413

ALL-UNITY ACCORDING
TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK.
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

TERESA OBOLEVITCH

The Pontifical University of John Paul II, Krakow

Abstract. In this article I will present and analyze the concept of all-unity of
the two most famous Russian philosophers Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900) and
Semyon Frank (1877-1958). As will be argued, the concept of all-unity is part
of an old philosophical tradition. At the same time, it is an original idea of the
Russian thought of the Silver Age (the end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th
centuries).

SOLOVIEVS CONCEPT: THE TWO-POLAR ABSOLUTE

Both Soloviev and Frank taught about the existence of a structure called
all-unity which embraces all beings and guarantees their organic connec-
tion. Soloviev claimed to be the author of the Russian term vseedinstvo
(all-unity)1. Nevertheless, in the history of philosophy we can find anal-
ogous expressions, i.e. in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa who defined God
as unus et omnia and omnia uniter2 or Schelling who used the term Allheit
und Einheit.
We can find the roots of the concept of all-unity in Greek philosophy, in
the pre-Socratics, and even deeper in the old religious thought of China

1
Solovievs Letter to S. A. Vengerov (1892.07.12) in: Pisma Vladimira Sergeyevicha
Solovieva, Brussels 1970, vol. II, p. 321. Frank also stressed that Soloviev enriched the
Russian language with the word vseedinstvo (S. L. Frank, Duchovnoe nasledije Vladimira
Solovieva in: D. K. Burlaka (ed.), Vladimir Soloviev: pro et contra. Lichnost i tvorchestvo
Vladimira Solovieva v otsenke russkikh myslitelej i issledovatelej. Antologija, Saint Pe-
tersburg 2002, vol. 2, p. 955).
2
De docta ignorantia, I, XXIV in: Nicolai de Cusa, Opera omnia, Lipsiae 1932, vol.
I, p. 48.

FORUM PHILOSOPHICUM 15(2010), pp. 413-425

414 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

and India. Soloviev intentionally referred to the philosophical and religion

tradition. In his first work entitled The mythological process in the ancient
paganism (1873) he noticed that the ancient gods were understood as an
expression of all-unity ( )3. In his later papers the Russian thinker
used in this context Heraclitus term (one and all)4. No doubt,
Soloviev is not only an excellent metaphysician, but also a brilliant histo-
rian of philosophy.
Soloviev distinguishes all-unity (vseedinstvo) and all-one (vseedi-
noe) properly the second and the first Absolute. The first Absolute is the
Absolute in se which is liberated (according to the Latin word absolu-
tum) from all beings and which is their fundament (). It is so
called the positive potency. In Solovievs opinion, the first Absolute is
a super-being: Superens or []5. He identifies the Absolute with
God and in his non-academic works La Sophia and The Philosophical
Foundations of Integral Knowledge denotes it by the Kabalistic notion en-
sof (non-something)6. Since the first Absolute is not being, Soloviev
called it nothing. In the tractate La Sophia he introduced the term non-
being, which had been used even by the orthodox theologians, also, in
Lectures on Godmanhood he introduced the ancient notion 7, but in
A Critique of Abstract Principles he denied these definitions and replaced
them by the term nothing. This word does not express any content of
the Absolute, but indicates its transcendental character. Hence we can find
the elements of negative theology in Solovievs works. For example, Plato,

3
V. S. Soloviev, Mifologicheskij protsess v drevnem yazychestve in: Polnoe sobranie
sochinenij i pisem v dvadtsati tomakh [PSS], Moscow 2000-2001, vol. 1, p. 34.
4
V. S. Soloviev, La Sophia in: PSS, vol. 2, p. 90/91; Filosofskie nachala tselnogo
znanija in: PSS, vol. 2, p. 253; Kritika otvlechennykh nachal in: PSS, vol. III, p. 277. In the
conclusion of The Crisis of Western philosophy Soloviev quoted the famous statement of
Heraclitus: , , ,
(Krizis zapadnoj filosofiji (protiv pozivistiv) in: PSS, vol.
1, p. 138). Cf. Istoricheskije dela filosofiji in: Sobranie sochinenij Vladimira Sergejevicha
Solovieva [SS], Brussels 1966-1970, vol. II, p. 403: All is one is the first word of the [In-
dian] philosophy. Cf. Plotinus, Enneads, V, 8, 4; Proclus, Elements of Theology, 1. See S.
Khoruzhij, Idea vseedinstva ot Geraklita do Bakhtina in: idem, Posle pereryva. Puti russkoj
filosofiji, Saint Petersburg 1994, p. 32-66.
5
V. S. Soloviev, La Sophia, p. 88/89.
6
Ibidem, p. 92/93; Filosofskie nachala, p. 263. See K. Burmistrov, Vladimir Solo-
viev i Kaballa. K postanovke problemy in: M. A. Kolerov (ed.), Issledovanija po istoriji
russkoj mysli. Yezhegodnik z 1998 god, Saint Petersburg 1998, p. 7-104.
7
V. S. Soloviev, La Sophia, p. 88/89; Chtenija Bogochelovechestve in: SS, vol. III,
p. 135.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 415

