On the legal thought of B. N. Chicherin and P. I. Novgorodtsev

Abstract

In this paper, the differences in the philosophical and theoretical constructions between Boris Chicherin, leader of Russian liberalism in the mid-19^th century, and Pavel Novgorodtsev, who played the similar role at the beginning of the 20th century are shown. It is asserted that these differences determined the diversity in their attitude to the Russian religious philosophy and mysticism. Both Russian thinkers, Chicherin and Novgorodtsev, tried to combine in their theories some philosophical ideas of Kant and Hegel, but they understood the concept of philosophy differently. For Chicherin, philosophy was a means of scientific knowledge. Chicherin believed there were only two such means: experience and speculation, – there was no other option for him. Mysticism, which he criticized, is the German mysticism (German mystics claimed that there existed another means of philosophical cognition –“intellectual intuition”), and the doctrine of Vladimir Solo­vyov. For Novgorodtsev philosophy was not a means of knowing the world, but a process of self-affirmation, therefore it implied ethical rather than cognitive activities. It is in “I” where we can find the source of absolute truth and justice, that is, the absolute. This underlining “I” was characteristic of Western philosophy in the second half of the 19^th century, which can be called “I-philosophy”. The peculiarities of Chicherin’s philosophical views mentioned above became one of the reasons of his isolation in the Russian philosophical community, while Novgorodtsev managed to fit his ideas into the mainstream of Russian religious philosophy.