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

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“…the construction of metaphysics is

impossible based on transcendentalism;

if it is conceived, then only based on

overcoming transcendentalism”.

V.V. Zenkovsky [1. P. 178]

 

Introduction

The famous historian of Russian philosophy, V.V. Zenkovsky, noted the significant influence of Kant’s philosophy on the formation of various Russian worldview systems, of course, especially emphasized in this regard Russian Neo-Kantianism, which “manifested itself in later Russian philosophy very brightly and strongly, and in the person at its head (A. Vvedensky) provided a complete and a highly interesting system” [2. P. 248] (Vol. 2). In his History of Russian Philosophy, Zenkovsky considered in detail the doctrines of such representatives of Russian Neo-Kantianism as A.I. Vvedensky, I.I. Lapshin and briefly analyzed the concepts of G.I. Chelpanov, S.I. Hessen, G.D. Gurvitch, B.V. Yakovenko, F.A. Stepun. It is characteristic that the thinker was not inclined to classify this current of Russian thought as epigonal, emphasizing that “for all its philosophical primness and strict adherence to the requirements of criticality,” it, like other currents and trends of Russian thought, “does not break with the fundamental problems of the Russian spirit” (as an illustrative example, the philosopher pointed to the “curious echoes” of panmoralism discernible in Russian Neo-Kantianism); Moreover, he argued that in Russian Neo-Kantianism, along with “pure Neo-Kantianism,” one can encounter “Neo-Kantianism that builds metaphysical systems!” [2. P. 248] (Vol. 2). In our opinion, this does not seem to be an astounding fact since, as Zenkovsky himself recognized, “the metaphysical perspective” “was accepted even by Kant”  [3. P. 299]. If there is an acceptance of the perspective, then we should expect metaphysical conceptualizations and attempts to realize what was manifested based on the Russian spirit.

It should be noted that the accuracy, criticality, and professionalism of Zenkovsky’s historical and philosophical assessments of diverse trends and directions of Russian philosophy were due, among other reasons, to the fact that he was a gifted philosopher attempting to elaborate a systematic philosophy based on the Orthodox Weltanschauung. Unfortunately, his work was not completed. Just two of the three books planned by the philosopher when writing Foundations of Christian Philosophy (Vol. 1 The Christian Doctrine of Knowledge and Vol. 2 The Christian Cosmology) saw the light of day. He needed more time to finish the third volume, which was to contain the doctrine of man. However, we can adequately reconstruct the philosopher’s views on this subject, based on his articles devoted directly to anthropology and his many works on Orthodox psychology and pedagogy.

Since Zenkovsky’s philosophical and theological system occupies its proper place in the history of Russian thought, then it will be legitimate to make an initial assumption, according to which the philosopher, as well as most of his compatriots, was influenced by Kantian philosophy, mainly manifested in the formulation of his epistemological views. Accordingly, this article aims to argue this assumption based on the analysis of the thinker’s statements confirming his creative reception of Kantian ideas.

The Critique of Transcendentalism

In the Preface to the first book of the Fundamentals of Christian Philosophy, Zenkovsky makes a vital confession in the context of our study: “Philosophically I grew up under the influence of transcendentalism, from which I learned a lot, but very early I also matured the consciousness of the need to overcome the wrong that is in transcendentalism” [4. P. 7]. In this statement, it is significant that the thinker, firstly, informs the reader about his philosophical growth, which took place under the direct influence of transcendentalism, and, secondly, indicates his awareness of the need to overcome the wrong in transcendentalism — so Zenkovsky implies that there is something right in it.

It seems that for the development of our discourse, it will be expedient to introduce a “technical” distinction between the concepts of transcendentalism and ideas about transcendental knowledge^[1]. By the latter, we will refer to the epistemological concepts formulated by I. Kant, which served as material for numerous and sometimes dissimilar further interpretations. By the former, we will mean the totality of epistemological ideas of the great German thinker’s followers, who claimed an adequate reading of Kant and logically correct development of the ideas expressed by him but at the same time made additions to his doctrine which, in Zenkovsky’s opinion, should have been gotten rid of and overcome as errors. It should be noted that the philosopher, most likely, meant not only “purification” of Kant’s doctrine from “incorrect” later additions, but also clarification, even correction of some moments peculiar to this doctrine, since Kant, in his opinion, could also be mistaken. Zenkovsky’s epistemological work can be regarded as an excellent example of a constructive, Socratic dispute with Kantianism, in which, as is well known, the opponents need to recognize the incompleteness of their initial ideas about the subject of the dispute, which opens up the possibility for mutual enrichment of positions, for moving along the path of knowledge growth by synthesizing the positive aspects present in seemingly contradictory and poorly compatible views.