Plotinus, Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Nicholas of Cusa8

treated the Absolute as and , as a reality superior to es-
sence ( ).
At the same time, the transcendent God needs the world in order to
express His nature. The first Absolute as a positive potency of being sup-
poses the existence of the empirical world. Soloviev writes that God is
not satisfied with the eternal contemplation of ideal essences, () but by
an act of His will He focuses on each of them () and establishes it as an
independent being9. The absolute substance necessarily and eternally
divides itself into two poles: one as the principle of absolute unity, affirmed
as such, the principle of liberty towards any form, any manifestation and
any being, and the other one as the principle or the productive form of the
multiple beings and of the phenomenal forms10.
In this way Soloviev describes the second Absolute which is the prin-
ciple of all things. It is denoted in contradistinction to nothing by the
term all, because besides the divine element it contains a material one
(Platos materia prima). As a result, God is nothing and all noth-
ing, for the reason that He is not something particular, and all, be-
cause He cannot be deprived of anything11. This definition wasnt new, on
the contrary, it was well-known in the mystical tradition.
Soloviev describes the first Absolute as the Spirit, whereas he describes
the second Absolute as Logos: it is the eternal foundation of the ideas that
emerge in time in the shape of the empirical beings as the World Soul
(anima mundi) or . Referring to Platos dialogue Timaeus,
Soloviev calls it the second God.
As we remember, all-unity (materia prima) is a negative potency
or potentia proxima essendi. This means that all-unity has a tendency to-
wards the actualization of the ideas. Consequently, the second Absolute is
in permanent development, in the process of becoming (according to Solo-
viev the theory of evolution partially explains this process)12. The idea of

8
See i.e. Plato, The Republic, 509b: the Good is beyond being; Plotinus, Enneads, I,
VII, 1: The Good must, then, be the Good not by any Act, not even by virtue of its Intellec-
tion, but by its very rest within Itself and V, V, 6: the First cannot be thought of as having
definition and limit; Nicholas of Cusa, On learned ignorance, I, VI: being (or any other
name) is not a precise name for the Maximum.
9
V. S. Soloviev, Chtenija Bogochelovechestve, p. 137-138.
10
V. S. Soloviev, La Sophia, p. 92-94 (trans. by M. De Courten, Sophia and the Longing
for Unity, The Journal of Eastern Christian Studies 3-4 (2007), p. 248.
11
V. S. Soloviev, Filosofskie nachala, p. 262; Kritika otvlechennykh nachal, p. 277.
12
V. S. Soloviev, Opravdanije dobra in: SS, vol. VIII, p. 218-219. This motive of Solo-
vievs philosophy anticipates Teilhard de Chardins thought. See K. V. Truhlar, Teilhard und
416 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

reality as a creative life, as manifesting its essence creatively, reminds us of

German idealism, of Fichte, Hegel and Schelling13 and the various theo-
ries of emanation. As a result,
there is no essential difference between God and the world. In other words,
the essence of God and world are the same. () God himself endows each
point of being with the power of self-consciousness apart from which the
whole of manifold reality could not become external to God. () The world is
consubstantial with God14.

