meerson_put' against logos_the critique of kant and neo-kantianism by russian religious philosophers...

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Put' against Logos: The Critique of Kant and Neo-Kantianism by Russian ReligiousPhilosophers in the Beginning of the Twentieth CenturyAuthor(s): Michael A. MeersonSource: Studies in East European Thought, Vol. 47, No. 3/4, Neo-Kantianism in RussianThought (Dec., 1995), pp. 225-243Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20099584.

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2/20

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

PUT AGAINSTLOGOS:THECRITIQUEOFKANT AND

NEO-KANTIANISM

BY

RUSSIAN

RELIGIOUS

PHILOSOPHERS

NTHE

BEGINNINGOF

THE

TWENTIETH

CENTURY

KEY WORDS:

Puf,

Logos,

Kant,

neo-Kantians, Berdiaev,

Bulgakov,

Trubetskoi

HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION

At

the

turn

of

the

20th

century

Russian

philosophical

thought

acquired

new

vitality through

a

polemical

encounter

with

German

neo-Kantianism.

The central issue of the

polemic

concerned the

nature

of

philosophy.

The

group

of Russian

thinkers

gathered

around

Puf

publishing

house

developed

a new

realist

approach,

while

con

testing

the

reduction of

philosophy

to

methodology actually

effected

by

German

neo-Kantians.

Confronting

philosophy's

reduction

to

methodology,

Russian thinkers maintained that

knowledge

has

an

ontological

and

metaphysical

basis.

Puf

's

thinkers,

different

as

they

were,

unanimously

maintained that

a

gradual

reduction of

philosoph

ical

ontology

to

methodology

resulted from

Kant's

emancipation

of

epistemology

from

metaphysics.

The Russian

argument

with

Kant and

neo-Kantians

at

first

took

the form of a polemic between the religio-philosophical publishing

house

Puf

(1910-1917)

and

the neo-Kantian

journal

Logos

(1910

1914)

in

Moscow.

Both

publishing

enterprises

reflected

the

philo

sophical awakening

of the Russian educated

public

and

its

growing

need

to

develop

self-consciousness

on

the

one

hand,

and

to

achieve

fuller

integration

into the intellectual life of

contemporary

Europe

on

the other.

Puf

pursued primarily

the first

task,

while

Logos

was

mainly

designed

to

fulfill the second.

Since,

in

fact,

neither

task

could have been achieved separately, the fields o? Puf 'sand Logos's

labor

inevitably overlapped.

Puf

published

translations of

European

philosophers

and Russian studies

on

them,

while

Logos

featured

Studies

inEast

European Thought

47:

225-243,1995.

?

1995

Kluwer

Academic

Publishers. Printed

in

the

Netherlands.

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3/20

226

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

articles on indigenous Russian philosophical thought, both past and

contemporary.

Both

groups

emerged

in

the milieu of

the Russian

intelligentsia

that

was

at

best

notoriously

suspicious

of,

and

at worst

contemptuous

of,

and

even

hostile

to,

both

religious

and

theoretical

philosophy.

Both

Puf and

Logos

were

therefore

small

and

exotic,

and

felt,

especially

in

the

beginning,

as

outcasts

among

their kin.

Often the

same

authors

contributed

to

both

Logos

and

Put\

and

since

both

groups

ventured

into

a

rather elite

field,

they

served

as

necessary

interlocutors

and

contenders

to

each other.

Puf

had the

advantage

of

having

a

domestic

philosophical

forum

of

its

own.

It

emerged

as an

offspring

of

the

Moscow

Religio-Philo

sophical Society

founded

in

1905

by Margarita

Morozova

(1873

1958),

Prince

Evgenii

Trubetskoi

(1863-1920),

Sergei

Bulgakov

(1871-1944),

Nikolai

Berdiaev

(1874-1948),

Pavel

Florenskii

(1882-1937),

and Vladimir

Ern

(1882-1917),

to

name

its

most

active board members and

participants. Margarita

Morozova,

a

widow

of

Mikhail

Morozov,

a

prominent

Moscow

industrialist

and

art

supporter,

managed

the Puf

publishing

house with the

help

of

Trubetskoi,

Bulgakov

and

Berdiaev,

the

leaders

of

its editorial board.

The

board defined

Puf

goal

as

the

philosophical

rediscovery

of

East

ern

Orthodoxy

and

of its

applicability

in

the

contemporary

world.1

The

journal

Logos,

published

in

German

in

T?bingen,

and in

Russian

in

Moscow,

was

founded

with the

help

of Heinrich

Rickert

(1863-1936).2

Its editorial board consisted of

two

groups

of

young

neo-Kantians

of

Wilhelm

Windelband's

(1848-1915)

school: the

Russians Feodor Stepun (1884-1965), Nikolai Bubnov, and Sergei

Gessen,

and

the Germans

Richard Kroner

and

Georg

Mehlis. The

emergence

of

the

journal

in

1910

reflected

Russians'

growing

interest

in

contemporary

academic

philosophy.

The

sophisticated

philosoph

ic

technique

of

neo-Kantianism,

as

well

as

its claim

to

provide

the

system

of

logical

foundation for

both

natural

sciences

and

humani

tarian

culture,

attracted

many

Russian

students.

Both Puf

and

Logos

were

financially

supported

by

Morozova.

She housed

both

Puf and

Solov'ev's

Religio-Philosophical Society,

thus

providing

nascent

Russian

religious

philosophy

with its

unique

forum,

and

also

helped funding

Musaget,

a

Symbolist publishing

house under

the editorial

leadership

of

Emil

Metner

(1872-1936),

which

published

Logos.3

A

philosophical

tournament

between

Logos



4/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

227

and

Puf

went

on

at

the

gatherings

of

the

Solov'?v

Society

-

which

became the Platonic

Academy

of

Moscow

-

provoking

and

sustain

ing

endless

dialogues

on

ultimate

issues.

Both

Logos

and Puf

could

claim

the

legacy

of Vekhi

[Landmarks],

the

famous

collection

of arti

cles

on

Russian

intelligentsia;

they

can

be

viewed

as

the

two

branches

resulting

from

the

philosophical

bifurcation

of the

Vekhi

movement.

While

Berdiaev,

Bulgakov

and

Gershenzon

wrote

for

Puf

?

Frank,

Struve and

Kistiakovskii,

three

other Vekhfs

contributors,

published

in

Logos.5

Puf

's

authors

argued

that

philosophical

and

theological

revival should be achieved through the integration ofmodern philos

ophy

into

the

tradition

of

Christian

Platonism

and

neo-Platonism,

an

integration

started

by

Vladimir

Solov'?v.

Logos

set

the

double

goal

of

the

philosophical

education

of the

Russian

public

in

the

latest

achievements

of

Western

philosophy

and the

integration

of

Russian

thought

with

the

mainline

of

European

philosophical

development,

chiefly

neo-Kantian.

