| Summary: | <p>This thesis presents the first critical analysis of the early religious philosophy of Semyon Liudwigovich Frank (1877-1950). The analysis aims to demonstrate that Frank’s early philosophy contains a powerful attack on Kantian epistemology and later Kantian thought. Although the methodology here is primarily intellectual-historical, attempt is made throughout to present Frank’s thought as a ‘powerful’ rebuttal, precisely by re-emphasising its philosophical merits. Frank remains drastically undiscovered in Western philosophy of religion and his highly original and carefully developed epistemology deserves a thorough examination.</p>
<p>The analyses of Frank’s work are preceded by intellectual-historical accounts of Frank’s previous alignment with Neo-Kantianism and the essential broader context of the key treatise of his early period, The Object of Knowledge. The analyses themselves reconstruct Frank’s philosophy in seven chapters, which critically address key areas of his thought. The six arguments which stand out as ‘powerful’ are Frank’s epistemological argument for our ‘knowledge’ of all things, the argument from consciousness, the arguments from syllogism and predication, Frank’s original Ontological Argument, and finally the argument from universals. The fourth and final section takes a more evaluative approach and defends two aspects of Frank’s thought in light of contemporary philosophy of religion: Frank’s apophaticism and his realism of universals.</p>
<p>In light of these considerations, it can be concluded that Frank’s early religious thought, as presented in The Object of Knowledge, should be considered, first and foremost, as a powerful attack on the Kantian epistemology which Frank himself had once professed.</p>
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