The article is a Polish translation of the first six sections of Pavel Florensky’s famous paper “The Meaning of Idealism” (“Смысл идеализма”), published in Russian in 1915. This paper has been considered as one of the most important Russian texts on Plato. It is composed in a striking way, contains many digressions and large footnotes, poems and citations. The paper is mainly devoted to the problem of universals. Florensky carefully analyzes famous passage of Porphyry’s Isagoge and shows that there are no less than sixteen possible views on universals. It is argued that the struggle between Realism and Nominalism is in fact a battle between a life and death, faith and nihilism. Realism is thought to be an expression of love, whereas nominalism in all kinds is accused of metaphysical egoism. In a very important passage Florensky points out that universals may be understood in two ways − as an intersection of the sets of properties of two things or as a sum of that sets. In order to clarify both concepts Florensky uses some devices of mathematical logic. The translation of the following sections of this paper will appear in the following issues of Logos i Ethos.