I

shall

concentrate on

Puf's

polemics,

and

shall

discuss

four

Puf authors, Ern, Berdiaev, Bulgakov, and Trubetskoi. All of them

addressed

the

issue of

neo-Kantianism

and

created the

general

image

of

Russian

thought's

unified

front

against

the

Germanophile

Logos.

In

summing

up

Puf's

argument,

Stepun

points

out

some

affinity

in

the criticism

of

neo-Kantianism made

respectively

by

American

pragmatists

and

by

Russian

religious

thinkers.

Both

opposed

pure

epistemology

with

a

living

and

practical

holistic

philosophy.

Stepun,

however,

simplifies

the

Russian

reaction

to

neo-Kantianism

by

say

ing

that Russian

philosophy generally

shared

Berdiaev's

opinion

that

the interest

in

epistemological

issues

develops

where the

access

to

existence

is

lost. 6

Berdiaev's

existential

protest

that

impressed

Stepun

the

most

was

only

one

of

the

aspects

of

Puf

's

criticism.

Along

with

several

common

features of this

criticism,

each thinker

presented

his

critique

with

his

own

particular

slant.

ERN'S

MILITANT

NEO-SLAVOPHILISM

It

was

Vladimir

Ern,

the

most

zealous

advocate

of

the

'Russian

idea,'

who

gave

a

militant flavor

to

the

otherwise

harmless

debate

with his

book

The

Battle

for

Logos.

Ern

launched

the

polemics

with

his

article

'Something

on

Logos,

Russian

philosophy

and

scientism,'

written



5/20

228

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

in response to the first issue of Logos. The article was first published

in

Trubetskoi's

'Moscow

Weekly,'

and

was

subsequently

included

in

Bor'ba

za

Logos.

Ern

opposed

the Russian

philosophical style,

which he

defined

as

logism, ontologism

and

thorough

personalism,

to

modern Western

philosophy

which,

according

to

Ern,

had

come

to

the blind

alley

of rationalism

...

and

impersonalismo'7

He

stipu

lated that

his

critique

aimed

at

the

dominant

trend

of

this

philosophy,

rather

than

at

Western

thought

as a

whole.

He

singled

out

some

Italian

philosophers

as

'faithful

to

Logos,' especially

Gioberti

( 1801-1852),

whose

'ontologism'

he traced

to

Plato and

Bonaventura8

Ern

defined

the task and

character

of

Russian

thought

as one

that

grew

on

the

foundations of

Western

philosophy,

but

preserved

its

own

tendency

-

toward

religious

and

mystical

holism,

in

the

spirit

of Christian

neo-Platonism.

He

blamed

Logos9s

editors

mainly

for

usurping

the

ancient

trademark

of

holistic

philosophy

in

order

to

label their

prod

uct

which,

in

fact,

had been

made

in

Germany. 9

He

presented

the

innocent

philosophical polemic

as a

contest

of

universal

historical

proportion

between theRussian and the

German

spirit.

Ern's

continuing

argument

peaked

in

his

paper

From

Kant

to

Krupp,

delivered

in

the

fall of 1914

to

the

Solov'?v

Society,

at

the

height

of anti-German

feeling

in

Russia.

Therein he

depicted

German

militarism

as

a natural

offspring

of Kant's

phenomenalism.

More

over,

he maintained that Kant's critical

revolution

in

philosophy

meant

for

German

patriotic

awareness

what the

French

Revolution

of 1789

meant

for the French. Kant

was

the real

father of the

anthro

pocentric world view that did away with old religious metaphysics. It

was

not

Nietzsche

but Kant who

guillotined

the old

living

God

in

the

labyrinths

of

the Transcendental

Analytic.

Kant's

phenomenalism,

along

with half

a

century

of the neo-Kantians'

collective

labors,

sev

ered the

channels of the

intellectual communication

between

man

and

God,

and locked the human

mind

in

the realm

of

earthly,

limited

goals, thereby preparing

the

ground

for

the fast advance of

German

technology.

The

latter,

aiming

at

the

war

for German

domination,

found its ultimate

expression

in

Krupp's military industry,

his

can

nons,

which

Ern

called the

most

perfect

and

sophisticated

tools of

destruction.

Thus,

Krupp

's

arms

represent,

in

Ern's

words,

the

purest

form of Kant's

Sein

fur

sich

organized

scientifically

and techno

logically.

With his

philosophy,

Kant

dialectically posits

Krupp,



6/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

229

claims

Ern,

and

Krupp,

in

his

most

perfect

products,

gives

the

mate

rial

expression

for

the

phenomenalist

premises

of Kant's

thought.

Ern

concludes

his

lecture

with

an

appeal

to

the

Russian

army

to

use

their

spiritual

might

to

overthrow the

armored

German

legions. 10

Many

Russian

critics,

including

some

of

his

colleagues

in

Put\

were

bewildered and

even

appalled by

Ern's

bizarre

conclusions.

Ern

responded

to

these critics

in

another

public

lecture,

'The

Essence

of German

Phenomenalism,'

delivered

in

Petrograd

in

November,

1914,

and

in

Moscow

in

January,

1915.

He

supported

his

argumen

tation,

developed along

the same lines with a new vivid illustration:

two

weeks after he

had

delivered his lecture

'From Kant

to

Krupp,'

the Bonn

University

Department

of

Philosophy

granted

doctorates

honoris

causa

to

both

Krupp

and

Ausenberg,

the

manager

of

Krupp

's

industrial

complex.11

BERDIAEV'S

CRITIQUE

Polemics

with both Kant and neo-Kantians made

one

of the

key

theses and served

as

the

departing

point

in

Berdiaev's

first

philo

sophical

book,

The

Philosophy

of

Freedom.

Having developed

his

philosophical

style

under Nietzsche's

influence,

Berdiaev insisted

on

the

right

of

a

philosopher

to

speak directly

out

of his

own

existential

experience.

Berdiaev attacked

neo-Kantianism

as

the

very

epitome

of

modern

scholasticism hostile

to

life

and

to

the

spontaneous

search

for truth.

He

appreciated,

of

course,

the

positive

contribution of

crit

ical

epistemology:

it

occupied

the central

position

in

the intellectual

life of his

age,

and

it

represented

the

finest

product

of

intellec

tual culture. Neo-Kantianism had also

provoked

a

philosophical

revival and advanced the

technique

of

philosophizing.

Berdiaev

maintained, however,

that the

movement

lacked the

philosophical

eros

that enlivened the

great

systems

of

German idealism such

as

Hegel's.

Uninspiring

and

purely

technical,

neo-Kantianism

symp

tomatized the loss of

integrity

by

the

contemporary

mind,

and its

indecisiveness, Hamletism in philosophy. For Berdiaev, Kant's

genius

indicated

a

serious disease

of

Western civilization: Kant for

mulated the fatal

rupture

of

philosophical

mind from

the

sources

of

being.

