The Story Behind a Famous Quote on the “Harmfulness” of Philosophy in 1850s Russia
Published in Social Sciences
For anyone interested in Russian intellectual history, one may be familiar with the phrase: “The uselessness of philosophy has not been proven, but the possibility of its being harmful is a fact.” It has often been cited as a symbol of governmental hostility toward free rational thought and attributed to Count Platon Shirinskii-Shikhmatov, Minister of Education from 1850 to 1853. The statement has been taken to encapsulate the rationale behind restrictions on the teaching of philosophy that lasted for more than a decade and were lifted only with the university reform of 1863.
Yet the evidentiary basis for this attribution is surprisingly thin. The only known reference appears in a diary entry by the literary historian Aleksandr Nikitenko (Nikitenko 1975, p. 125), who recorded the phrase second-hand from the philosopher Adam Fischer, allegedly present at the ministerial meeting where the decision was taken.
As is often the case with famous quotations, the history of their origin is usually far more complicated than it seems. Despite the extensive scholarship on the influence of German philosophy on Russian thought, Adam Fischer himself remains a largely obscure figure. Together with historian and archives specialist Andrey Ashikhmin, I became interested in reconstructing his biography and clarifying the circumstances surrounding the prohibition.
In the Russian State Historical Archive (St. Petersburg), within the Department of Education collection, there exists a substantial body of primary material related to the preparation and implementation of the decree regulating the teaching of philosophy, comprising nearly six hundred pages of documentation. These materials were not entirely unknown; they had previously been accessed by scholars such as Bobrov (1901, 1–15) and Emelianov (1989).
A fresh reading and critical analysis of this documentary record suggests that the famous phrase was most likely never uttered and that the motivations behind the restrictions were different from those traditionally assumed. They also reveal a different picture of Shirinskii-Shikhmatov’s role.
The initiative to revise philosophical teaching probably belongs to Nicholas I himself, who is ordering Shirinskii-Shikhmatov to prepare possible measures. The minister consulted Adam Fischer, an Austrian-born Catholic and graduate of the University of Vienna, who was at that time a full professor of philosophy at St Petersburg University. Fischer prepared an analytical note that formed the basis of Shirinskii-Shikhmatov’s report. The manuscript, which is preserved in the archive, visually distinguishes the minister’s own contributions from the passages that reproduce Fischer’s opinions, which are marked by left-indented paragraphs. Fischer's proposal aimed to limit the influence of Protestant German speculative philosophy and redirect philosophical teaching towards disciplines that he considered to be much more cutting-edge and practical, especially empirical psychology and logic.
This reformist project was supported by Nicholas I, as evidenced by the resolution written in his own hand that appears on the first page of the official report. However, while endorsing its main ideas, the Tsar insisted that the teaching of psychology should be entrusted exclusively to individuals holding an Orthodox clerical rank. In effect, this decision prohibited Fischer from teaching psychology, even though he was appointed to serve on the commission that drafted the subject's curriculum.
The archival record also shows that the emperor’s intervention created considerable administrative complications. Despite the prospect of a substantial salary supplement, there was little desire among Orthodox clergy to assume responsibility for teaching psychology. Moreover, the additional funds were to be allocated from the ministry’s own resources, which had no existing budget for this purpose. This situation prompted further bureaucratic negotiations, resulting in the expectation that clerical instructors would teach not only psychology but also logic. Particularly problematic for the implementation of this initiative was the case of the predominantly Protestant University of Dorpat, then part of the Russian Empire. In this process, Shirinskii-Shikhmatov appears less as an ideological censor and more as an official managing the implementation of a complex institutional decision.
Working with archival materials on this topic has been particularly engaging for me, both intellectually and methodologically. This research is part of a wider attempt to re-examine well-known narratives of intellectual repression by investigating the documentary evidence on which they are based. Sometimes, it reveals that what seems obvious in retrospect was historically much more complex. Encountering manuscripts, marginal notes, and the bureaucratic traces of decision-making processes serves as a reminder that intellectual history unfolds not only in published texts but also in the layered, contingent processes preserved in archives.
Nikitenko, Aleksandr. 1975. The Diary of a Russian Censor. ed. & trans: Helen S. Jackobson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts.
Bobrov, Evgenii. 1901. Filosofiia v Rossii: Materialy, issledovaniia i zametki (Philosophy in Russia. Materials, research and notes). Vol. 5. Kazan’: University Printing House.
Emelianov, Boris Vladimirovich. 1989. Zapreshchenie prepodavaniia filosofii v russkikh universitetakh (po arhkivnym materialam) (Prohibition of teaching philosophy in Russian universities (according to archival materials)). In Otechestvennaya filosofiya: opyt, problemy, orientiry issledovaniya (Russian philosophy: Experience, problems, research guidelines). Vol. 1, 5–22. Moscow: Academy of Social Sciences.
I am a research fellow at Ruhr University Bochum (Germany). My primary field of interest is post-Hegelian philosophy and its intellectual development in German-speaking countries during the nineteenth century. Before moving to Bochum, I worked for nearly a decade at the National Research University – Higher School of Economics (HSE) in St. Petersburg and Moscow, where I taught courses in critical thinking, philosophy of science, metaethics, and moral psychology. I am currently working on the philosophical and public debates surrounding the emergence of studies of human and animal psychology and mental phenomena. My project examines the transfer of psychological studies from the early nineteenth century in the Russian Empire to the early years of the Soviet regime.
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