Anton Ivanenko. Subjectivism of G. F. Jacobi in “Faith and knowledge” of G. W. F. Hegel. Vol. 1. No. 2. 2016

Publication Details

Abstract

The article is written as an introduction to the first Russian translation of the third part of “Faith and Knowledge or the Reflective Philosophy of Subjectivity in the complete range of its forms as Kantian, Jacobian, and Fichtean Philosophy” (“Glauben und Wissen oder die Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität in der Vollständigkeit ihrer Formen als Kantische, Jacobische und Fichtesche Philosophie”) by G. W. F. Hegel first published in the Critical Journal of Philosophy (Kritisches Journal der Philosophie) in 1802. It is emphasised that the philosophical work by Jacobi, although little known in Russia, was highly esteemed by his contemporaries, German idealists, were they his supporters or opponents. For Hegel, Jacobi was one of the most referred to. He called the principle of Jacobi’s philosophy “acknowledgment of the freedom of the human spirit”. For Jacobi, the fundamental opposition was that between direct and indirect in knowledge. The source of the knowledge — about both natural things and supernatural, absolute, unconditioned, and having no cause God — is the direct apperception. It is this knowledge that was considered as the first one by Jacobi, who identified it with the faith, whereas the knowledge of the mechanism of the nature, as intermediated with rational understanding, was always secondary. However, the corresponding notion of faith and reason the faith is depending on the contingent subjective feeling, whereas the role of the reason in the second kind of knowledge is denied by Jacobi in such an extent that allows to Hegel concluding that, from Jacobi’s thought, necessary consequences are moral eudemonism and atomisation of the religious and social life. The author of the present paper concludes that the philosophical ideas by Jacobi are both positively and negatively actual for the present-day Russia, with its high level of development of the culture of subjectivity.

Keywords

Hegel, Jacobi, reflexive philosophy, immediacy and mediation, faith and knowledge, reason, empirical science, culture of subjectivity.

References 

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© Anton Ivanenko, 2016