LOSSKIĬ, NĪKOLAĬ ONUFRIEVICH

Russian philosopher; b. Kreslavka, Province of Vitebsk, Dec. 6, 1879; d. Sainte-Geneviève des Bois, near Paris, Jan. 24, 1965. As a student in the gymnasium he was expelled for spreading atheism and went to Bern to finish his preparatory studies. Returning to Russia, he studied at the University of St. Petersburg, where, later at the age of 29, he was invited to prepare himself for a professorship. Meanwhile, he went abroad again, working under W. Windelband, W. Wundt, and G. E. Müller. In 1903 he received his master's degree for his dissertation on the fundamental doctrines of psychology from the viewpoint of voluntarism and in 1907 his doctorate at the University of Moscow for his dissertation Obosnovanie intuitivizma (The Foundation of Intuitivism). Losskiĭ became docent and later professor of philosophy at St. Petersburg, a post he held until the fall of 1921. In 1922 he was forced to leave, along with some 125 scholars and writers, including N. A. berdi[symbol omitted]ev. He settled in Prague until appointed professor at the University of Bratislava (Slovakia). In 1945 he moved to New Haven, Conn., where he commuted to New York in order to teach at St. Vladimir Orthodox Russian Theological Seminary and Academy. In 1951 he moved to Los Angeles, Calif. The last few years of his life he spent in France.

Losskiĭ constructed his own philosophical system, which he referred to as hierarchical personalism. In metaphysics he advocated a concrete ideal realism. His epistemological theory, which differs profoundly from that of H. bergson, he named intuitivism. God and the kingdom of God are the starting point for his moral philosophy and aesthetics.

Bibliography: Works. Die Grundlehren der Psychologie vom Standpunkt des Voluntarismus (Berlin 1905); Grundlegung des Intuitivismus (Halle 1908); The Intuitive Basis of Knowledge (London 1919); Handbuch der Logik (Leipzig 1927); The World as an Organic Whole (New York 1928); n. o. losskiĬ and j. s. marshall, Value and Existence, tr. s.s. vinokooroff (London 1935); Freedom of Will, tr. n. duddington (London 1932); History of Russian Philosophy (New York 1951). Studies. s. tomkieff, The Philosophy of N. O. Lossky (Durham Univ. Philos. Society Proceedings 6; Durham, N.C. 1923). a. s. kohanski, Lossk'y Theory of Knowledge (Nashville, Tenn. 1936). Festschrift, N. O. Lossky zum 60. Geburtstage (Boon 1932). j. papin, Doctrina de bono perfecto eiusque in systemate N. O. Losskii personalistico applicatio (Leiden 1946); "In Memoriam N. O. Lossky" in Most 12 (Cleveland 1965), a quarterly for Slovak culture.

[j. papin]