“The Debate” between Fichte and Hegel in the Historical and Philosophical Works of I.A. Ilyin. Article Two: The Problem of the Relationships of God, World, and Man
Publication Title:
“The Debate” between Fichte and Hegel in the Historical and Philosophical Works of I.A. Ilyin. Article Two: The Problem of the Relationships of God, World, and Man
Abstract:
Based on an analysis of the second part of I.A. Ilyin's book, “Hegel's Philosophy as a Doctrine of the Concreteness of God and Man”, Ilyin concludes that Hegel fully embraced Fichte's teaching, which describes God as the deepest essence of man. However, while accepting this teaching, Hegel rejected its central conclusion: that for man, having discovered God within himself and become a divine personality, mystical action on the world is possible, defying its rational laws. It is shown that Hegel sought to provide a rational justification for God's ability to subjugate a world that had fallen away from him, but ultimately failed in this fundamental plan. As a result, the conclusion is reached that his system proved ambiguous: while verbally acknowledging the possibility of God's complete triumph in the world in the form of the Absolute State, Hegel, in his actual description of society and history, arrives at the opposite conclusion: the impossibility of the complete subordination to God of the irrational principle that dominates human empirical life. Having highlighted this central idea of Ilyin's work, the article arrives at a new result regarding the relationship between the influence of Fichte and Hegel in the philosophy of the 19th and 20th centuries. It is shown that Hegel gave birth to the latest version of rationalism, based on the metaphysical dualism of God and the irrational principle (Karl Marx, Max Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others) and recognizing man as a radically limited being, incapable of attaining divine omnipotence. A brief analysis of the philosophy of Fichte's successors (S. Kierkegaard, L.N. Tolstoy, F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson, S.L. Frank, and others) allows us to draw the opposite conclusion: they recognized the possibility for humans to attain the fullness of divine omnipotence and transform the world toward perfection.
References:
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Key words:
European rationalism, mysticism, irrational principle, higher personalities, metaphysical dualism
The DOI index:
10.17588/2076-9210.2025.4.029-043
Publication file:
