War & Peace Podnotes, A Study Guide

This subset of episodes, characterized as Season 2, will take on the twelve chapters of the second epilogue of War & Peace. This somewhat controversial epilogue is a presentation of the author’s philosophy that underlies the book.A common critique of the second epilogue is how confusing and apart it seems from the rest. The first epilogue revolves around the characters and resolves some of their journeys. The readers are then presented with an epilogue that takes on metaphysical questions – i.e., questions about the nature of reality, space and time, as well as change. It tackles the following issues: the of nature of history, nature of man, reverence for the Almighty, God as the ultimate mover of events (favoring Classical thinkers over Enlightenment ones), the relationship of the citizenry to the leaders they march off to war for, the lack of an ability to determine human causality, the nature of free will, as well as other mysteries of the ages. Tolstoy suggests never having the pride to think you can