A Phenomenological Renewal of Metaphysics? Bernhard Welte vs Semyon Frank

Abstract

The topic of the article is a comparative study of the Revelation thinking in Rus­sian philosophy and German Catholic theology on the example of transformation of classical metaphysics within the framework of the use, development, anticipa­tion of Semyon Frank and Bernhard Welte, primarily, phenomenological philo­sophy of Husserl and fundamental ontology of Heidegger. The topic proposed by the authors involves a comparison of Rudolf Otto’s and Welte’s phenomenology of the sacred, an analysis of the phenomenological meaning of Thomas Aquinas’ proof of God’s existence in Welte’s case, and, finally, a comparative study of Welte’s and Frank’s projects of metaphysical renewal. The authors come to the conclusion that Frank and Welte sacrifice the nature of classical meta­physics (Neoplatonic and Thomist) for the sake of creating distinctive versions of non-classical metaphysics. Welte, rethinking metaphysics in the key of a phe­nomenological ontology of the sacred, actualizes its meaning in existential, dia­logical, personal, i.e. religious thinking. Frank attempts to synthesize strategies of cognition that are difficult to connect and critical of classical metaphysics. Namely, Descartes’ metaphysics of the subject, Bergson’s philosophy of intu­itionism, Husserl’s phenomenology, and others.