Semen L. Frank

Semen Lyudvigovich Frank ( _ru. Франк, Семён Людвигович; also Semyon Frank) (1877 – 1950) was a Jewish-born Russian religious philosopher.

Biography

Frank was born in a Jewish family. He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 1912, and became a leading Russian Orthodox thinker. He was expelled from the USSR in 1922 on the so-called "philosophers' ship". He spent the rest of life supported by the World Council of Churches and his friend Ludwig Binswanger.

Metaphysical libertarianism

Semen Frank's philosophy was based on the ontological theory knowledge. This meaning that knowledge was intuitive in whole but also abstraction in logic. Logic being limited to only part of being. [Abstract logical is only possible because of the intuition of this all-embracingunity. A logically determined object is an object subordinated to the laws of identity, contradiction and excluded mibble: it is "A" in contradistinction to all else, i.e. to "non-A". Thus the determinateness of A is only thinkable as "forming part of a complex (A + nonA)." Such a correlation can only have its ground in a whole which trascends the dterminitions "A" and "non-A", and consequently is a metalogical unity (237), i.e. a unity not subject to the law of contradiction. It belongs to the realm of the "coincidence of opposites" (coincidentia oppositorum) or, rather, "there are no oppsosites in it all, so that "the law of contradiction is not violated, but simply inapplicable ti it". History of Russian Philosophy by NO Lossky pg 267] Frank taught that existence was being but also becoming. As become one has dynamic potential. Thus ones future is indeterminate since reality is both rational and irrationality. As reality includes the unity of rationality and irrationality i.e. of necessity and freedom. [History of Russian Philosophy by NO Lossky pg 269] Frank's position being for the existence of Freewill. [ All that is new arises not out of a definite ground, which as determinists suppose, necessarily predetermines the future, not out of "A", but out of "A-X";i.e. out of the transfinite essence of reality in so far as it is partially determined by the presence of "A".]

Bibliography

*" Vekhi [Landmarks] (1907)"
*"Der Gegenstand des Wissens. Grundlagen und Grenzen der begrifflichen Erkenntnis (Knowledge. Principles and Limitations of Conceptual Perception)"
*"Die geistigen Grundlagen der Gesellschaft [The Fundamental intellectual Principles of Society] "
*"Realität und Mensch [Reality and Mankind] ."
*

Bibliography

*Russian Religious Thought by Judith Deutsch Kornblatt (Editor), Richard F. Gustafson (Editor) Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press (October 1, 1996) Language: English ISBN-10: 0299151344 and ISBN-13: 978-0299151348
*History of Russian Philosophy «История российской Философии »(1951) by N. O. Lossky Publisher: Allen & Unwin, London ASIN: B000H45QTY International Universities Press Inc NY, NY ISBN-13: 978-0823680740 sponsored by Saint Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary

References

ee also

*Philosophers' ship
*Nikolai Lossky
*Russian philosophy