Prof.dr hab V.A. Konev
Samara State Universety, Russia
E-mail:
[email protected]
S.L. Frank's Anthropological Project
(in " Religion and Culture in Russian Thought. Philosophical, Theological
and Literary Perspectives". Edited by Teresa Obolevitch and Pavel Rojek.
The Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, Krakow, 2014. P.35-41)
S.L. Frank (1877-1950), one of the most profound representatives of the
philosophy of All-Unity in Russian philosophy, was a very versatile
thinker. Yet it is symbolic that his whole creative activity is framed by
the two books devoted to one subject – man. In 1916 Frank wrote Man's Soul.
An Introductory Essay In Philosophical Psychology (published in 1917) and
in January 1949, a year before his death, he finished working on Reality
and Man (published in 1956).
In the book published in 1916 S.L. Frank pointed out the absence of a
certain acknowledged study which dealt with "the essence of man's soul and
the role of man and his spiritual life in the system of existent
things,"[1] "the soul's relation to other forms of being."[2] According to
Frank, this gap could be filled by philosophical psychology which he
understood as philosophical anthropology. In his views he was a step ahead
of M. Scheler, whose ideas published in Man's Position in the Cosmos (1928)
won Scheler recognition as the originator of philosophical anthropology.
Frank claimed that modern European philosophy which was developing mainly
along the lines of epistemology, had lost the sight of a living man. To
confront this tendency the Russian thinker contended that "to live is more
important than to perceive". Frank saw his goal in designing a
philosophical theory of man's psychic life which, firstly, could illuminate
the foundations of the absolute integrity of man and, secondly, could
reveal man's psychic life as a special form of being. In the latter part
Frank's idea was close to Heidegger's philosophy of existentialism.
The two tasks emphasized by Frank were interrelated.
According to Kant, the soul as the ultimate unity of all the subjective
ideas cannot be a part of any experience, and consequently, can only be
understood as an idea of the reason. For a religious philosopher like S.L.
Frank, a certain way to perceive the soul through experience is through
religious conscience, which opens "the soul alive". However, another kind
of experience is essential if the goal is to study the soul in its
integrity, not limiting oneself to separate "psychic phenomena" explored by
experimental psychology. "Our aim is not to preach, cherish faith or create
art," S.L. Frank remarks, "but to cognize; and we want to cognize not the
exposure of the soul in the external world of objects, not its sensual and
material shell, but its core, the essence of psychic life as it exists".[3]
S.L. Frank considers the perception of life opening to a person during self-
cognition to be the kind of experience in which the soul as the essence of
psychic life is disclosed for cognition. The soul, the philosopher
contends, is neither a substance, nor an immortal entity, but "what all the
people call themselves".[4] This revelation of self to oneself is the
"living knowledge" which comes from the depth of life itself and which,
according to S.L. Frank, encompasses our whole inner core.[5]
The theory of "living knowledge" produced by S.L. Frank develops the
methodology of phenomenological analysis of human life in line with Russian
philosophical tradition (presented by Aleksey Khomyakov's "zhivoznanie"[6]
and Vladimir Solovyev's "tselnoye znanie".[7]) Yet in contrast both to
Husserl and Heidegger, S.L. Frank's phenomenology appeals to man's living
inner experience and aims to preserve ingenuousness of perception while
describing the phenomena of psychic life. As a result, man in S.L. Frank's
philosophy appears not as a subject (as cogito, the carrier of all
cogitationis, or as Dasein, differentiating things and being), but as a
special dimension of being, different from the measurement of objects in
time and space, as "something that he is for himself"[8].
Something "that a person is for himself" is disclosed when any
perception of a person is taken not as a perception of something
(phenomenological reduction), but as a perception in itself, in other
words, as life or being. This is the discovery point of a special world –
the world of psychic life, the substratum of the conscience, "the living,
real point of being which differs from the rest of the world since it is
the point where being exists imminently for itself and because of this is
truly unconditional"[9].
Psychic life is the central subject of analysis in Man's Soul. Although
Frank's focus refers his research to the realm of psychology, the Russian
philosopher defines his perspective on psychic life as philosophical
psychology. His attention is focused on the integrity of psychic life which
determines the integrity of a man as a person. This idea connects Frank's
philosophical psychology with problems of anthropology.
As S.L. Frank remarks, we often want to know what this person is like.
Then suddenly a word or a gesture discloses the essence of his soul, and we
predict his behavior and his attitudes ever since. This integrity of a
person, the conscience of his Self which is "suddenly" disclosed, is given,
according to S.L. Frank, as a primordial unity. One "does not need an
overview of the whole array of its temporal manifestations"[10] and it is
rooted in the nature (core) of a person's psychic life. Psychic life is
the real force which carries self-assertion of the real Self, the reality
of the person. The basic feature of psychic life is its immeasurability. As
Frank contends, it is characterized with oneness, totality, formless unity.
