S.L. Frank’s Lectures “Philosophy of Religion” and “Religionsphilosophie”: Their Audience, Ideas and Context

Abstract

This publication introduces into the academic community S.L. Frank’s preparatory lecture notes and remarks on the philosophy of religion, created by philosopher during the preparation of his main work in this field – the treatise “The Unknowable. An Ontological Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion” (1939). The preface to the publication attempts to describe the supposed audience of the lectures, to establish, at least approximately, the time and place of their reading, to characterize their philosophical context, terminology and basic ideas, their place in the development of the author’s thought. Publishers date both texts from the late 1920s to early 1930s and establish their relationship to previously published notes, which are referred to in the publication as “First Philosophy”. The authors pay much attention to Frank’s terminology, drawing attention to its connection with the ideas of R. Otto (“the sacred”, misterium tremendum, etc.), R. Marett (the idea of taboo and mana as the minimum of religion) and revealing the possible origins of the concept of “unknowable” used by the philosopher, which would later become the “visiting card” of his philosophy of religion. In conceptual sense, Frank’s understanding of philosophy of religion as philosophy about religion, while striving to move away from a purely objectivist approach, and justifying philosophical theology as an important aspect of philosophy of religion, is of paramount importance. Knowledge through revelation turns out to be an important constitutive element of the religious attitude. Frank’s analysis of religious experience as an experience of mystery, revealing the religious component of existential experience and concluding the lecture with the problem of ontological proof of the existence of God is considered.