After

Kant,

neo-Kantians

merely deepened

this

fatal

rupture

by

completing

the

substitution of

abstract

cognition

for

the

real,



7/20

230

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

living

attitude

of

subject

to

object.

Their

critical

epistemology

radi

cally

denies

the

primary

goal

of

knowledge

-

the

uniting

of

knowing

subject

with

being.12

Divorced

from

life,

neo-Kantian

criticism

could

produce only

illusionistic

and

solipsistic

doctrines.

Its

claim

to

construe

a

philo

sophical

method

free from

the

psychological

and

ontological

premises

was

ridiculous,

because it is

the

human

being

who

philos

ophizes,

and human

knowledge

takes

place

in

the

anthropological

milieu.

For

Berdiaev,

critical

epistemology

addressed

only

a

limited

form of

knowledge,

which he calls

fictional,

since a

cognizing

sub

ject

taken outside

of existence is

purely

fictional. Neo-Kantians

articulated

the

concept

of

experience

arbitrarily

and

limited it

by

rationalistic

boundaries

as

they

pleased.

According

to

Berdiaev,

the

opposition

between

thinking

and

existence

was

caused

by

a

philosophic

malnutrition

of

sorts;

philosophy

must

be

nourished

by

two

kinds

of

experience,

scientific

and

mystical.

Berdiaev

grounded

this

argument

in

the

philosophy

of

Nikolai

Losskii,

a

Russian

who

defended mystical empiricism and extended the realm of possible

experience

far

beyond

rational

limits,

as

well

as

in

William

James'

pragmatism

and

Bergson

's

philosophy

of

life:

the

latter

two

looked

for

the existential

justification

of

knowledge.

Berdiaev

emphasized

that

James,

like

Losskii,

recognized experience

beyond

the limits of

the

rational,

such

as

the

perfectly

valid

experiences

of saints and

mystics. Calling

Kant's

ratio

'small

reason,'

Berdiaev

opposed

to

it

Logos,

the

'big

reason' of

the

mystical philosophy

of

Augustine,

Eriugena,

Eckhart, Boehme,

and

other

mystics,

who

were

nourished

by

the

Catholic,

or

worldwide,

soborny

experience

of

the Eastern and

Western

churches.

Extending

this tradition of

mystical

philosophy

to

the

Russian

thought

of

the

Slavophiles,

Solov'?v

and

Dostoevskii,

Berdiaev

argued

that

for this Russian

tradition

neo-Kantianism

could

have

only

a

very

limited,

technical

value.13

KANTIANISM

AND

BULGAKOV'S

TRANSCENDENTAL

BASE FOR

ECONOMY

Bulgakov

also

partly

owed the

main thesis of

his first

philosophic

book,

The

Philosophy

of

Economy,

to

his

polemics

with

Kant and

neo-Kantianism.

Kant

attempted

to

answer

the

question

of

how



8/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

231

knowledge, especially

scientific

knowledge,

is

possible. Recogniz

ing

the

validity

of

this

problem,

Bulgakov

added

to

it another

ques

tion

that

constituted

the

central

topic

of

his

study:

how

production,

or

economic

activity,

is

possible,

i.e.

what

are

the

a

priori

conditions

for

an

objective

industrial

action.

He

considered

his

task

regarding

economy

to

be

fully

analogous

to

Kant's task

regarding knowledge

set

out in

the

Critique

of

Pure

Reason.14

According

to

Bulgakov,

knowledge

and

economic

activity

merge

in

technology. Basing

his

assertion

on

Leo

Lopatin's

study, Bulgakov

maintained

that

scien

tific

knowledge

is

practical,

i.e. it is technical.

Technology,

whether

primitive

or

highly

sophisticated,

is

a

necessary

part

of

any

industry.

In

terms

of

epistemology, technology

is

a

leap

from

knowledge

to

action.

In

Bulgakov's

aphoristic

language,

technology

is

logical,

and

logic

is

technological:

one

builds

a

bridge

across

a

river

through

calculus. 15

Therefore

all

aspects

of human

activity,

including

cog

nition,

ultimately

can

be reduced

to

economic

goals,

and all kinds

of

knowledge,

even

the

most

abstract,

are

productive.

Bulgakov

rejected Kant's idea that knowledge is passive, andmaintained that

it

is

a

volitional

activity

that

requires

an

effort.

While

economy

acts

upon

the material

world

and

claims

ever

new

terrains

for

its

own

advance,

cognition

acts

laboriously

upon

the ideal

world,

opening

ever

new

fields for

human

knowledge.16

Kant

postulated

the unsurmountable

opposition

between

subject

and

object.

Bulgakov

viewed

this

postulate

as

merely

hypothetical,

a

postulate

needed

by

Kant for

methodological

reasons.

Knowl

edge,

like

production,

involves

labor,

a

feature

overlooked

by

Kant.

Having imported

the

notion of labor

from

political

economy

to

epis

temology, Bulgakov

defined

labor

in

epistemological

terms

as

a

living

energy

that

welds

together

subject

and

object.

In

economic

labor,

the

subject

imprints

his/herself

on

the

object

of

production.

The

subject's

action

presupposes

objective

reality.

As

a

form of

pro

duction,

knowledge

also

involves

the

subject's stepping

out

into

non-self

(more

precisely

not-yet-self),

the

actualization

of the

pri

mordial

identity

of

self

md

non-self,

of

subject

and

object

in

every

act

of

cognition.

Since

the

opposition

of

subject

and

object

isovercome

through

labor

in

both

economy

and

cognition,

both

activities

have

the

same

metaphysical

ground,

namely

the

identity

of

subject

and



9/20

232

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

object. For Bulgakov, life is the ceaseless process of the discovery

and actualization

of this

identity. 17

Kant's

methodological

abstraction

stems out

of his

sundering

of

human

mind into

two

types

of

reason,

theoretical

and

practical.

Bulgakov

considered this division which

constitutes the

very

core

of Kant's

philosophy,

to

be

a

groundless

abstraction,

since

practical

and

theoretical

'reasons' do

not

exist

in

separation.

Neo-Kantianism

retains

this

arbitrary

division,

and deals

with

the

same

Kantian

sub

ject reduced

to

passive

reason

alone. Bulgakov called this subject

idle and

impersonalistic,

and

considered this

desubjectification

of

the

subject

to

be

the

cause

of

the

fatal

determinism

of Kan

tianism.

Being

'idle' and

passive,

Kant's

subject

lacks

the sound

self-consciousness of its

own

subjectivity,

it is

deprived

of the

reality

of

self.

In

Bulgakov's

opinion,

Kant

compensates

for the lack

of this selfhood

by

replacing

it with the

unity

of

transcendental

apperception. 18

Because

technology

and

production require

an

active,

labor

ing,

and,

for this

reason,

personalistic

subject, technology

finds

no

place

or

explanation

in

Kant's

theory. Bulgakov

consistently empha

sized

that

in

its

both

forms

-

cognitional

and

productive

-

labor

presupposes

person.

