Classical German Philosophy Research Articles

Дуализм чувственной и духовной любви в немецкой философии

The article deals with the spiritual component of such a unique phenomenon as love. The aim of the work is to analyze the spiritual side of love in the German philosophy of Im. Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, A. Schopenhauer and L. Feuerbach, namely Christian and non-Christian, including mythological, sensual-spiritual images of love. and the task is to compare the understanding of the sensual-spiritual side of love in the works of these philosophers. The relevance of this study is associated with the great importance of German classical philosophy in understanding love as both a spiritual and sensual phenomenon, which seems important due to the modern exaggerated sensual understanding of the world. It is noteworthy that the aesthetic in this context was interpreted as a sensually perceived, non-utilitarian attitude of a person to reality, capable of elevating him to a state of spiritual and sensual euphoria. The object of this study is the understanding of love in the philosophy of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Feuerbach. The subject is the ratio of sensual and spiritual love in German philosophy. The article provides an analysis of the philosophical and religious views of these thinkers in the field of understanding love as an aesthetic phenomenon. The purpose of the work is to reveal specifically religious, namely Christian and non-Christian sensual-spiritual images of love. Philosophers' concepts are considered sequentially, including in a comparative section and polemics between authors.

Матрица иллюзии

The article highlights several methodological levels in the study of illusory forms of consciousness based on the heritage of German classical philosophy (Kant, Hegel) and on the materials of the works of Durkheim, Freud and Marx. The “Kantian” level involves deciphering the content of an illusory complex by isolating unconscious intellectual or social processes, the interweaving of which gives rise to the appearance of ontological connections that do not exist in real­ity. Such an understanding of the nature of illusory forms allows us to single out four regular stages of reflection of these phenomena: naive fetishism, its rational criticism, scientific ideology and critical theory. At the fourth stage, invisible connections are revealed, but the reason for their concealment by an illusory form remains unexplained (fetishized). The “post-Kantian” level implies the re­jection of the subjective understanding of the illusory form and its understanding as a natural generation of content, which requires the rejection of the classical opposition of truth and error. The Hegelian model of absolute reality, for which all knowledge and illusions are its internal, but transient characteristics, can act here as a “methodological measure”. Unlike Durkheim, for whom illusion was the eternal state of society, Freud and Marx viewed it as a transient phenomenon, focusing on the mechanisms of its formation and death, but the opposition of “society and man” characteristic of psychoanalysis did not allow revealing the “systemic secret of form”. Marx partly took this step, and Durkheim’s innova­tion consisted in revealing the reflexive nature of the connection between the fetish and its sign.

Hegel on the need for transformation historical forms of Christianity

The article is devoted to Hegel’s contribution to solving the problem of the further development of Christianity and the religious spirit in general. Although the philosopher himself did not directly state the need for such a development anywhere, the article shows that the entire content of Hegel’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion” speaks precisely about it. To demonstrate this, the author of the article analyzes, firstly, the final part of the last lecture of the named course and, secondly, traces the lecturer’s train of thought leading to this conclusion. From certain religions Hegel proceeds to the absolute religion, as he calls Christianity, interpreted by him as the result of the historical development of the religious spirit. The author of the article, following Hegel, identifies and examines the philosophical prerequisites and results of the formation of the Christian doctrine. The philosophical principle of absolute religion laid down by ancient thought, he argues, in the course of the history of Christianity turns into its philosophical outcome — into the philosophical removal of the revealed religion of representation into the concept of the religion of truth and freedom. In patristics, the immediate reasonableness of the philosophical teaching of the Neoplatonists, who summarized ancient philosophy as a whole, made itself felt. Medieval scholasticism undertook a rational exposition of the reasonable content of the most important Christian dogmas. The reason, strengthened in the scholastic school, initiated the Reformation of Catholic Christianity. The Enlightenment declared itself a resolute opponent of any, including religious, superstitions, identifying with them the reasonable content of the historical form of Christianity. Classical German philosophy flourished on the premises created by the Reformation and the Enlightenment. In Kant’s critical philosophy and Fichte’s science, she overcame the intellectual abstraction of a transcendent god. The possibility of transforming the historical form of Christianity into an absolute religion of truth and freedom from the formal possibility originally inherent in it became a real possibility due to the fact that in Hegel’s works the philosophical negation of the denial by the enlightened mind of the religious idea of God into the concept of an absolute idea was realized. The processing of the ideological content of the historical form of Christianity into the logical form of philosophy allowed Hegel to devote the third part of his lectures on the philosophy of religion to a detailed explication of the philosophical idea of absolute religion, understood as a concrete identity of the concept of the idea of God and the process of realization of this concept in the world, man and the spirit of a religious community. This allows the philosopher to discover the inner necessity of the transformation of historical Christianity. According to Hegel, only philosophy, which through rational thinking restores the true content of the form of religious representation in the concept, can save the Christian community from its progressive decomposition. The article concludes with the conclusion that Hegel’s interpretation of Christianity as an absolute religion of truth and freedom remains to this day the only detailed philosophical exposition of the true Christian faith, as it was articulated by a Lutheran of the first third of the 19th century, who understood what he believes in.

