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THE PHILOSOPHY OF VASILY SESEMANN:
NEO-KANTIANISM, INTUITIVISM AND PHENOMENOLOGY

Abstract
Vasily Sesemann’s philosophy is still insufficiently investigated, especially its relationship with phenomenology. Modern researchers often classify Sesemann’s philosophy as neo-Kantianism, although they also admit its relationship with phenomenology. Sesemann often defined his position as critical realism. He emphasised the difference between his philosophy, the logical idealism of neo-Kantianism and the transcendental idealism of Husserl’s phenomenology. It should also be emphasised that an understanding of critical realism in Sesemann’s philosophy is intertwined with the concept of intuition in Russian intuitivism and phenomenological philosophy. Sesemann criticises neo-Kantian idealism, because this philosophical construction is based on scientific knowledge and rejects the immediate givenness of reality. The article discusses Sesemann’s philosophy in the context of neo-Kantianism, intuitivism and phenomenology. The purpose of this article is to show that Sesemann criticises neo-Kantian epistemology resorting to a phenomenological idea of direct knowledge. Sesemann understands intuition as a direct access to the things themselves, as a practical understanding of the world, which is the basis of logical and scientific knowledge. Sesemann transforms the concept of intuition from the theoretical into practical and establishes a relationship between the act of cognition and intuition of values. Although Sesemann’s evaluation of phenomenology remains ambivalent: firstly, he understands Husserl’s phenomenology as an intuition, i.e. as a direct approach to the things themselves, and, secondly, phenomenology for him is a return to the idealistic tradition with which she fought.

Key words
Vasily Sesemann, neo-Kantianism, intuition, phenomenology, intuitivism, critical realism, Husserl.

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