All Things are Possible
Tags
Summary
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Philosophical readers interested in the sources of existentialism and religious philosophy
- Scholars and students of Russian intellectual history, and of Shestov's relation to Nietzsche
- Readers who like aphoristic, anti-systematic writing and are willing to wrestle repeatedly with a text
- Thinkers who want to understand the critique of rational determinism and the question of freedom of faith
Not a good fit for
- Beginners expecting systematic philosophical argument and clear conceptual definitions
- Readers who prefer a coolly analytical style and are impatient with repeated questioning
- Readers seeking only consoling, inspirational content and unconcerned with philosophical questions
Reading tips
- Read the introduction or related background first, to understand Shestov and the problematic of Russian religious philosophy.
- Read one short section at a time, pausing to ask what 'necessity' the author is opposing in specific terms.
- Read alongside relevant texts by Nietzsche or Dostoevsky, comparing anti-rational positions.
- After reading, revisit the title and test whether 'all things are possible' is a proposition or a cry in the book.
About the publisher
Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.
Contents
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FAQ
Is this a systematic philosophical treatise?
What does 'all things are possible' mean?
Can I read it without a philosophical background?
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About the author
Lev Shestov (Shestov, Lev, 1866-1938) was a Russian-speaking thinker and literary critic active from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. Public information about the details of his life is limited, yet the works that survive are enough to convey his distinctive intellectual temperament. Two of his works are held in this collection: Anton Tchekhov, and Other Essays and All Things are Possible. The former discusses Chekhov and other writers in essay form, touching on literature and the human condition; the latter, as its title suggests, concerns possibility and faith. Shestov's writing does not aim at systematic philosophical argument but unfolds largely through aphorism, fragment, and literary criticism. His tone is sharp and often paradoxical, questioning rationalism and the idea of necessity, and insisting on what in individual existence cannot be dissolved by universal laws. This style brings his writing close to the literary essay while carrying a religious-philosophical charge, leaving a distinctive mark on twentieth-century intellectual history and literary criticism.