CREATIVITY AS THE MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT AND SELF-REALIZATION

The main feature of creativity is the creation of new values of material and spiritual culture. Modern scientists, when exploring creativity, use two basic approaches, one of which views creativity as an activity that creates a new product that has social value, and the second approach defines creativity as a means of self-realization of man. The self-development of man has caused the attention of the philosophers of the ancient world. The development of both physical and spiritual, intellectual abilities of man were interested in ancient philosophers, such as Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, who believed that self-development was the main purpose of human life.Creativity in antiquity is considered in the aspect of the divine, as the creation of cosmos and human-craft, art, where creativity is embodied in subject-practical activity. Thomas Aquinas, Aurelius Augustine, Erasmus Rotterdam, J. Bruno, B. Spinoza linked self-development with the need to improve human spiritual forces. The Renaissance embodies the idea that man is a master and sculptor himself, and knowledge is an act of individual creativity. For representatives of German classical philosophy G. Hegel, I. Kant, F. Schelling Self-Development is a freedom of choice. In N. Berdyaev, creativity is a higher manifestation of the spiritual essence of man. G. Skovoroda, because of the principle of “affinity”, considers the conditions for the development of human creative abilities. Undoubtedly, the center of creativity is the personality itself, without which creative activity is impossible. Personality has knowledge and skills, abilities, motivation through which it has the opportunity to create a new, unique product. And in order to reveal and expand creative opportunities, personality, it is necessary to have a developed imagination, intuition, creative perception, creative thinking and motivation for the activity in which it can self-actualize itself. Self-development, self-realization of personality, integrity of the components of its individuality is a consequence and condition of creative activity, and the development of socially significant values contributes to improving the level of social maturity of the individual. Therefore, we can talk about the interdependence of creative activity and self-realization of personality in society.

Soviet Power Plus Rationalization of the Whole Country: Creating the Kingdom of Reason

The correlation between the categories of rational and irrational in the philosophy of the Enlightenment and classical Marxism, which found its embodiment in Russia in the form of Bolshevism (Leninism), is studied. The authors identify that rationalism as a kind of "mythology of Reason" arose in the Enlightenment era and reached its apogee in the Great French Revolution and German classical philosophy. Despite the fact that in a number of works of classical Marxism heuristically valuable ideas were put forward to reformulate the problem of the essence and correlation of the categories of ration-al and irrational, rationalism prevailed in the understanding of reality and practices of the first years of the October Revolution. This found expression in the works of V.I. Lenin, in the socio-political and spiritual atmosphere of revolutionary Russia, which had far-reaching consequences for Soviet society. This phenomenon paved the way for the state-political mythology of Reason and its fetishization, the mystification of science (which, like magic, "can do anything"). These rationalist schematisms penetrated deeply into all forms of mass consciousness and gave rise to the cult of Reason, on the basis of which all spheres of life of Soviet society were supposed to be transformed.

Schelling and Schopenhauer on intuition

ABSTRACT The paper analyses Schelling and Schopenhauer’s conflicting views on intuition within the context of German classical philosophy and provides an interpretation of their differences. Moreover, the paper intends to fill a gap in the literature, by explaining how Schopenhauer grounded intuition in aesthetics and ethics on feelings and mysticism. After the Introduction, Section 2 summarizes Kant’s epistemology and its role in the subsequent discussions on intuition, and Sections 3 and 4 focus on Schelling’s intellectual intuition and Schopenhauer’s account of different kinds of intuition. Sections 5 and 6 analyse how Schopenhauer argued that feelings and mysticism explain metaphysical insights in aesthetics and ethics. Section 7 sums up the main contributions of this paper through a comparative overview of Schelling and Schopenhauer’s respective accounts of intuition.

