Philosopical Ideas In CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

1
Philosopical IdeasInCRIME AND PUNISHMENT
2
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel(1770-1831)

• Born and raised in Stuttgart, Germany
• Graduated from University of Tübingen
• Member of philosophy department of University of
  Jena (among its members were Fichte, Schelling,
  von Schegel, and Schiller)
• During the Napoleonic Wars, Hegel moved to
  Bamberg, where he worked as a newspaper editor
• Worked as a school principal in Nuremberg
• Became a professor of philosophy in Heidelberg,
  then transferred to the University of Berlin
  where he remained for the rest of his life

3
The Hegelian Tragedy

• Tragedy, according to Hegel, is a conflict
  between two opposing forces a conflict of
  rights
• A tragic event is one in which two good values
  are in opposition and one must give way to
  another
• A conflict between good and evil cannot be
  tragic, rather, tragedy is when a good value is
  in fatal conflict with another equally good
  conflict

?Antigone is the quintessential Hegelian tragedy
Antigone is bound by family responsibility to
bury her brother Polynices, but this act would
violate the decree of Creon, the king
4
The Hegelian Tragedy in Crime and Punishment

• Raskolnikovs desire to provide for his first
  steps in life (Epilogue, Ch. 1) and be
  extraordinary vs. obeying societys
  regulations, namely those regarding murder
• His orders to Go at once, this very minute,
  stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss
  the earth which you Raskolnikov have defiled
  and then bow down to all the world and say to all
  men aloud I am a murderer! (Part Five, Ch. 4)
  oppose his belief that he has an inner right to
  decide in his own concept to overstep certain
  obstacles (Part Three, Ch. 5)

5
History and Truth

• History, as well as reason, is progressive
  (river)
• History shows humanity moving toward greater
  rationalism and freedom
• Truth coherence within a complete system of
  thought
• The truth is the whole.

6
Hegelian Dialectic

• History chain of reflections
• Thesis the proposed thought
• Antithesis/negation a thought rising counter to
  the proposed thought
• Synthesis negation of the negation, combines the
  best elements of each of the two other thoughts
• Synthesis gt Thesis, whole triad repeats
• History reveals itself through this dialectical
  pattern
• Dynamic logic reality is characterized by
  opposites

7
Hegel and Romanticism

• Individualism rose as a thesis during the
  Romantic Age
• Hegel proposed an antithesis objective powers
  (family, civil society, and the state)
• Synthesis individual is an organic part of the
  communitystate is more than the individual
  citizen, more than the sum of its citizens
• 3 stages of the world spirit subjective
  spirit (individual), objective spirit
  (interaction), absolute spirit (art, religion,
  philosophy)

8
Friedrich Nietzsche(1844-1900)

• Born in Röcken, Prussia to a devout Lutheran
  minister who died when Nietzche was four
• Loved Classical literature and philosophy
  (especially that of Plato) as a child
• Attended University of Bonn, but found his Bonn
  classmates and teachers too superficial, and
  transferred to Leipzig, where he met he was
  profoundly influenced by the philosophy of
  Schopenhauer and the music of Richard Wagner
• Became a professor at the University of Basel
  when he was 24
• Left the university to become a full-time writer

9
The Philosophical Ideas of Nietzsche

• No things exist in and of themselves
• Rejected entirely the concept of the Platonic
  ideal
• Existence is a dynamic flux upon which human will
  acts. This will is not bound by reason, which
  Nietzsche denounces as ancient unreality
• God is dead the philosophical concept of a
  supreme deity no longer serves a positive
  function
• The powerful must impose their will on the weak
  the Übermensch
• No absolute truths, the best way to exist is to
  lie in a manner that is fundamentally creative
  and subjugates others wills to ones own

10
Raskolnikov as the Übermensch

• In his dialogue with Porfiry Petrovitch in Part
  Three, Chapter 5, Raskolnikov makes it clear that
  he is a proponent of Nietzsches Übermensch. He
  claims men like Kepler and Newton Lycurgus,
  Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon were all
  extraordinary people who would indeed have
  been duty bound to eliminate the dozen or the
  hundred men for the sake of making his
  discoveries known to the whole of humanity.
  Raskolnikov kills Alyona Ivanovna because he
  wondered whether I have the right In the end,
  however, he felt clearly of course that I
  Raskolnikov wasnt Napoleon. (Part Five, Ch.
  4)
• However, Raskolnikovs dream refutes the ideal of
  übermensch Each thought that he alone had the
  truth and was wretched looking at the others,
  beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his
  handsMen killed each other in a sort of
  senseless spite. (Epilogue, Ch. 2). In essence,
  when multiple people believe themselves to be
  übermensches, chaos ensues.

