Ivan Karamazov as a Philosophical Type—but which one?

Kåre Johan Mjør

doi:10.7557/6.5895

Abstract

The article analyses a set of philosophical statements made by and attributed to Ivan Karamazov in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, in order to answer the question as to what kind of philosophy Ivan may be said to express in the novel. My close reading reveals that there is a significant distinction between, on the one hand, Ivan's most radical statements, that is his rational egoism and the idea that "everything is permitted," which are always given in reported speech, and on the other the “Ivan of direct speech,” a character characterized by far more moral sensibility (e.g. in the Pro et contra part). On the basis of these findings the article seeks to bring together two traditions in the reception of Dostoevsky—the philosophical and the narratological. By letting these approaches inform one another I suggest ways in which the structural organization of the text is itself a bearer of philosophical meaning. Moreover, the article takes seriously Bakhtin's claim that Dostoevsky's heroes are not merely stable representations of ideas, but engage with them through dialogue and encounters with others, as exemplified by Ivan Karamazov himself as well as by other characters' responses to his articulations.

Highlights

The title of this article reads as a response to a classical text in the reception history of Dostoevsky, and in the tradition of approaching him as a philosopher: Sergei Bulgakov’s “Ivan Karamazov as a philosophical type” (1903)
The article will map Ivan’s most significant philosophical statements and examine the pattern that emerges from the distribution and representation of different points of view and even worldviews
Different types of representation correspond to a conflict associated with Ivan between rational egoism on the one hand and moral sensibility on the other, which are the terms that Joseph Frank (2002, 597) uses to describe him

Summary

Introduction

The title of this article reads as a response to a classical text in the reception history of Dostoevsky, and in the tradition of approaching him as a philosopher: Sergei Bulgakov’s “Ivan Karamazov as a philosophical type” (1903). For the second time, Ivan’s nihilistic worldview is presented to us and not least to Alësha by way of reported speech, and even filled with ironic comments and mockery of Ivan’s “theory,” seemingly from a more secularist-idealist point of view — Rakitin believes that virtue is possible without immortality.

Results

Conclusion