Instructions for Final Assignment Submission

Guidelines for submission

The assignment is due now any time before but no later than the end of the day The assignment should be uploaded directly on cuLearn. Note that if you fail to submit your final assignment on time, you will receive 0 (zero). Should you need a deferral, this needs to be arranged directly with the registrar’s office. If no such deferral is granted and the final assignment is not submitted by the deadline, the grade is 0 (zero).

Ideally, the assignment should be between 8 and 10 pages (double-spaced)! Please try not to exceed ten pages. If you are using any secondary sources, please source them. Please consult the university policy on plagiarism and academic integrity. The assignment is worth 40% of the final mark. Please answer all four questions.

Question 1: Briefly outline how both F. Dostoyevsky (in Notes from Underground) and N. Berdyaev (in Freedom) define/understand the concept of freedom. List one non-trivial similarity and one non-trivial difference between the two. Justify your answer.

Question 2: On p. 36 of The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, Florensky writes: “Instead of an empty, dead, formal self-identity A=A, in virtue of which a should selfishly, self-assertively, egoistically exclude every not-A, we get a real self-identity of A, full of content and life, a self-identity that eternally rejects itself and that eternally receives itself in its self-rejection. If in the first case, A is A (A=A) because of the exclusion from it of everything (and of itself in its concreteness!), now A is A through the affirming of itself as not-A, through the assimilation of everything and the likening of everything to itself.”

Analyze the paragraph which contains Florenksy’s understanding of the truth. In your analysis, go briefly over (do not forget that you have limited space!) How Florensky understands the law of identity and why the law is inadequate when it comes to understanding the Truth. Please leave all etymological and linguistic analysis of the word ‘truth’ out (unless absolutely necessary; in which case you should restrict yourself to a few sentences only). I would also suggest not to get bogged down in Florensky’s Trinity-theory of truth (unless you are sure you know what you’re doing there).  

Question 3: On p. 57 of Toward a Philosophy of the Act, Bakhtin writes: “I come upon this world, inasmuch as I come forth or issue from within myself in my performed act or deed of seeing, of thinking, of practical doing.” [Italics in the original]

Analyze the paragraph. Comment on the concepts of I, coming upon the world, coming forth into the world, performed act, the difference between a mere act and an act as a deed. What is Bakhtin’s “big” point here?

Question 4: On p. 29 of The Reality of Communism, Aleksandr Zinoviev writes, “Communism operates in accordance with the laws of gravity; civilization on the other hand is a flight which makes use of the laws of gravity but resists them. It stands out against the laws of gravity while observing the laws of gravity and is in constant interaction with them.”

First, in a paragraph or so, define how Zinoviev uses ‘communism’. Then, comment on the relationship between communism and civilization. Last, following the logic of the text, which side you think Zinoviev takes, the side of communism or the side of civilization, and for what purpose/reason.