11
The Nihilists

• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
• Born in Derby, England
• His father taught him empirical science at a very
  young age
• Was introduced to pre-Darwinian concepts of
  evolution by the Derby Philosophical Society
  (that his father was Secretary of)
• Wrote books dealing with psychology initially,
  and then philosophy
• Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
• Initially went to University of Edinburgh to
  become a doctor but he found lectures and surgery
  uninteresting
• Studied at University of Cambridge to get a
  Bachelor of Arts and developed an interest for
  natural science
• 5-year trip on the H.M.S. Beagle making
  geological and natural observations
• Developed the theory of natural selection as
  shown in On the Origin of Species

12
NihilismThe belief that values do not exist

• Spencer
• Agnostic because there is no way for humanity to
  have certain knowledge of God
• Ardent proponent of evolution to even society and
  mental development
• There is a final point in evolution where we see
  the perfect man in the perfect society
• Evolutionary value would be the maximization of
  utility
• Darwin
• Believed that natural selection described life
  and did not need a design
• Did not believe that an omnipotent deity could be
  responsible for so much pain and suffering in the
  world
• an Agnostic would be the more correct
  description of my state of mind
• Last words "I am not the least afraid of death
  Remember what a good wife you have been to me
  Tell all my children to remember how good they
  have been to me"

13
Nihilism in Crime and Punishment

• Raskolnikov (regarding Sonia) and your worst
  sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed
  yourself for nothing. Isnt that fearful? Isnt
  it fearful that you are living in this filth
  which you loath so, and at the same time you know
  yourself (youve only to open your eyes) that you
  not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from
  anything! (Part Four, Ch, 4)
• Dostoevsky (regarding Raskolnikov) And what
  comfort was it to him that at the end of eight
  years he would only be thirty-two and be able to
  begin a new life! What had he to live for? What
  had he to look forward to? Why should he strive?
  To live in order to exist? (Epilogue, Ch. 2)
• Svidrigaïlov (on helping the little girl an act
  of benevolence/virtue) What a folly to
  trouble myself, he decided with an oppressive
  feeling of annoyance. What idiocy! (Part Six,
  Ch. 6)

14
The Existentialists

• Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
• Born in Copenhagen, Denmark
• Studied theology, literature, and philosophy at
  the University of Copenhagen
• Originally deeply influenced by Hegel, but came
  to reject his philosophies
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
• An orphan, Sartre was raised by his grandfather
  who had an extensive library, which Sartre
  regarded as a temple
• Studied philosophy at École Normale Supérieure
  and in Berlin
• Taught philosophy bur resigned to become a
  full-time writer
• Was awarded the Nobel Prize but rejected it
  because he viewed it as a tool of the
  military-industrial complex (Sartre was very
  left-wing)

15
Existentialism

• Kierkegaard
• Traditional philosophy and institutional
  religions hamper human individuality and prevent
  an authentic life
• Self-existence through self-actualisation
• Thought is an abstraction and prevents direct
  engagement with reality
• Since objectivity is impossible, the subjective
  thinker lives in perpetual uncertainty escape
  by leap of faith
• Sartre
• Gods inexistence means there are no objective
  values and that existence is without purpose
• Human existence precedes human essence
• No universally true statements regarding how life
  should be lived
• Consciousness implies being free
• Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because
  he has not created himselfand is nevertheless
  free. Because having once been hurled into the
  world, he is responsible for everything he does.

16
Existentialism in Crime and Punishment

• Raskolnikov, while still feeling guilty regarding
  the murder, has a very existentialist outlook on
  life, especially regarding the concept of God.
  This is especially prominent when he is notes
  that it is religiosity that keeps Sonia from
  utter depravity or worse. He asks her, And what
  does God do for you? and concludes that She is
  a religious maniac! (Part Four, Ch. 4). His lack
  of reverence and his judgment of Sonia show that
  Raskolnikov has a very impious, doubtful view of
  God. Like Sartre, he views God as irrelevant.
• Kierkegaards Leap of Faith Raskolnikov at that
  moment felt and knew once for all that Sonia was
  with him for ever and would follow him to the
  ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him.
  It wrung his heart but he was reaching the fatal
  place. (Part Six, Ch. 8) The Leap of Faith is
  a jump from the ethical stage to the highest
  stage of life, where one surrenders their self to
  a greater power, in which they have faith.
  Raskolnikov gives up his freedom and his pride
  and trusts in Sonia, who will follow him to the
  ends of the earth.

17
John Stewart Mill(1806-1873)

• Born in London, England
• Educated by his father, a prominent philosopher,
  historian, and economist
• Had read all the works of Plato in their original
  Greek by age 8
• Worked for the East India Company
• Ran for Parliament in 1865 and won by a landslide
• Achieved sweeping reforms for the working class

18
Utilitarianism

• Self-interest is inadequate for moral goodness
• Intellectual and moral pleasures are superior to
  physical forms of pleasure
• Happiness is determined by the individual
• Morality of an action is judged by its outcome
  consequentialism
• A person should follow a moral that brings more
  good consequences than another
• Morals that provide the greatest good for the
  greatest number of people should be followed
• Rights must be protected for the greatest good

19
Utilitarianism in Crime and Punishment

• The quintessential manifestation of
  utilitarianism is the murder of Alyona Ivanovna.
  The student discussing the pawnbroker with the
  officer eschews the very same ideas as
  Raskolnikov when he says On the other side,
  fresh young lives thrown away for want of help
  and by thousands on every side! A hundred
  thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on
  that old womans money which will be buried in a
  monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be
  set on the right path dozens of families saved
  from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the
  Lock hospitals and all with her money. (Part
  One, Ch.6). The moral ambiguity of murdering
  Alyonya Ivanovna would be dissipated by the good
  that could come out of it.

20
Works Cited

• Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. New
  York Barnes and Noble, 1994.
• Gaarder, Jostein. Sophie's World. New York
  Berkely Books, 1996.
• Kolak, Daniel, and Garrett Thomson. The Longman
  Standard History of Philosophy. New York Pearson
  Education, Inc., 2006.
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter
  2008 Edition) URL lthttp//plato.stanford.edu/gt