From Enlightenment to Romanticism

How the Great Systems of Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling Emerged from the Romantic Project

While Kant is primarily associated with the Enlightenment, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel align more closely with Romanticism. However, they are not the only figures of this movement. The Romantic thinker Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767—1835) introduced at least two new concepts into philosophy: the distinction between "doing" and "acting" (Humboldt himself preferred the Greek terms "ergon" and "energeia") and the complex term "worldview." According to Humboldt, language comprises not only concepts and words— which will always remain "products"—but also the inherent capacity to act, unveiling new meanings around us. If language perpetually reveals something to us, introducing us to a game wherein we encounter the previously unknown, then a sufficiently profound engagement with this knowledge culminates in the formation of a worldview—the ability to perceive the world as a whole. We typically use the term "worldview" in a broad sense, often clarifying which specific worldview we refer to, such as scientific or religious, applying it to any generalizations of observations or knowledge. Yet, for Humboldt, it is a precise term signifying the capacity to navigate the world not solely through the data of language but also by adhering to the inherent laws of the world's structure. For instance, if an individual marvels at the stars or uses them for navigation, they do not yet possess a worldview; they are merely utilizing the data presented. However, if one understands that the stars embody astrophysics, beauty, optics, and the conditions for life, they possess a worldview that is not merely "scientific" or "aesthetic," but rather an overarching perspective. Humboldt's theory of language inspired many Russian thinkers, such as Alexander Afanasyevich Potebnya, Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky, and Vladimir Veniaminovich Bibikhin. Since Russian philosophy lacked the Renaissance experience (humanism) as a philosophically oriented philology that taught Western philosophers to be attentive to the nuances of expression—recognizing that any text can be interpreted in various ways— the rapid development of Russian philosophy necessitated an urgent enhancement of its philological aspect. Humboldt’s focus on language as a continuous production of the most general meanings, extending beyond the mere meaning of words, was therefore very apt.

Romanticism was the first to recognize the possibility of a universal philosophy, not merely as a reference to the wisdom of different nations and religions, as seen in the Renaissance, but as the sole means to articulate all the problems of contemporary philosophy. The essence of Romanticism lies in its perception of philosophy, not just as the task of the philosopher to formulate a true statement, but as the endeavor to perceive philosophy itself and the philosopher’s position as something constructed, from which truth can be derived. A prime example of this is Johann Gottlieb Fichte's (1762—1814) philosophical system, which derived the properties of being from the primordial act of self-consciousness, equating the self with the "I." In doing so, he demonstrated that consciousness is not merely an instrument of knowledge, but a constructed entity that enables an explanation of the structure of the world. Fichte argued that the term "philosophy" is foreign and connotes amateurishness, suggesting it should be replaced with the German term "Wissenschaftslehre" (theory of science). He claimed that the honor of discovering the theory of science belonged not to an individual but to a nation as a sovereign entity, independent of others, which could thus "invest" its language into philosophy as one would invest in a bank.

Fichte reasoned that after Kant's critique, it was no longer tenable to speak of substances independent of us; if they exist, they are unknowable—“things in themselves.” However, Kant did not explain how we come to know things despite the limitations of reason, when we could just as easily remain ignorant. For Kant, knowledge results from perception on one hand and the functions of reason on the other. Yet, under this framework, we can only discuss the unity of the knowable, not the unity of knowledge as such, while we have already conceded that the knowable is unknowable. Therefore, it is best to assume that we come to know because our "I" is both the object and the form, as well as the condition of knowledge, and by understanding this "I," we comprehend how the world is structured, which evokes corresponding feelings and thoughts within it. The Italian Romantic poet Giacomo Leopardi asserted that truth would destroy humanity if it were revealed; they could not withstand its blinding flash. Yet, Fichte believed he had already discovered the truth, and since he did not perish in the process, he could confidently affirm his doctrine.

