“Overcoming Transcendentalism” in the Theory of Knowledge V.V. Zenkovsky

Abstract

The transcendental philosophy of I. Kant had a significant influence on subsequent world thought. Not a single independent philosopher could ignore it when constructing his own theory of knowledge. There was a development of the ideas of the great thinker or polemics with them. Russian philosophers were no exception here, whose work to one degree or another reflected the ideas of the great German thinker about transcendental knowledge. This was typical both of his direct followers, Russian neo-Kantians, and of Russian religious philosophers, who were seemingly ideologically distant from him, who conceptualized the theological heritage of Orthodoxy. The article examines the influence of I. Kant’s ideas on one of the Russian thinkers, the famous historian of philosophy V.V. Zenkovsky. Moreover, attention is focused not on his historical and philosophical assessment of Russian neo-Kantianism, but on his use of Kantian ideas in constructing a metaphysical system in which he, according to his own words, “overcame” transcendentalism. Based on the analysis of the theory of knowledge by V.V. Zenkovsky, presented by him in his unfinished systematizing work “Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy,” as well as in some scientific articles, the authors draw the following conclusion. The Russian philosopher, “overcoming” transcendentalism, at the same time, actively used ideas about transcendental knowledge and tried to solve the problem of the epistemological subject in an original way. By transcendentalism he understood, first of all, the unlawful distortion of I. Kant’s ideas by followers. The thinker received, interpreted, and, if necessary, transformed the positive aspects of transcendental philosophy from his point of view.

Keywords

• transcendental philosophy
• transcendentalism
• metaphysics
• epistemological subject
• church reason