The following scheme illustrates the metaphysical conception of Solo-

viev:

The first Absolute The second Absolute

All-one All-unity
Positive potency Negative potency / potentia proxima essendi
Nothing (En Sof) All
God Materia prima

Soloviev claimed that the two-polar concept of the Absolute allows him
to explain the changing of the world without falling into pantheism which
identifies the first Absolute with the second one (God with the world)15.
Nevertheless, in Franks opinion Solovievs philosophy of all-unity is
clearly of a pantheistic character16, although most correctly it could be de-
scribed as panentheism.
This position has significant epistemological consequences. Namely,
Soloviev accepts the possibility of direct, intuitive cognition of things, be-
cause they are rooted in the second Absolute. At the same time he declares
that we could not express the first Absolute (God) adequately, for the reason

Solowjew. Dichtung und religiise Erfahrung, Freiburg-Mnchen 1966.

13
F. Ch. Copleston, Philosophy in Russia. From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyaev, Notre
Dame 1986, p. 222.
14
V. Zenkovsky, A History of Russian Philosophy, vol. II, trans. by G. L. Kline, London
1953, p. 500-501.
15
V. S. Soloviev, Kritika otvlechennykh nachal, p. 285-286.
16
S. Frank, Russkoje mirovozzrenije, trans. by G. Franko in: idem, Duchovnye os-
novy obshchestva, Moscow 1992, p. 497. Cf. L. J. Shein (eds.), Reading in Philosophical
Though, The Hague 1968, p. 26; J. Novotn, Vladimir Sergejevi Solovyov (18531900)
in: P. Ambros (eds.), Vladimir Soloviov and United Europe: International Conference on
the 100th Anniversary of V. Soloviovs Death (18531900), Olomouc 2000, p. 45: The
metaphysics, a global unity is formed in the form of a neopantheism in the monistic line of
Spinoza-Schelling.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 417

that He cannot be the subject of any definition17. According to Soloviev,

the Absolute is both transcendent and immanent. This ambivalence is con-
ditioned ontologically. No doubt, Solovievs metaphysics is not dualistic
sensu stricto. Rather the thinker intended to construct a synthetic system
and to connect the ideal element with the material one, the principle of
unity with the radical plurality of essences18.
Frank also paid attention to the transcendent and immanent character
of the Absolute, but justified his position in another way. I will present
Franks concept in the next section.

FRANKS POSITION: THE ABSOLUTE

AS THE UNKNOWABLE

In his The Philosophical Foundations of Integral Knowledge Soloviev

maintained that the two-polar concept of the Absolute is only the fruit
of the discursive character of our thinking19. Hence we can consider his
position rather as a heuristic trick which allows us to know the nature
of the Absolute20. However in other works of Soloviev we can read that
the distinction between the first and the second Absolute has a cosmologi-
cal basis as well: the Russian philosopher, like Schelling, stated that the
empirical world had fallen away from God. The Universe (unum versum
the opposite unity21) is a disorder of all-unions elements. On the one
hand, Soloviev tried to reconcile the unchangeable nature of God (the first
Absolute) with the development of nature (which is established in the sec-
ond Absolute). On the other hand, he did not harmonize the static aspect
of the Absolute with the dynamic one. It is one of the weakest points of
Solovievs concept of all-unity.

17
V. S. Soloviev, Kritika otvlechennykh nachal, p. 279.
18
Cf. V. S. Soloviev, Metafizika in: SS, vol. X, p. 243.
19
V. S. Soloviev, Filosofskie nachala, p. 268.
20
N. F. Utkina, Tema Vseedinstva v filosofiji Vl. Solovieva, Voprosy filosofiji 6 (1989),
p. 63.
21
V. S. Soloviev, <Chernovik Schellinge> in: PSS, vol. 2, p. 180. Zob. Rossija i Vsel-
enskaja Tserkov, trans. by G. A. Rachinskij in: SS, vol. XI, p. 293: what is non-divine [na-
ture T.O.] is transposed or reverse [transpos ou renvers] Divinity; Proclus, Elements
of Theology, prop. 31: All that proceeds from any principle reverts in respect of its being
upon that from which it proceeds; prop. 33: Thus all things proceed in a circuit, from their
causes to their causes again; prop. 34: Everything whose nature it is to revert reverts upon
that from which it derived the procession of its own substance.
418 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