Romanticism also gave rise to its sciences and pseudo-sciences. For instance, Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann, protesting against both surgery as a form of violence and against coffee and other colonial goods as detrimental to health, created homeopathy in 1812. Initially, he did not intend to establish an entire pseudo-science still sought after today; he merely aimed to prevent skin rashes by affecting the nerves with microdoses of poison. He reasoned that even an imperceptible electric discharge could set the nerves in motion and deform the skin, so surely a poison—being a living substance—would do so as well, continuously present in the body and smoothing the skin.

Another Romantic pseudo-science was the Romantic school of law, established by Friedrich Karl von Savigny (1779—1861), who became rector of the University of Berlin in 1812. Savigny argued that law could not be described solely through conflict, such as the conflict between the possible and the obligatory or between procedure and norm. Instead, it should be demonstrated that law evolves historically because it seeks to resolve all conflicts. For example, the old understanding of justice equated it with equal access to some good, while Savigny contended that justice entails a relation to a matter that serves both public and private interests. According to Savigny, people's interests function similarly to poison in homeopathy; they contradict one another, but if one consistently argues that interests are beneficial in small doses, all relationships among individuals will become healthy. This can only be demonstrated by a nation, drawing from its unique legal tradition. For one people, law might consist of making all decisions collectively after deliberation, while for another, it may involve anticipating possible developments. The criterion of law becomes the "ideal," which unfolds differently in the lives of different peoples. This historical school of law influenced some Russian thinkers, especially of the Slavophile inclination, who began to assert that law grows from the mysterious depths of national life.

While the Renaissance established a common humanitarian culture by differentiating poetic genres from prose genres, Romanticism distinguished between the natural sciences and the humanities, which had previously been unified under the single designation of "philosophy" in university practice. The principle of separating natural scientific knowledge from humanitarian knowledge is straightforward: natural scientific knowledge is based on generic thinking and implementation, whereas humanitarian knowledge relies on ideational and imaginative thinking, as well as imitation.

German classical idealism produced one significant outcome for culture: a childlike subjectivity, which asserts the adventure of the mind within a well-established system of ready-made solutions. Through its indirect influence, numerous works initially intended solely for adult citizens, such as Cervantes' "Don Quixote," Swift's "Gulliver's Travels," and the romantically fervent "Puss in Boots" by Perrault, became part of children's literature. These texts are united not only by their adventurous plots but also by the adventurous conception of how one can discuss politics and history not merely as politics and history, but in a manner that creates a new hero as a new subject within a well-established literary system. Idealism, critically reconstructing human subjectivity to preserve the right to speak of substances, accomplished, on new critical grounds, what the creators of memorable literary characters had done.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770—1831) sought to advance beyond Kant and Fichte, grounding our very thinking as part of the action of the world's intellectual principle in his work "The Phenomenology of Spirit." His book resembles a novel more than anything else, with a comprehensible principle at work rather than blind fate. The crux of Hegel's intention is that philosophy must learn to comprehend nature itself, rather than ceding its role to private sciences.

According to Hegel, the world spirit is neither an object nor a subject of knowledge; by knowing the world, spirit generates the content of particular sciences while simultaneously existing as the foundational substance of our consciousness. Consequently, the more conscious our actions become, the sooner the spirit triumphs in nature. This notion was later adopted by many of Hegel's followers; for example, Karl Marx interpreted it as the necessity of "class consciousness," which would ensure the triumph of social justice.

Hegel posited that science, on its own, cannot refute false knowledge, as false knowledge will hastily declare science itself to be false. Therefore, only spirit—pure contemplation of itself by intellect—can justify the truth of science in comparison to the falseness of other forms of knowledge. Externally, such justification manifests as dialectics (literally, "the art of reasoning"), indicating the contradictions inherent in all familiar knowledge and the necessity to ascend to more general knowledge. Again, Karl Marx declared dialectics to be a method for uncovering truth amid the diversity and ambiguity of historical development; however, for Hegel, dialectics is not merely a method but a necessary moment in the spirit's self-comprehension and the negation of human delusions.

