Philosophical Rationality between Religion and Science: Russian Hegelianism at the End of the 19th Century

Abstract

The article analyzes the “religion and science”problem as mapped out by two representatives of Russian Hegelianism in the end of the nineteenth century - Boris Chicherin and Pavel Bakunin. The analysis of relations between science and religion allowed both thinkers to articulate the most general grounds of their philosophical systems. The article outlines a number of important common features in interpretations and conclusions of both philosophers. For both, the struggle between “scientific” and “religious” worldviews seems to be a confrontation of the two forms of false consciousness. For both, philosophical rationality is the supreme arbiter in the conflict of religion and science. They outline a project of philosophical theology according to which God reveals Himself not in religious feeling but in reason, in the depth of self-consciousness. Overall, both thinkers give a solution typical for Russian metaphysics: by opposing both scientific and religious obscurantism, they hope for philosophical mediation in the case of reestablishing of balance of divergent spheres of cultural and spiritual life.