Understanding the Question ‘What is Philosophy?’ in the Apocalyptic ‘End of Time’

While Stalinism destroyed the Bolshevik Revolution completely by replacing Marx’s idea of communism as the ‘association of free people’ with a dictatorship of the despotic Oriental version of state capitalism that masqueraded as socialism, liberalism, fascism, and authoritarianism (the three axes of modern capitalist societies) have led not only to the collapse and destruction of reason, but also to the destruction of the very basis of critical thinking itself. This essay claims that Slavoj Žižek’s idea of the Denkverbot (‘prohibition against thinking’) is an important idea that raises the importance of philosophy to not only counter the rise of global versions of authoritarianism, but also to critique late imperialism in permanent and terminal crisis. It talks of the apocalyptic idea of the ‘end of time’, a biblical theme that is now being put into practice in Ukraine with the Russian invasion and fueled by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bloc of nations which, like Russia, can only exist with the help of images of the apocalypse. What must be mentioned is that while Stalin replaced Marxism as critical theory with authoritarian dogma and while fascism completely repressed classical German philosophy to create a nationalist mytho-politics of the ‘Aryan race’, the discipline of rigorous philosophy was banished in universities by neoliberal capitalism for whom philosophy as critical thinking had to be supplemented by the principles of hyper-consumerism and the corresponding ‘complete regression of thinking’. This essay is on the very important questions ‘What is called philosophical thinking?’ and ‘How can revolutionary thinking transcend the domain of the counterrevolutionary repressed mind?’ and, most importantly, the very burning question: ‘What is philosophy?’

The innovative contribution of kantian thinking in the history of political ideas

In the material below, the author brings in a well-structured and systematized form of the strong arguments about the place and role of Classical German Philosophy in the History of Political Ideas: the economic recovery and poor integration of the states of Germany under the blow of Napoleon’s occupational wars by German thinkers, some innovations in knowledge of German philosophers, the lessons imposed by the experience of the franchise revolution to the German bourgeoisie, its fear of its own people and pushing it to compromise with the aristocracy. On the other hand, German ideology in the new space of religious tolerance between Catholics and Protestants created favorable conditions for the development of abstract-theoretical thinking, as it freed philosophy from the need to depend entirely on religious dogma, but also alienating it from the necessities of practice. In these critical conditions of the previous theories and of elaboration of a new theoretical-methodological foundation of knowledge, the new political-philosophical movement is initiated, known as the classical German philosophy, which will strongly mark the modern political thinking. The founder of this movement will be the famous philosopher and great innovator of German thought in modern times Immanuel Kant, who will make an essential turn in political thought, will strongly mark the Western modern society and will be the basis of the most important modern political and contemporary ideas.

The Spiritual and Religious Concept of Optimism in Philosophy and Pedagogy of Ivan Ilyin

Introduction. The spiritual and religious concept of I. Ilyin’s optimism brings a new vision of the problem of human and his qualities into philosophy and pedagogy and is of scientific interest as a kind of program of spiritual stamina. The purpose of the study is to trace the genesis of the phenomenon of optimism in the spiritual and religious concept of I. Ilyin against the background of the evolution of his philosophical views; determine the spiritual and moral foundations of optimism within the framework of this concept; to determine the methods of formation of spiritually faithful optimism as a personality trait. Results. The spiritual and religious concept of I. Ilyin’s optimism manifests itself in the moral stamina of the individual, in conscious humility with what cannot be changed and in overcoming those difficulties that are within our power; it is the ability to recognize one’s life purpose and faithfully follow it throughout life, overcoming difficulties. It is the difficulties that act as steps to overcome them and on the way to the moral self-improvement of the individual. In the spiritual and religious concept of I. Ilyin, optimism acts in two ways: both as a gift (something innate) and as an art (something acquired) of self-empowerment, which is actualized during the period of overcoming difficulties. The article traces the evolution of I. Ilyin’s philosophical views: from understanding optimism as a moral will (in the traditions of German classical philosophy) to understand optimism as an effective overcoming of suffering and courage in the best traditions of Russian Orthodoxy. The harder and bleaker life is, the more in demand is optimism as the art of spiritual victory over the suffering and hardships of life, which carry a powerful emotional charge of spiritual purification, hardening, strengthening and strengthening. Discussion and Conclusion. For our research, it is especially valuable that optimism as a quality of a person, having both innate and acquired strength, can be brought up: by prayer, by inner (cordial contemplation), by emotional comprehension, by consolation, by distraction with joy. No less valuable is the fact that the methods of his upbringing reveal the spiritual principles of optimism.

