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On the Significance of Science and Art
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64 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2004
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About the author
Leo Tolstoy
7,862 books27.8k followersLev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complicated and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
July 29, 2016
I enjoy a good rant, especially one of a person who educated himself to know better, but Tolstoy is, in almost all of his criticism of science and art, outdated. At least if one is to reply to specific attacks he issues on the contemporary philosophers at his time (which does not mean that his contemporary philosophers were right, he simply did not foresee the astonishing scientific developments in the years to come after his death). Of course, for someone as brilliant a man as Tolstoy was, there are several nuggets of wisdom in the writings and I personally agree with almost everything that he states from a moral point of view (albeit not to the brutal extend that Tolstoy himself does) but - as I have been told by other people - the whole work suffers from Tolstoy's fundamental flaw of being an unbearable moralist(ic) pr(/t)eacher. If you ride on as high a horse as Tolstoy does, you set yourself up for mockery when history disproves your predictions. Finally, I really dislike that although Tolstoy had no problems attacking (often rightly so) the Positivist of Comte and successors for their methodology he still clings to the - in my eyes - unproven and incorrect "cruel state of nature that necessitates men to join forces in (a) society and (further down the road) the division of labor" idea, brought forth by Thomas Aquinas and made so tremendously popular by another Thomas surname Hobbes. If one were to challenge this concept, almost all of Tolstoy's argumentation would falter.
So, all in all I most of the book is OK but considering its compact form, fast read, and my personal inclination toward many of the ideals voiced so mercilessly by Tolstoy, I give it a 2.5 star rating.
So, all in all I most of the book is OK but considering its compact form, fast read, and my personal inclination toward many of the ideals voiced so mercilessly by Tolstoy, I give it a 2.5 star rating.
July 29, 2018
Tolstoy describes the purpose of Art and Science, the purpose of specialization in our daily jobs. Discovering your own talents and utilizing them for the greater good of society is one's duty. He asks several times what is one to do with ones life, and at the end he summarizes with three points:
"First, Not to lie to myself, however far removed my path in life may be from the true path which my reason discloses to me.
Second, To renounce my consciousness of my own righteousness, my superiority especially over other people; and to acknowledge my guilt.
Third, To comply with that eternal and indubitable law of humanity,—the labor of my whole being, feeling no shame at any sort of work; to contend with nature for the maintenance of my own life and the lives of others."
Some other quotes:
-The foundations of every doctrine are always stated in a theory, and the so-called learned men merely invent further deductions from the foundations once stated.
-The theory is as follows: All mankind is an undying organism; men are the particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own special task for the service of others. In the same manner, the cells united in an organism share among them the labor of fight for existence of the whole organism; they magnify the power of one capacity, and weaken another, and unite in one organ, in order the better to supply the requirements of the whole organism.
-to labor with their hands in the universal struggle of mankind with nature.
-the science of what it is most useful for man to know. This science has always had for its object the knowledge of what is the true ground of the well-being of each individual man, and of all men.
-It is possible to study out how many beetles there are in the world, to view the spots on the sun, to write romances and operas, without suffering; but it is impossible, without self-sacrifice, to instruct people in their true happiness, which consists solely in renunciation of self and the service of others, and to give strong expression to this doctrine, without self-sacrifice.
-First of all, in answer to the question, “What is to be done?” I told myself: “I must lie neither to other people nor to myself. I must not fear the truth, whithersoever it may lead me.”
-
"First, Not to lie to myself, however far removed my path in life may be from the true path which my reason discloses to me.
Second, To renounce my consciousness of my own righteousness, my superiority especially over other people; and to acknowledge my guilt.
Third, To comply with that eternal and indubitable law of humanity,—the labor of my whole being, feeling no shame at any sort of work; to contend with nature for the maintenance of my own life and the lives of others."
Some other quotes:
-The foundations of every doctrine are always stated in a theory, and the so-called learned men merely invent further deductions from the foundations once stated.
-The theory is as follows: All mankind is an undying organism; men are the particles of that organism, and each one of them has his own special task for the service of others. In the same manner, the cells united in an organism share among them the labor of fight for existence of the whole organism; they magnify the power of one capacity, and weaken another, and unite in one organ, in order the better to supply the requirements of the whole organism.
-to labor with their hands in the universal struggle of mankind with nature.
-the science of what it is most useful for man to know. This science has always had for its object the knowledge of what is the true ground of the well-being of each individual man, and of all men.
-It is possible to study out how many beetles there are in the world, to view the spots on the sun, to write romances and operas, without suffering; but it is impossible, without self-sacrifice, to instruct people in their true happiness, which consists solely in renunciation of self and the service of others, and to give strong expression to this doctrine, without self-sacrifice.
-First of all, in answer to the question, “What is to be done?” I told myself: “I must lie neither to other people nor to myself. I must not fear the truth, whithersoever it may lead me.”
-
October 30, 2017
Still applicable today
It would do well to make this required reading for art students and various science students as well. The question should always be asked of ones work, of what good am I doing for my fellow man? Even to assume that the answer is easy is to not understand what the question is asking.
It would do well to make this required reading for art students and various science students as well. The question should always be asked of ones work, of what good am I doing for my fellow man? Even to assume that the answer is easy is to not understand what the question is asking.
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November 10, 2020The story teaches us about how to live in society.
July 14, 2024
tolstoy u would have loved my essay rebutting gorgias
February 19, 2015
Tolstoy for prez
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews