D. V. Venevitinov: Reception of Schelling’s Ideas in the Context of Non-academic Philosophizing

Abstract

D. V. Venevitinov, a representative of philosophical romanticism, is considered in the context of concretization of methodological approaches to the problem of the genesis of Russian philosophy, and, in particular, in correlating the nonacademic philosophical discourse of love of wisdom with Schellingism. Venevitinov was one of the fi rst Russian thinkers to begin to form a national doctrine, applying the Schelling concept of a nation as self-knowledge of a unique idea embodied in each people in its special character, where self-knowledge is presented as a process of philosophical enlightenment. Venevitinov structures the philosophy of history, which has existed until now in the form of episodic historiosophy, in relation to the supporting and potentially loaded concept of his concept — originality. Venevitinov comes closer to understanding philosophy as a methodology of scientific knowledge. A characteristic feature of Venevitinov’s research method was epistemological utopianism: the enlightenment reliance on reason was expressed in his interpretation of self-knowledge as a strictly scientific process, ideally striving for “true knowledge,” which, in its instrumental perfection, acquires socio-cultural potential. Such a position, in the conditions of weak historical consciousness, eliminated the ideological factor, whichwould become predominant among the Slavophiles.