Взаимоотношения гражданина и государства: между должным и сущи

The article is devoted to the conceptual rethinking of the relationship between the existing and the due prevailing in the modern civilizational space in the relationship between the citizen, the institutions of civil society, on the one hand, and the state, on the other. It is noted that, unlike the moral basis of this relationship, so characteristic of ancient Greece, the beginning of a different, legislative approach to this area was laid by the Roman era. At the same time, the logic of social rationing, so characteristic of the Greek polis: freedom – duties – rights, gives way to a completely different logic: law – rights – freedom. The further dominance of this logic in the state arrangement of society was largely facilitated by the ideas that developed in modern times. They greatly contributed to the legitimization of the inalienability of so-called “natural” human rights. Unfortunately, the ideas of representatives of German classical philosophy, which revived the moral principles of state-building in society, where the dominant in all spheres of public life even today is the “domination-submission” attitude, remain not in demand. It can be traced how the further practical embodiment of natural legal ideas was reflected in such documents as the French “Declaration of Human and Civil Rights” (1789) and the American “Bill of Rights” (1789). Special attention was paid to the fact that the very concept of “citizen” underwent a change. In this case, only the one whose activities are regulated by the legal jurisdiction of a particular state is a citizen. It is noted that the modern civilizational space continues to function in conditions where the paradigm of this legal naturalism is dominant. It is demonstrated that an alternative to this can be means that have long been tested and successfully used in legislative activity. At the same time, the initial legal relationship is the ambivalent relationship between legal prohibition (obligation) and legal permission (right). For example, the impressive period of the invariable existence of the current US Constitution is largely due to the methodological principles of its formation determined in the article. The development of Kazakhstan’s own strategy in overcoming both accumulated and future problems is largely due to the legislative legitimization in the field of civil relations of the priority due over the existing one.

The police state as a symptom: German classical philosophy and modern biopolitics (Hegel vs Fichte)

The article considers a little-known topic in the history of the social thought, which has regained relevance under the pandemic - the discussion between the outstanding philosophers of the German idealism on the conceptual interpretation of police as an earlymodern form of biopolitical control. In the introductory part, the author argues that the critique of the science and practice of policing by the classics of the German idealism is paradigmatic for the present-day study of the new/old functions and powers of the sanitary-police state concerning the modern civil society’s self-reflection. In the first part, the author describes the tension between the Enlightenment philosophy and the ‘science of policing’ developed by the Cameralists of the 17th-18th centuries, and emphasizes the significant intellectual contribution of the Enlightenment thinkers, primarily Kant’s legal doctrine, to the radical innovations in the political semantics at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. Such innovations became the philosophical basis for the rule of law which questioned the discourse of the absolutist state control over its subjects’ welfare by means of police. In the second part, the article presents a brief reconstruction of Fichte’s attempts to combine the old Cameralist ideas with the new modern principles of individual freedoms at the end of the 18th-century era of the science of police - after Kant’s explicit criticism of the state care unauthorized from below. The third part of the article focuses on Hegel’s critique: in the history of the political thought he was often considered an apologist of the authoritarian Prussian state, but questioned the very possibility of the police-scientific idea of the total biopolitical control over social and economic activities of free modern-type individuals. The author reconstructs Hegel’s argumentation of the absurdity of the total sanitary-police regulation as suggested by Fichte, and insists on the relevance of these thinkers, concepts and thematic fields for reconsidering the failure of the Early-Modern biopolitical utopia under the current intersections of lockdowns and sovereignty.