Since Kant's

critique

lacked

this

personalistic

perspective,

it

had

destroyed

much

more

than Kant intended

to.

With his

subject turning

into

an

epistemological

abstraction,

Kant's

anthropocentric

revolution had

failed.

Upon

this

nail

hammered

into the

air,

ruled

Bulgakov,

one

cannot

hang

even a

bit of

fluff,

let alone the universe which the 'Copernican' Kant wished to fasten

toit. 19

Following

Losskii,

Bulgakov

pointed

to

epistemological

indi

vidualism

as an

Achilles' heel of

both

Kant and

neo-Kantianism.

According

to

Kant's

theory,

the

subject

exists alone and there is

no

provision

for its interaction with

others.

Following

the

same

path,

Cohen and his school defined

epistemological

individualism

as

a

method,

while,

according

to

Bulgakov

it is

merely

a

methodological

fiction. 20

Not

only

does

Kant's subjectivism fail

to

lead

to

person

alism,

but

it

also undermines his central

thesis

-

the

transcendental

method

itself.

Bulgakov

rescued this method with the

help

of

the

metaphysical

notion

of

humanity

as

a

whole.

It is

the

human

race

throughout

its

history

that

is the

transcendental

subject

of

both



10/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

233

knowledge

and

economy.

The

presupposition

of

humanity,

rather

than

of

an

individual

or

individuals,

as

the

'transcendental

subject'

is

essential

for both

knowledge

and

economy.

Kant's

transcenden

talism

presupposed

the

agglomeration

of the

cognitive

labor of

all

historic

humanity.

Without this

presupposition, Bulgakov argued,

all individual

acts

of

cognition

or

production

would

collapse,

having

nothing

to

hold

them

together.21

Bulgakov

advocated the

personalistic approach

developed by

Russian

philosophy:

personality

emerges

within

a

community,

personhood

and sobornos f are correlative. The

concept

of transcen

dentalism

as

sobornosf

takes

us,

however,

outside

of

Bulgakov's

study

and leads

to

the

philosophy

of

prince Sergei

Trubetskoi,

who

developed

the

notion of

the conciliar

consciousness

[sobornoe

soz

nanie]

of

humanity,

and

to

prince Evgenii

Trubetskoi,

his

younger

brother.

Evgenii

in

his

study

of

Kant and

neo-Kantianism,

applied

the

transcendental

method

itself

as an

immanent

criterion

for

evaluation

of their

theories

of

knowledge.22

TRUBETSKOI:TOWARDS

THE TRUE

GROUNDING

OF

TRANSCENDENTALISM

Of all Puf 's

critics of

neo-Kantianism,

Trubetskoi

presented

the

most

complete philosophical picture

with his

own

epistemological

vision,

developed

on

the basis of

his

minute

study

of the

Kantian

theory

of

knowledge.

The main thesis of Trubetskoi's

study

is that

one

cannot

build

philosophy

on

epistemology

alone,

because

any

theory

of

knowledge

collapses

without

being

rooted

in

ontology.

Metaphysical presuppositions expelled

by

the

philosopher's

con

scious

mind

sneak

through

the back door

of

the

unconscious. Accord

ing

to

Trubetskoi,

this had

happened

to

Kant

and

the

neo-Kantians.

They

claimed

to

have

produced

a

pure

critical

epistemology

which

was

founded

on

a

priori

premises

and

which

had

transcendental

validity. In the process, they uncritically adopted some metaphys

ical

presuppositions

which rendered their theories

self-contradictory

and

incomplete.23

Trubetskoi

set

himself

the

task of

laying

these

hidden

premises

bare,

pointing

out

these

contradictions,

and

thereby

supplementing

the

Kantian

transcendental method.



11/20

234

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

Trubetskoi pointed out three basic flaws inKant's epistemolog

ical

enterprise.

First,

by

confusing

the

psychological

and

the

logical

in

his

premises,

Kant

undermined the foundation

of

his

apriorism.

Second,

he

automatically

allowed

for

metaphysical presuppositions

without

taking

into

account

their

metaphysical

nature.

Third,

having

neglected

the transition from

the

individual

to

the

universal,

he

failed

to

provide

his transcendental method

-

the

most

original

contribution

of

his

system

-

with

secure

axiomatic

grounds.

The confusion of the psychological and the logical had already

occurred

in

the

key

part

of Kant's

system,

where

he

postulated

that

space

and

time

are a

priori

and

purely

subjective

intuitions.

Kant

sought

unconditional,

pure

knowledge,

rather than

a

knowledge

tainted

by

sense

perception.

According

to

Trubetskoi,

Kant failed

to

find this

knowledge

precisely

because it does

not

exist

outside of

our

psychological

experience.

Our

knowledge

of human

psychology,

upon

which Kant

relied,

is also

empirical.

As

such,

this

knowledge

is

conditioned

and mediated

by

the

very

forms of

thought

and

per

ception

that

Kant wanted

to

found

upon

it.

For

Trubetskoi,

Kant

ungroundedly

turns

the

psychological

limitation

of

our

perception

into

the

logical

necessity

for

thought.

Thus,

Kant's

assertion

that

space

and time

are a

priori

necessary

conditions

of

sense-experience

is

based

on

psychological

data

on

the

organization

of

the human

mind.

From

this

postulate,

Kant

inferred the transcendental

validity

of

space

and time for all humans.

According

to

Trubetskoi,

this

alone

suffices

to

destroy

Kant's

proof

of

the

a

priori

nature

of

our

judgement concerning space and time. Furthermore, the limiting of

the

universal

validity

[obshcheznachimosf]

of

spatial

and

temporal

forms

to

humans alone

undermines

the whole foundation

for

the

a

priori

nature

of

mathematical

judgements.24

The

metaphysical

presuppositions

of

Kant's

epistemology

become

especially

apparent

in

his

teaching

on

the

thing-in-itself

[Ding-an-sich].

Following

Vladimir Solov'ev's criticism

of

Kant,

Trubetskoi

finds Kant's

sundering

of

reality

into

things-in-them

selves and phenomena, on the one hand, and Kant's claim that we

cannot

know

a

thing-in-itself

as

both

highly metaphysical

and

contra

dictory.

If

we

admit

that

a

thing-in-itself

exists,

then

we

already

know

something

about

it.And Kant

himself,

according

to

Trubetskoi,

knew

a

lot

about

it,

if

he

postulated

its

unknowability.

This

unknowability



12/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

235

of the thing-in-itself presupposes its reality: for if the thing-in-itself

were

merely

a

product

of

human

thought

or

imagination

it would

be

totally

knowable. Kant

often

depicted

the

thing-in-itself

as

being

correlative

to

phenomenon,

and

presented

both

as

the

two

sides of

one

reality.

