Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1821-1881

1. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, 1821-1881 • Raznochinets -- father an army doctor, mother from petty gentry • Early success and recognition by literary critic Belinsky for Poor Folk • Joined secret society, Petreshevtsy, and conspiratorial Speshnev group

2. “Life is everywhere, life is in ourselves, not in the exterior” • Arrested April 23, 1849, incarcerated in Peter and Paul Fortress • Mock execution on Semyonovsky Square Dec. 22, 1849 orchestrated personally by Nicholas I, • 10 years of penal servitude and exile, service in the Russian army • Horrified by moral depravity of convicts, Developed epilepsy, Converted to Christianity

3. Charles Fourier, 1772-1837 • Believed that mutual concern and cooperation key to human progress • Envisioned utopian community/complex Phalansteries • Identified 12 common passions that resulted in 810 character types • Ideas influential in revolution of 1848

4. Dostoevsky and the New Men • Auguste Comte (1798-1857), founder of sociology, European Positivism -- applied scientific principles to the study of social life • Nikolai Chernyshevsky (1828-1889), radical journalist, literary critic writer, martyr. Arrested for criticism of Emancipation, wrote supremely influential novel What is to Be Done? While in Peter and Paul Fortress

5. The Underground Man’s Refutations: Comte • Auguste Comte: history rational “law of the three phases” (theological, metaphysical, positive). In positive phase all obscure and supernatural forces are denied, and only observable laws of nature recognized. Humankind advances through stages by force of intellect, reason, logic. Believed that human beings could find scientific solutions to social problems • Emphasis on quantitative, mathematical basis for decision making basis for modern quantitative statistical analysis and business decision making

6. The Underground Man’s Refutations: Chernyshevsky • The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy (1860) Denies free will, every action of man due to the laws of nature, not own initiative Rational Egoism: if human kind becomes completely enlightened as to their own interests, they will be unable to act contrary to them (and thus irrationally)

7. Chernyshevsky’s Crystal Palace vs. Dostoevsky’s Crystal Edifice • Crystal Palace embodiment of Chernyshevsky’s utopia: everyone good, happy, prosperous by conformity w/ laws of nature • Dostoevsky’s narrator refuses to accept what is foisted upon him by laws of nature as ultimately desirable, the ideal “Well, do change it, tempt me with something else, give me another ideal”

8. The Underground Man: A History of Misreadings • Not read at all: no critical response until after Dostoevsky’s death • Chapter X of Intro. mutilated by censorship: the essential idea of the work “necessity of faith and Christ” • A series of affirmations: affirms the whole of man (irrationality, impurity); affirms free will and thus moral conscience, good and evil

9. Discussion Questions for “Apropos the Falling Sleet” • How do the Underground Man’s arguments about the following in Part I play out in the events he relates in his confession? -- suffering -- free will vs. determinism -- rational self-interest -- thinking (consciousness) as a disease