The value method in literary studies (on the interpretation of N.A. Nekrasov's work in the axiological aspect)

Nekrasov's work presents a certain problem for studying from the point of view of the value system expressed in it. Despite the fact that quite a large number of works were devoted to this problem in Soviet times, it does not seem to be solved. The most productive approach to solving the question of the ethical foundations of Nekrasov's poetry seems to be the reconstruction of the understanding of the connection between aesthetics and ethics, characteristic of the socio-philosophical thought of his time. Throughout the 1830s and 1850s, the Russian liberal intelligentsia turned to German classical philosophy in search of answers to the question of the place of art in the world. From the philosophy of Kant, who sharply divided ethics and aesthetics and denied the possibility of art's direct impact on the world and society, she moved on to Schelling's "system of transcendental idealism". Not satisfied with the potential "immoralism" of this system, Russian liberal thought accepted Hegel's philosophy, on the one hand, recognizing the need for the philosopher to "accept" reality, on the other – reserving the artist the right to criticize this reality as not corresponding to his "concept". In the 1850s, the thinkers of the circle of Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov made additions based on Feuerbach's philosophy, but in fact it remains unchanged. These concepts allow us to truly understand Nekrasov's axiology, to truly approach his specific "poetry of reality", combining the pursuit of aesthetic perfection, philosophical acceptance of the world in its entirety and sharp criticism of modern society.

Topoi of Classical German Philosophy in Progress. A Thematic Issue Dedicated to Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz

Preface by the Editors to the special thematic volume dedicated to the memory of Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz.

The “Unhappy Consciousness”. A Paradigm of Reason’s Speculative Power

One way to address the question concerning the nature of reason consists in inquiring rational anxieties such as the tension between changeable and unchangeable. The yearning of the particular towards the universal, the iterative, interminable quest of the thinking is namely something which seems to be proper of many systems of classical German philosophy (but not only). In this paper I want to consider this problematic focusing on the figure of the unhappy consciousness which is perhaps the clearest expression of this tension and use it to approach Hegel’s account on speculative reason. After recalling – in the first section – the figures which precede the unhappy consciousness, I will address the question concerning the historicity and universality of the development of the consciousness, asking if it is the case that the unhappy consciousness belongs only to a particular historical age (and needs specific historical preconditions) or if it expresses a general feature of reason or of human experience. In the second and the third sections, namely, I will try to defend this second interpretation by showing that the unhappy consciousness not only is central in Hegel’s system and is re-echoed in several figures of the Phenomenology of the Spirit but it is also central in other philosophical systems. For instance, as I will show in the fourth section, Kant’s ethical thinking could be read under the light of the unhappy consciousness, whose unsatisfied yearning towards the universal is the expression and source of the speculative or metaphysical thinking.

The problem of creative imagination. Kantian and Schellingian concepts of productive imagination as an epistemological and ontological source of creativity

The object of this research is the problem of creative imagination. The subject of the research is the ontological and epistemological nature of productive imagination in the context of the philosophical searches of I. Kant and F.W.J. Schelling. The purpose of this work is to conceptualize the ontological and epistemological determinants of productive imagination on the basis of Kantian and Schellingian philosophical doctrines. The methodological foundation of this research is the original works of these thinkers of German classical philosophy, as well as the actual works of domestic and foreign specialists in the field of creative philosophy. The authors of the study in their work were guided by comparative-historical, analytical-interpretive, hermeneutic and phenomenological methods. The scientific novelty of the work consists in revealing the ontological and epistemological rootedness of productive imagination. In addition, the authors distinguish between imagination as the ability to generate original images based on the synthesis and transformation of empirical material and fantasy as a way of "virtual" realization of unsatisfied needs and escape from reality. The main conclusion of the study is the position that in the philosophical teaching of I. Kant, productive imagination is revealed in an epistemological perspective, presenting as a general cognitive ability and a condition for the transcendental synthesis of sensuality and reason, while in Schellingian philosophy productive imagination is considered from an ontological point of view, being justified as the ability of the subject to endow physical objects with ideal reality.

Взаимообусловленность сосуществования гражданского общества и правового государства (логико-методологический дискурс)

The article discusses the reasons that cast doubt on the beliefs about the impeccability of state lawmaking, carried out in logic: law — rights — freedom. Protests related to the “struggle of citizens for their rights and freedoms”, especially aggravated in connection with COVID-19, even began to pose a threat to the integrity of individual states. An example is the January events of 2022 that took place in the Republic of Kazakhstan. A retrospective analysis of ideas about the interdependence of influence that exists between civil society and the state made it possible to identify their main trends. In antiquity, the state regulation of the life of citizens of the policy was carried out in the logic: freedom — duties — rights. In the Roman Empire, the rationing of the life of the state and its citizens begins to take on a pronounced legalized format. The evolution of ideas in this format clearly demonstrates that in the future various kinds of natural law concepts are united in that any artificial social formation has no right to alienate the rights that are given to the individual by nature itself. Since that time, in the lawmaking of states, unconditional priority has been given to rights. In the teachings of representatives of German classical philosophy in the relationship between civil society and the state, a return to the importance of parity between duties and rights is still visible. Subsequently, the logic: law — rights — freedom became the defining attribute of the lawmaking of states that today are classified as legal. As a result, the functioning of civil society, directly or indirectly, came under their direct patronage

Принцип индивидуальности в философии "бессознательного" (русские отклики на новинки немецкой мысли 1880-х гг.)