It is pure potency, the material which can acquire any shape of conscious
life. It has limit neither in time, nor in space. Consequently, one cannot
tell about a man as a person "where he is, or when or how long the
processes in his life are taking, because he is nowhere and everywhere,
always and never – in a sense that these parameters cannot be applied to
him"[11].
Psychic life as a pure potency is an opportunity for a personality's
integrity, but it is not yet its actuality. The latter is established when
the element of psychic life is influenced by "a certain supreme and
authentic center. This center is both the nucleus point and the magnetic
force shaping the empirical core of psychic life which is defined as our
'I'"[12]. It is this force that gives a chance to understand what the soul
is. According to S.L. Frank "The soul is not some special thing or
substance, neither is it an actual separate center of forces, affecting the
element of psychic life from the outside: it is the goal-oriented shaping
energy of psychic life itself, understood as unity"[13].
S.L.Frank constructs a harmonious speculative model of a person's soul,
which comprises the common phenomena of people's spiritual life. It
includes, for example, the battle of passions as a part of identity
formation, when "noble passions" shape the area of patrimonial life
(marital love, patriotism). It also includes the two centers of psychic
unity – the sensual/emotional center (the power of flesh) and the
volitional/supersensory center (duty, choice). Finally, it includes the
supreme level – the directing ideal/reason principle or the spiritual
principle (moral order, "I want," "I can"). Frank's exploration of
immediate ordinary experience paints a truthful and appealing picture of
the soul, however, it seems to have limited theoretical value. The
philosopher's use of introspection in descriptions of psychic life created
conditions for perception of oneself, but did not provide methodological
tools for organizing the process of introspection as well as for the
analysis of the introspection data. Yet, an important theoretical
contribution of Frank's philosophical psychology was the characterization
of psychic life as a dynamic, goal-oriented formation. The dynamic
character of psychic life, its variability, orientation and focus on the
future is its fundamental ontological characteristic. It is this focus on
the future, "the making of the future itself" which is, according to
S.L.Frank, the entelechy of psychic life, its inner orientation on the goal
which generates the unity of man's soul. It is symptomatic that Frank's
theory about the element of psychic life and its manifestations described
in his book in 1917, appeared simultaneously with literary works by Marcel
Proust and James Joyce, both of whom seemed to plunge in the similar kind
of reality in their In Search of Lost Time and Ulysses respectively.
S.L. Frank worked with anthropological themes even closer in his later
book Reality and man; an essay in the metaphysics of human nature. While in
Man's Soul the problems of anthropology were explored from a psychological
perspective, in the later work of 1949 they were discussed from a
standpoint of metaphysics of human being. The former book by Frank was
mainly concerned with the problem of man's integrity as integrity of his
psychic and spiritual life, while the latter was about the problem of man's
journey (exposure) to one's genuine being.
S.L. Frank distinguishes the notions of actuality and reality.
Actuality comprises both external and internal world, given to people
empirically, while "reality is something that opens for us the notion of
being itself in its primary meaning," "it is the ideal being…, where the
thought and the thinkable coincide," it is the extratemporal unity of the
living reality's actual totality.[14] Under these conditions man becomes a
part of two worlds. Through the life of body and the life of soul (which is
determined by bodily processes and is on the whole subjected to natural
mechanisms) he belongs to the world of "objective actuality." Through his
selfbeing disclosing to itself as a reality of itself "man belongs to yet a
whole different world – the world of reality"[15]. Man can only achieve the
totality of his being through his simultaneous belonging to these two
heterogeneous worlds.
However, it is not this duality which determines man's core. His core
is connected with his ability to judge and to evaluate. The presence of
this ability means that man capable of distancing himself from everything
what actually exists. "Man's core, Frank suggests, is concerned with the
idea that in every moment of his conscious being he transcends the
boundaries of everything actually present, including his own being in its
actual presence. Without this transcendence one cannot achieve self-
consciousness, the act which holds the mystery of man's personality"[16].
The genuine reality of I, Frank argues, is beyond any doubt. It is
ascertained by the living knowledge, genuine observation. Yet this life of
mine which opens to me from the inside is not the one and only reality,
because the basic reality (my I) is naturally characterized by the
awareness of its boundaries as well as by the urge to transcend one's own
boundary. "To realize or to have boundaries and to transcend them means
here one and the same thing," the Russian philosopher contends.[17] The
distinction of a boundary as an essential feature of man's being is a
fundamental point of Frank's anthropological theory. This notion discloses
the metrical character of the space of man's being. "No" and dissection
(difference) become meaningful and relevant owing to the presence of a
boundary in this space. Frank claims that when we say the horse is not a
ruminant animal and the whale is not a fish, these negative definitions are
not concerned with the internal positive content of the real objects.