Frank radically transformed Solovievs doctrine, believing that the

Absolute has a totally simple (non-composite) nature. In An object of know-
ledge we can find the following theses:
The absolute being is not a being-for-other, but being-for-itself. It is the being-
for-itself which precedes the difference of subject and object. It is total unity
(), life which experiences itself. Consequently it is immanent for itself and
for us, because we directly participate in it22.
Where Soloviev makes a distinction between the first Absolute and the
second Absolute, that allows us to show the difference between the divine
and the natural element, and precisely characterizes them, Frank claims
that true unity () is absolute unity or all-unity23 (or else all-one).
The particular qualities of empirical beings are not something ontological-
ly different from the Absolute (substantially or as Soloviev seems to say
topologically, as a result of falling away from the primordial unity),
but they are only the product of their cognitive identification. A concrete
object exists just for us, but as such it participates in the absolute unity,
so it is not subject to any specification.
Nevertheless Frank like Soloviev pays attention to two aspects of the
Absolute. Firstly, the Absolute itself is a total unity, an entirety (in Solo-
vievs thought the first Absolute, or all-one expresses this feature). Second-
ly, the Absolute in its relation to the world is a plurality and a foundation of
the particular attributes, so it could be compared with the second Absolute
of Soloviev. As a result, the Absolute is free from any things and at the
same time embraces all of them.
Yet a comparative analysis points to an important difference between
Solovievs and Franks positions. Namely, contrary to Solovievs opinion,
Franks Absolute is a perfect unity. The author of An object of knowledge
does not make any ontological (even conventional) distinctions in the Ab-
solute, but he only demonstrates the variation in its cognition. Both all-
unity ad extra, considered in its relation to the world, and all-unity ad intra
in its relation to the divine sphere are not two separate polarities, but
just the modi of the same absolute reality.
According to Frank, all-unity as such is not subject to the principle of
identity which strictly defines an object as this and not that. This is the
reason that Frank describes all-unity as a metalogical unity. The Abso-
lute is the base of all predicates, but as such it is a transdefinite being (in

22
S. L. Frank, Predmet znanija. Ob osnovakh i predelakh otvlechennogo znanija in:
idem, Predmet znanija. Dusha cheloveka, Saint Petersburg 1995, p. 157.
23
Ibidem, p. 219.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 419

this context Frank adds that the same thought was expressed in the Upani-
shads which represented the transcendent reality as neti-neti neither this
nor that)24. As Frank wrote,
The sphere of the unity in essence is above the sphere of categories of iden-
tity and difference. Its relation to the domain of knowledge, which is expressed
by the system of the definitions, is not subject to these categories, but it should
be understood in another fundamental way25.

The sphere of the Absolute is beyond the logical principle of identity

and no definition or opposition (A and non-A) expresses it. Frank charac-
terizes the Absolute as coincidentia oppositorum (the coincidence of op-
posites). The Russian thinker refers to an old philosophical tradition: The
Upanishads, Heraclitus, Plato, Neo-Platonism, the medieval mystics, Ger-
man idealism and especially Nicholas of Cusa26. Let us quote De docta
ignorantia:
I give the name Maximum to that for which there cannot be anything greater.
But fullness (abundantia) befits what is one. Thus, oneness which is also be-
ing coincides with Maximality. But if such oneness is altogether free from all
relation and contraction (respectu), obviously nothing is opposed to it, since
it is Absolute Maximality. Thus, the Maximum is Absolute One which is all
things. And all things are in the Maximum (for it is the Maximum); and since
nothing is opposed to it, the Minimum likewise concedes with it, and hence the
Maximum is also in all things27.

The next name which Nicholas of Cusa applies to the Absolute (under
the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Eriugena) is non-
aliud not-other. In his commentary, the Russian philosopher explains
that this notion means that the Absolute precedes the distinction between
idem and aliud this and other. In this way Frank, following Cusanus,
tries to overcome the dualistic tendency which, for instance, we can find
in Solovievs thought. Frank admits that the Absolute is a totally simple
being or in Nicholas of Cusas term the precise Equality (aequalitas
praecisa). Although Soloviev made an effort to show the unity and indivis-
ibility of the Absolute, nevertheless his attempt concerned mainly the first

24
S. L. Frank, Nepostizhimoe in: idem, Sochinenija, Minsk Moscow 2000,
p. 459. Cf. Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, III, 9, 26; IV, 2, 4.
25
S. L. Frank, Predmet znanija, p. 196. See P. Modesto, Un filosofo russo contempo-
raneo. Semjon Ljudvigovi Frank, Rivista di Filosofia neo-scolastica, vol. 50 (1958),
p. 523-524.
26
S. L. Frank, Predmet znanija, p. 204.
27
Nicholas of Cusa, On learned ignorance, I, II.
420 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

