Sovremennik'', Nekrasov was also singularly successful and influential. Biography Early years Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov was born in Nemyriv (now in Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine), in the Bratslavsky Uyezd of Podolia Governorate. His father Alexey Sergeyevich Nekrasov (1788-1862) was a descendant from Rus ...
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Natural School
Natural School (russian: Натуральная школа, Naturalnaya Shkola) is a term applied to the literary movement which arose under the influence of Nikolai Gogol in the 1840s in Russia, and included such diverse authors as Nikolai Nekrasov, Ivan Panayev, Dmitry Grigorovich, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Hertzen, Ivan Goncharov, Vladimir Dal, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Evgeny Grebyonka, among others. Modern day Russian historians of literature use the term only in its historical context, otherwise preferring to speak of "the earliest stage of critical realism in Russia." History The label Natural School was coined by Faddey Bulgarin, who initially used it in a derogatory sense. In an essay of February 26 1846, in '' Severnaya Ptchela'', Bulgarin criticized young writers—followers of Gogol—for producing prose that imitated real life but lacked artistry and inspiration. The term was picked up and used in a positive sense by Vissarion Belinsky, in rel ...
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Pavel Annenkov
Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov (russian: Па́вел Васи́льевич А́нненков) (July 1, 1813 – March 20, 1887) was a significant Russian Empire literary critic and memoirist. Biography Annenkov was born into a wealthy landowning family in Moscow. He attended the philological faculty of St Petersburg University. In the late 1830s he met Vissarion Belinsky, Alexander Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin and Ivan Turgenev, with whom he became lifelong friends. In the 1840s he went abroad and formed a close relationship with Nikolai Gogol.Handbook of Russian Literature, Victor Terras, Yale University Press, 1990. His letters from Europe appeared in the journal '' Notes of the Fatherland''. A second series of letters from Paris were published in '' The Contemporary'' in 1847/48. Annenkov was a correspondent of Karl Marx. He edited the first major scholarly edition of Pushkin's works in 1855.Russian Literary Criticism, a Short History, Robert H. Stacy, Syracuse University Press, NY, ...
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Praxis (process)
Praxis (from grc, πρᾶξις, translit=praxis) is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, or realized. "Praxis" may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practising ideas. This has been a recurrent topic in the field of philosophy, discussed in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Immanuel Kant, Søren Kierkegaard, Ludwig von Mises, Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Martin Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paulo Freire, Murray Rothbard, and many others. It has meaning in the political, educational, spiritual and medical realms. Origins In Ancient Greek the word praxis (πρᾶξις) referred to activity engaged in by free people. The philosopher Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of humans: ''theoria'' (thinking), '' poiesis'' (making), and ''praxis'' (doing). Corresponding to these activities were three types of knowledge: theoretical, the end goal being truth; ...
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Rational Egoism
Rational egoism (also called rational selfishness) is the principle that an action is rational if and only if it maximizes one's self-interest.Baier (1990), p. 201; Gert (1998), p. 69; Shaver (2002), §3; Moseley (2006), §2. As such, it is considered a normative form of egoism, though historically has been associated with both positive and normative forms. In its strong form, rational egoism holds that to not pursue one's own interest is unequivocally irrational. Its weaker form, however, holds that while it is rational to pursue self-interest, failing to pursue self-interest is ''not always'' irrational. Originally an element of nihilist philosophy in Russia, it was later popularised in English-speaking countries by Russian-American author Ayn Rand. Origins Rational egoism (russian: разумный эгоизм) emerged as the dominant social philosophy of the Russian nihilist movement, having developed in the works of nihilist philosophers Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Dmi ...
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Enlightened Self-interest
Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest. It has often been simply expressed by the belief that an individual, group, or even a commercial entity will ''"do well by doing good"''. The term enlightened self-interest has been criticised as a mere ideological or semantic device of neoclassical economic theory to justify this type of behaviour. It has been considered at best a variant of self-interest that is unsuitable for the establishment of personal and public relations, because like the definition of self-interest in the standard rational choice model, it fails to characterise human behaviour ethically, psychologically and cognitivel Related and contrasting concepts Unenlightened self-interest In contrast to ''enlightened'' self-interest is simple greed, or the concept of "''unenlightened'' self- ...
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Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism. He was the dominant intellectual figure of the 1860s revolutionary democratic movement in Russia, despite spending much of his later life in exile to Siberia, and was later highly praised by Karl Marx, Georgi Plekhanov, and Vladimir Lenin. Biography The son of a priest, Chernyshevsky was born in Saratov in 1828, and stayed there until 1846. He graduated at the local seminary where he learned English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Old Slavonic. It was there he gained a love of literature. At St Petersburg University he often struggled to warm his room. He kept a diary of trivia like the number of tears he shed over a dead friend. It was here that he became an atheist. He was inspired by the works of Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach and Charle ...
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The Crystal Palace
The Crystal Palace was a cast iron and plate glass structure, originally built in Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park, London, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. The exhibition took place from 1 May to 15 October 1851, and more than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in its exhibition space to display examples of technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was long, with an interior height of , and was three times the size of St Paul's Cathedral. The introduction of the sheet glass method into Britain by Chance Brothers in 1832 made possible the production of large sheets of cheap but strong glass, and its use in the Crystal Palace created a structure with the greatest area of glass ever seen in a building. It astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights. It has been suggested that the name of the building resulted from a piece penned by the playwright Doug ...
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Necessitarianism
Necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for the world to be. It is the strongest member of a family of principles, including hard determinism, each of which deny libertarian free will, reasoning that human actions are predetermined by external or internal antecedents. Necessitarianism is stronger than hard determinism, because even the hard determinist would grant that the causal chain constituting the world might have been different as a whole, even though each member of that series could not have been different, given its antecedent causes. The most famous defender of necessitarianism in the history of philosophy is Spinoza. Anthony Collins was also known for his defense of necessitarianism. His brief ''Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty'' (1715) was a key statement of the necessitarianist standpoint. The '' Century Dictionary'' defined it in 1889–91 as belief that the will is not free, but instead subject t ...
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Two + Two = Five
"Two plus two equals five" (2 + 2 = 5) is a mathematically incorrect phrase used in the 1949 dystopian novel ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' by George Orwell. It appears as a possible statement of Ingsoc ( English Socialism) philosophy, like the dogma "War is Peace", which the Party expects the citizens of Oceania to believe is true. In writing his secret diary in the year 1984, the protagonist Winston Smith ponders if the Inner Party might declare that "two plus two equals five" is a fact. Smith further ponders whether or not belief in such a consensus reality makes the lie true. About the falsity of "two plus two equals five", in Room 101, the interrogator O'Brien tells the thought criminal Smith that control over physical reality is unimportant to the Party, provided the citizens of Oceania subordinate their real-world perceptions to the political will of the Party; and that, by way of doublethink: "Sometimes, Winston. ometimes it is four fingers.Sometimes they are five. So ...
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