The Philosophers Have Only Interpreted the World – the Point is to Transfigure It. The Philosophical Project of Nikolai Fedorov and Nikolai Berdyaev

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to present, on the basis of two different thinkers – Nikolai Fedorov and Nikolai Berdyaev, a new philosophical project which diverges from the common understanding of philosophy, popularly construed as an attempt to describe reality. Instead, this new philosophical project angles towards active eschatology. Called after Berdyaev “the philosophy of creativity”, this project is an example of one of the primary characteristics of the Russian philosophical thought in question – the need and insistence on applying theory, on complementing philosophy with across-theboard praxis, with employment and practice that reach beyond the confines of academic philosophy.
Drawing on the thought of Fedorov and Berdyaev, the article attempts to privide an apt answer to the elementary question of dialectics of creativity formulated by Władysław Stróżewski: “Why doesn’t there exist something that potentially could (or should) exist?” Firstly, select conditions that allow the possibility of creativity – Fedorov’s and Berdyaev’s ontological presumptions about the world are examined. Secondly, reasons justifying the necessity of the creative act, i.e., the rationale behind creating something new and unleashing it onto the world, are duly considered and elaborated on.