The article presents research materials and contextual reconstruction of previously unpublished student notes by N.N. Strakhov, a Russian thinker and encyclopedist of the 19th century. A fragment of the 1849 entry was selected for publication, in which the notion of universal philosophy, its scientific status, subject and method are characterised in an introductory way. By way of clarifying the presuppositional meanings of the lecture record, we offer the results of an analysis of the main public speeches of A.A. Fischer, professor of philosophy at the Main Pedagogical Institute, as the most likely lecturer. The perspective context is briefly characterized – N.N. Strakhov's research interests in the field of philosophy and science in the subsequent time, which fully and creatively agree with A.A. Fischer's attitudes. The article is accompanied by the decrypted text of N.N. Strakhov’s manuscript, which is kept in the Pushkin House of St. Petersburg – IRLI RAS.