ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the "Russia's Platos". It discusses the discipline of philosophy in eighteenth-century Russia as part of the more general transfer of the European university system and university idea into Russia in this period. The main purpose of higher education throughout Europe in the Age of Enlightenment was to prepare students for civil service and provide practical knowledge for the public good. “By implication, "all knowledge is dependent on it—it is the mother of all the sciences and arts". Having defined philosophy as the "mother" of the other sciences, Nikolai Popovskii lamented that while "its children" now speak in different languages, their mother has still not learned any languages other than Latin. The philosophical discipline that was transferred to Russia in the eighteenth century was inevitably eclectic. However, eclecticism is characteristic of rapid knowledge transfers of this kind and does not necessarily imply any philosophical deficiencies of Russian academics of that period.
