Career
Yurkevich was a professor of Philosophy at the University of Moscow though his training previous to this position was mostly from Orthodox theological schools. Specifically the Poltava Seminary and the Kiev Theological Academy. Yurkevich mentored Vladimir Soloviev.
Yurkevich was in 1851, appointed the position of instructor in Philosophical Sciences.
In 1852 he received his master"s degree in philosophy. Then in 1857 Yurkevich also began to teach German at the University.
In 1861 Yurkevich received the rank of full Professor and was invited to the philosophy department at Moscow University. Yurkevich also taught pedagogy in the seminary for the Russian military.
Through 1869—1873 Yurkevich was the Dean of History and Philology Faculty of the Moscow University.
Yurkevich"s more well known positions and the works that reflected them (The Heart and Its Significance in the Spiritual Life of Manitoba) revolved around the expression and rationalization of essentialism. In this Yurkevich concerned himself with the philosophical clarification of what material and the observable world are. Though Yurkevich was an idealist in a Platonic Realism sense, he was thoroughly Christian in his approach rejecting that the mind of a person as reason was the basis for the essences of things or beings and instead saying that essentialism was idealist (from conscious beings inline with Plato) but it was from the rational part of the being (their mind) and also from the emotional center and that the heart of the person was the complete expression of the person.
Person or soul (hypostasis) is heart, mind and body, as the rational part of a person was but a part of the larger whole which as a heart or soul each person gave meaning to the things they experienced.
Yurkevich was continuing the work that had been set out before him by his famous mentor Vladimir Soloviev.
