2015 Issue №2(52)

Based on Fichte’s Foundations of Natural Right, recently published in Russian for the first time, this article investigates the logic and basic statements of Fichte’s theory on family law. The first part of the study is dedicated to Fichte’s ethical and metaphysical “deduction of marriage”, which views the family union as a natural-and-moral community of sexes, which only subsequently assumes a legal form through the principle of law. Fichte’s viewpoint is juxtaposed with Kant’s concept of family law complemented by Kant’s ideas on the metaphysics and ethics of gender and love, as well as Schopenhauer’s doctrine, which can be seen as a naturalistic profanation of Fichtean metaphysics of love. According to Fichte, sexual appeal takes on the shape of a self-sacrificing impulse of love in the soul and in the moral character of a woman; yet, only a man is capable of becoming aware of everything that is morally present in himself and of renouncing, out of his inborn magnanimity, all claims to unlimited dominance. It is the combination of both characters that, according to Fichte, provides the only effective incitement to moral education and exaltation of both parties in a family union.

“Lectures on Poelitz’s philosophical theory of religion” are one of the four surviving manuscripts of Kant’s lectures on rational theology. The Lectures include an introduction, two parts, and an appendix. The introduction contains an overview of the basic questions and problems of rational theology, namely: the concept of theology, arts of natural theology, the idea of highest essence, possible types of arguments for the existent of God and their limitations etc. The first part is called “Transcendental theology”. It is of limited research interest, since it largely follows contemporary textbooks (first of all, Baumgarten’s Metaphysics). The second part “Moral Theology” is of considerable research interest, since it departs from the textbook material and presents Kant’s own ideas on the subject. This manuscript is dated winter semester 1783/84, i. e. the period between the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason, and shortly before the publication of Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals. Thus, these lectures are of special important for studying the process of development of the key ideas of Kant’s philosophy. Being an interim variant between The Critique of Pure Reason and Critique of Practical Reasons, these lectures contain a number of explanations contributing to a better understanding of both Critiques. In particular, this holds true for the postulates of the existence of god and immortality of the soul and their role on Kant’s ethical system.