Vasily Seseman
Encyclopedia
Vasily Seseman (June 11, 1884, Vyborg
— March 23, 1963, Vilnius
) was a Russia
n and Lithuania
n philosopher, a representative of Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism
. He is mostly remembered for his role in fostering philosophy in newly independent Lithuania and developing Lithuanian philosophical vocabulary (most remarkable are his translations of Aristotle
into Lithuanian and contributions to Lithuanian encyclopedias). A close associate of Viktor Zhirmunsky
and Lev Karsavin, as a prisoner of Gulag
he was also an informal philosophy tutor and supporter of Buddhist writer Bidia Dandaron
.
mother, he was initially named Wilhelm and attended the Lutheran school (Katharinenschule) in St Petersburg. As he grew up, he adopted a more Russian identity, changing Wilhelm to Wassilij (Vasily) and embracing Russian Orthodox Christianity.
After 2 years of medical studies he turned to philosophy, fervently studying classical authors under Nikolay Lossky and classical languages under Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński in St Petersburg University. In 1909-1911 the University sent him to Germany to prepare him for the teaching career. In Berlin and Marburg, he took courses in philosophy, psychology, and pedagogics under Hermann Cohen
, Paul Natorp
, Ernst Cassirer
, Hermann Alexander Diels
, and Heinrich Wölfflin
. In Germany he also met José Ortega y Gasset
who made a great impression on him, and re-established a life-long friendship with Nicolai Hartmann
who in St Petersburg had influenced Vasily's decision to switch from medicine to philosophy.
Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Seseman taught philosophy and classical languages until Wold War I, when he enlisted as a volunteer in the Russian army.
From 1915 to 1917 he taught philosophy as a Privatdozent at the University of St. Petersburg, and from 1918 to 1919 at the Viatka Pedagogical Institute. He received a docentship in Saratov, where he worked (together with Viktor Zhirmunsky) until 1921.
A Finnish citizen, Seseman immigrated to Finland and then to Berlin, where he finally found a teaching position at the Russian Institute.
In 1923 Seseman was invited to become a visiting professor at Kaunas University in Lithuania. When Vilnius was regained by Lithuania, he moved there and worked at Vilnius University
until the Nazis closed it down in 1943. He worked as a German language
teacher during the German occupation, and led a philosophy course in the Jewish ghetto.
According to his stepdaughter's interview, while living in poverty, at his place in central Vilnius he also hid from the Nazis a Jewish girl (who later disappeared), and supplied ghetto Jews with false documents allowing emigration. He made a narrow escape from being burnt alive for being a supporter of the Jews while the Nazi troops were abandoning the city for the Soviet troops. His efforts on behalf of the Jews were posthumously recognized by the Lithuanian government awarding him a medal.
He spent 1945-1950 teaching in Vilnius University again, but then he was arrested by the Soviet authorities, accused of “anti-Soviet activities” and “relations with Zionist organizations” and sentenced to 15 years of labor camps. In Siberia he met a Buddhist tantra practitioner Bidia Dandaron who learned a lot from Seseman, as a result embracing Kantian ideas and developing his own synthesis of Tibetan Buddhist and European philosophical thought in his writings. Their friendship continued after they were released.
In 1956 Seseman was released, in 1958 rehabilitated
and resumed his professorship in the Department of History and Philology at the University of Vilnius where he taught for the rest of his life.
through a re-evaluation of the metaphysical tradition of ontology
. His other philosophical aim was to overcome the dichotomies between the subjective-psychological and the objective-idealistic in the theory of knowledge and metaphysics in general.
He deliberated on the dangers of materialism and positivism
for the European thought.
Seseman’s concern for formal questions in linguistics and aesthetics may make him a precursor of modern semiotics
.
Vyborg
Vyborg is a town in Leningrad Oblast, Russia, situated on the Karelian Isthmus near the head of the Bay of Vyborg, to the northwest of St. Petersburg and south from Russia's border with Finland, where the Saimaa Canal enters the Gulf of Finland...
— March 23, 1963, Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
) was a Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n and Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
n philosopher, a representative of Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism
Neo-Kantianism refers broadly to a revived type of philosophy along the lines of that laid down by Immanuel Kant in the 18th century, or more specifically by Schopenhauer's criticism of the Kantian philosophy in his work The World as Will and Representation , as well as by other post-Kantian...
. He is mostly remembered for his role in fostering philosophy in newly independent Lithuania and developing Lithuanian philosophical vocabulary (most remarkable are his translations of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
into Lithuanian and contributions to Lithuanian encyclopedias). A close associate of Viktor Zhirmunsky
Viktor Zhirmunsky
Viktor Maksimovich Zhirmunsky was a Russian literary historian and linguist...
and Lev Karsavin, as a prisoner of Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
he was also an informal philosophy tutor and supporter of Buddhist writer Bidia Dandaron
Bidia Dandaron
Bidia Dandaron was a major Buddhist author and teacher in the USSR. He also worked in academic Tibetology, contributed to the Tibetan-Russian Dictionary and made several translations from Tibetan into Russian...
.
Biography
Born to the family of a medical doctor of Finnish Swiss descent and a Baltic GermanBaltic German
The Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural élite in...
mother, he was initially named Wilhelm and attended the Lutheran school (Katharinenschule) in St Petersburg. As he grew up, he adopted a more Russian identity, changing Wilhelm to Wassilij (Vasily) and embracing Russian Orthodox Christianity.