The article deals with the problem of the “individual spirit” (in the context of the“improvement” of mankind) as a counterpoint to Russian-German cultural ties. It is argued that in the historical circumstances of that time (the emergence of social revolutions and national liberation movements, the successes of natural science, critical realism in art and literature), the anthropological paradigm became the logical conclusion of the era of German classical philosophy. It is proved that the principle of individuality in the philosophy of the “unconscious” should be considered an application for a syncretic (synergistic) unification of the efforts of the humanities and natural sciences in the study of man and society. It is concluded that the obvious contribution of E. von Hartmann as a philosopher (a contemporary of both Feuerbach and Nietzsche) to the renewal of aesthetics, as well as the formation and development of psychiatry, demonstrates the reliability of his empirical experience in understanding the personality and nature of creativity.

Ethical Theory in Classic German Philosophy Then and Now

The volume brings together contributions in the spirit embodied by Marek J. Siemek († 2011) and Jakub Kloc-Konkołowicz († 2021), two Warsaw philosophers truly devoted to Classical German Philosophy. They were simultaneously in a relationship between thinker and adept, and thinker and thinker. They both taught philosophy, with a strong emphasis on classic German philosophy, at Warsaw University. Under the theme “Ethical Theory in Classic German Philosophy Then and Now,” students and companions continue their discussions with both of them.

Marx the Fichtean

We ignore the history of philosophy at our peril. Engels, who typically conflates Marx and Marxism, points to the relation of Marxism to the tradition while also denying it. In his little book on Feuerbach, Engels depicts Feuerbach as leading Marx away from Hegel, away from classical German philosophy, away from philosophy and towards materialism and science. This view suggests that Marx is at best negatively related to Classical German philosophy, including Hegel. Yet Engels elsewhere suggests that Marx belongs to the classical German philosophical tradition. In the preface to Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Engels wrote: “We German socialists are proud that we trace our descent not only from Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen, but also from Kant, Fichte and Hegel” (Marx & Engels, Collected Works). In this paper I will focus on Marx’s relation to Fichte. This relation is rarely mentioned in the Marxist debate, but I will argue, it is crucial for the formulation of Marx’s position, and hence for assessing his contribution accurately. One of the results of this study will be to indicate that Marx, in reacting against Hegel, did not, as is often suggested, ‘leave’ philosophy, but in fact made a crucial philosophical contribution.

The Influence of Hegel’s Ideas on the Work of V. Shynkaruk as the Founder of Kyiv Philosophical School

The article explores the key ideas of the famous Ukrainian researcher V. Shynkaruk. It is noted that in his works the researcher paid considerable attention to the problem of cognition, activity, worldview, anthropological topics. In particular, the researcher proposed a distinction between worldview and scientific knowledge, as well as a distinction between worldview and ideology. It is emphasized that the works of V. Shynkaruk were influenced by the ideas of representatives of German classical philosophy, in particular G. Hegel. It is noted that the Ukrainian researcher paid considerable attention to the study of Hegel’s epistemology and ontology. A significant merit of Hegel, according to the Ukrainian researcher, is that he, studying the problems of cognition of being, created a dialectical logic. Hegel set out his epistemological and ontological ideas in “The Science of Logic and The Phenomenology of the Spirit”, which we will consider in more detail. It teaches the theory of cognition, logic of the history of learning the environment.Emphasis is placed on the fact that V. Shynkaruk, like I. Kant and G. Hegel, pays considerable attention to the problem of reason, seeing in it a key moral and spiritual basis on which man gets the opportunity to preserve his “I”, to organize his own existence and determine its sense. Without such an ordering of one's own existence – in legal, ontological and moral-spiritual terms – a person will not be able to fulfill a purpose unique to him in all respects. Therefore, V. Shynkaruk is considered one of the founders of human-centered philosophy, the successor of the ideas not only of the representatives of German classical philosophy – I. Kant and G. Hegel but also of the Ukrainian philosophers H. Skovoroda and P. Yurkevych.