The Wanderings of the Cogito in the young Tolstoy: freedom and asceticism of the will (1847-1852)

Abstract

The article analyzes the philosophical fragments of the young Tolstoy from the 1840s on the basis of the philosophical effects of idealism in Russian modernity. Taking as its fil rouge the sense of rootlessness caused by Peter's autocratic gesture, which is responsible for the advent of a modernity deprived of the "hereditary habits" (Nietzsche) and the "traditional ties " (Tchaadaiév) necessary for the development of an intramundane ethic, the article interprets the philosophy of the young Tolstoy in the light of the indeterminacy of the will in Descartes and Kant. The main argument is that the concept of “unlimited will”, as presented by the young Tolstoy, should be read as the non-dialectical phenomenon of a chronotype indifferent to the Hegelian thesis that “the truth of space is time”. As a kind of extension of Tchaadaiév's skepticism, the article suggests that the young Tolstoy's philosophy of freedom should be read in the light of what Derrida called the hyperbolic wanderings of the cogito, the extravagance of an unlimited will devoid of ontology - the young Tolstoy's excess toward infinity and indeterminacy.