Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Dec 2021)
Transcendentalia entis as an currently relevant philosophical project
Abstract
The article aims to show that the theory of transcendentalia is not only of theoretical interest, but also has a philosophical potential. Thus, the famous logician J. Wolenski says that the theory of transcendentalia can shed light, for example, on formal ontology. The article makes an attempt to actualise transcendental metaphysics and shows its importance for modern intellectual culture, which is achieved by means of contrasting “transcendental thinking” to the tendencies of nihilism and philistinism represented by F. Nietzsche and L. Tolstoy. In particular, the article outlines the main contours of the theory of transcendentalism, after which it discusses the position of F. Nietzsche, who associated the onset of nihilism precisely with the collapse of transcendental unity, implying the antagonism of truth, good and beauty. It is noted, however, that Nietzsche himself does not refute this doctrine; he only states the fi nal disintegration of the transcendental. An aesthetic aversion to Christianity is perhaps the main reason for the emergence of the phenomenon of Friedrich Nietzsche. Further, the article shows that L. N. Tolstoy, unlike F. Nietzsche, accepted the value of good and truth, but was strongly against beauty, as well as against the unity of transcendental notions in general, that brings the great writer closer to philistinism. The name of the great writer and such a caustic epithet may look, undoubtedly, rather strange next to each other, but it so happens that Leo Tolstoy consistently and consciously fought against beauty. Thus, if Nietzsche denied all transcendentalia, except beauty, then Tolstoy, on the contrary, recognised truth, unity and especially good, denying the last transcendentalia. Finally, the article focuses on H.W. von Balthasar’s fi gure, who showed the importance of beauty not only for ethics and aesthetics, but also for ontology, since “the evidence of being seems improbable to one who does not perceive beauty”. He suggests that the absence of beauty leads to a rejection of the good, to discarding truth and the oblivion of being; without beauty, ethics becomes moralistic, and the good ceases to be attractive.
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