Hello all.

Studying Dostoevsky's philosophy for some time, I could perceive the general western deviation with his works. It is my objective to trace the rise of his ideas, and I would like to outline a kind of concise connection to his most important influences during his maturing process on philosophy, demonstrating the unique foundation of his thought.

As is known (or should be) by everyone, Dostoevsky were an orthodox christian, which gave him a profound sense of the Divine in his life and his works, in addition, it made him deal with deep questions concerning the very human existence, the problem of evil, God's existence, and so forth. It is certain that Dostoevsky had a precise understanding of the Scriptures, due to the period that he lived in prison with the only book he was allowed to read, the New Testament, and besides that, he had a truly living experience with Orthodoxy, as his incessant devotion to Christ, his fervent attendance to Divine Liturgy, visits to many monasteries — accompanied by Vladimir Solovyev, an orthodox theologian, besides his contact with the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church. When it comes to his theological understanding, The Brothers Karamazov appears as its purest synthesis, standing for the truest orthodox theology, rejecting many contemporary fastly-spread currents of thought, as utilitarianism, nihilism, and rationalism.

Dostoevsky's philosophical rebellion against the currents of thought that were dominating the development of philosophy at his time, as well as with Westernization of Russia was fueled by some key-authors. He argued that, Western peoples seek to:

[...] find a universal human ideal in themselves and by their own powers, and therefore they altogether harm themselves and their cause. The idea of universal humanity ever more wears away between them. Among each of them it takes a different type, dulls, and assumes in consciousness a new form. The Christian bond that up to this time united them loses strength with every day. — F. Dostoevsky

The slavophile thinkers Aleksey Khomiakov and Ivan Kireevsky — examples of great theological and philosophical influences — were capable of synthesizing with a rigorous purity the necessity of a renovation of the Russian spirit, as with their notion of catholicity [sobornost], — that must not be confounded with the generic latinist term, as Khomiakov argues that the latin church lost its characteristic of universality, since latinists departed from the bosom of the universal faith by affirming the infallibility of their bishop over all Christendom — which influenced substantially Dostoevsky's philosophy, as it is made explicit by himself:

The Eastern ideal, i.e. the ideal of Russian Orthodoxy, is first the spiritual unity of humanity in Christ, and then, by virtue of this spiritual uniting of all in Christ, surely the proper sovereign and social unification. — F. Dostoevsky.

Dostoevsky understood with absoluteness the assimilation of western culture on the Russian society, which he criticized tenaciously in two works mainly: The Crocodile and Winter Notes on Summer Impressions. The former is a short satirical work which tells about a superior and overculturalized Russian man that, being swallowed by a crocodile — owned by a stingy and greedy German man —, adapts himself to the crocodile's stomach, and even starts to work and live his life normally inside of his stomach. The latter presents a harsh matured critique on the European culture due to his travel to Western Europe, which goes on the contrary way of common writings related to travels, since Dostoevsky revels himself with a profound attentiveness to the details concerning the very nature of European habits, specially the French and English ones. Both works presents the rationalistic and unfaithful behavior of European peoples in different ways, although its clarity denounces it with the same efficiency. Overall, the progress of individualism and the emptiness of materialism are destructive by themselves, and Dostoevsky does not fail to synthesize in his critique a tone of destructiveness, of a complete misery — promoted by those who pretend to be the saviors of humanity. His defense of Russian traditional society must not be understood separately or fragmentarily, the wholeness of his critique on the rationalistic and bourgeois materialistic European society comprises the integrality of Russian Orthodox culture.

The notable work Notes from Underground — profoundly admired by Nietzsche — acidly exposes his disagreements with utilitarian rationalism and nihilistic atheism. Dostoevsky argues that human freedom confronts the rationalist and utilitarian thought that we might always choose what is more "advantageous" to us, since the human freedom consists in having the power of the free choice, even of the non-rational. Beyond that, the simple activity of abstract reason can not grant anything if not vagueness, as logical sentences are nothing but simply meaningless logical sentences. There is no real meaning in human freedom if it is apart from Christ, since the true freedom is the Christ himself. The basic foundation of the individual resides in the possibility of the creative act, on the achievement of personality, which is the condition for true freedom - since personality is not something ordinary, but the highest value in the world:

Personality is the image and likeness of God in man and this is why it rises above the natural life... Personality is spiritual and presupposes the existence of a spiritual world. — N. Berdyaev.

For Dostoevsky:

It seems to me that the whole of human life can be summed up in the one statement that man only exists for the purpose of proving to himself every minute that he is free. — F. Dostoevsky.

My idea with this very was to trace the birth of Dostoevsky's philosophy by synthesizing aspects of great importance to his life and works. Overall, the main influences can be found with the Holy Fathers of the Church, with Ivan Kireevsky, Aleksey Khomiakov, also with Friedrich Schiller and Nikolai Gogol. It is central here that Dostoevsky had a genuine orthodox view, and that his philosophy and theology did not diverged at any point of his faith. It is fair to say that history — and I argue that is truly necessary — may recognize Dostoevsky not apart from orthodox faith in any sense, as he internalizes its teachings and its living experience in his works. I conclude, then, that Dostoevsky's philosophy and theology do not come from anywhere if not from the very bosom of Orthodoxy.