The Spirit, according to Hegel, is not directly accessible to our consciousness; rather, it becomes available as we transition from one form of consciousness to another—say, from prehistoric consciousness to historical consciousness—when we suddenly realize that we exist within history. Likewise, mathematical discoveries or breakthroughs in art can facilitate a shift to the next level of consciousness.

In the moment of this transition, we also become subjects of knowledge; however, unlike the Spirit as the absolute subject, we do not grasp the truth of all modes of knowledge, but only certain modes. For example, we come to understand how to obtain true results through mathematical or logical operations. This thesis was contested by Schelling, who distinguished between "potencies" and "acts" in nature, or, in other words, "possibilities" and "actions." He argued that as we move from potentials in nature to actions, we engage in knowledge of all kinds, as we feel the very life of nature. In art, conversely, we may transition from actions to possibilities.

Hegel maintained that it is insufficient merely to sense the singular life of nature; one must grasp the absolute idea, which is to say, the vision that our entire reality is produced by the knowledge of the Spirit. As the Spirit knows itself, it also recognizes this act of knowing, resulting in various forms of being. For instance, stones know almost nothing, while plants at least recognize sunlight and nourishment from the earth. Humans can come to know nearly everything, and the absolute idea represents the consciousness of humanity’s capacity to know all.

Thus, according to Hegel, the absolute idea exists as a pure form of knowledge. It is here that the philosopher, rather than the scientist, is required, for only the philosopher can derive from the absolute idea the absolute content. A geologist, for instance, may identify the type of rock by examining it. However, a philosopher, looking at the same stone, comprehends how life and movement are interconnected, or how being and space relate. For Hegel, philosophy is the knowledge of knowledge and knowledge of reality in their unity. Here, Hegel anticipates Husserl, for whom the orientation of consciousness precedes both philosophical and scientific understanding as well as the experience of their distinction.

Hegel himself asserted that there exist immediate orientations of consciousness. For example, we distinguish between the form of knowledge (certainty) and the content of knowledge (truth), although in practice this distinction may prove unnecessary; theoretically, it always exists, irrespective of how we perceive the underlying phenomena and relate to them—therefore, this distinction belongs to the immediate experience of consciousness. Furthermore, we recognize that the object of thought is always complete (even if we are contemplating, say, an unfinished house, we still conceive of a certain stage of construction), while our thought is never complete; we perpetually wish to know what comes next and what might occur thereafter. From this, we understand that the absolute Spirit is absolute and abstract in that it can detach itself from "what comes next" and assert what is occurring right now. Finally, we know that thought belongs only to the subject; the object cannot think; otherwise, it too would become a subject, if only in the realm of its own thinking. Action, likewise, cannot think; it merely delineates the boundaries of the thinking subject. Hence, when we kick a ball, we recognize it as an object rather than a subject. We do not entertain the notion that perhaps the ball is contemplating us, and surely not in a flattering manner. This is solely because we are the ones kicking the ball; if, by chance, the ball were to knock us down, we would not claim that the ball kicked us; we would say we collided with the ball. The distinction between the living and the non-living, the rational and the irrational, turns out to be quite practical, while the specialized sciences establish further distinctions, such as when and how something is alive (biology) or when and how reason acts (psychology). In later Neo-Hegelian discourse, it is commonly posited that these specialized sciences also belong to the absolute idea, since we cannot conceive of any behavior of things beyond what these sciences have established. However, for Hegel, determining the behavior of a thing does not equate to establishing its intelligibility and mentality.

