German idealism and the early philosophy of S. L. Frank

Abstract

This study argues that the early philosophy of Semyon Liudvigovich Frank (1877–1950) exhibits significant intellectual correlations with nineteenth century German Idealist philosophy. The idealists in question are Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796–1879), G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) and F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1854). It will be suggested that the critical tension of Frank’s early philosophy is precisely a tension between his Hegelian and Schellingian tendencies. The paper will first introduce Frank’s theory of a “personal absolute”, exploring its surprising parallels with the religious philosophy of I. H. Fichte. The analysis then addresses the self-dispersal of Hegel’s absolute, before finally turning to Schelling’s immediate intuition of subject-object identity.