Without

noticing

the obvious contradictio

in

adjecto,

he

even

called the

thing-in-itself

'the

appearing

unknown.'25

These contradictions

stem

from

the

disguised metaphysics

of

the

Ding-an-sich

concept

itself. As

Trubetskoi

pointed

out,

for

Kant

the

thing-in-itself

is

a

concept

on

the border between the

physical

and

the

metaphysical,

what

he

called

a

'frontier

concept'

of human

rea

son.

Trubetskoi

argued

that the

very

affirmation of

such

a

'frontier'

implies

a

realm

beyond

it,

the

possibility

of

rising

above the

human

view

point

and

of

judging

it from the

higher,

absolute

view

point. 26

In

other

words,

in

order

to

describe

the

physical

world

with

any

meta-language,

one

inevitably

has

to

assume

a

metaphysical point

of view. Kant's

meta-language

concept

of

the

thing-in-itself

is

no

exception.

Trubetskoi also maintained that an

epistemology

that denies the

possibility

of

knowing anything

beyond

phenomena

is

contradictory,

because

knowledge

by

its

nature

transcends

the realm

of

phenomena:

the

cognition

of

phenomena

reveals the

truth

that is

super-phenom

enal and

super-psychological.

This is

true

especially

in

the

case

of

scientific

knowledge,

with which Kant and the neo-Kantians

were

particularly

concerned.

Astronomy,

or

physics

study

phenomena

like

galaxies

or

atomic

particles

which

simply

cannot

appear

to

man

and

cannot become the objects of human experience.27

Trubetskoi

pointed

out

that

metaphysical

presuppositions

become

even more

apparent

in

Kant's

transcendental

method.

According

to

Kant,

experience begins

when

/

link in

judgment

my

empirical

con

sciousness

with 'consciousness

in

general'

[Bewusstsein

?berhaupt].

Trubetskoi

insisted

that

'consciousness

in

general'

is

a

metaphysical

assumption

which

has

no

ground

in

Kant's

theory,

but

without

which

Kant

cannot

make his

system

work. Kant

uncritically

assumed

that

all human

beings

have

the

same

forms of

thought

and

representa

tion. He

applied

'my' categories

to

phenomena

on

the

ground

that

the

phenomena

are

'my'

representations.

But if

phenomena

are

only

'my' representations,

T

cannot

presuppose

that

other

people

per

ceive

the

same

phenomena

in

the

same

way.

Trubetskoi

pointed

out



13/20

236

MICHAEL

A.

MEERSON

that although Kant repeated 'we', and 'our' ?fur uns] unceasingly, his

system

provided

no

ground

for the crucial transition

from T

to

'we.

'

According

to

Trubetskoi,

this is

a

major

contradiction

in

Kant's

key

theory

of

'transcendental

apperception.'28

Trubetskoi

maintains

that

Kant

in

his

teaching

on

transcendental

apperception

actually

arrived

at

absolute

consciousness,

but could

not

admit

it

because of his stand

on

metaphysics.

Therefore

his

'I

am' becomes the ultimate

condi

tion of

our

knowledge,

and

replaces

the

absolute,

banished from his

theory.

The

expelled

absolute

nevertheless

comes

back in dis

guised

form

as

human

reason,

held

by

Kant

to

be

the

lawgiver

of

nature. 29

Trubetskoi

saw

the

main

tendencies of

the neo-Kantian

movement

in

the extension

of Kant's

struggle

on

two

fronts,

against psycholo

gism

and

against

metaphysics.

He

found

both tendencies

developed

in

the

work

of

Hermann

Cohen. Cohen narrowed Kant's

goal

to

the

epistemological

task of

explaining

how

knowledge

is

possible

for

science

rather than

for

a

psychological subject.

Critical

of

Kant's

continual confusion

of

the

logical

and the

psychological,

Cohen

drove the

theory

of

knowledge

away

from

psychological premises

to

purely logical

ground.

If

for Kant

knowledge

came

from both

sen

sibility

and

reason,

for Cohen

thought

did

not

depend

on

anything

external

to

it,

senses

included.

Pure

thought

contains

the

first

prin

ciple

[Ursprung]

of all

knowledge.

If

Kant maintained that

only

the

form of

knowledge

is

a

priori

and that

knowledge

is

the

application

of

categories

of

thought

to

the

data of

senses,

Cohen

insisted that

thought produces out of itself the givenness of data which is a part

of the

cognitive

process.

As

a

result,

he

arrived

at

a

total

rejection

of

sensibility

as an

independent

source

of

knowledge.30

Cohen's

ideal

that

pure

thought

itself

produces

the

object

of

its

knowledge

may

give

the

wrong

impression

that

he shares

Hegelian

pan-logicism.

But

resolutely

rejecting

all

metaphysics,

including

Hegelian,

Cohen

turned his

rational

grounding

of

cognition

into

methodological

concepts.

In

this

system,

which Trubetskoi

called

pan-methodism,

Cohen

recast

all

reality

into method.

Knowledge,

which

means

for

Cohen

first

of

all

scientific

knowledge,

does

not

intend

to

express

any

knowledge

of

reality

;

it

has

exclusively

method

ical

validity.

With science

deprived

of

empirical

contact

with

reality,

and

its

object

transformed

into science's

own

methodology,

Cohen's



14/20

PUT

AGAINST LOGOS

237

scientism

destroys

the

very

foundation

of

science.31

Nevertheless,

in

reducing

a

posteriori

to

a

priori

elements,

Cohen

regressed

from Kant

and

in

fact

destroyed

the

very

a

priori premises

of

his

epistemology.

As

Trubetskoi

demonstrated,

Kant

displayed

the

stable

system

of

categories

that condition

as

such and thus

was

independent

of

empir

ical facts.

For

Cohen,

categories

themselves

depended

on

any

given

science, and,

consequently,

on

particular

and

changeable

data. The

a

priori

elements of

thought

are

reduced

to

the

hermeneutics of

human

hypothesis,

which is

necessarily

empirically

conditioned.

The whole

enterprise

of transcendentalism comes to

naught.32

According

to

Trubetskoi,

Heinrich

Rickert,

the

head of the

Freiburg

School,

understood

better than

Cohen

the

main

difficulty

of

the

epistemological

issue:

how

to

sail

between the

Scylla

of

psychologism

and

the

Charybdis

of

metaphysics.

Rickert admitted

that

the

object

of

knowledge

is

independent

of

and

even

transcen

dent

to

thought.

Therefore

in

the

act

of

knowing,

cognizing

thought

reaches

out

for

the

transcendent.

In

order

to

do

so,

our

thought

has

to

conform with the transcendent object. The problem, inTrubetskoi's

view,

started

at

this

point.

Whereas

Cohen,

fleeing

the

'danger'

of

metaphysics, replaced

being

with

methodology,

Rickert,

out

of the

same

fear,

replaced

it

with value. He

maintained

that

the

transcen

dent

of

knowledge

is

not

being,

but rather

the

notion

of

transcendent

value

or

transcendent

norm-setting. 33

Trubetskoi

observed that

Rickert invests this

'transcendent value'

with all the features of the

absolute. The

transcendent

value,

though

a

non-being,

constitutes the

logical

and

metaphysical ground

of all

being.

