SESTOV, LEONE (LEV ISAÁKIEVIČ ŠVARCMAN) —
Russian religious writer, b. in Kiev in 1866, d. in Paris in 1938, where he had emigrated after the revolution.
During his years of exile he wrote his best works, which are cited in the French edition: *Les révélations de la mort* (Paris 1923); *La nuit de Gethsémani* (ibid. 1923; Italian trans. Milan 1945); *Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle* (Paris 1936); *Athènes et Jérusalem* (ibid. 1938; partial Italian trans. ibid. 1943, under the title *Il sapere e la libertà*); besides the essays collected in the volume *Le pouvoir des clefs* (ibid. 1928).
S. may be defined as a mystical-religious Nietzsche; he carries to the point of paradox the critique of science by Dostoevsky (v.), Nietzsche (v.), and the Pascalian opposition between the “God of philosophy” and the “God of religious faith.” To rational “knowledge” or “speculative philosophy” (which he identifies with “sin” and with “diabolical pride”) he opposes “existential philosophy,” intimately united with faith, whose truth is not “understanding” or “evidence,” but subjective certainty, “free” from every “logical constraint.” He accepts Tertullian’s “certum est quia impossibile.”
The fideism of S., despite its religious intensity, denies every rational foundation of faith and the very validity of reason. In this sense it is subjectivism and scepticism (v.) in contrast with Catholic doctrine.