The Development of Philosophical Thought in Ukraine

Formation and Main Stages of the Development of Philosophical Thought in Ukraine

As in other countries, philosophy in Ukraine emerged and developed as an integral part of the nation's broader culture. Given the shifts in the historical types of Ukrainian culture, three main periods in the development of Ukrainian philosophy are identified.

The first period relates to the time of Kyivan Rus. Its chronological boundaries extend from the 11th century, beginning with the work of Metropolitan Ilarion, The Sermon on Law and Grace, to the mid-14th century (the loss of independence of the Galician-Volhynian principality, the direct successor to the culture of Kyivan Rus). Some sources even extend this period to the 15th century, when the Kyivan principality was abolished. The culture of this period is described as Greco-Slavic (Christian). The philosophy of this time is characterized by a focus on the relationship between "man and God," addressing themes such as the essence, purpose, and foundations of human existence.

The second period is associated with the era of the Cossacks in the 16th-18th centuries. During this time, mass book printing flourished, brotherhoods engaged in educational activities, and the Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium was established, later transformed into an academy. Scholars characterize the culture of this period as baroque. Philosophically, the focus shifted to the problem of "man and the universe." In addition to traditional ethical issues, topics of dialectics, logic, metaphysics, and natural philosophy came to the forefront, driven by the demands of teaching in educational institutions. It is clear that during this period, professional philosophy began to take shape in Ukraine.

The third period covers the 19th century through the first third of the 20th century, marked by the dominance of romanticism. Philosophy during this time centered around the problem of "man and the nation." Here, the importance of language, literary creativity, education as a whole, and the formation of the national idea became prominent. Let us turn to a more detailed examination of these periods.

With the adoption of Christianity by Kyivan Rus, ancient and medieval philosophical ideas were introduced to Ukraine through Byzantium and Bulgaria. In the 11th century, active translations of various religious and other worldview works into the Slavic language began. Translation efforts intensified during the reign of Yaroslav the Wise (1019-1054). It was during this time that the word "philosophy" first appeared in Ukrainian lands. The earliest definition of philosophy is found in The Life of Constantine-Cyril the Philosopher: “The knowledge of divine and human things, insofar as man can approach God, which teaches man to act in the image and likeness of his Creator.”

In the Izbornik of Sviatoslav (1073), wisdom is defined as "a wise life." During the period of Kyivan Rus, collections like The Bee, Hexaemeron, Palaea, and Physiologus were widespread. Notably, The Bee, attributed to Maximus the Confessor in the 7th century, was translated from Greek at the end of the 11th century. It consisted of 71 chapters containing over 2,500 aphorisms—quotations from the Bible, works of Christian thinkers, and ancient philosophers such as Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and others. This collection had a broad worldview, as evidenced by chapter titles such as "On Wisdom," "On Truth," "On Philosophy and Learning," "On Beauty," and "On Self-Understanding." Although religious elements were present, the collection predominantly focused on secular ideas.

Translations introduced new philosophical terms into the Slavic language, particularly concerning the soul and body as two distinct substances, with humans seen as something beyond a mere combination of the two. The Izbornik of 1073 introduced notions of the essential and the accidental, genus and species, quantity and quality. By 1076, the Izbornik also included articles of Slavic origin. Philosophical themes appear in the Tale of Bygone Years by Nestor the Chronicler (in the section "The Speech of the Philosopher") and in The Sermon on Law and Grace by Metropolitan Ilarion. Ilarion argued that two eras stand out in world history on the path of progress: the era of the "Old Testament," or "Law," where slavery, blind obedience, and division among nations reign, and the era of the "New Testament," or "Grace," where freedom, truth, and equality of all peoples are established. Ilarion believed that the Christianization of Rus marked the beginning of the era of Grace.

Among the notable preachers and philosophers of that time were Metropolitan Nikifor (died 1121), Bishop Cyril of Turov (1130 — after 1182), and Metropolitan Clement Smoliatich (died 1154).

Metropolitan Nikifor, in his Letter to Vladimir Monomakh, addressed the problem of the relationship between the soul and the body, the immaterial and the material, united by reason, which governs the soul and acts as the "sovereign" of the senses. The human soul, unlike the natural flesh, was created "by the breath of grace" and governs the body "like a prince governs his realm."

