“The Debate” between Fichte and Hegel in the Historical and Philosophical Works of I.A. Ilyin. Article One: The Rational and the Irrational in God
Publication Title:
“The Debate” between Fichte and Hegel in the Historical and Philosophical Works of I.A. Ilyin. Article One: The Rational and the Irrational in God
Abstract:
Using the historical and philosophical works of I.A. Ilyin as an example, this article examines an important but still completely undeveloped problem: the degrees of influence of Fichte’s and Hegel’s ideas in Russian philosophy of the 19th–early 20th centuries are compared. An analysis of Ilyin’s work “The Crisis of the Idea of the Subject in Fichte the Elder’s Science of Teaching”, published in 1912, is provided. It shows that the author initially used generally accepted assessments of the systems of German philosophers: criticizing the subjective idealism of the early Fichte, he believed that it was Hegel who created the true concept of the Absolute and its relationship with the world and man. The article traces the evolution of I.A. Ilyin’s views during his work on the first part of the book “Hegel’s Philosophy as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Man” (in 1912–1914), when he was researching the concept of speculative thinking in Hegel’s philosophy. A new original conclusion was obtained regarding Ilyin's philosophical views: already in the first part of his famous book, Ilyin synthesizes the ideas of Hegel and Fichte. Borrowing from Fichte's philosophy the idea of irrationality and unpredictable becoming as qualities of divine being, Ilyin depicts Hegel's speculative thinking as a synthesis of the rational and the irrational.
References:
(Sources)
Collected Works
1. Il'in, I.A. Krizis idei sub"ekta v Naukouchenii Fikhte Starshego. Opyt sistematicheskogo analiza [The Crisis of the Idea of the Subject in Fichte the Elder's Science of Knowledge. An Attempt at Systematic Analysis], in Evlampiev, I.I. Bozhestvennoe i chelovecheskoe v filosofii Ivana Il'ina [Divine and Human in the Philosophy of Ivan Ilyin]. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka, 1998, pp. 359–477.
2. Il'in, I.A. Filosofiya Fikhte kak religiya sovesti [Fichte's Philosophy as a Religion of Conscience], in Evlampiev, I.I. Bozhestvennoe i chelovecheskoe v filosofii Ivana Il'ina [Divine and Human in the Philosophy of Ivan Ilyin]. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka, 1998, pp. 478–501.
3. < Il'in, I.A.> Tezisy k dokladu I.A. Il'ina na temu «Uchenie Gegelya o sushchnosti spekulyativnogo myshleniya», prochitannomu v zasedanii Moskovskogo Psikhologicheskogo obshchestva 1914 g., 22 fevralya [Theses to the report of I.A. Ilyin on the topic “Hegel's teaching on the essence of speculative thinking”, read at a meeting of the Moscow Psychological Society in 1914, February 22], in Il'in, I.A. Sobranie sochineniy. Filosofiya Gegelya kak uchenie o konkretnosti Boga i cheloveka. T. I. Uchenie o Boge [Collected Works. Hegel's Philosophy as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Man. Vol. I. The Doctrine of God]. Moscow: Russkaya kniga, 2002, pp. 397–399.
4. Solov'ev, V.S. Krizis zapadnoy filosofii (protiv pozitivistov) [The Crisis of Western Philosophy (Against the Positivists)], in Solov'ev, V.S. Sobranie sochineniy v 2 t. [Collected Works in 2 vols.]. Moscow: Mysl', 1988, pp. 3–138.
Individual Works
5. Fikhte, I.G. Nastavlenie k blazhennoy zhizni [Instructions for a Blessed Life]. Moscow: Kanon+, 1997. 400 p.
6. Il'in, I.A. Filosofiya Gegelya kak uchenie o konkretnosti Boga i cheloveka [Hegel's philosophy as a doctrine of the concreteness of God and man]. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka, 1994. 544 p.
7. Vysheslavtsev, B.P. Etika Fikhte. Osnovy prava i nravstvennosti v sisteme transtsendental'noy filosofii [Fichte's Ethics. Foundations of Law and Morality in the System of Transcendental Philosophy]. Moscow: Imperatorskiy Moskovskiy universitet, 1914. 437 p.
(Monographs)
8. Evlampiev, I.I. Bozhestvennoe i chelovecheskoe v filosofii Ivana Il'ina [Divine and Human in the Philosophy of Ivan Ilyin]. Saint-Petersburg: Nauka, 1998. 296 p.
9. Evlampiev, I.I. Anri Bergson: filosofiya gryadushchey epokhi [Henri Bergson: Philosophy of the Coming Age]. Saint-Petersburg: Izdatelstvo RKhGA, 2020. 320 p.
10. Gaydenko, P.P. Paradoksy svobody v uchenii Fikhte [Paradoxes of freedom in Fichte's teaching]. Moscow: Nauka, 1990. 129 p.
11. Sharipov, A.M. Russkiy myslitel' Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in. Tvorcheskaya biografiya [Russian thinker Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin. Creative biography]. Moscow: Delovoy ritm, 2008. 304 p
Key words:
German idealism, the concept of the Absolute, the idea of irrationality, non-classical philosophy, concept of God
The DOI index:
10.17588/2076-9210.2025.3.054-072
Publication file:
