The false path of superhumanity and Vladimir Soloviev’s two images of evil

The article examines Vladimir Soloviev’s development of the true and false superhumanity concept. True superhumanity is based on the overcoming of natural egoism and leads to a state of omnipotence and overcoming death. On the contrary, at the basis of the false path of superhumanity lies the potentiation of the egoistic attitude, which, through a series of metamorphoses, leads the individual to the desire to destroy the world and himself. The evolution of the false superman illustrates V. Soloviev’s idea of two types of evil - natural, intrinsic and moral-volitional - the decisive distinction between which runs along the lines of subjectivity and non-subjectivity, freedom and necessity. Natural evil, being necessary and subjectless, is subject to overcoming and transformation, while moral evil, having a free character and generated by the personal will of man, cannot be transformed, but is subject to rejection and destruction. Solovyov’s categorical denial of moral evil traced in the paper on the example of his interpretation of the poetic images of Lermontov and Pushkin, as well as the biographies of these poets.