Kant presented the main ideas about transcendental knowledge in Critique of Pure Reason^[2], which he called “transcendental that is occupied not so much with objects but rather with our a priori concepts of objects in general.” [7. P. 68]. “Hence, transcendental philosophy is a philosophy of pure, merely speculative reason. For everything practical, insofar as it contains incentives, is related to feelings, which belong among empirical sources of cognition.” [7. P. 70].  V.V. Zenkovsky highly appreciated Kant’s philosophical talent and entirely agreed that he irrefutably showed that in the composition of our knowledge, there are such elements (transcendental) that are not directly derived from the composition of experience. The statement about the presence of “a priori material” of our knowledge, fundamentally different from the a posteriori, leads, Zenkovsky believed, to an unusually important epistemological conclusion that, “due to the a priori elements of knowledge, our knowledge reveals a new feature — a claim to universality” [4. P. 29]. Thus, human knowledge goes beyond the limits of only individual consciousness, giving us a “supraindividual” understanding of reason, an understanding anticipated by ancient philosophy in the idea of a single Logos pervading individual consciousnesses.

However, I. Kant’s mistake, according to V.V. Zenkovsky, was mixing transcendental consciousness with subjective (individual) one^[3], and the philosopher was aware of this error, as evidenced by the concept of “epistemological subject,” which is different from the empirical subject, which he outlined but did not bring to total clarity and, therefore, actively developed by his followers. “But this fictitious concept of the epistemological subject, despite the grain of truth that it contains, cannot be held because of the profound difference between empirical and transcendental material and because of the complete obscurity of the ontological meaning that is put in the concept of ‘epistemological subject’” [4. P. 32]. The thrust of Zenkovsky’s criticism, as we have seen, was directed not at the ideas about transcendental knowledge themselves but at their interpretations in transcendentalism, which were detached from their ontological foundations; in a broader sense, at the opinion (based on a “misunderstanding”) that had become entrenched “in the history of philosophy after Kant,” “according to which the obligatory and basic part of philosophy is the doctrine of knowledge” [2. P. 15] (Vol. 1). Note that I. Kant himself never downplayed the importance of metaphysics and ontology, directing his criticism “not against (ist nicht... entgegensetzt) the dogmatic method of reason in its pure scientific cognition..., but against dogmatism, i.e. [against] the claim to advance with the help of pure knowledge alone from the concepts (philosophical) according to the principles that have long been used by reason, without inquiring about the rights of reason to these principles and about how it reached them” [7. С. 46]. The thinker considered his criticism a necessary precondition for the further development of “thorough metaphysics”.

The clarification of the “ontological meaning” of the concept of the epistemological subject, which Zenkovsky calls for, can only be clarified in the context of a certain metaphysical system, the task of constructing which, according to the quotation from his short essay S.I. Hessen as a Philosopher, which is placed in the epigraph, is impossible based on transcendentalism. Briefly analyzing Hessen’s Neo-Kantian ideas, Zenkovsky concludes that the “subtle and profound mind” of this thinker “became entangled in the net of transcendentalism” because he “believed” in it, having rejected “‘forbidden’ being” and chosen the path of impersonalism, but “on this path, freedom turned out to be not the last secret of individuality, but only a transcendental ‘function’ manifested in the person, but not connected with the metaphysics of the person...” [1. P. 179]. Being a convinced supporter of religious-philosophical personalism, Zenkovsky could not reconcile himself with the abstract generality of the epistemological subject declared by  Neo-Kantianism. He had to show that “personality is free in relation to its nature,” “that the concepts of personality and nature in man are not identical, not merged (although one does not exist without the other),” and that “nature changes when the personality seeks its change” [9. P. 177–178]. Nevertheless, can Kant’s ideas about transcendental knowledge can be reconciled with personalist ideas about a free, creative personality. We will see further that if Zenkovsky did not manage to do this convincingly for everyone, at least he tried to argue for such a possibility in Christian metaphysics.

Zenkovsky vividly confirms his thesis in the essay under consideration, according to which, in Russian Neo-Kantianism, one can even come across the construction of a metaphysical system. He writes that S.I. Hessen nevertheless expresses, “timidly and without argumentation,” that the absolute is not only the last stage of development but at once its end and its beginning, while paradoxically, the absolute needs human freedom, without which it cannot reveal itself in its entirety. Zenkovsky rightly remarks — if we agree with such judgments, the question immediately arises — where is the proper subject of freedom? According to Hessen, “Acts of freedom are performed in the personality, through them the personality is realized (“taking root in superpersonal values”), but this self-created personality cannot be considered the subject of freedom! Here we are dealing, — summarizes Zenkovsky, — with a typical confusion, penetrating the whole of German idealism — and not one Hessen could not escape from its clinging embrace...” [1. P. 180].