Its

metaphysical

connotation

is

suggested by

the

epigraph

from Plato's

Republic

that

Rickert used for

his

main

epistemological

study.

Plato's

text

says

that the

supreme

good

is that which itself

is

not

essence,

but which abides

beyond

essence,

excelling

it

by

importance

and

might,

and

that it

supplies

objects

with

their

knowa

bility.

Trubetskoi

maintained

thatRickert's

'transcendent

value,'

like

Plato's

idea of

good,

is

super-subsistent;

it

abides

beyond

being,

and

grounds

both

being

and

knowledge.34

For

Rickert,

any

knowledge necessarily

presupposes

a

super

individual

consciousness that

transcends the limitations of

any

particular

individual.

As

Trubetskoi

maintained,

this

idea

of Rickert's

expresses

the

necessary ontological premises

of

knowledge,

which



15/20

238

MICHAEL

A. MEERSON

he nevertheless failed to develop. Out of fear ofmetaphysics, Rickert

interpreted

the

super-individual

consciousness

as

a

methodological

concept.

This

half-way

acknowledgement

of universal conscious

ness

aborts the

transcendental

method,

thus

rendering

Rickert unable

to

complete

his

theory

of

knowledge. According

to

Trubetskoi,

Rick

ert

postulated

the

unity

of the immanent and

the

transcendent

in

knowledge,

but

admitted his

inability

to

find

for it

an

adequate

philosophical

expression,

and

stated

that

the

unity

of

immanent

and transcendent

in

knowledge

is

a

miracle

that

one can

ascertain

but

cannot

explain. 35

Having pointed

out

the flaws

and

limitations

of

the

Kantian

tran

scendental

method,

Trubetskoi

attempted

to

complete

it

and free

it

from

inner

contradictions.

He

appropriated

as a

lasting philo

sophical

discovery

Rickert's

thesis

that

there

is

no

being

without

consciousness,

and Cohen's thesis

that all

knowledge

has

a

rational

first

principle

as

its

foundation.36

But

he drew different

conclusions,

maintaining

that

the transcendental

method

implies

the

infinity

of

knowledge.

He insists that our

knowledge,

limited as it

is,

can cover

all

ages

because

it is

based

on

the

super-temporal

truth.

Either

every

temporal

event

is

immortalized

in

absolute

consciousness,

argued

Trubetskoi,

or

our

human

knowledge

of

temporal

events

is

deprived

of

any

objective

foundation.

The

absolute

consciousness

grounds

the

certainty

of human

knowledge,

since

only through

the

absolute

can

we

recognize

the universal and the transcendental

common

to

all

mankind.

Trubetskoi

emphasized

that without

it

we

cannot

find

any,

even phenomenal knowledge, since the latter is knowledge as long

as

it

has,

according

to

Kant,

the formal characteristic of absolute

necessity

and

certainty. 31

Trubetskoi

explained

the

mechanism of

human

cognition

in

rela

tionship

with

the

absolute consciousness

in

his

analysis

of

judgment

which

he

pursued

on

the

basis of

Kant's and

Rickert's

investigations.

He

relies

upon

Rickert's

discovery

that

in

the

act

of

judgment

the

truth

binds

as

imperative

a

knowing subject.

Trubetskoi

gives

back

the

ontological

status to

the

binding

truth

that

Rickert

interprets

in

a

methodological

sense.

According

to

Trubetskoi,

the

cognizing

human

subject

must

come

to

the

consciousness

of

his otherness

in

relation

to

the

absolute,

because

the

essential

law

and

form of

our

thought,

its

a

priori,

is

that

any

judgment

necessarily posits

the

abso



16/20

PUT AGAINST

LOGOS

239

lute.

In

Trubetskoi's

analysis, judgment

is

a

triune

act

that consists

of:

1)

the

presupposition

of

the

absolute,

2)

the

positing

of

my

self,

'I,'

as

other,

and

3)

the

linking

of these

two

together.

Thus in

every

act

of

its

consciousness,

the

self

both

affirms

itself

and

goes

out

beyond

itself. This

means

that

every

act

of

judgment

presupposes

also

self-consciousness,

not

the

self-consciousness

of the

absolute

in

the

Hegelian

sense,

but the

self-consciousness of

a

cognizing subject

vis-?-vis the absolute.

In

other

words,

Trubetskoi

affirmed the

per

sonalistic

nature

of

every

act

of

judgment,

or

cognition,

the

aspect

which Kant had missed.

My

/

think,

contrary

to

Kant,

is not

only

my

representation,

argued

Trubetskoi,

it

also has

my

knowledge

of myself

which,

as

such,

goes

beyond

subjective

representation

to

the

trans-subjective

realm,

since this

act

posits

my

self

as a

subsis

tent

subject, independent

of

any

particular

representations.

Finally,

it

presupposes

the

linking

of

self's

individual

judgment

with

the

transcendental

validity,

or

with the

absolute.

In

this

way,

Trubet

skoi

completes

the

transcendental

method,

discovered

by

Kant,

and

developed by neo-Kantians.38

Conclusion

Logos'

activity,

which

provided

the

philosophical

challenge

of

neo

Kantianism,

was a

real

blessing

for Puf

's authors. It

required

from

them

greater

terminological precision,

and

confronted them with the

contemporary

philosophical

issues. The

polemics

with

Logos

helped

Puf

to

coin what

eventually

has

become known

as

the

specific

legacy

of

Russian

philosophy.

Puf 's

philosophical enterprise,

aborted

by

the

Bolshevik

revolution,

was

carried

out

in

emigration, mainly

in

Berdiaev's Paris

journal

also entitled

Puf,

and

in

the Paris

'YMCA

Press,'

with

Berdiaev

as

its director. Vasilii

Zenkovskii

(1881-1962)

and

Nikolai Losskii

(1870-1965),

each

writing

in

emigration

a

history

of

Russian

philosophy,

contributed

to

Puf

in

Russia.39

Puf 's

polemics

with neo-Kantians had

an

enduring

influence

on

Russian

thought.

If

Ern,

who

died

in

1917,

and

Evgenii

Trubetskoi,

who died in 1920,

completed

their

dialogues

with the neo-Kantians

during

their

Puf

years,

Bulgakov

carried it

on

in

greater

detail

in

his

book

The

Tragedy

of

Philosophy,

written in

1920-21,

and

published

in

Russian

only

in

1993.40

In

this

book,

he

further

developed

Trubet

skoi 's thesis

on

the

absolute foundation of

transcendentalism

and

his



17/20

240

MICHAEL A. MEERSON

analysis of the tripartite structure of the act of judgment. Berdiaev

incorporated

many

of his

findings

from

the

polemical

period

into

the

subsequent

development

of

his

personalism.

