On the history of studying the life and work of G.S. Skovoroda in Russia. G.G. Shpet

Abstract

The article is one of a series of works by the author, which considers the long and bizarre history of the study in Russia of the life and creative heritage of Grigory Savvich Skovoroda (1722–1794). The proposed article deals with the Russian thinker from Kiev Gustav Gustavovich Shpet (1879–1937). In the rich intellectual context of Russian philosophy, where almost all directions of European thought were represented, Shpet occupied a special place. A disciple of E. Husserl, he was a supporter and conductor of the ideas of phenomenological philosophy, in his own original edition, suggesting a rather critical attitude to a number of the teacher’s positions. That particular philosophical position markedly distinguished him from both the thinkers of the religious and philosophical group “Put’(Way)” and from the Russian thinkers of the neo-Kantian orientation from the circle of the international magazine “Logos”. Philosophy, in the understanding of Shpet, is pure autonomous knowledge, the subject of which is the field of the profound foundations and absolute principles. From such positions, Shpet tried to comprehend the specifics of Russian philosophy, its origins, issues, and historical deployment. With that in mind, he approached the consideration of the life and work of G.S. Skovoroda.