So, from the above, it becomes clear that the most superb rejection on Zenkovsky’s part was not the very ideas of Kantianism about transcendental knowledge, which he largely accepted, and not even the abstract reasoning of the Neo-Kantians about the epistemological subject, but the impersonalistic conclusions that were drawn from these ideas and reasoning. In Kant’s and his followers’ transcendentalism, according to the philosopher, “freedom is assimilated to us only in terms of transcendental..., we are free only when the “pure will” acts in us, which has no empirical motives in itself, but such freedom is not the freedom of the empirical subject” [10. P. 338]. However, the Russian thinker, at the same time, did not consider the conclusions of Neo-Kantianism, at least the intermediate ones, to be fundamentally false. He argued that they could be interpreted quite differently if the concept of “mythical transcendental subject” is translated into another language, the language of theology, and, most importantly, to firmly link the universality of the epistemological subject with the specificity of every human person.

The Assimilation of Kantian Ideas

Even Vladimir Solovyov’s mentor, Pamfil Yurkevich, noted that “The truth of Kant’s doctrine of experience is possible only as a consequence of the truth of Plato’s doctrine of reason.” Philosophy, he believed, “is not the work of man, but of humanity”, and in its aspiration to “a holistic worldview,” it should not recognize any boundaries: “Rising to the “metaphysical height of the unconditional Divine idea”, philosophy “meets” with faith... For Yurkevich faith is a metaphysical prerequisite of cognition, both scientific and philosophical, but the “meeting” of faith with theoretical knowledge is possible only in the field of philosophy”  [11. P. 177]. Such a “meeting” described the philosophizing of many Russian thinkers to the ranks to which Zenkovsky belonged. It is impossible, perhaps, not to agree with the statement of V.N. Belov, according to which “most likely, the fate of Russian philosophy is a never-ending dispute, discussion, philosophical dialog of two directions, one of which focuses philosophy on religion, the other — on science” [12. P. 141]. Russian metaphysics and Neo-Kantianism have become illustrative examples of directions orienting philosophy in different ways. Still, their orientations are not diametrically opposed; in this case, they are even mutually conditioned to some extent. On the one hand, Kant provides, in essence, an apophatic definition of the transcendent beginning, which, as confirmed historically, “traditional theology cannot stop” [13. P. 156], demanding even approximate but cataphatic definitions.^[4] It does not suit any secular worldview, necessarily based on favorable judgments. On the other hand, theology always needs philosophical ideas that allow to comprehend and rationally argue the truths of faith, it could only partially ignore the ideas of transcendental knowledge. Therefore, the development of the potential inherent in these ideas was inevitably carried out from both religious and secular positions. Russian metaphysicians undertook the difficult task of comprehending and translating into the language of philosophy the rich heritage of the Eastern Christian theological tradition. At the same time, there was a counterprocess of reception of Western philosophical concepts translated into the language of theology, or, more precisely, consistent with Orthodox religious and worldview ideas.

Zenkovsky had no doubts about the logical admissibility of the concept of religious philosophy, which was typical of his time. He was convinced that Christian philosophy, which has its own, different from the dogmatic-theological “topic,” is possible: “Dogmatics is the philosophy of faith, and Christian philosophy is the philosophy arising from faith. Knowledge of the world and man, a systematic summary of the basic principles of being, are not given in our faith; they must be built in our free creative work, but in the light of Christ” [4. P. 22]. As already noted, the Russian thinker, with approval, perceived the thought of Kant about the presence of transcendental elements in our cognition, from which followed the thesis that “It is given to the individual mind to move in the paths of reflection only under the general influence of supra-individual (transcendental) beginnings”. Hence Zenkovsky, relying on the doctrine of Sergei Trubetskoy on the sobornost nature of thought, made a far-reaching conclusion: “...the sobornost nature of our thinking can be fully understood only in terms of the Church — the conductor of truth in the world is the Church, which is the true subject of transcendental functions in cognition” [10. P. 323]. We agree that at first glance the inference made by the philosopher looks somewhat unexpected. However, it is supported by the consistent argumentation presented in the Foundations of Christian Philosophy, aimed at proving that this is the way to resolve the difficulties associated with attempts to give ontological meaning to the concept of the epistemological subject.

