Although the concept of “pure knowledge” is one of the most interesting and singular concepts in the philosophical work of Vasily Seseman, it can only be presented after a comprehensive analysis of the philosopher’s numerous works devoted to ontological, epistemological and logical problems. Seseman believes that the main philosophical trends at the beginning of the twentieth century, namely neo-Kantianism, intuitionism and phenomenology, could not present this concept, although they did try. According to the philosopher, the main reason for the inability (...) of neo-Kantianism, intuitionism and phenomenology to start talking about pure knowledge is their inability to assert the essential difference between objective and non-objective knowledge. Sesemann pays special attention when substantiating his concept of “pure knowledge” to the difference between his approach and that of the founder of modern phenomenology. The philosopher points out that even Husserl, who concentrated attention on the specifics of inner experience, puts this specific, in the end, in dependence on the process of cognition and reflection, completely ignoring its ontological foundations. While pure knowledge, according to Seseman, is neither non-objective, nor objective knowledge, nor non-objective, nor objective being, it, in fact, is non-knowledge and non-being. It is precisely this understanding by the philosopher of this phenomenon that allows him to characterize pure knowledge as premiseless and limitless and, in general, as free from any ontological or epistemological determinations. However, on the other hand, Sesemann insists that the phenomenon of pure knowledge has the meaning of not just a regulatory idea, an infinitely distant ideal, but also a real constitutive meaning, as a principle that reveals and determines the human striving for knowledge as an interconnected and necessary process that ascends from the onto-gnoseological stage of non-objective knowledge to the epistemological, and then the logical stage of objective knowledge. (shrink)

The article considers the theory of cognition of the Russian and Soviet philosopher Vasily Seseman in its relation to the main philosophical orientations in early 20th-century: phenomenology, neokantianism, and intuitionism. Seseman’s theory of cognition is interesting today because, following the tradition of neo-Kantianism, it largely shares the principles and methods of phenomenology, poses epistemological problems that were not explicitly formulated by Edmund Husserl, and offers solutions that are relevant today. The article highlights a common thematic field combining phenomenology, neo-Kantianism, and (...) intuitionism. This field is set by the initial subject-object cognitive attitude, the desire to identify the conditions for the possibility of cognition, the recognition of the presence of a non-linguistic level of knowledge. Moving in this unified theoretical cognitive context of the early twentieth century, Seseman offers his own solution to the following problems: defining the subject of cognition, developing the method of intuition in general and in relation to the contemplation of essence, distinguishing between objective and non-objective attitudes and using this distinction to describe different types of cognition, thematizing the irrational in cognition, and understanding the judgment and its role in the final formation of cognition. Seseman believes that the cognition of reality is preceded by the perception of its objects. He diverges from the Neo-Kantians, who claim that the objects of cognition are formed only in judgment, and holds a position than Husserl, according to whom we perceive the world around us already objectively. However, unlike Husserl, Seseman does not recognize the cognitive nature of perception and argues that knowledge begins with a reflexive fixation of the object of cognition. The cognition of an individual object is embodied in a judgment in which the relation of the object to its environment is fixed and the object is defined as a unique combination of universal properties. Finally, it is shown that the solution of epistemological questions inevitably leads Seseman to ontological issues. (shrink)