Kant’s anti-naturalism: The foundations of sociability in Max Weber and Sergey Hessen

Abstract

The principal claims of Max Weber and Sergey (Sergius) Hessen are an extension of Kant’s anti-naturalistic tendency in ethics, in which an individual acquires his own freedom by actualising the autonomy of will as obedience to a duty. The moral justification of freedom leads to an explanation of the development of mankind as a process of interaction between culture and many individuals. The analyses of the principles of sociability showed the crucial role of the neo-Kantian paradigm in the development of Weber and Hessen’s social philosophy. My task is to analyse the socio-philosophical views of Hessen and Weber to show up affinities in determining the particularity of sociability. The foundation of this comparative study is the affinity in the interpretation of mankind’s progress as a socio-cultural process, which includes a specific functionality of each individual as a co-participant in the formation of culture as an ontology of freedom. Neo-Kantian philosophy of culture can be used as a foundation for identifying trends and interactions in the philosophy of Russia Abroad that were not even previously studied. The results of this investigation make it possible to prove that neo-Kantian ideas led to similar solutions in the works of both European philosophers and Russian émigré philosophers.