First of all, Zenkovsky notes that the value of transcendentalism for the Christian worldview “is that it takes the religious sphere beyond the limits of individual consciousness, establishes the transcendental nature of the very category of religious life, its irreducibility from any mental acts” [4. P. 42]. It should be remembered, writes the philosopher, that transcendental categories do not at all generate from themselves the material of knowledge, actually provided by the surrounding world, but only formalize it. Following the division of human consciousness characteristic of “general epistemology” into “primary” consciousness, which does not yet distinguish subject and object in the process of cognition, and “secondary” consciousness, in which such a distinction occurs, he argues that the primary consciousness is characterized by duality, which later passes into the forms of “faith” and “reason.” The philosopher expresses this duality in the terms God-consciousness and world-consciousness — in God-consciousness, we are addressed to the Absolute, inseparable from it, and in world-consciousness, “we absorb everything that the world carries in itself” [4. P. 43], at the same time not separating from the Absolute^[5]. What is important, both God-consciousness and world-consciousness in us go back “to the same source, to the ‘light of Christ’” [4. P. 46], according to the words of the apostle enlightening every person coming into the world^[6]. World-consciousness, merged in the primary consciousness with God-consciousness, is a “praphenomenon” concerning the mind, finally formed already in the secondary individual consciousness of man. Thus, the close connection of the mind with the Absolute as its primary source is preserved, from which Zenkovsky concludes that “the mind is not a function of individual consciousness” [4. P. 48].

However, in this case, the philosopher writes, we come to the “paradox of cognition,” which consists in the fact that, on the one hand, “cognition does not fit within the limits of individual consciousness, having a pre-individual significance” [4. P. 49], on the other hand, it is not realized outside individual consciousnesses, according to empirical observations [4. P. 49], and on the other hand, it is not realized outside individual consciousnesses, judging by empirical observations.

He sees the solution to this paradox in the appeal to the concept of “ecclesiastical reason,” or “the reason of the Church,” widespread among “religiously thinking people,” who recognize a specific cognitive function of the Church in the mystical understanding — the Body of Christ, implicitly possessing the fullness of truth because the Head of this Body is the God-man Jesus Christ, “the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6)^[7]. “From the Christian point of view,” writes V.V. Zenkovsky, — the power of “comprehension” although it is manifested in individual consciousness, and only through it, belongs to the Church” that is why “the power of individual reasoning is determined by our joining the mind of the Church...” [4. P. 53]. To explain how such accession is possible, the philosopher, no doubt well acquainted with the works of St. Gregory Palamas, resorts to the concept of synergy, or the combination of the actions of Divine Grace and the efforts of the individual, aimed at their free acceptance: “The individual mind, in which cognitive activity is carried out, does not enter the truth from itself, but through that synergy in which the individual consciousness becomes an organ of the Church’s mind under the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit” [4. P. 53]. Consequently, according to Zenkovsky, the comprehension of truth becomes possible only “through our life in the Church”.

Where do we look for the real subject of reason? — the philosopher poses the question and answers it: we should move “towards the concept of ‘all-human unity’,” which cannot be interpreted in the sense of the “likeness” of all human consciousnesses because, in this case, it remains unclear what this likeness is based on and conditioned by. V.V. Zenkovsky argues that to explain the actual and permanent unity of cognitive paths in humanity “can be explained only with the help of the concept of the oneness of humanity” [4. P. 58]. Explaining this idea, he insists that we should not “hypostatize” the unified essence of humanity because it is essence only for the hypostases “begotten” by it.

However, it is the “subject” of reason that we are looking for: “...how can a subjectless, single essence humanity still be the “subject” of reason?” The philosopher recognizes this contradiction as imaginary, because its seeming paradoxicality “is resolved by a simple but categorical statement that the single ‘essence’ of all-humanity does not exist outside the hypostases, as well as the hypostases do not exist outside their single essence” [4. P. 59]. Consequently, the subject of reason should be sought not in the human hypostases themselves, and not even in the unified essence of all-humanity, but in their metaphysical connectedness: “The subject of the reason is the indissoluble connection between the unified essence of humanity and its multi-hypostatic empirical existence ... this is what Christianity calls the Church” [4. P. 59–60].

