Berdyaev was one of the few Russian émigré thinkers who did not confine himself in the émigré milieu. During his lifetime he wrote a great many books that were published not only in Russian but also in other languages. His religious existentialism found a response among a number of West European thinkers; his philosophical ideas were esteemed highly by such figures as Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Ernst Bloch, and Karl Barth. Berdyaev had a particular influence on the philosophical circles gathered around the journal
Esprit, which was founded by Emmanuel Mounier in 1932 and inaugurated French personalism. In 1947 Cambridge University awarded Berdyaev the title "Honoris causa." Berdyaev died in 1948 in a suburb of Paris.
Metaphysics of Freedom
Berdyaev's religious-philosophical doctrine was greatly influenced by the ideas of Solov'ëv, Immanuel Kant, Fëdor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, and the seventeen-century German mystic Jakob Boehme. According to Berdyaev the distinguishing characteristic of philosophy consists in the fact that it is not reducible to a system of concepts, but that it rather represents a knowledge that speaks in the language of symbols and myths. In his own philosophy the central role belonged to freedom and creativity.
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