Absolute. A non-different non-aliud corresponds with Solovievs Abso-

lute in se, but not with the Absolute-for-us which is expressed in the
form of empirical beings. No doubt, the Father of the Russian doctrine
of all-unity (Soloviev) was close to Cusanus concept according to which
all is in God (omnia in deo)28, but judged his view as very daring29.
Soloviev as we have mentioned tried to overcome the radical pan-
theism characteristic of Nicholas of Cusa, and distinguished all-one from
all-unity.
At first Frank did not agree with Solovievs solution. In An Object of
knowledge he motivated his concept of the absolute being from the epis-
temological perspective, basing it mainly on the analysis of cognition. In
this work, he did not reflect on the origin and the nature of the world. Yet
in the latest papers Frank also considered the problem of the existence of
evil in the world, putting forward the hypothesis that it is a result of an
enigmatic fissure in the all-unity30. In his philosophical notebook, which
Frank wrote during the Second World War, we can find some remarks that
resemble the two-polar concept of Soloviev:
The first principle as Absolute is beyond the category of the one and the
second, itself and its product. The difference between the first and the
second is involved for the first time in the act of creative embodiment. The first
principle by its embodiment is differentiated into Creator and creation (). This
difference and origin of diversity from unity is, first of all, the self-manifestation
of the One in the plurality of the world of ideas. () Besides the diversity,
dramatization also becomes: the created activity spreads from the One to the
plurality, on the monads. On the one hand, this activity creates the harmonic
entirety, the organism. On the other hand, each element becomes free (creative),
which involves the possibility and necessity of collision between them31.

The investigations pursued by Frank in the later period of his activity

(like Soloviev) gradually proceeded in the direction of theodicy and theol-
ogy. Frank leaves radical monism and makes a distinction between Cre-
ator and creation, although a bit weaker than the one Soloviev made. The
concept of God as an Artist creating the world, and the idea of the strict
connection between Creator and creation is deeply rooted in the German

28
Cf. P. P. Gajdenko, Nikolaj Kuzanskij i princip sovpadenija protivopolozhnostej, Vo-
prosy filosofiji 7 (2002), p. 132.
29
V. S. Soloviev, Nikolaj Kuzanskij in: SS, vol. X, p. 439.
30
S. L. Frank, Niepostizhimoe, X, 3. See I. Krekshin, Metafizika zla (Prolegomeny
k teoditsei v filosofiji posdnego S. L. Franka), Voprosy filosofiji 12 (2001), p. 128-139.
31
S. L. Frank, Mysli v strashnye dni (1943.02.04) in: idem, Neprochitannoe Stati,
pisma, vospominanija, Moscow 2001, p. 351.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 421

mystic tradition: in the thought of Angelus Silesius, J. Boehme, F. Baader,

Schelling and in Franks case in the poetry of Goethe, Rilke and the
Russian lyricist, F. Tiutchev.
One of the most important names of the Absolute is the Unknowable
(Nepostizhimoe). In this context Frank distinguishes the Unknowable-for-
us (which is incomprehensible in the process of cognition because of the
limited character of the notions), from the Unknowable itself that well
never know. This distinction leads to several significant consequences. On
the one hand, each act of cognition allows us to penetrate the sphere of the
Absolute The Unknowable. As Frank said, the absolute being
is not far for us (). The reality as such what is the most known, what sur-
rounds us from all sides: the reality in which we live, move and exist corre-
sponds to the Unknowable. All that is understandable and comprehensible, all
what we can express conceptually is also rooted in the Unknowable and has
sense only in connection with it32.

On the other hand, the only way to cognition of the Unknowable is

the awareness of the impossibility of its cognition learned ignorance,
docta ignorantia. Although Frank tries unlike Soloviev to escape meta-
physical dualism, nevertheless he confesses some kind of epistemological
dichotomy. Frank strongly accenting the connection of the empirical,
changeable beings with the Absolute calls his and Solovievs concept
by the term ideal-realism33. According to this, the ideal element is the
foundation of the empirical reality.

