Eschatological Optimism

In the Myth of the Cave as told in Plato’s Republic, a prisoner of the cave of illusions escapes and comes to know the true reality of the outside world and the heavens above, only to realize that he must make a return descent to enlighten his fellow humans — at the risk of sorrow and even death. Socrates insists that the true philosopher and just statesman does not rest content in the bliss of ascended knowledge and harmony, but dares to live, think, teach, and struggle in the world of illusions, here and now. Eschatological Optimism, the posthumous philosophical testimony of Daria Platonova Dugina, explores and develops this ancient idea amidst the overwhelming kaleidoscope of the cave of the modern world. Engaging a vast spectrum of philosophical, theological, sociological, and literary perspectives, Dugina shows that the decision to decipher and face the illusions of our “reality” is only the beginning of an intellectual, existential, spiritual, and political journey which diverse thinkers, ancient and modern, have dared to undertake. At once a philosophical theory, a hermeneutic lens, and a way of life, “Eschatological Optimism” is a watchword, orientation, and mission that inspires one to dare to know, live and die for the higher principles that forever shine through and beyond the cave.

Table of Contents

— From the Translator and Publisher
— From the Editor: On and For Dasha
— Foreword – The Maiden Slain by the Ray of the Logos

Part I: Eschatological Optimism

— Eschatological Optimism: Sources, Development, and Main Directions
— Eschatological Optimism and the Metaphysics of War
— Athos, the Feminine Principle, Apophaticism, and Eschatological Optimism

Part II: The Feminine Principle and the Problem of the Subject

— Woman and Tradition
— The War of the Sexes
— Homo Hierarchicus: Tripartite Anthropology and the Experience of Hierarchical Society
— The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism
— The Sublime and the Aesthetics of Great Pan
— The Poor Subject
— The Russian Kitezhian, Oleg Fomin-Shakhov
— Andrei Bely’s Petersburg and Infernal Russia
— The Political Subject of Populism and the Problem of “Unhappy Consciousness”

Part III: Neoplatonism and the Ideal Polis

— The Political Philosophy of Proclus Diadochus
— The Political Platonism of Emperor Julian
— Julianism
— Emperor Julian, Empire and Neoplatonism
— The Apophatic Moment
— Apophatic Tradition in the Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite

Part IV: Philosophical Fragments and the Involution of Modernity

— The Voluptuous Universe of Lucretius Carus
— Wolffian Theology and Gogol’s Insight into Decay
— Bergson and Popper’s “Open Society”: A Traditionalist View
— Dark Deleuze: A Postmodern Reading of Leibniz’s Monadology

Afterword – Daria Dugina: Philosophy as Destiny

Translated by Jafe Arnold

Edited by John Stachelski

356 pages / Released August 2023 / Available in hardcover, paperback, ebook.

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