In V.V. Zenkovsky’s understanding, the Church as the consubstantiality of multi-hypostatic humanity is ontologically identical to all-humanity, but then what was the situation before the historical emergence of the Christian Church? Here the philosopher resorts to the thesis about the fundamental Christocentricity of both cognition and all human life, to the assertion that the Church “existed from the beginning of humankind, but then there was not yet an embodiment of this being of the Church in history — it was in the world only in human souls, each of which was enlightened by Christ and by His light elevated to human dignity” [4. P. 61]. However, he explains, the concepts of the historical Church and the pre-Christian Church do not coincide completely — before the Incarnation of God, the oneness of humankind was “metaphysical,” potential, it only provided the possibility of unity. Only with the emergence of the historical Church did this ‘natural’ sobornost become a ‘gracious’ one” [4. P. 63]. At the same time, the thinker realizes that in the modern situation of “cultural dualism,” it is still necessary to recognize the existence of both non-Christian religious principles and secular principles that are far from Christianity: “It is important for us to accept that the light of Christ, which shines without barriers in the Church historical, is, however, also active where it does not shine” [4. P. 130].

Conclusion

Thus, when V.V. Zenkovsky discussed the necessity of overcoming transcendentalism to build a metaphysical system, he did not mean a complete refutation and subsequent rejection of the ideas about transcendental knowledge generated by Kantianism. Instead, by transcendentalism, he mainly understood the misrepresentation of these ideas by his followers, while the positive aspects of the transcendental philosophy were reciprocated, interpreted, and, if necessary, transformed in conceptualizing his metaphysical system based on the Christian worldview.

A contemporary researcher of I. Kant’s work Balanovsky V.V. wittily noted that if we imagine the whole philosophy as a kind of competition of minds, organized like the Olympic Games, then “overcoming the theoretical philosophy of Immanuel Kant” would be one of the leading “disciplines” of this competition, because “even contemporaries realized that the Critique of Pure Reason provides excellent material, the analysis of which helps to systematize one’s views, or even to build a new philosophical system, starting from transcendental idealism as a springboard” [17. P. 570]. The analysis of the Kantian “material”, indeed, significantly contributed to the conduct of V.V. Zenkovsky’s philosophical systematization of traditional Christian ideas. However, he did not claim to build a new philosophical and worldview system as a religious thinker. One can agree or disagree with his solution to the problem of the transcendental epistemological subject. However, the fact that Kant’s ideas were used in the construction of a theory of cognition that meets the needs of the Orthodox worldview is a fact worthy of attention.

 

_{¹ We emphasize that the distinction proposed here is made only to achieve the specific purpose of this article and does not pretend to be something more. In contemporary philosophy, the interpretations of transcendentalism are polysemous. Most often, transcendental philosophy refers more narrowly to transcendentalism; “both terms are used, however, also as synonyms.” It is impossible not to agree that “the creator of transcendental philosophy was I. Kant.” He expressed the most important ideas about transcendental knowledge, while most of the great German thinker's followers “considered their constructions as the true completion of his philosophy...” [5. P. 94].}

_{² It should be noted that the polemic with this “main work of Kant... started in Russia at the beginning of the XIX century” [6. P. 964].}

_{³ Dietrich von Hildebrand is fiercer: “No matter how significant Kant's individual insights are, especially in the field of ethics, his interpretation of the essence of cognition as ‘creation’ and the content of cognition as ‘making’ of the human spirit deprives all philosophical cognition of its essential meaning” [7. P. 11].}

_{⁴ “I had to limit (aufheben) knowledge to make room for faith...” [14. P. 3].}

_{⁵ It should be noted that by introducing the concept of God-consciousness as an a priori element of the primary consciousness of man, V.V. Zenkovsky supplemented the proof of the “pramonotheistic” concept of the origin of religions with a new epistemological argumentation. The traditional theological justification of this concept was based on the texts of the Holy Scriptures testifying to the direct communication of the first people with the One God. The well-known philosophical and theological development of this concept by V.D. Kudryavtsev-Platonov was based on the studies of specific polytheistic religions, showing that they are not original because behind them in the depths of centuries hides the “oldest, primitive” form of monotheistic religion [15. P. 12]. Zenkovsky appealed to the stable foundations of human consciousness, determining its relationship with the Absolute — the philosopher’s “God-knowing” precedes the “knowledge of God”.}

_{⁶ Cf.: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” (John 1:9-11, NIV).}

_{⁷ Aleksey Khomyakov’s famous concept of the one Church possessing the fullness of Truth was based on this position of traditional dogmatic theology [16].}

About the authors

Aleksey A. Lagunov

North Caucasian Federal University

Author for correspondence.
Email: lag@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-8498-6449

DSc in Philosophy, Professor, Professor, Department of Philosophy and Ethnology, Humanitarian Institute

1 Pushkina St., 355017, Stavropol, Russian Federation

Svetlana Yu. Ivanova

North Caucasian Federal University

Email: isu-socf@yandex.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2375-6348

DSc in Philosophy, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy and Ethnology, Humanitarian Institute

1 Pushkina St., 355017, Stavropol, Russian Federation

References