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N. HARTMANN AND V. SESEMANN.
THE PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION OF N. HARTMANN’S REVIEW “ON WILHELM SESEMANN”. 1933

Abstract
N. Hartmann and V. Sesemann are the creators of the so-called ‘ontological turn’ of the philosophy of the twentieth century. The article presents a comparative analysis of the work of these two philosophers, who were familiar with each other since their youth. The analysis shows that although Nicolai Hartmann is a classic—the founder of the whole direction in the philosophy of the twentieth century, the influence of which have experienced many philosophers—Vasily Sesemann, unfortunately, is a little-known author. This is due, first of all, to the fact that Sesemann wrote lengthy articles instead of books and never republished them in collections. Secondly, he published them mainly in Lithuania and in the Lithuanian journals, where most of the works were in the Lithuanian language. Finally, Sesemann published his research in three languages, two of which were Russian and Lithuanian—quite exotic for the European philosophical community. The article also notes that in his original and independent work Sesemann actively uses and develops primarily two concepts of Hartmann. Hartmann’s distinction between two types of intuition—direct or stigmatic and recapitulative—helps Sesemann to demarcate in a deeper and more multifaceted way between thematic and non-thematic knowledge. Hartmann’s concept of multilayered or multidimensional existence is used by Sesemann to develop his ideas about the problems of irrationality, to talk about different degrees of tension of inner life, to overcome the epistemological dualism of objective and non-objective knowledge in the monism of the higher (divine) reality, and to assert that philosophy is an experimental science.

Key words
Sesemann, Hartmann, theory of knowledge, ontology, logical laws, irrational, representative theory.

References

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