However, negation, separation, denial become a meaningful characteristic
for people and their world of cultural phenomena. Cultural values exist and
acquire their meaning through contrast; apophatic theology establishes the
cognitive value of negation. A man as an individual asserts himself in the
apophatic domain through negation, denial, restraint.[18] Difference, or as
Frank puts it, "dissection" embraces negation as its assertion, and
difference is an essential feature of man's world.
Boundary space generates meaningful being and transcendence as a mode
of man's existence in the world of meaningful being. In this space "every
part is revealed as a part of the totality it is encompassed by, thus,
everything which is located outside of it constitutes it as much as
everything that actually belongs to it"[19]. The idea of boundary is also
important in reference to time. The instant of the present is the boundary
between the past and the future as well as their inseparable link exposing
man to the boundless overarching totality of time. Thus, transcending not
only refers to dissection from the Other, but also – and to a greater
extent – it refers to involvement with it. This idea is especially
important for S.L. Frank as a religious philosopher. According to Frank, if
a person thinks about himself as an individual, a creature standing out
from the facts of objective reality and surpassing them in depth and
significance, it means "that he has a homeland in a different sphere of
being and that he is a kind of a representative in this different and quite
real world of the start of being".[20] This constitutes the only, but in
fact, quite appropriate "evidence of God's being." "To get a valid
perception of God it is enough to fully perceive myself in my individuality
as a genuine reality,"[21] the philosopher claims.
This depth and individuality, this genuine reality opens to man during
the experience of creative inspiration, when superhuman creative impulse is
mixed with human creative effort and is merged with it (this idea,
expressed by Frank, is in line with the major claim of the whole Russian
religious philosophy tradition of XIX-XX centuries).[22] Every human soul,
every person is given the ability to feel vaguely, but unmistakably, this
creative effort inside of himself. Developing this impulse, a person
asserts his individuality. The journey to oneself as a journey to the
genuine reality is, according to Frank, the realization of man's
ontological mission.
Thus, St.Augustine's transcende te ipsum is expressed in a new way –
transcende ad se ipsum.
Works Cited
1. Франк С.Л., Душа человека. Опыт введения в философскую психологию, in
idem, Предмет знания. Душа человека. Санкт-Петербург 1995 p. 419-633.
2. Франк С.Л., Реальность и человек. Санкт-Петербург 1997.
3. Koniew W.A., Współrzȩdne Dantego (metoda określania człowieka w
istnieniu), in "ΣΟΦΙΑ", Pismo Filozofów Krajów Słowianskich, №
11/2011, р.53-73.
-----------------------
[1] С.Л.Франк, Душа человека. Опыт введения в философскую психологию, in
idem, Предмет знания. Душа человека. Санкт-Петербург 1995 p. 421.
(Translation here and further on mine – V.K.)
[2] Ibidem, p. 445.
[3] Ibidem, р. 429.
[4] Ibidem, р. 434.
[5] С.Л.Франк, Реальность и человек. Санкт-Петербург 1997 р.28.
[6] Livingknowledge.
[7] Integral knowledge.
[8] С.Л.Франк, Душа человека, р. 466.
[9] Ibidem, р. 493. (Indented by Frank – V.К.)
[10] ࠀ࠰࠷ࡒࡓࡔࡕࡖࡘ࡞ࡠࡰࡷࡸࡹॖॗक़ॢ८ॲॳজঠসূ্ 죗좽좽좽좽좽ꚵꚚ肏聱聢卢扱qᔜ㩨갔ᘀIbidem,
р. 433.
[11] Ibidem, р. 466. (Indented by Frank – V.K.)
[12] Ibidem, р. 533.
[13] Ibidem, р. 541.
[14] С.Л.Франк, Реальность и человек, р. 68, 67.
[15] Ibidem, р.р. 30, 201.
[16] Ibidem, р. 204. (Indented by Frank – V.K.)
[17] Ibidem, р. 53. (Indented by Frank – V.K.)
[18] For more information about the assertion of individuality in the
domain of negation or in the space of Dante's coordinates, see: W.A.Koniew,
"Współrzȩdne Dantego (metoda określania człowieka w istnieniu.)", "ΣΟΦΙΑ",
Pismo Filozofów Krajów Słowianskich, № 11/2011, pр.53-73.
[19] С.Л.Франк, Реальность и человек, р. 54. (Indented by Frank – V.K.)
[20] Ibidem, р. 193. (Indented by Frank – V.K.)
[21] Ibidem, р. 196.
[22] Ibidem, р. 280.