Cyril of Turov, appointed bishop of Turov in 1162, paid special attention to questions of knowledge. Since divine mysteries are contained in the tenets of faith, understanding them requires the use of reason. Reason is manifest in humans through contemplation of things with the participation of "human senses" and can be developed through "book learning," which serves as the "treasury of eternal life." Knowledge through faith, senses, and books is the path to personal improvement. The formation of the person is a complex matter, intertwined with the struggle between good and evil, which correspond to God and the devil. For Cyril, the key criterion in a person’s moral development is truthfulness.

The second period witnessed the loss of previous cultural orientations (due to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the mid-15th century) and the incorporation of much of Ukraine into Poland, which brought Catholic expansion and increased influence of Western European culture and philosophy. Renaissance and Reformation ideas were assimilated in Ukraine both directly and through students studying in the West. This period saw a synthesis of Platonic and Aristotelian ideas, and the spread of Neoplatonism, aided by a long-standing familiarity with the works of Dionysius the Areopagite and the ideology of Hesychasm. Translations of Western logical works and Arabic-idea authors also took place. Key figures from the early phase of this period include Yuriy Kotermak-Drohobych (1450-1594), who studied at the universities of Kraków and Bologna, received a doctorate in philosophy, taught, and eventually became the rector of the University of Bologna, and Stanislav Orikhovsky-Roxolan (1513-1566), who, after studying at several Western universities and spending 17 years abroad, returned to Ukraine, earning the titles of "Ruthenian Demosthenes" and "the modern Cicero" in the West.

From the late 16th century to the first half of the 17th century, Ukraine saw the emergence of polemicist writers, who dedicated their works to the struggle for the independence of the region and the religious autonomy of the Ukrainian people. Among them were figures such as Herasym and Meletiy Smotrytsky, Stefan Zyzaniy, and Khrystofor Filaret. However, the most prominent of these was Ivan Vyshensky (1550—1620). Actively opposing Catholicism and the Union of Brest, Vyshensky grounded his stance in a comprehensive philosophical interpretation of the relationship between God, the world, and humanity.

For Vyshensky, God was the supernatural, immaterial principle, the supreme will, and the creative force. In opposition to the divine realm stood the earthly world, a domain ruled by evil, arbitrariness, greed, betrayal, and violence. Of all the regions in the world, Vyshensky saw the greatest concentration of evil in his homeland, where the people had been betrayed by their leaders. He conceived of the human being as inherently contradictory, composed of both soul and body: "The spirit fights against the body, and the body against the spirit; they oppose and struggle with each other until one conquers the other: either the body conquers the spirit or the spirit the body." The path to human perfection, he believed, lay in self-purification, the renunciation of earthly things, and the striving for spiritual union with God.

During this period, the activities of Vasyl-Kostiantyn Ostrozky (1527—1608) played a significant role. He founded schools in Turov (1572), Volodymyr-Volynsky (1577), Lutsk, and Ostroh (1577—1580). Ostrozky sought to transform the Ostroh school into an academy, where theology, philosophy, logic, various languages, and the "liberal arts" (such as mathematics, rhetoric, and astronomy) were taught. The first rector of this school was H. Smotrytsky, and among its students was Ivan Vyshensky. However, with the establishment of the Jesuit College in Ostroh in 1624, the school declined and ceased to exist after 1640, only to be revived in the years of modern independent Ukraine.

A major event in Ukrainian cultural life was the founding of the first university in 1632—the Kyiv Brotherhood School, later named the "Kyiv-Mohyla College" after its patron, Metropolitan Petro Mohyla. In 1701, it was transformed into an academy. The institution’s structure included four years of general humanities, followed by one year of poetics, one year of rhetoric, two years of philosophy, and four years of theology. The philosophy curriculum included logic (also called rational philosophy), which studied the general laws and forms of thought; physics, or natural philosophy, whose subject matter encompassed matter, form, nature, art, cosmology, psychology, and methodology; and metaphysics. Notable professors included Josyf Kononovych-Horbaćky, who taught Aristotle’s doctrines and adhered to nominalism while rejecting Thomism, famously stating in his rhetoric course of 1636/37, "There is nothing great on earth except man, and nothing great in man except reason."

Lazar Baranovych (1620—1693) served as rector of the college from 1650 to 1659 and taught philosophy. In 1678, his book A New Measure of the Old Faith was published, in which he largely subordinated philosophy to religion, emphasizing the concept of substance. Inokentiy Gizel (1600—1683) lectured at the college from 1645 to 1647, offering a "complete course in philosophy." Theophan Prokopovych (1677—1736) also served as a professor and rector of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

In the 18th century, Ukraine underwent complete serfdom. By the mid-century, the Synod forbade teaching Aristotle’s philosophy at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, recommending instead the system of Leibniz-Wolff. Consequently, the academy gradually transformed into a purely theological institution. The most remarkable philosopher of the 18th century was Hryhoriy Skovoroda, whose teachings will be examined in the next chapter.