True knowledge, realized by the Spirit, transcends these orientations of consciousness, which pertain only to phenomena and not to essence. Hegel contended that Kant's error lay in his failure to transcend these orientations, preventing him from grasping the "thing-in-itself." In truth, Hegel posits, there are no things-in-themselves; rather, there are "moments-in-themselves," those moments of knowledge when consciousness comprehends that the thing is not consciousness—it is not itself. Yet even this moment is not solitary, for consciousness understands that it knows the thing in some manner, leading to what is termed the "moment-for-itself." The synthesis of moments-in-themselves and moments-for-themselves is what Hegel called the holistic form of consciousness, or gestalt in German. The German language distinguishes between two terms for form: "Bild" and "Gestalt." The former signifies a visual image, which we can only assess as "similar or not," while the latter refers to a form devoid of visuality, which we can also evaluate solely in terms of its existence or nonexistence.

Thus, phenomenology becomes the science of how this synthesis evolves into holistic knowledge. The Phenomenology of Spirit investigates how the Spirit, as the absolute subject, produces holistic knowledge. Here, Hegel begins to articulate that mere knowledge of things is insufficient; even the distinction between subjects, objects, actions, and circumstances holds significance only when these things are directed outward, thereby generating their own meaning. Conversely, the Spirit creates things as they are, and the Phenomenology of Spirit elucidates how things and, indeed, truth can come into being when things are not directed outward toward the continuation of their existence, actions, or perceptions, but exist as what Hegel termed "rational reality." This phrase puzzled some of Hegel's Russian followers: does he imply that everything happening in reality is rational? After all, we observe far too much irrationality around us. Yet Hegel speaks of the reality of that state wherein things behave rationally; only then can we say that things act as things, not as mere transmitters of foreign moods.

Hegel, drawing inspiration from both ancient philosophy, such as Heraclitus of Ephesus, and medieval thought, like the mystic of the "Age of the Holy Spirit," Joachim of Fiore, as well as the Islamic poet Rumi, held a distinctive view of reflection—not as an attentiveness to the conditions of one's knowledge but as the revelation of a new truth, even when it may seem as though one is merely gazing at oneself rather than at the truth. During reflection (what is now typically referred to in psychology as "introspection"), a transformation of the "moments of consciousness" occurs; we somehow come to understand what transpires differently than before, even if we do not ponder the process at hand, selecting alternative words and concepts. This indicates that the absolute idea is then acting through us.

Dialectics are constructed as the "negation of negation." For instance, we initially assert that non-being is unknowable, since there is nothing to know. Kant would have found solace in this. Yet objections arise; the antithesis is posited that if we can articulate the non-being, at least to say that it does not exist, we are already cognizing it. However, we cannot rest content with such a non-cognitive cognition. Here emerges the synthesis: we come to know non-being precisely because we ourselves can be non-existent, and we save ourselves from non-being not simply by "thinking," as Descartes claimed, but by existing in such a way that we, even without thought, can preserve ourselves from non-being. This proves that the absolute Spirit sustains us above this abyss, simply because it has, if only for the briefest moment, contemplated our existence.

Thus, our compatriot V. V. Bibikhin articulates Hegel's conclusions:

"Man experiences a duality. On one hand, there is the bold independence of the Spirit; on the other, a sense of an insurmountable divine superpower, hence dependency. The Spirit fractures into the secular realm, where it holds power and rights, and into the religious sphere, where feeling and guilt reside. Guilt for what? Indeterminate. Guilt towards the unknown, for reasons unknown. This duality, this contradiction, is acknowledged by the Spirit. Unable to explain why, it becomes convinced of the necessity of faith, religion, and the church. In examining all things under the sun, science finds no God in nature or in the cosmos; it asserts His nonexistence and would be prepared to declare His insignificance—yet on the side of religion exists the soul, inaccessible to science. In failing to comprehend the soul, science grasps its magnitude. It constructs its causal chains, feeling at home in the realm of knowledge, moving freely amidst countless connections and circumstances; yet since the system it builds does not encompass God, this scientific system of knowledge is devoid of absolute significance."