Both

Berdiaev

and

Bulgakov adopted

the

key

thesis of neo-Kantian

philosophy,

namely

that there

is

no

existence

without

consciousness,

and

transformed it

into

a

cornerstone

of

personalism:

since

consciousness is

personal,

there is

no

impersonal

being; being always

has

personhood

as

its

ground.

This later

development

of

their

thought

takes

us,

however,

outside

the

historical

frame of Puf

activity.

The

polemic

with

Logos

which

sought

to

integrate

Russian

thought

into

the

international

philosophical

process

contributed

to

this

integration

in

a

particular

way.

Thus

Berdiaev

and

Bulgakov

in

the

course

of

this

polemic

arrived

at

a

criticism of

neo-Kantianism similar

to

Bergson

's

philos

ophy

of life

and

to

American

pragmatism.

However,

Russian

criti

cism

was

highly

original

and

was

carried

out

within

the

framework

of

religious-philosophy

which

strove to

achieve

a

new

synthesis

of

the Eastern

Orthodox

religious

tradition

with the

most

sophisticated

achievements of

contemporary

philosophy.

While the Puf authors'

immediate

influence

on

the

neo-Kantians

was

rather limited

-

they

probably

influenced

Stepun

alone

-

they

articulated

some

of the inner

logic

of

neo-Kantianism,

and,

in

a

way,

predicted

its

consequent

evolution toward

ontology,

even

of

a

neo-Platonic

leaning. According

to

Stepun,

most

of

the

Logos

editors

eventually

abandoned the

course

of

pure

epistemology

for

metaphysics. Stepun

and

Hessen

came

to

collaborate with

Bulgakov,

Berdiaev and other Russian Christian thinkers in Fedotov's Novyi

Grad

[New

City]

in

Paris

during

the 1930s.

Mehlis embraced

romantic

and

mystical

philosophy

close

to

neo-Platonism.41 Richard

Kroner,

one

of

the

most

productive

of

Logos's

editors,

during

his

long

philosophical

career

passed

through

almost all of the

philosophical

positions

opposed

to

pure

epistemology.

He

first

judged

theory

of

knowledge

from the

stand-point

of

a

philosophy

of life close

to

that

of

Bergson.

Then he

moved

to

neo-Hegelianism,

reinterpreting

Kant

in

the

light

of

mystical ontology.

After he left Nazi

Germany

for

the

United

States,

Kroner

developed

his

philosophy

of

revelation,

and

in

the

last,

American

period,

occupied

himself

mainly

with

religious

philosophy.42

Thus

in

the

ironic

recollection of

Stepun,

the

warning

of

Windelband

to

his

students,

who had

called their

journal Logos



18/20

PUT

AGAINST

LOGOS

241

and its

first

issue

Messiah,

that

if

they

continued the

same

path they

would

land

with

monks,

rang

true.43

In

his article

on

Ernst

Cassirer,

written

in

the late

1920's,

Alexei

Losev

(1893-1988)

observed the

unpredictable

development

of

neo

Kantianism

toward

ontology

and

metaphysics.

Losev

mentioned

Hartmann,

Natorp,

and Cohn.

In

the second edition of

his famous

book

on

Plato,

Natorp,

one

of the

leading

neo-Kantians,

renounced

his

own

Kantian rendition

of

Plato,

and

came

to

interpret

him

in

the

spirit

of neo-Platonism.

According

to

Losev,

Natorp

in

his

last work

completely revises his epistemology in the light of neo-Platonic

ontology.44

Cohn moved toward

Hegel.45

For

Losev

these devel

opments,

as

well

as

the

philosophy

of

symbolic

forms

of

Cassirer,

signify

the

definite

spilling

over

of neo-Kantianism

beyond

its

own

epistemological

limits

toward

metaphysics

and

ontology.46

Puf's

authors

anticipated,

however,

this

development,

in

their

polemics

with

Logos.

NOTES

1

Cf.

Sbornikpervyio

Vladimire Solov'eve

(Symposium

I:On Vladimir

Solov'?v),

Moscow:

Puf, 1911,

Ot

izdatel'stva,

p.

IL

2

Fedor

Stepun:

Byvshee

i

nesbyvsheesia,

(The

Fulfilled and

Unfulfilled),

Second

Edition,

Overseas Publications

Interchange

Ltd.,

London,

1990,

Vol.

I,

pp.

130

1.

The German

edition of

Logos

was

luckier than the Russian

one.

It

survived

World War

I and lasted

another

decade until Nazis'

coming

to

power.

Cf.

Logos

(Internationale

Zeitschrift

f?r

Philosophie

der

Kultur),

Vol.

1-22, Mohr,

T?bingen,

1910-1933.3

Pis'ma S.

N.

Bulgakova

k M. K.

Morozovoi,

Published

by

N.

A.

Struve,

Vestnik

Russkogo Khristianskogo

Dvizheniia

(Herald

of the

Russian Christian

Movement).

#144,1985,

Vyp.I-II,

p.

123.

4

One

can

compare

their VekhVs articles

with

Puf

editorial

manifesto,

compiled

by

Berdiaev

and

Bulgakov

in

Sbornikpervy:

O

Vladimire Solovieve

(First

Com

pilation:

On

Vladimir

Solov'?v),

Puf, Moscow,

1911,

p.

1.

5

See

content

of

Logos

in Mikhail V.

Bezrodnyj,

'Zur Geschichte des

russis

chen

Neukantianismus.

Die

Zeitschrift

Logos

und ihre Redakteure.'

Zeitschrift

?r

Slawistik

37

(1992), pp.

503-505.

6

Stepun,

ByvsAee..,

pp.

150,148.

7 Vladimir Ern: Skovoroda, Put', Moscow, 1912,

pp.

1,2,17,22.

8

Vladimir

Ern:

Sochineniia,

[Works],

Izd.

Pravda, Moscow, 1991,

p.

405.

Ern

wrote

his Master's thesis

on

Rosmini's

theory

of

knowledge

and his

Doctorate

on

the

philosophy

of

Gioberti,

and

published

both

studies

in Puf.

9

Vladimir

Ern:

Bor'ba

za

Logos

(The

Struggle

for

Logos),

Puf, Moscow,

1911.

pp.

73-75,84,91.

As

Stepun

sums

up

Ern's

polemics,

In

all his

critique against



19/20

242

MICHAEL A.

MEERSON

us,

Logosists,

Ern

persistently

was

making

the

point

that

as

advocates of

scientific

philosophy

cut off from the Greek and Christian

tradition,

we

ought

not to

have

invoked the

term

sanctified

in

the

Gospel

and

meaningful

for the

Orthodox

Chris

tian.

Stepun:

Byvshee...,

I,

p.

258.

10

'Ot

Kanta

k

Kruppu'

(From

Kant

to

Krupp),

Sochineniia,

pp.

313-8.

11

'Sushchnosf

nemetskogo fenomenalizma

(The

Essence

of

German

Phenome

nalism),

Sochineniia,

p.

320.