The third period, as noted, encompasses the 19th century and the first third of the 20th. Philosophically, the early 19th century in Ukraine was marked by the establishment of Kharkiv University in 1805, which now bears the name of V. N. Karazin (1773—1842). Karazin, the founder of the university, was one of Ukraine's most prominent intellectuals and an advocate for empirical science with practical applications. He was also instrumental in creating the Ministry of National Education in the Russian Empire, actively participating in its work until 1804. Karazin’s most significant scientific achievements were in meteorology.

The first rector of Kharkiv University was Ivan Stepanovych Ryzky (1760—1811), a former professor at the Mining Academy in St. Petersburg. In 1807, he earned a doctorate in philosophy. In 1790, he published a book titled Rational Philosophy, and in 1808, while in Kharkiv, he authored An Introduction to the Circle of Letters, in which he linked the development of language with societal progress and cognition. Ryzky also translated works by Diderot, Holbach, and Montesquieu, adhering to the principles of sensualism, like many Enlightenment thinkers.

The first professor of philosophy at Kharkiv University was Johann-Baptist Schad (1758—1834), one of 28 German scholars invited to work at the newly established university. In Kharkiv, Schad authored two works: Pure and Applied Logic and Natural Law. He lectured on metaphysics, the history of philosophy, logic, psychology, ethics, and natural law, contributing to the dissemination of German classical philosophy. Schad rejected Kant’s strict separation of theoretical and practical reason, maintaining that reason was singular. He held that while understanding was limited to the realm of experience and phenomena, reason dealt with ideas that introduced unity and harmony into the world. Reason, according to Schad, performed not only a regulatory function, as Kant claimed, but could also grasp "things in themselves."

Schad’s successor at the chair of philosophy was his student A. I. Dudrovych (1782—1830), and among Schad's notable pupils was N. G. Bilousov (1799—1854), who later became a professor at the Nizhyn Lyceum, where he taught Nikolai Gogol.

The ideas of positivist philosophy at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries were advocated by graduates of Kharkiv University such as L.I. Mechnikov and M.M. Kovalevsky. Another notable figure associated with this movement, from the second generation of positivists, was O. Malinovsky (Bogdanov), who also graduated from this university.

The development of university philosophy was further supported by the founding of Kyiv University in 1834. Among its most renowned professors were O.O. Kozlov (1831—1900), O.M. Gilyarov (1855—1938), and G.I. Chelpanov (1862—1936).

O.O. Kozlov taught philosophy at Kyiv University from 1876 to 1886. His major works include My Word, Philosophical Essays, and Philosophy as Science. He termed his philosophical system “panpsychism,” which was grounded in Leibniz’s monadology. Kozlov believed that being is nothing other than the sum of states of the subject’s consciousness and consists of three components: substance, its activity, and the content of that activity. The history of philosophy, he argued, demonstrates that at various times, focus has been placed on one of these components: for Parmenides, it was substance; for Plato, the content of activity; and for Fichte, the activity itself. However, true philosophical knowledge must integrate all three components.

O.M. Gilyarov held the chair of philosophy at Kyiv University from 1891. In his work Introduction to Philosophy, he argued that philosophy is not a science but a special form of spiritual activity aimed at creating a holistic worldview, one that seeks to satisfy all of humanity’s spiritual needs. Throughout its history, philosophy has sought to reconcile two principles: the truths of reason and the truths of the heart. Gilyarov called the synthesis of these principles an “aesthetic state” or beauty, a synthesis he believed Plato had achieved most successfully, thus advocating for a revival of Platonism.

G.I. Chelpanov worked at Kyiv University from 1891 to 1907, during which time he published a series of lectures titled The Brain and Thought. He refuted panpsychism and viewed physical and mental phenomena as distinct and independent. His primary focus was on problems of epistemology.