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775—1854) initially conceived philosophy as the science of two parallel and interconnected processes: how God becomes a complete being and how our thought becomes fully divine. However, he gradually found himself at an impasse: if God, in a certain sense, is the result or limit of our thought, then as long as philosophy has not made us gods, it wanders, presenting real processes of self-consciousness as ideal ones. We find ourselves not in the grace of God, but merely in the thought of God; and even if we contemplate the incarnation of God, in Jesus, we still only think the thought of the incarnation. As idealists, we maintain this abstract conception, but if we become materialists, we might intuitively accept the incarnation, yet cease to think, which means that the subject of intuition disappears.

Consequently, Schelling resolves to study these processes and to replace "negative epistemology," which understands God as the horizon of our constantly self-denying judgments, with "positive epistemology," which posits God as the source and origin of freedom. Since freedom is rooted solely in God, proving God's existence becomes impossible; such a proof would imply that one knows the nature of freedom, a nature we must still discover by liberating ourselves and proving to ourselves when our actions and thoughts are truly free. The attainment of freedom thus emerges as a problem of practical dialectics, yet no dialectic can apprehend the original source. Schelling also disagrees with Kant, who asserts that God is the object of practical reason, as, again, freedom precedes any practical decisions.

Schelling draws inspiration from the teachings of the mystic Jacob Boehme (1575—1624), who believed that behind God lies a certain "abyss," a wholly free principle that can explain why the persons of the Trinity, being free, do not diverge from one another but maintain a unified nature, despite the possibility that the freedom of God's self-consciousness might imply a substitution of His own nature.

Thus, Schelling concludes that positive epistemology is only possible based on Revelation, which acts as a switch from the possible to the actual and cannot be reduced to the letter of the Bible or even to the aggregate of sacred texts from all nations. Turning to Boehme's "abyss," Schelling proclaims that Revelation is the sole means of narrating what existed before history: not only about the Trinity or the "eternal council" (the joint decision of the persons of the Trinity to create the world), but also about why the world was created freely. The world accessible to us through experience, according to Schelling, is not so much a creation of God (who merely permitted it, in accordance with Revelation as a code regulating such permission) as it is a product of human experience. Schelling interprets the Fall not as Kant does, as the autonomy of the will creating its own reality within political conflict, but as the autonomy of experience crafting its own world. Therefore, unlike Kant, Schelling did not believe in the possibility of creating a conflict-free politics; for him, political activity always turns out to be an attempt to affirm sinful will, and only art, as a mirror of the will (a view also held by Schopenhauer), can temper political morals.

However, a true, good, and peaceful politics, according to Schelling, is entirely possible and even desirable. Yet, it cannot be based on Revelation, but only on mythology. Mythology is the work of human consciousness, through which consciousness asserts the autonomy of its own content, balancing that very autonomy of will. A transformation occurs, leading humanity back to God, and this takes place in two stages. The first stage is the incarnation of God, which abolishes the autonomy of contents, revealing how any content can become part of revelation, part of the words, deeds, and miracles of Jesus. In Christianity, mythology becomes practice and thereby is dissolved. The second stage will be the triumph of Schelling's philosophy itself, when Christianity will no longer be reduced to merely one natural religion regulating relationships dictated by human nature. It is noteworthy that Hegel was no less ambitious and viewed his philosophy as the culmination of history, as the content of his philosophy would not allow any event to be seen as autonomous and claiming its own illusory eternity, distinct from the eternity of the autonomous idea.

Schelling's reflections on the advent of a new era of spiritual philosophical religion and on the God-man as the fulfillment of the intellectual content of any religion—requiring further action of the Spirit as it fulfills the initial divine freedom—profoundly influenced the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov and, through him, the entire culture of the Russian Silver Age. In this context, the pivotal idea of the divine wisdom as eternal femininity emerged through a peculiar synthesis of Schelling and Feuerbach, the materialist who taught that the inclination to philosophize is also a sexual inclination, meaning that the male philosopher must idealize the female.