12

Berdiaev,

Filosofiia svobody, Smysl

tvorchestva

(The

Philosophy

of

Freedom,

The Sense

of

Creativity),

Moscow:

Pravda,

1989,

pp.

15-8, 32,68-9.

13

Ibid.,

pp.

19,

29,35-37,47,54,68-73.

14

Bulgakov,

Filosofiia

khoziastva

(Philosophy

of

the

Economy),

Puf,

Moscow,

1912, p. 52.

15

Leo

Lopatin,

PolozhiteVnyie

zadachi

filosofii

(The

Positive Tasks

of

Philos

ophy)

Part.

II,

p.

231.

Bulgakov, Filosofiia...,

pp.

184-5.

l?

Ibid.,

pp.

101-2.

17

Ibid.,

pp.

99,102-3.

18

Ibid.,

pp.

95-6,100.

19

Ibid.,

pp.

53,116.

20

Nikolai

Losskii,

Vvedenie

vfilosofiiu

[Part I]

Vvedenie

v

teoriiu

znaniia

[An

introduction

to

Philosophy.

Part I.

An Introduction

into the

theory

of

knowledge].

St.

Petersburg,

1911,

pp.

164,198-9, Ibid.,

p.

116.

21

Ibid.,

pp.

114-5,119-20.

22 Prince

Evgenii

Trubetskoi,

Metafizicheskie

predpolozhenia poznania

[The

Metaphysical Presuppositions

of

Knowledge],

Puf,

Moscow,

1917,

p.

4.

23

Ibid.,

pp.

i-ii.

24

Ibid.,

pp.

7,11,43-4. Cf.,

Frederick

Copleston,

S. J.:

A

History

of

Philosophy,

Image

Books,

New

York, 1985,

vol.

VI,

pp.

238-9.

25

Trubetskoi refers

to

the

first edition of Kritik

der reinen

Vernunft,

Hartknoch,

Riga,

1781,

pp.

358,

344;

Metafizicheskie...,

pp.

118-23.

26

Ibid.,

p.

130.

27

Ibid.,

pp.

290,135.

28

Ibid.,

pp.

7,10,74,77,80,82.

29

Ibid., pp. 88, 76,74,131.30

Trubetskoi refers

to

Cohen's

Kants Theorie

der

Erfahrung,

F.

Dummlers

Ver

lagsbuchhandlung,

Hartwitz und

Gossmann,

Berlin,

1885,

pp.

216-217,

and

Logik

der

reinen

Erkenntniss,

B.

Cassirer,

Berlin, 1902,

pp.

67,

129,

Metafizicheskie...,

pp.

247,210-1,217,219,234.

31

Trubetskoi refers

to

Cohen's

work Ethik

der reinen

Willens,

B.

Cassirer,

Berlin,

1904,1907,

pp.

330-3;

446-7;

Metafizicheskie...,

pp.

222,210,223-5,227.

32

Ibid.,

p.

231.

33

Trubetskoi

discusses Rickert's

two

fundamental

works,

Zwei

Wege

d. Erken

ntnisstheorie,

(Kantstudien,

B.XIV,

vols.

2

u

3),

and

Die

Grenzen

der

natur

wissenschaftlischen

Begriffsbildung,

J.

C. B.

Mohr,

T?bingen

u.

Leipzig,

1902.

Metafizicheskie...,

pp. 250,273,249,276.

34

Ibid.,

pp.

276,279.

35

Ibid.,

pp.

266-7,283,280.

36

Ibid.,

pp.

236,241,275.

37

Ibid.,

pp.

33,

41,45-46.

38

Trubetskoi maintains that

Kant's

teaching

on

transcendental

apperception



20/20

PUT AGAINST

LOGOS

243

implies

the

distinction

between

the

individual

consciousness,

or

my

'self,'

and the

universal

consciousness,

or

the absolute.

Ibid.,

pp.

251, 83,

85-7.

39

Nikolai Losskii:

Intuitivnaia

filosofiia

Bergsona {Bergson's

intuitive

Philos

ophy),

Puf,

Moscow,

1913.

Zenkovskii

wrote

a

two-volume

study

on

Nikolai

Gogol's

religious

views,

announced

by

Puf

for

publication.

The

book,

shortened

and

rewritten,

appeared

only

in

Paris

YMCA-Press,

Puf 's

emigr?

successor.

40

S.

N.

Bulgakov:

Sochineniia

v

dvukh

tomakh,

vol.

I,

Filosofiia

khoziaistva,

Tragediia

filosofii,

Nauka, Moscow,

1993.

Prior

to

this,

the

book

was

published

only

in

German

translation,

as

Die

Trag?die

der

Philosophie,

Otto

Reichl

Verlag,

Darmstadt

1927.

41

Cf.

Georg

Mehlis,

Einf?hrung

in

ein

System

der

Religionsphilosophie,

J. C.

B. Mohr, T?bingen, 1917. Eng. Trans. The Quest for God; an Introduction to the

Philosophy of Religion,

Tr.

by

Gertrude

Baker,

Williams and

Norgate,

London,

1927;

Die

deutsche

Romantik, Rosi,

M?nchen, 1922;

Plotin,

F.

Frommann,

Stuttgart,

1924;

Die

Mystik

in

der F?lle ihrer

Erscheinungsformen

in

allen

Zeiten

und

Kulturen,

F.

Bruckmann, M?nchen,

1927.

42

Richard

Kroner,

Das

Problem

der historischen

Biologie,

Gebruder Born

traeger,

Berlin, 1919;

Von Kant

bis

Hegel,

Mohr,

Tubingen,

vols.

1-2, 1921-24;

The

primacy of

Faith,

The Macmillan

company,

New

York, 1943;

How

do

we

know

God?

An

Introduction

to

the

Philosophy

of

Religion,

Harper

&

brothers,

NY

&

London, 1943;

Culture

and

Faith,

1951

;

Speculation

and Revelation in

Modern

Philosophy,

Westminster

Press,

Philadelphia,

1961.

43

Stepun,

Byvshee...,

p.

175-176.

44

Paul

Natorp:

Piatos

Ideenlehre,

1st

ed.,

D?rr,

Leipzig,

1903;

2nd ed.

F.

Meiner,

Leipzig,

1921;

Die deutsche

Philosophie

der

Gegenwart

in

Selbstdarstellungen,

R.

Schmidt.,

Leipzig,

1921.

45

Jonas Cohn:

Theorie

der

Dialektik,

F.

Meiner,

Leipzig,

1923.

46

Alexei Losev: 'Teoriia

mificheskogo myshleniia

u

E.

Kassirera'

(E.

Cassirer's

Theory

of

Mythical Thinking),

Simvol

(Zhurnal

khristianskoi

kul'tury

pri

slavian

skoi biblioteke

v

Parizhe),

30

(1993),

pp.

311-312.

1847 47

Place

N.W.

Washington,

DC

20007

USA

meerson_put' against logos_the critique of kant and neo-kantianism by russian religious philosophers...

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