Description:

Human dignity is one of the most prominent themes in the history of Russian thought. In this lecture, RandallPoole will trace the development of that theme over a full century, from the famous Slavophile-Westernizer controversy of 1830s– 40s to the Russian religious-philosophical emigration of the twentieth century. He will explore how human dignity has been understood within various Russian metaphysical worldviews and why certain Russian philosophers thought it entailed a particular type of metaphysics—religious personalism. 

Randall A. Poole is Professor of Intellectual History at the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, Minnesota, and a fellow of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. He is the translator and editor of Problems of Idealism: Essays in Russian Social Philosophy (2003) and co-editor of five other volumes: A History of Russian Philosophy, 1830–1930: Faith, Reason, and the Defense of Human Dignity (2010, 2013), Religious Freedom in Modern Russia (2018), The Oxford Handbook of Russian Religious Thought (2020), Evgenii Trubetskoi: Icon and Philosophy (2021), and Law and the Christian Tradition in Modern Russia (2022). He is also the author of many articles and book chapters on Russian intellectual history, philosophy, and religion.