INTUITION AS A WAY OF COGNITION

OF THE ABSOLUTE

According to Frank, the Absolute as such (or the first Absolute in Solo-
vievs conception) is unknowable. Nevertheless, it is the very Absolute
that enables the cognition of things. How is this possible? Soloviev and
Frank (and other Russian philosophers of the Silver Age) claimed that both
the subject and the object of cognition are rooted in the all-unity. There is
an immanent, ontological relationship between the subject and the object.
Several times Frank and Soloviev illustrated their position using the meta-
phor of a tree (borrowed from Plotinus Enneads):

32
Ibidem, p. 391.
33
S. L. Frank, Niepostizhimoe, p. 381.
422 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

The branches of the tree cross and combine in different ways. The branches
and leaves touch one another by their external side. This symbolizes exter-
nal knowledge [i.e., empirical knowledge T.O.]. But the same branches and
leaves are connected by their common trunk and roots which deliver vital juic-
es to them. This is mystical knowledge or faith34.

According to the Russian thinkers, we can perceive the object of know-

ledge in the act of faith, mystical intuition (Soloviev), intuition of
all-unity or intuition of an integral being as such (Frank) which is an
immediate experience of the absolute reality. This means, that
To know in all spheres of cognition means () to join the empirical data
of experience with the all-unity, i.e. to perceive the traces of the system of the
all-unity in the sense-data. () To know something means to find its place
in the eternal, all-embracing unity of being35.

As Georges Florovsky wrote, faith (intuition) in Russian philo-

sophy
has an obvious existential priority; it gives the true assurance of existence
(). Soloviev used the concept of faith in a very wide sense, in which it
denotes almost the same basic insight into existence as the intuition of
Bergson36.

Kant considered only two causes of the meeting of the subject and
object of cognition:
There are only two possible ways in which synthetical representation and its
objects can coincide with and relate necessarily to each other, and, as it were,
meet together. Either the object alone makes the representation possible, or the
representation alone makes the object possible37.

Soloviev and Frank proposed the third solution. In their opinion, the
intimate relationship between subject and object in the Absolute is the cog-
nition of the process of knowledge. Hence other Russian philosophers
Fr. Pavel Florensky and Nikolai Losski called this concept the philoso-
phy of homoousians ().

V. S. Soloviev, Kritika otvlechennykh nachal, p. 296; S. L. Frank, Predmet znanija,

34

p. 193; Dusha cheloveka in: idem, Predmet znanija. Dusha cheloveka, p. 601. Cf. Plotinus,
Enneads, III, 8, 10.
35
S. L. Frank, Dusha cheloveka, p. 560-561.
36
G. Florovsky, Reason and Faith in the Philosophy of Solovv, in: E. J. Simmons
(ed.), Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought, Cambridge 1955, p. 286.
37
I. Kant, Critic of Pure Reason, trans. by J. M. D. Meiklejohn, New York 1990,
p. 72-73.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 423

THE CONCEPTION OF UNIVERSALS IN THE LIGHT

OF ALL-UNITY

According to Soloveiv and Frank all-unity is a hierarchic organism. The

ideas of genus contain the ideas of species. For example, the idea of
animal includes the name of the species (man, dog), proper nouns
(John, Max) etc. Therefore the content of a singular thing is propor-
tional to the content of its genus (and species). If the thing has a bigger
extension, the intension of its idea is bigger as well. We should add that in
the debate on universals Soloviev and Frank (like most Russian philoso-
phers) shared the position of concrete universals elaborated by Hegel and
especially by the British neo-Hegelian idealists B. Bosanquet and F. H.
Bradley. According to this concept, the common in the different things
(unus versus alia) is their foundation, the concrete (from concrescere
grow together) entirety. In Hegels opinion,
The concrete and true, and all that is true is concrete, is the universality ().
But absolute universality is not to be thought of either as the universality of
reflection, which is a kind of consensus or generality, or, as the abstract uni-
versality and self-identity, which is fashioned by the understanding, and keeps
aloof from the individual. It is rather the concrete, self-contained, and self-
referring universality, which is the substance, intrinsic genus, or immanent
idea of self-consciousness. It is a conception of free will as the universal, tran-
scending its object, passing through and beyond its own specific character, and
then becoming identical with itself38.

