Scott Roniger, Loyola Marymount University
Perhaps the most fundamental themes in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov are the struggle to disclose the truth of human nature and the way in which social life must be rooted in the truth of what it is to be a person. In this master class, we will show that the members of the Karamazov family can be understood as incarnations of the various “parts” of the human soul. Thus, their family drama represents the struggle to unify the desires of the soul in pursuit of truth and the social consequences of succeeding or failing to achieve this unity. By structuring the novel around the mystery of the human person as fundamental for political life, Dostoevsky gives a Christian recapitulation of the deepest themes in Plato’s Gorgias, where Socrates and his triad of interlocutors similarly present the dimensions of human nature and show the individual and social drama inherent in the education of the soul’s eros. Further, by presenting the truth of the human person as the foundation of a healthy society, Dostoevsky anticipates one of the most important themes in the work of Pope St. John Paul II.