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Abstract
Isaiah Berlin once famously wrote that intellectuals can be split into two types: hedgehogs and foxes. He argues that Leo Tolstoy falls into both camps simultaneously, resulting in a profound tension that provides the fundamental epistemological dilemma of War and Peace. The problem with this oft-quoted argument is that it focuses on only one aspect of the novel—Tolstoy's depiction of the scientific method. In so doing, Berlin overlooks a larger modern phenomenon that is fundamental to the major events of the novel: the deification of reason. In essence, Tolstoy argues that the deification of reason, a shift which adheres to the notion that there is a knowable Truth, and that reason is the sole means to know it, increases the likelihood and severity of violence in times of war as well as the intensification of domestic conflict in times of peace. This article explores Tolstoy's depiction of how three different manifestations of this deified reason lead to heightened levels of conflict. It concludes with an examination of the four forms of Romantic idealism that Tolstoy suggests are the preferred alternatives to it.
Notes
Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (London: Phoenix, 1988), 3.
Berlin admitted many years later that “I never meant it [this dichotomy of foxes and hedgehogs] very seriously. I meant it as a kind of enjoyable intellectual game, but it was taken seriously. … It is not exhaustive. Some people are neither foxes nor hedgehogs, some people are both. … [but] Tolstoy is a fox who believed passionately in being a hedgehog.” See Ramin Jahanbegloo, Conversations with Isaiah Berlin (London: Orion Books, 1993), 188.
Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History, 5.
As did Isaiah Berlin, I am also focusing almost exclusively on Tolstoy's views as found in War and Peace. Although I was aided primarily by two different translations of this novel (Pevear/Volokhonsky, 2007 and Dunnigan, 1968), I am ultimately responsible for the translations, which are based on the text as found in L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), vols. 9–12. For source of this quote, see L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12:66.
This is commonly seen in the secondary literature from a wide variety of disciplines. For example, for a “literary” perspective, see George Steiner, Tolstoy or Dostoevsky (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). For a “political” perspective, see Ryan Patrick Hanley, “Political Science and Political Understanding: Isaiah Berlin on the Nature of Political Inquiry,” The American Political Science Review 98, no. 2 (May 2004): 327–39. For a somewhat more “philosophic” approach, see G. W. Spence, “Tolstoy's Dualism,” Russian Review 20, no. 3 (July 1961): 217–31 and see the entire issue of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 93, no. 5 (2003) entitled “Isaiah Berlin's Counter-Enlightenment.”
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12 (Epilogue):297.
F. M. Dostoevsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochineii i Pisem (Leningrad: Nauka, 1972–1990), 10:197.
For a detailed discussion of this, see John P. Moran, The Solution of the Fist: Dostoevsky and the Roots of Modern Terrorism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009).
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11: 47–48.
For an excellent discussion of the application of science to politics, see Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994) and the subsequent “Special Issue” of The American Political Science Review, vol. 89, no. 2, which appeared in June 1995.
A portion of this discussion can be found in my earlier work. See: John P. Moran, The Solution of the Fist (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), 18–21.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:3.
Ibid., 4–5.
See John P. Moran, The Solution of the Fist: Dostoevsky and the Roots of Modern Terrorism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), 18–19.
He admits that modern mathematics has solved this paradox by allowing for infinitesimal quantities to be dealt with. He thus must grant that it is theoretically possible to understand the whole through a process of examining the infinitesimal parts. However, he does not believe that this can be done in understanding how history unfolds. See L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:266–67.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:265–66.
Ibid., 4–5.
Ibid., 206.
The day before the battle of Austerlitz, Tolstoy has Kutuzov tell Prince Andrei that they will lose the upcoming battle based on the strategy used by his German and Austrian allies.
Of course, the real Carl von Clausewitz was at the battle of Borodino. In his book The Campaign of 1812 in Russia he argues that this battle was the turning point of the war for the French because it caused a “notable increase in the ratio of loss” relative to the Russian army. See Carl von Clausewitz, The Campaign of 1812 in Russia (New York: Da Capo Press, 1995), 96.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:207.
See Harvey C. Mansfield, “Self-Interest Rightly Understood,” Political Theory 23, no. 1 (February 1995): 48–66.
I have intentionally left Tocqueville out of this list insofar as his doctrine of “self-interest rightly understood” does not fit nicely into this group. For an insightful account of this, see Peter Augustine Lawler, “Tocqueville on the Doctrine of Interest,” Government and Opposition 30, no. 2 (March 1995): 221–39.
Ibid., 53.
Ibid.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976), 208.
Ibid.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 9:243.
Ibid., 9.
Ibid., 245.
Indeed, the field of political science—the discipline most involved with the study of international conflict—is still dominated by this assumption. The methodology that evolved from this assumption is known as the rational choice approach. For more on this, see Jonathan Cohn, “Revenge of the Nerds: When Did Political Science Forget About Politics?” The New Republic (October 15, 1999). What is often overlooked in this analysis is how this ethic actually increases the likelihood of conflict absent any other moral constraint.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:324.
A detailed approach to cosmopolitanism, from which this section was derived, can be found in John P. Moran, The Solution of the Fist: Dostoevsky and the Roots of Modern Terrorism (Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2009), 29–38.
Henri Troyat, Tolstoy, trans. Nancy Amphoux (New York: Grove Press, 1967), 56.
Isaiah Berlin himself writes that Tolstoy's, “… closest affinity … is with Rousseau; he liked and admired Rousseau's views more than those of any other modern writer.” See Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (London: Penguin Books, 1978), 240.
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 242.
Robert Darnton, The Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History, 242.
It is utterly astounding that this novel is no longer widely read. Dr. Mark Kremer is single-handedly responsible for resurrecting an awareness of this “lost” book in the English-speaking world. I am deeply indebted to him for comments and suggestions relating to Rousseau. I take, however, a somewhat different approach to this novel than he does.
I am analyzing cosmopolitanism in a manner similar to the way in which Tocqueville approached an understanding of American culture in book II of Democracy in America. I have changed the order for ease of description. See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Harvey Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie or the New Heloise: Letters of Two Lovers Who Live in a Small Town at the Foot of the Alps, trans. Philip Steward and Jean Vache (London: University Press of New England, 1997), 201.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie or the New Heloise, 190.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie or the New Heloise, 204.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Julie or the New Heloise, 205.
Ibid., 205.
Ibid., 190.
Ibid., 220.
Ibid., 220.
Ibid., 219.
Ibid., 221.
Ibid., 222.
Ibid., 222.
In Émile, Rousseau writes, “Distrust those cosmopolitans who go to great length in their books to discover duties they do not deign to fulfill around them. A philosopher loves the Tartars so as to be spared having to love his neighbors.” See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile or On Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979), 39. In the Social Contract, he amplifies this idea when he writes, “From this we can see what we should think of those so-called cosmopolitans who, justifying their love of their country through their love of the human race, boast of loving the whole world so as to have the right to love no one at all.” See Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and the Discourses (London: Everyman's Library, 1993), 175.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 9:249.
Ibid., 250.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 11:208–9.
Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 8–9.
Isaiah Berlin, The Roots of Romanticism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 8–9.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 9:24.
Ibid., 24–25.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 10:73.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12 (Epilogue):283.
Ibid., 284.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 9:297.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12:257.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 10:235–36.
Ibid., 236.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12:265.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 10:261.
Ibid., 263–64.
Ibid., 265.
Ibid., 266.
Ibid., 268–69.
L. N. Tolstoy, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii, ed. V. G. Chertkov (Moscow, 1928), 12:285.