Also, Bradley claimed that the Absolute is, so far, an individual and
a system39. In Solovievs and Franks case, concrete entirety is all-unity
containing all beings.
On the other hand, adhering to the traditional scholastic theory of uni-
versals, Soloviev wrote that the root of the endless polemics between nom-
inalism and realism is the identification of ideas and notions although they
belong to the different types of universals. Namely, the ideas anticipate the
empirical beings, so they are universalia ante res (before things, accord-
ing to realism). At the same time, the ideas are expressed by the general
notions. Because the general notions do not exist independently, they are

38
G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, trans. by T. M. Knox, New York 1967, 7, 24.
39
F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay, London 1897, p. 144.
See H. B. Acton, The theory of concrete universals, Mind, vol. 45 (1936), p. 417-431;
Mind, vol. 46 (1937), p. 1-13.
424 TERESA OBOLEVITCH

universalia post res (after things, in the terminology of nominalism)40.

Obviously, all-unity contains both all the ideas and the notions proper
to them as well. Hence, from the realistic point of view all-unity is the
supreme idea (Platos idea of Good), whereas from the nominalistic posi-
tion it is the foundation of being and notions. Frank agreed that universals
considered as ideas are before things (ante res), and realized that in time
they are in things (in rebus)41. As a result, Russian thinkers tried to bring
together realism and nominalism.

DIFFICULTIES WITH THE CONCEPT OF ALL-UNITY

The concept of an all-embracing universe proposed by the Russian philos-

ophers and other idealists has some problems. Let us remember Russells
criticisms of the Hegelian philosophy:
The view of Hegel, and of many other philosophers, is that the character of any
portion of the universe is so profoundly affected by its relations to the other
parts and to the whole, that no true statement can be made about any part ex-
cept to assign its place in the whole. Since its place in the whole depends upon
all the other parts, a true statement about its place in the whole will at the same
time assign the place of every other part in the whole. Thus there can be only
one true statement; there is no truth except the whole truth42.

Russell opposed the tenets of the Russian philosophers by stating that

in order to know the individual thing (i.e. its quality) there is no need to
know its relation to the whole. James also combated the holistic concept
of cognition: I left off by asserting my own belief that a pluralistic and
incompletely integrated universe, describable only by the free use of the
word some, is a legitimate hypothesis43.
Moreover, the rooting of the empirical world in the Absolute leads to
the disappearance of the border between the natural and the supernatu-
ral order. The ontological consequence of this situation is panentheism.
In its epistemological aspect this means the identification of the cognition
of the world with the cognition of God. This opinion was also shared by
40
V. S. Soloviev, Filosofskie nachala, p. 238; Chtenija Bogochelovechestve, p. 67.
41
S. L. Frank, Realnost i chelovek, in: idem, S nami Bog. Realnost i chelovek, Moskva
2003, p. 147.
42
B. Russell, A History of Western Philosophy and its Connection with Political and
Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day, New York 1945, p. 743.
43
W. James, A Pluralistic Universe. Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the
Present Situation in Philosophy, EBook #11984, <www.gutenberg.net>.
 ALL-UNITY ACCORDING TO V. SOLOVIEV AND S. FRANK 425

Solovievs contemporaries. For example, Aleksander Vviedensky criti-

cized him for the mystification of cognition44. The same statement con-
cerns Frank who frequently repeated the famous Hegelian thought that
the Absolute, or God is the only object of philosophy45.
In conclusion, defending Solovievs and Franks position, we should
say that the Russian philosophers consciously referred to the Platonic (and
neo-Platonic) tradition in trying to express their religious belief. In addi-
tion, the concept of all-unity neither excludes the cognition of the particu-
lar elements nor exhausts the cognition of the Absolute that transcends the
possibilities of reason.

44
A. Vviedensky, O misticizmie i kriticyzmie v teorii poznanya Solovieva, in: D. K. Bur-
laka (ed.), Vladimir Soloviev: pro et contra, p. 195-200.
45
Cf. S. L. Frank, Absolutnoe, trans. by A. G. Vlaskin, A. A. Yermichev, in: idem,
Russkoye mirovozzreniye, Sankt-Peterburg 1996, p. 58; Filosofia i religia, in: P. V. Alekseev
(ed.), Na perelome. Filosofskie diskussii 20-ch godov, Moskva 1990, p. 321.