When discussing university philosophy, special attention should be given to the scholarly and teaching activities of P.D. Lodyi (1764—1829) at Lviv University. From 1787 to 1802, Lodyi was a professor of logic, metaphysics, and moral philosophy in the faculties of philosophy and theology, teaching his courses in Ukrainian. In 1803, he began working at the Pedagogical Institute in Saint Petersburg, which was later transformed into a university in 1818. From 1819, he served as the dean of the university’s philosophy faculty for six years. In his writings, Lodyi often aligned himself with Kant, although he demonstrated independence on some points. For instance, he rejected Kant’s doctrine of “things-in-themselves,” believing instead that philosophy serves to “enlighten the mind” and “enlighten the heart,” encouraging the will to pursue goodness.

The third phase of the development of philosophy in Ukraine extended beyond the academic sphere, thriving in the works of cultural and intellectual figures. In this context, it resonated with broader cultural movements, particularly the idea of “man and nation.” Let us consider a few examples.

The leaders of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, M.I. Kostomarov (1817—1885), a graduate of Kharkiv University, and P.O. Kulish (1819—1897), who studied at Kyiv University but could not complete his studies due to financial difficulties, devoted much effort to philosophically grounding the national idea. In The Books of the Genesis of the Ukrainian People, Kostomarov asserted that history is the path God has laid out for humanity’s salvation. Happiness, the ultimate goal of history, would only be achieved when all nations live in equality and freedom, in faith and love of God. Among the Slavic peoples, he saw a special future for the Ukrainians: “For the voice of Ukraine has not died. And Ukraine shall rise from its grave and call out once more to all her Slavic brothers, and her cry will be heard, and the Slavic world shall rise, and no tsar, no prince, no nobleman, nor any hierarchy, shall remain, neither in Muscovy, nor in Poland, nor in Ukraine, nor in Bohemia, nor in Serbia, nor in Bulgaria. Ukraine shall be a free Commonwealth in a Slavic union."

The central idea in Panteleimon Kulish's thought was also that of Ukraine, which he understood through a principle of duality (internal and external, surface and depth, past and present): “There is so much good in Ukraine, yet no one values it! For our homeland is buried under all sorts of refuse.” Kulish also prophesied Ukraine’s resurrection: “You will rise again, mother, from the grave,” “Ukraine will rise from the dead.”

Kulish’s ethical, cultural, and social views were based on opposing contradictions. This is expressed, for instance, in the opposition between the village and the city. The desire for village life reflected a desire for a life of the heart, lived in natural simplicity. Advocating the virtues of what he called "hut philosophy," Kulish addressed city dwellers with these words: “Stay with your urban philosophy, but allow us to preach our rural philosophy, taken directly from the Gospel. Do your work, gentlemen, and we will do ours; and in the ages to come, people will see who deserves thanks for their teaching and labor.” Through the contrast between the village and the city, Kulish explored the relationship between Ukraine and Europe. Europe, in his view, is the center where urban culture thrives, where egoism reigns, and wealth stands in opposition to poverty.

Overall, the members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, spiritually inspired by T.H. Shevchenko, made a significant contribution to the development of national consciousness, which, in turn, influenced the philosophical pursuits of the entire 19th century.

The prominent Ukrainian writer, poet, and thinker Ivan Franko (1856—1916) graduated from Lviv University and earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Vienna. His rich and diverse body of work includes writings of a philosophical nature. One such piece is his 1903 essay What Is Progress?, in which Franko lays out some of his philosophical-historical views. He generally acknowledged the progress of humanity, though he believed it to have been slow and uneven, punctuated by cycles of rise and decline. The obvious achievements of civilization, he argued, have not been accompanied by a leveling of material and social conditions, and they have come at the cost of countless human lives. In examining the ideas of the Enlightenment, Darwinism, anarchism, and communism, Franko critically assessed their weaknesses. He particularly noted the danger of the communist and social-democratic project in its potential to establish total state control over citizens: “Above all, the overwhelming power of the state would weigh heavily on the life of each individual. The personal freedom and thought of each individual would have to disappear, wither away, for what if the state deemed it harmful, unnecessary?… The people's state would become a massive national prison."

Franko’s analysis of numerous theories concerning the essence of social progress and the models for its improvement convinced him of the futility of seeking a single formula. Such a recipe simply does not exist, and attempts to impose someone’s fantasies on society under the guise of rational, scientific thought can lead to disaster. Progress moves forward by trial and error, advancing only if people are guided by a desire to remedy all ills. “As in all of nature,” Franko concluded, “so too in human development are two powerful conductors at the helm: hunger and love. Hunger—meaning the material and spiritual needs of man; and love—meaning the feeling that binds man to others. Human reason is not among these conductors, and surely will not be for a long time.”