After 2 years of medical studies he turned to philosophy, fervently studying classical authors under Nikolay Lossky and classical languages under Tadeusz Stefan Zieliński in St Petersburg University. In 1909-1911 the University sent him to Germany to prepare him for the teaching career. In Berlin and Marburg, he took courses in philosophy, psychology, and pedagogics under Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen was a German-Jewish philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".-Life:...
, Paul Natorp
Paul Natorp
Paul Gerhard Natorp was a German philosopher and educationalist, considered one of the co-founders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism. He was known as an authority on Plato....
, Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Cassirer was a German philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the development of philosophical idealism in the first half of the 20th century...
, Hermann Alexander Diels
Hermann Alexander Diels
Hermann Alexander Diels was a German classical scholar.-Biography:He was educated at the universities of Bonn and Berlin and in 1886 became professor ordinarius of classical philology at the latter institution....
, and Heinrich Wölfflin
Heinrich Wölfflin
Heinrich Wölfflin was a famous Swiss art critic, whose objective classifying principles were influential in the development of formal analysis in the history of art during the 20th century. He taught at Basel, Berlin and Munich in the generation that raised German art history to pre-eminence...
. In Germany he also met José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset
José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.-Biography:José Ortega y Gasset was...
who made a great impression on him, and re-established a life-long friendship with Nicolai Hartmann
Nicolai Hartmann
-Biography:Hartmann was born of German descent in Riga, which was then the capital of the Russian province of Livonia, and which is now in Latvia. He studied Medicine at the University of Tartu , then Philosophy in St. Petersburg and at the University of Marburg in Germany, where he took his Ph.D....
who in St Petersburg had influenced Vasily's decision to switch from medicine to philosophy.
Upon his return to St. Petersburg, Seseman taught philosophy and classical languages until Wold War I, when he enlisted as a volunteer in the Russian army.
From 1915 to 1917 he taught philosophy as a Privatdozent at the University of St. Petersburg, and from 1918 to 1919 at the Viatka Pedagogical Institute. He received a docentship in Saratov, where he worked (together with Viktor Zhirmunsky) until 1921.
A Finnish citizen, Seseman immigrated to Finland and then to Berlin, where he finally found a teaching position at the Russian Institute.
In 1923 Seseman was invited to become a visiting professor at Kaunas University in Lithuania. When Vilnius was regained by Lithuania, he moved there and worked at Vilnius University
Vilnius University
Vilnius University is the oldest university in the Baltic states and one of the oldest in Eastern Europe. It is also the largest university in Lithuania....
until the Nazis closed it down in 1943. He worked as a German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
teacher during the German occupation, and led a philosophy course in the Jewish ghetto.
According to his stepdaughter's interview, while living in poverty, at his place in central Vilnius he also hid from the Nazis a Jewish girl (who later disappeared), and supplied ghetto Jews with false documents allowing emigration. He made a narrow escape from being burnt alive for being a supporter of the Jews while the Nazi troops were abandoning the city for the Soviet troops. His efforts on behalf of the Jews were posthumously recognized by the Lithuanian government awarding him a medal.
He spent 1945-1950 teaching in Vilnius University again, but then he was arrested by the Soviet authorities, accused of “anti-Soviet activities” and “relations with Zionist organizations” and sentenced to 15 years of labor camps. In Siberia he met a Buddhist tantra practitioner Bidia Dandaron who learned a lot from Seseman, as a result embracing Kantian ideas and developing his own synthesis of Tibetan Buddhist and European philosophical thought in his writings. Their friendship continued after they were released.
In 1956 Seseman was released, in 1958 rehabilitated
Political rehabilitation
Political rehabilitation is the process by which a member of a political organization or government who has fallen into disgrace, is restored to public life. It is usually applied to leaders or other prominent individuals who regain their prominence after a period in which they have no influence or...
and resumed his professorship in the Department of History and Philology at the University of Vilnius where he taught for the rest of his life.
Philosophy
Seseman liked to call his philosophy “gnoseological idealism”, trying to revive metaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
through a re-evaluation of the metaphysical tradition of ontology
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
. His other philosophical aim was to overcome the dichotomies between the subjective-psychological and the objective-idealistic in the theory of knowledge and metaphysics in general.
He deliberated on the dangers of materialism and positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
for the European thought.
Seseman’s concern for formal questions in linguistics and aesthetics may make him a precursor of modern semiotics
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
.
Translations
- Lossky’s Logica (Petrograd: Nauka i shkola, 2 vol. 1922) as Handbuch der Logik (Leipzig: Teubner, 1927), 445 pages.
- Aristotle’s De Anima as: Aristotelis: Apie siela (Vilnius: Valstybini politiais ir mokslinis literatûros leidykla, 1959) with a 60 pages long introduction into the philosophy of Aristotle.
Literature
- Thorsten Botz-Bornstein. Vasily Sesemann: experience, formalism, and the question of being. (Vosylius Sezemanas) On the boundary of two worlds (Vol 7). Rodopi, 2006. ISBN 904202092X, 9789042020924
- Loreta Anilionyte and Albinas Lozuraitis ‘The Life of Vosylius Sezemanas and His Critical Realism’ in http://www.crvp.org/book/Series04/IVA-17/chapter_xiii.htm